Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Arc elasticity of demand

2013-03-26T02:43:01Z

MorganP:

The '''arc elasticity of demand''' is a way of accurately calculating [[elasticity]] and is also known as the '''midpoint method''' (for example in [[Greg Mankiw]]'s introductory texbook).

Elasticity measures percentage change in one variable (usually quantity demanded) in response to a percentage change in another variable (usually price):

:<math>\frac{% \Delta Q}{% \Delta P} = \frac{\frac{Q_{new}-Q_{old}}{Q_{old}}}{\frac{P_{new}-P_{old}}{P_{old}}}</math>

This creates an ambiguity because the same change, in different directions, would yield a different percentage change. For example, suppose that at price 9, 105 widgets are demanded; at price 10, 100 widgets are demanded; and at price 11, 95 units are demanded. Then, if the price rises from 9 to 11,

<math>Elasticity = \frac{\frac{95-105}{95}}{\frac{11-9}{9}} = \frac{\frac{-10}{95}}{\frac{2}{9}} = \frac{-9}{19} \approx -.47</math>

while the price falling from 11 to 9 yields

<math>Elasticity = \frac{\frac{105-95}{105}}{\frac{9-11}{11}} = \frac{\frac{10}{105}}{\frac{-2}{11}} = \frac{11}{-21} \approx -.52</math>

Economists resolve this by averaging the endpoints to use the midpoint between the two endpoints; that is,

<math>Elasticity = \frac{\frac{105-95}{\frac{95+105}{2}}}{\frac{9-11}{\frac{9+11}{2}}} = \frac{\frac{10}{100}}{\frac{-2}{10}} = \frac{-1}{2} = -.5</math>

The elasticity measured from 9 to 11 is then the same as the elasticity measured from 11 to 9.

[[Category:Economics]]

Faith

2012-11-23T02:25:08Z

MorganP: Trim

[[Image:Faith.jpg|right]]
'''Faith''' (1200–50; Middle English feith < Anglo-French fed, Old French feid, feit < Latin fidem, accusative of fidēs trust, akin to fīdere to trust.) is a confidence or trust in a person or thing. It is a confidence or trust in the achievement of God's will, even though unseen and unexpected by non-believers. It can be a belief that is not based on proof. A belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion. It is also a belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc. It can also mean a system of religious belief : ''the Christian faith; the Jewish faith''.
<ref>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith</ref>

Faith embodies more than belief. Faith elevates one's being, while belief is limited to a mental state or emotion. Faith implies a [[causation|causal]] role by the believer in an outcome<ref>For example, the Biblical [[Peter]]'s walking on water based on his faith.</ref> or in overcoming a personal fear. Faith also implies advancement or accomplishment rather than wrongdoing, while belief implies neither.

[[Liberals]] and non-believers in general (see [[Atheism]]) will often try to use common descriptions of faith against faith in God the Lord. Dictionaries and other blasphemous publications, almost always with a strong [[liberal bias]], describe faith as the blind belief in something for which there is no evidence. This, however, is wrong. Faith can also describe the true, benevolent belief in our Lord God, for which there are literally oceans of evidence, but mainstream publications simply won't admit that, probably due to deceit. One should mind, however, that the true, transcedental definition of faith is *completely* different from any other, as [[Christianity]] is superior to any other form of belief.

== Faith in God vs. secular psychology for solving addictions and other personal problems ==

''See also:'' [[Ineffectivness of counseling psychology]]

The Christian group [[Teen Challenge]] reported:
{{Cquote|Teen Challenge claims of a 70% cure rate for the drug addicts graduating from their program attracted the attention of the U.S. Federal Government in 1973. Most secular drug rehabilitation programs only experienced a cure rate of 1-15% of their graduates. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, funded the first year of this study to evaluate the long term results of the Teen Challenge program.<ref>http://teenchallengeusa.com/studies2.php</ref>}}

Teen Challenge has a number of studies that indicate the high effectiveness of their drug treatment program compared to other programs.<ref>http://teenchallengeusa.com/studies.php</ref> Studies indicate that consumers of secular counseling [[psychology]] for [[alcoholism]] receive hardly any benefit at all.<ref>http://www.spring.org.uk/2005/07/psychological-treatments-for-alcoholism.php</ref><ref>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/75/abstract</ref> The [[Apostle Paul]] in a letter to the church of [[Corinth]] indicated that [[Christianity|Christians]] were able to overcome being drunkards through the power of [[Jesus Christ]] (I Corinthians 6:9-11).

[[Image:St Paul Preaching.jpg|right|thumb|200px|St. [[Paul]] defends his preaching (Giovanni Ricco)]]
The [[Apostle Paul]] wrote:
{{cquote|Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were [[Justification (theology)|justified]] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the [[Holy Spirit|Spirit of our God]]." - I Corinthians 6:9-11 (NIV)}}

The website ''The Berean Call'' has a number of articles on various false claims and unbiblical notions that many practioners counseling psychology promote.<ref>http://www.thebereancall.org/topic/psychology</ref>

Faith plays a central role in overcoming [[addiction]]. Virtually everyone is plagued by one or more addictions, and faith enables overcoming those weaknesses. Similar to this is faith's key role in overcoming [[recidivism]]. This role is unique to Christian faith and has not been shown with regard to other religions' belief systems or to secular humanist ideologies.

Faith is also helpful in overcoming fear, such as fear of public speaking, appearing on [[television]], or standing up to a [[bully]] or unpleasant situations. Jesus reprimanded the [[Apostles]] for their [[faithless]] fear: "The disciples went and woke him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're going to drown!' He replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?' Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm."<ref>Mt 8:25-26 (NIV)</ref>

Lack of faith can lead to fear, anxiety, depression, lack of confidence and sometimes death. A lack of faith can be very harmful, leading to self-destructive behavior. Faith can be described as the power to ignore the [[devil]] and all his antics.

Often faith inspires extra initiative or effort, adding confidence that it will yield the desired good result. "Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on," and Jesus cured him.<ref>Mark 2:4</ref>

==Frequency==
[[File:Belief-god.jpg|thumb|550px|Financial Times (FT)/Harris Poll among adults in 5 countries in 2006]]

==Expression==
A classic statement of faith in the [[Bible]] was by the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] centurion of [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%208:5-10;&version=49; Matthew 8:5-10], who expressed his confidence that [[Jesus]] could cure his beloved servant from a distance without even seeing him. [[Jesus]] repeatedly emphasized the importance and value of faith to his disciples.

Faith is expressed in [[Greek language|Greek]] using the term ''pistis'', and in [[Latin]] using the term ''fides''. Faith is mentioned in 229 verses in the [[New Testament]] ([[KJV]]), but only twice in the much larger [[Old Testament]] ([[KJV]]).<ref>http://www.crosswalk.com</ref> In attempt to convert [[Jews]] to [[Christianity]], [[Paul]] described [[Abraham]]'s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son [[Isaac]] to [[God]] as an act of faith, though the [[Old Testament]] did not describe it with that term.

Faith is strengthened by prayer ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jude%2020;&version=9; Jude 20]). For those who strengthen their faith, [[Jesus]] promised "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."<ref>John 14:12 (NIV).</ref>

Life itself may be the manifestation of God's faith. Decay and death may be the manifestation of a lack or denial of faith.

==Biblical examples==

Perhaps the greatest description of faith is Hebrews 11:1. It states: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."<ref>Hebrews 11:1 (NIV).</ref>

The King James Version expresses this passage as: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The Greek word translated as "substance" is `hupostasis', meaning setting under (support). The Greek word for "evidence"`elegchos' meaning proof.,<ref>J. Strong, 1890, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN.</ref> The Bible thus distinguishes clearly between the leap of faith of Kirkegaard and a faith based on acknowledgement of the evidence presented by God within our own experiences in this world. Paul, in Romans 1:17-20 explains that faith has its basis in the observed expression of God's existence in this universe: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen...."

[[Paul]] indicated that exceptional faith may be a gift of the [[Holy Spirit]]. 1 Corinthians 12:8-9 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit

As discussed above, a potential reference to faith is [[Genesis]] 22 where [[God]] tested [[Abraham]] by commanding him to sacrifice his only son [[Isaac]]. As Abraham prepared to do what God commanded -he was stopped.
Genesis 22:12
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." 

==Martin Luther on Faith==

Luther in his Table Talk papers writes this thought provoking and rather difficult passage on faith:

"This is the acme of faith, to believe that God, who saves so few and condemns so many, is merciful; that he is just who, at his own pleasure, has made us necessarily doomed to damnation, so that he seems to delight in the torture of the wretched and is more deserving of hate than of love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, who shows so much anger and harshness, could be merciful and just, there would be no need of faith."

==The Moral Basis of Biblical Faith==

The biblical expression of faith is belief in what God reveals to man to be so. Since New Testament times, that means belief in what God reveals to be so concerning Jesus Christ. There is a steady progression through time of what God reveals and so belief also finds expression in progessive content and emphasis. What God reveals to Adam, to Noah, to Moses (and through them), to the prophets, to the Ninevites, to Simeon and Anna, Mary, to the Apostles, differ in content and in emphasis, but the culmination of the content of faith is the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The moral basis of faith is the positive response of belief, and the obedience of one's life to the requirement implied by the revelation. That is why Adam (and his generation) was not required to believe what Noah was required to believe, why Noah was not required to believe what Abraham was required to believe, and why Abraham was not required to believe what Moses was required to believe. Moses, and his generation, was not required to believe what Isaiah was required to believe, until the time of Jesus. Nor were they each allowed to believe less than what was required of them to believe, as if they were of a previous generation and a previous revelation.

The moral basis of Faith continues on in effect, content and emphasis, since the time of the Son of God on earth. That is why the "good man" is required to believe in the Son of God preached to him, as He, the Son of God, is the source of his goodness, and the forgiver of his badness, through His sacrifice on the cross; the "bad man" required to believe in Him who bore his sin, through His sacrifice on the cross; the "gentile", wherever found, of whatever stage, required to live up to what is given him by his conscience and whatever good has come to him through his culture, and believe in the light God is actually giving him, and in the Jesus being preached to him, but not required to believe in and practice the Law of Moses; the Jew required to keep the Law given him, and then to despair at not having fulfilled it, and believe in the Son of God being revealed to him; the infant respond, as infants can, and not as adolescents and adults are required, each in his own order, until the greater revelation comes, and separation from the dominance and protection of the elders; and why an embryo aborted is required to respond as only an embryo can, which God alone knows, and not be required to be at the level of response he would have been moments and days and months and years later, if he would have been let live - saved - though the embryo would never have known how - by the Cross of the sin bearing Savior, who knew him well and loved him. "to him whom much has been given, of him much will be required."

==The natural and the supernatural aspects of Faith==
Faith is a gift from God that may be viewed two ways. One is clearly an intrusion or at least and introjection into our ordinary lives. Under this aspect, we see it as pure grace. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and this is not as a result of your deeds, It is God's gift and not something from ourselves". Our response, is from the extremity of our situation and as a clear product of something outside ourselves - the new word of God, the message concerning Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Even the ability to hear and understand is given to us from above, "Faith comes by hearing, and "hearing" itself, comes by the Word of God". And thus we call out, from the depth and from consiousness, for salvation. " Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord, will be saved/"

The other aspect of Faith is not by intrusion or introjection, but by infusion and irradiation. This too is of the grace of God. Whereas the first aspect had come to us at our extremity from without, this aspect comes to us from within and around, pervading the so-called natural structures that we experience every day, that are so supportive of stability, confidence, trust and hope. Good parenting, solidity of home and provision, loving faithfulness among friends as we grow, continual exposure to the truth of the Word of God (and truth is always therapeutic), strengthens our faith, and our expectation for the continuing faithfulness and involvment of a loving and good God. Faith seems so natural, so in accord, with our experience, that we could even be surprised that it could have been otherwise. Here we experience, most often, not a crisis of faith, but the need to give ourselves more fully to Him in whom we are believing. Under this aspect, God is to be appreciated and acknowledged for being our good and heavenly Father. The Old Testament presents us with the reality of this aspect of faith. Amidst even the miraculous events as the parting of the "Red" Sea, and the many deliverences Israel experience so beyond their natural ability to effect, little is said, is acknowledged consciously, of the quality of faith itself. It is air that a fish is most conscious of, not his home in the water.

==Faith: the Access to Reality==
Christianity demands Faith and insists that Faith be turned into sight. "Do you believe, Thomas, because you have seen. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe." Throughout the New Testament, this theme occurs, belief in Jesus, belief in the Heavenly Father, belief in the readiness of God to still waves, cause you too to walk on water, to return a dead girl back to her grieving, believing mother, to see small insignificant things as a seed grow, as if miraculously of itself, into a startling display of fruit to eat and protection for birds, all of this, with only the sky to limit, comes into our lives, according to Jesus, if we have Faith. Reality is gained by the exercise of Faith, a reality unattainable by the ordinary means frequented by men.

But this reality attained, so extraordinary in this sordid and marred sin-infested world, is seen to be the "normal" reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, just waiting to enter in. Entirely right in the presence of the Kingdom of God and the King Himself for the dead boy to get up from his bier to run to his mother, entirely right that that adultress be pardoned, strengthened, challenged, and hold her head up high once again, entirely right the demons come out of the tormented boy to be commanded to go to the place that God has prepared for them, all entirely right at the entrance of this new reality of the Kingdom of Heaven among us, and the King Himself, Jesus. The overwhelming of reality, by Reality.

As God is palpable in Jesus, so the Reality of the Kingdom of God is palpable, and can be seen, on this earth. The entrance to the Garden was by faith, but the reality of the garden is as tangible as was Jesus eating fish with his disciples after he got up from the dead. As much as the New Testament presents Faith as the entrance to the Kingdom, so does it insist that Faith, perhaps not fully in this world, shall turn to sight in the end... and on the way. "It is not apparent what we who are called the children of God shall yet be, but we know that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He really is."

==Faith as a virtue==
[[Image:Konrad Witz – Petri fiskafänge.jpg|thumb|right|210px|The 'walking on water' episode, which both showed and tested St Peter's faith (painting by Konrad Witz).]]
[[St Paul]] identified faith, [[hope]] and [[love]] (or [[charity]]) as the three greatest [[virtue]]s that are central to Christianity, and this idea is repeated and elaborated upon throughout Christian tradition. Faith is put first because it provides the foundation upon which the other two are built: a faithful heart and mind cause one to have hope, and hope causes one to have love for God and one's fellow man.

In [[Dante]]'s [[Divine Comedy]], [[St Peter]] is most identified with faith. This is appropriate, since he was the 'rock' on which the Church was built, just as a Christian life must be rooted in faith. Peter's great faith is shown in Matthew 14:28-31, when he is briefly able to walk on water until doubt enters his mind.

Christian philosopher [[Robert Merrihew Adams]] wrote a book, ''The Virtue of Faith'', to defend the idea of faith as virtuous. Consider the case of a loved one accused of some wrongdoing, but who protests their innocence - our relationship with them creates a special ethical obligation to believe what they say, which does not apply to the protestations of innocence of strangers; at the same time, that obligation is not absolute, but can be overturned by the evidence. Adams uses this example to argue that some beliefs we are ethically obliged to hold, and argues that the existence of God could be such a belief for the believer.

Contrary to Adams' view is that favored by many atheists, classically expressed by William Kingdon Clifford, in his 1877 essay ''The Ethics of Belief'', which states "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." However, while Clifford can point to individual cases where believing things without evidence is unethical, those cases fail to demonstrate that his principle is true in every case, and he ignores valid cases such as those which Adams cites which lead to the opposite conclusion.

{{clear}}

== Uniqueness to Christianity ==
Christianity is unique among religions in that its followers are defined by faith rather than by adherence to a prescribed code. St Paul makes this distinction clear in Galatians 3:24-25:
{{cquote|The law was a kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come, when we should be justified through faith; and now that faith has come, the tutor's charge is at an end.}}
That is to say, whereas [[Judaism]] required (and still requires) its followers to obey the law, Christianity begins with faith, and any moral or ethical decisions must follow from that. In this regard, Islam has much more in common with Judaism than it does with Christianity: the word 'Islam' itself means 'submission to God'.

==Other Definitions and Religions==

Outside of [[Christianity]], faith is misused as a synonym for "belief". The [[Merriam-Webster]] dictionary, for example, includes this definition of faith: "a system of religious beliefs."<ref>http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/faith</ref>

Alternatively, faith often refers to a "firm belief in something for which there is no proof" or evidence.

In the [[Koran]], the concept of submission to [[Allah]] is mentioned 11 times, while the concept of faith in Allah is mentioned only once.

Etymologically, the word 'faith' is closely linked to the concept of "fidelity," which emphasizes commitment to something or someone, specifically [[Christ]]. Thus, faith is often understood to mean 'loyalty' to a particular view of [[divinity]]. Yet, faith can also be envisioned more broadly as a trust in [[providence]], as it entails an active role for the believer himself for advancing good.

The literary critic Harold Bloom distinguishes Christianity from the other two dominant monotheistic religions in his book Agon by contrasting them with Gnosticism:

"Gnosticism polemically is decidedly not a faith, whether in the Christian sense, pisits, a believing that something was, is, and will be so; or in the Hebraic sense, emunah, a trusting in the Covenant. If religion is a binding, then Gnosticism is an unbinding, but not for the sake of things or persons merely as they are. Gnostic freedom is a freedom for knowledge, knowledge of what in the self, not in the psyche or soul, is Godlike, and knowledge of God beyond the cosmos. But also it is a freedom to be known, to be known by God, by what is alien to everything created, by what is alien to and beyond the stars and the cosmic system and our earth."

Faith is emphasized in Christianity but is unrecognized by the worldview of [[Philosophical Skepticism|philosophical skepticism]].
== See also ==

*[[Resources on becoming a Christian]]
*[[Salvation]]
*[[Atheism]]

==References==
<references/>
[[Category:religion]]
[[Category:philosophy]]

== External links ==
* Holding, James Patrick, [http://tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html Fallacious Faith]
*[http://jesuschrist.lds.org/SonOfGod/eng/finding-faith-in-christ/video/finding-faith-in-christ Finding Faith in Christ], video at ''JesusChrist.lds.org''

{{Virtues}}

Talmud

2012-11-23T02:24:27Z

MorganP: Trim spammy self links

[[Image:Talmud.jpg|right]]
The '''Talmud''' (Hebrew: '''תלמוד''') (also "Gemara" גמרא) is one of the central documents in [[Judaism]]. It is a series of rabbinical discussions based on the [[Mishna]], and, in [[Judaism]], is considered part of the Oral law that was given to [[Moses]] along with the written [[Torah]].

Modern editions of the Talmud (most of which printed from plates of a [[Medieval]] Italian edition) consist of the Mishna, the Gemara, and the commentaries of various scholars. The Mishna was recorded in [[Hebrew]] by a Rabbi named Yehudah HaNasi ("Judah the Prince") around 200 AD. He realized that the oral traditions were in danger of being lost after the destruction of the [[Second Temple]] in Jerusalem. The longer part of the Talmud, the Gemara, records ongoing discussions and debates among Rabbis over the three centuries following the creation of the Mishna. It is written in [[Aramaic]].

For a thousand years, the Talmud was preserved in hand-scribed editions. A printed edition was made not long after the invention of movable type. The standard Vilna edition of the Talmud encompasses 2711 large two-sided pages, or folios. The text of the Mishna is interspersed with the Gemara that comments on it. Both texts are surrounded on the printed page with later commentaries.

There are two versions of the Talmud, [[Babylon]] (Bavli) and [[Jerusalem]] (Yerushalmi). Both are accepted but the Babylonian Talmud is more extensive and more widely studied. Both are available in translation to English, Modern Hebrew, and many other languages.

== See also ==

*[[Torah]]

[[Category:Judaism]]

Torah

2012-11-23T02:23:59Z

MorganP: Trim

'''Torah''' (Hebrew: '''תורה''') is the [[Hebrew]] word meaning ''"teaching"''. Its root means ''to throw'' or ''shoot an arrow.'' God uses this word in scripture to signify His teaching to His people. When Torah is mentioned it is most often associated with the Torah of [[Moses]], or [[Pentateuch]], which is the first five books of the Bible ([[Genesis]], [[Exodus]], [[Leviticus]], [[Numbers]], and [[Deuteronomy]]) written down, in traditional view, by [[Moses]]. The [[Mosaic Law]] is found in these five books.

However, God uses the word Torah to signify His instructions ''throughout'' the Hebrew scriptures, including the [[Prophet]]s and the [[Psalms]]. Since all of His Word is His Teaching, all of it is His Torah.

[[Christian]]s usually call the Torah "the Law," because most English translations of scripture translate "torah" as "law". The reason this came about is because rabbis before the time of Christianity are alleged to have translated the Torah into [[Greek language|Greek]], called the [[Septuagint]]. Other works were later added to it anonymously. The Septuagint translated "torah" into the Greek word "nomia". Nomia was used in Greek culture to mean "an unalterable law". Following this tradition, the Greek [[New Testament]] also used nomia to signify the torah. The Torah ''is'' unalterable, and technically it ''is'' law, since breaking it does have penal consequences. However, the Torah is first of all the teaching of a protective parent who loves His children enough to preserve them in righteousness.

This is the way which God wanted His people to view His instructions. To view Torah as arbitrary condemnatory legalese, used as tedious entrapment against mankind, is the gravest of misconceptions. Many have had this erroneous view of Torah, and thus feel impelled to find an excuse to discount or destroy its value.

Another Greek word used in the New Testament is ''"dogma"''. Sometimes this word is incorrectly translated as ''"ordinances"'', but the proper translation is ''"the authoritative opinions of men"''. This word is confused with nomia, and thus Torah, by many, yet they have nothing in common. It is dogma which Jesus has overcome and put away, but He Himself said the Torah would never, in time, pass away, because the Torah is His Word.

{{Bible quote|18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
|book=Matthew|chap=5|verses=18-19|version=KJV}}

Since the New Testament confirms that the Torah is holy, righteous and good ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%207:12;&version=9; Romans 7:12]), Torah cannot in any way be a thing to be disdained or disregarded by true Bible believers. Also, Bible believers should consider that the very concept of Torah must include ALL that God ever commanded to be written as His instruction. If you believe the New Testament was given by God, then that makes it a part of Torah. Thus, to disdain Torah is to disdain the New Testament also. The Most High does not differentiate His Word, since He is always the same.

==See Also==
*[[ What is Torah, what is Talmud]]
*[[Essay: Christians and the Law of Moses]]

[[Category:Bible]]
[[Category:Judaism]]

Jesus Christ

2012-11-23T02:23:49Z

MorganP: Trim

[[Image:Alphaomega.jpg|thumb|200px|''"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."'' —Jesus (Rev. 22:13)]]
'''Jesus Christ''' is the person who changed the world forever with teachings of [[love]] and [[faith]], using logical parables like the [[Prodigal Son]] that flow from the existence of [[God]]. "Jesus triumphed over the [[Devil]], and personally set the ultimate example for mankind, by enduring the horrific process of scourging and death by crucifixion under the ancient Roman regime in obedience to God's will."

In religious terms, Jesus is the only Son of God and prophesied [[Messiah]] who, at the appointed time, was sent by His [[God the Father|Father]] and became a man to be the payment for the penalty of sin that separated us from God and to reveal to us the loving nature of God through his human person (1 John 4:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). Although He was sinless, he bore the penalty for sin upon Himself for us.

Speaking to his disciples, Jesus says,
{{cquote|'''John 14:1-15''' Believers will be in his Father's house Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. “And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus himself is the only way people can access his Father and his Father's house Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. If you know Jesus, you know his Father “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.}}

By the power of the [[Holy Spirit]], Jesus was conceived in the [[womb]] of the virgin [[Virgin Mary|Mary]], and became man in an event known as the [[Incarnation]], as referred to in Isaiah 7:14. Indeed, the calendar itself reflects this truth, with the traditional calculation of Jesus’ birth marking the first century A.D., that is, "''in the year of Our Lord…''." The [[John the Apostle|apostle John]] wrote in his gospel the following regarding Jesus Christ: "''For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life''" (John 3:16).
{{trinity}}
When he was about thirty, Jesus was baptized by [[John the Baptist]], inaugurating his ministry. Jesus of [[Nazareth]] is the Christ or Messiah, prophesied in the [[Old Testament]] (Greek: Χριστός; [[Aramaic]]: 'משיחא'). Jesus proclaimed that “[t]he time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe in the Gospel.”<ref>Mark 1:14-15.</ref> As signs of these truths, Jesus performed various miracles.

However, not all who heard the Lord believed in him, and, because he “was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God”, some sought to put him to death.<ref>John 5:18.</ref> Jesus was handed over to the Roman governor [[Pontius Pilate]] and crucified. But it was through his redemptive death, as the [[Holy Scripture|scriptures]] had foretold, that Jesus reconciled mankind with God.<ref>Romans 5:10.</ref> And so, on the third day, in a truly historical event, Jesus physically rose from the dead, making possible salvation and eternal life for those who believe in him. Indeed, his very name, ''Yeshua'' (Hebrew 'יהושע') means "[[Salvation]]" and is the concatenated form of ''Yahoshua'', ‘[[YHWH]] is salvation’. After appearing to his disciples on various occasions, Jesus ascended to Heaven, where he acts as our mediator, assuring, by his constant intercession, the permanent outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

== Jesus' Life ==
===The Pre-existence of Jesus before His incarnation===
Though it is commonly thought that Jesus had his beginning with His birth or with His conception in the womb of Mary, and that personality begins with birth and develops with age, the Person of Jesus on earth was one and the same Person as was the Son of God in the presence of the Father before the incarnation. That is why the transition of His becoming a man on earth is considered such a great act of humility and self forgetfulness - to have left it all, for us, for which He will always be honored and extolled.

Though he was in the form of God , He did not cling to this equality with God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are, and being found as a man, he was even humbler yet, even to accepting death, even on a cross. But God raised him high, and gave him the name which is above all other names, so that all beings, in the heavens, and on the earth, and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus, and that every tongue should acclaim, Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

===Incarnation of the Son of God===

The Son of God, who was always with the Father before all creation, took upon himself flesh, that is, become a human being, taking the flesh of manhood from his mother Mary but without her being impregnated by any man. He was born of Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John begins,<blockquote>"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God... and the Word become flesh and dwelt among us"</blockquote>. There are two understandings of this. Though both hold that the Son of God, Divinity Himself, became a man, they understand differently the beginning of the Gospel of John.

The first understanding sees in the Son of God being the Word ("logos" in Greek) that He is the communication of the Father and thus in some sense the purpose of His coming was to mediate the knowledge of God to man among whom He would dwell and be one with them. But as mediator He is in no way inferior to the God He communicates because He Himself is God. The Trinity is emphasized though by implication (the word "Trinity" is of later usage to describe the phenomenon as presented by the New Testament). This understanding rests upon the use of "logos" in Philo and elsewhere meaning "reason", "word", "rationale"

The second interpretation, while in no way negating His coming to be the communication of the Father to man necessitating the incarnation and explicating the Trinity, rather says that we need to look not to Philo and the "logos" philosophy but to the Aramaic Jewish thought of the time. Doing so, we can see that the Gospel of John intends to rip away a veil, and in doing so, will show us that it was God Himself and no mediator, that leaped down to take the form of a human being, and that this is to be spoken of boldly.

Here is how this second understanding is developed:

The Hebrew text is very clear in visualizing the God of Israel in physical terms, even if meant to be understood metaphorically. But the Aramaic Jewish translations of the Hebrew Scriptures will not allow it to be so presented, but will rather speak around it (paraphrase) or use an intermediary word between the physical description and God. In [[Genesis]] 32, [[Jacob]] is wrestling with "a man" but after the bout, Jacob says, in the original Hebrew text, "I have seen God face to face and my life has been saved". In the Aramaic translation, however, Jacob is made to say, " I have seen the ''angel of God'' face to face and my life has been saved". At times, the intermediary word is the word "Word" - in Aramaic, Memra (the root is Aleph, Mem, Resh as in the Hebrew word 'Omer). Whereas the Hebrew text (Gen. 3:8) has it, "They ([[Adam]] and [[Eve]]) heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden", the Aramaic has it, "they heard the sound of ''the Memra'' of the LORD God walking about in the garden" Apparently, walking about in the garden conjured up too much of rustling of leaves and bushes to take figuratively, and so it was the "Memra" that was heard and not the LORD God. This is the pattern in other places in Genesis. Prof. David Flusser of the Hebrew University notes that it is to this mindset that we owe our understanding of John 1:1 and not to Philo and the Alexandrian "logos" philosophy. "In the beginning was the Word (Memra) and the Word (Memra) was with God.. and the Word (Memra) was God. John 1:1 is meant to rip away the distinction between God and the Memra, so assiduously held to by contemporary Judaism, and so declare that they, the Memra and God, are in reality one, ...and this One has, indeed, come down and has become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. John, in his epistle would later say in wonderment, " Whom we have handled, we have touched and held Him."

===The Flight to Egypt===

King Herod, in his thirst for power and his paranoia at the news that someone was born, whose "star from the east" indicated that there was indeed a claimant to his throne, the Messiah of Israel, sent his garrison, most probably from the fortress Herodian which over looked the town of Bethlehem, Bethlehem, the home of David, the most Illustrious of Israel's kings, would soon experience the death of its two years and under male children, in Herod's pursuit of retention of his power. This has been called the Massacre of the Innocents. But Jesus was not among them as his father Joseph, being warned in a dream, had spirited the family to Egypt. And there they remained until Herod was dead, and Archelaus, Herod's son, was reigning in his stead. But the "Holy Family" was not to return to Bethlehem, but to Nazareth of Galilee, and so Jesus would grow an Israelite and a Galilean, and his first disciples, Galileans. But the fight into Egypt and the return from Egypt to the land of Israel, is seen by the Gospel of Matthew to have another reason intended for it by the Father. The son of God in the writings of Moses was, of course, Israel itself, and the Prophet Hosea would later write, God Himself speaking, "When Israel was a youth, hadn't I loved him, and hadn't I called my son out of Egypt?" But Matthew would write, speaking of the return of Jesus to Israel, from Egypt, in direct reference to the Prophet Hosea's prophesy, "Out of Egypt have I called My Son", thereby letting us know, in his own way, who Jesus is - He is the Son of the Father, the son, who had and would not fail. He is Israel, the remnant, and through Him, the nations of the world would be blessed, along with His people, Israel. In this way does Matthew share in the kalaidoscopic image of who He is. He is the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Son of the Father, Israel, who not failing, neither in the forty day temptation in the wilderness, nor through any part of His life on earth, became worthy and holy to become the sacrifice for the sins of the others.

=== At Twelve Years Old ===
The account of Jesus' parents finding him in the temple impressing the "teachers" with his knowledge of the [[Old Testament|scripture]] is the only detailed event between Jesus' infancy and adult life that is known.
{{cquote|'''Luke 2:41–51''' Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.}}

At this early age of twelve years old, there is clearly shown an inner positional or relational commitment of Jesus. Nor is there any indication that this had not been present prior to His twelfth year. His deepest belonging, that against which all other belongings were to be judged, confirmed, rejected, etc. was to the Father, the Father's House, the Father's concerns. This commitment would reverberate at later times, severing ultimate claims on Him of his closest - mother, brothers, sisters, etc. In the presence of these and to their hearing, He would ask, "Who are my mother, and brothers, and sisters? He that does the will of my Father in Heaven is ..." This, in His own life, was the moral authority to demand the same of all others, "You cannot serve two masters..." The memory of what had happened in the Temple when He was twelve, pondering it in her heart, would stand Mary in good stead, when she would see her son hanging on the cross. She also would be found with the disciples in the upper room, praying, and waiting for the coming of the Spirit which He had promised.

====From Heaven's View====
But seen from heaven, a spark had entered into the Temple's precincts, and around that the time, there was to evolve the extra-biblical ceremony and practice of Judaism, which would try to make sense of the need to be anchored into the ancient tradition of God, with the need to make new for every generation the relevance of it for each Jewish youth. And so developed the Bar Mitzvah, the "Son of the Law" ceremony and concept. At the age of 13, a Jewish boy, so it developed, would read or sing out in the synagogue, the Shabbat of his birthday, the prophetic portion (the Haftorah) for that Sabbath assigned to the Torah portion (from the 5 books of Moses, read consecutively), raining down upon him from the Women's Section (Ezrat Nashim) - the Help of Women) above or to the side, hard sweet candy signifying the hope of sweetness set before him. For at that time, the Jewish boy becomes a Jewish man, taking upon himself, the obligations for fulfilling the Law of Moses, and is no longer absolved from this responsibility by the mediation of his father's fulfillment of the Law of Moses for him.

At this time, seen from Heaven, a spark entered in, another way, sometimes seen in other young boys and girls, but in a dim way, an intense concentration on the Father above all things and people, looking and judging all surrounding him from the viewpoint of Him flooding the soul, listening, speaking, believing.
So Jesus reasoned with the rabbis, never being encompassed by them, in the house of His Father. Was it told to us showing what He was and what we could be, or at least, learn to follow in His steps, or was it shown to us to allow us to view another step in His being made perfect, growing in favor with God and Man, totally consumed with the doing of His Father's will, and thus, "being made perfect", to take our place upon the Cross, for our sakes and for our salvation?

=== Ministry ===
==== Baptism ====
[[Image:Jesus' Baptism.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Jesus' Baptism]]
The [[gospel of Mark]] begins with the [[baptism]] of Jesus by [[John the Baptist]], which appears to be the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. Jesus came to the [[Jordan River|River Jordan]], where John was preaching and baptizing people in the crowd. After Jesus had been baptized, and had risen up out of the water, Mark states Jesus 'saw the heavens torn apart and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from [[heaven]], 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased' (Mark 1:10–11). Luke adds the chronological anchor that John the Baptist had begun preaching in the fifteenth year of [[Tiberius]] Caesar, approximately in 28 AD (Luke 3:1) and that Jesus was thirty years old when he was baptized (Luke 3:23).

'''The meaning of Baptism for Jesus:'''

Jesus insisted over the protests of John that He be baptized at the hands of John. John's protests are natural enough as John's baptism was for those who were sinners, and implied in baptism was the understanding that the baptizer was somehow greater than the one baptized. John believed that he needed to be baptized by Jesus and not the other way around. But Jesus' understanding of His being baptized was two-fold:"Baptism" meant suffering unto death, and it implied that His impending mission was to be in behalf and in place of the real sinners, the humanity for whom He would die. Jesus would later use "baptism" in the first sense when he said to disciples, "Can you be baptized with the baptism which I will undergo?" The Spirit coming down on the Son in the form of a Dove (Yonah = "Jonah" in Hebrew), and the voice of the Father, "This is My Beloved Son" was the Divine empowerment, and authorization for Jesus' mission to come entailing His sacrificial death, three days, not in the belly of the fish, but in the bowels of the earth, and after that, resurrection. As Baptism for Jesus meant, looking forward, His joining sinful humanity to the point of bearing their sins to the death of the cross, so the later New Testament understands, looking backward, that sinners believing in Jesus are also to join Him in His death through the waters of baptism "in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" - according to the command of the Risen Christ. See [[Christianity]] for Jesus' self consciousness.

==== Temptation ====
After this baptism, according to Matthew, Jesus was brought into the desert by God where he fasted for forty days nights. During this period, the [[Satan]] appeared before him and [[Three Temptations of Christ|tried three times]] to tempted Jesus into demonstrating his supernatural powers as a proof of his divine status; each temptation was refused by Jesus, with a scriptural quote from the Book of [[Deuteronomy]].

Jesus then began to preach. [[Gospel of John|John]] describes three different [[passover]] feasts that Jesus attended, thus implying that his ministry lasted three years.

'''The reason behind the Temptation:'''

The Temptation occurred just as told in the Gospels. But behind the happening, another message lies revealing the identity of Jesus to a people who would understand it. At the foothill of Mt. Hermon, in between the servile Roman infatuated people of Tiberius to the south west of the Sea of Galilee, and the rabidly nationalistic, anti- Roman Zealots of Gamla to the north east, Jesus asked His disciples who He was. The Messiah, the Son of the Living God, was the answer. And Jesus explained who He was and why he had come in terms that fit their experience - not to rule and throw out the Romans, nor to uphold their ways and laws but rather something on a different plane all together - to give His life settling it on the cross.

To a later believing people, those who were not Jewish, who He was would be understood in terms fitting to who they were - He had come the Second Adam, to give His life and to provide new life to those who were not Jewish, but also including the Jews, to all the lost and wandering children of Adam.

In the Temptation, it is the those who knew the Old Testament, the physical children of Abraham primarily, who could see in the long range, and not primarily dictated to by the political passions of the moment, and who could wonder who they were and where they had gone wrong, and wonder also who would be the One to take them out. It is they, Israel, who had been in the wilderness for 40 years, and they that had succumbed to the temptations of selling out for food and drink, though they were a "Son" whom God with a strong arm and outstretched hand had taken out of the bondage of Egypt, they had turned traitor, driven by their own lust and pride. And here now, in Jesus, was One who resisted the devil in the wilderness, also "for forty", preferring the will of God as His food rather than all the world could offer, Who was He? He was Israel! The only true one left, the faithful remnant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, the servant true to the end. As the letter to the Hebrews saw, "Though He were a Son yet learned He obedience by the things He suffered, and being made perfect, He become the author of Eternal life...". This is the understanding of the Gospel of Matthew, in interpreting a passage from Hosea which was manifestly speaking of Israel the people and applying it to Jesus who also came out of Egypt with His parents at the death of Herod, " Out of Egypt have I called my Son". Who was Jesus? He was Israel who had ''not'' failed come to redeem Israel who had, and also out of all the peoples of the world.

==== Disciples and Apostles ====
[[Image:Jesus5.jpg‎|thumb|left|100px|Jesus Christ (Artist's impression)]]
The larger part of this was directed towards his closest followers, the [[apostles]], although all of his followers were considered [[disciples of Jesus|disciples]]. At the highest point of his ministry, Jesus attracted disciples and audiences numbering in the thousands; in particular in the area of Galilee. Many of Jesus' most well-known teachings were given during the [[Sermon on the Mount]], such as the [[Beatitudes]] and the [[Lord's Prayer]]. Jesus often used parables in his rhetorical technique, such as the [[Parable of the Good Samaritan]] and [[the parable of the sheep and the goats|the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats]]; these teachings encouraged unconditional self-sacrificing [[Shema|love for God]] and [[Agape|for all people]]. During these sermons, he also discussed service and humility, forgiveness of sins, how faith should be applied, the [[Golden Rule]], and the necessity of following the spirit of the law as well as its wording.

'''Their choosing and their purpose:''' Among the many who came to Jesus, from afar and from the surrounding villages of the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, were those moved by his insight into the nature of life, or touched deeply by His seemingly knowing them from the inside, by His intimacy with the God and Father they had only known "about", or impressed by the miracles done before their very eyes, and many, by His deep compassion for the people, so evident in all that He did. Jesus would sprinkle His words upon them as seed in a path, some to take root, and some to be blown away by the wind. But to those who heard and wanted more, they would get that more, receiving explanation, and move closer to His association. Those that would not, would receive only that which was commensurate to not wanting - more parables, silence. Never the revealing of the "Secrets of the Kingdom". Yet, there was no prohibition and no limit for getting closer to Jesus. Those that did, became His "learners" - the disciples, understanding the meanings of His word by the demonstration of His life and putting them into practice. Among these were another group, some that had been with Him from early on, possibly some from the time of His baptism at the hands of John. These He would hold in His mind for an additional and different reason.

Then one night, he ascended a hill praying about them, and came down knowing who they were to be. 12 in number, chosen not because of their virtue, or even what He would do in them in the future, but rather solely chosen by His Father to be deputized, delegated, or commissioned by Jesus to be sent out for a mission. He gave them the name "Shaliach" (meaning all that), which was translated into Greek as "apostolos" and so our Apostles.

The mission of the Apostles (see "Example 5." of [[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]]) was to do all that they saw Jesus was doing, healing the sick, raising the dead, and with all this, to tell about the fast coming Kingdom of Heaven, the rule of His Father, and urge people to repent and get ready for it. He gave them His power and authority to do all this. But it was to be 12 in number, not more and not less, that number surviving even the suicide of one of them, Judas from the village of Kyriot, requiring an "election" to bring back the number from 11 to 12. And that was because the special additional reason for their appointment was to sit on the 12 thrones of the 12 tribes of Israel (the sons of Jacob) and lead them by whatever it takes - that is the meaning of the biblical term "Judge" (Shofet)*. For the community of the "little ones"., was to be, in some sense, an Israel within Israel, or a new Israel, a sort of beachhead for the onslaught of the Kingdom of God in its invasion (or sometimes, infiltration into) into and onto the Kingdom of the unjust occupier and enemy of all Goodness, the Devil, to overthrow him and all his works. This truer and newer Israel, He called His "Called Out ones" (Eklessia=Church) against whose onslaught the Fortified city of Hell with its defensive bars to its massive gates, would not prevail. Many captives would be released. The Church, then, was the community counterpart to what was known as the "Synagogue" (Greek), meaning "gathered together ones" (Beit Knesset - house of the gathering, Hebrew). It was the Synagogue of Jesus the King and Messiah, and aligned with and the focal point of the Prophetically promised and hoped-for Kingdom of God and the rule of Heaven on Earth. And the disciples and apostles of Jesus all had their place in the unfolding of it all.

*Note: For the significance of sitting on the seat and judging, see Example 2. of [[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]].

==== Social Outcasts ====
[[File:Cordero El Redentor y la mujer adultera.jpg|thumb|300px|left|El Redentor y la mujer adultera by [[Juan Cordero]].]]
Jesus also often conversed with social outcasts, such as the publican ([[Rome|Roman]] tax collectors who were unpopular for their practice of extorting money).

Jesus showed no partiality toward outcasts, and neither did He do so to those who were in society. But being an outcast was a category beyond the reach of all others which were in society. Jesus was not for the male over against the female, the Jew over against the non Jew, townsman over against the man of the field. He was impartial and penetrating in His love for all. But all of these had a certain standing in Society, they were part of it, though all being in it, could vie for more of it as their share. But all were united, and could work in concert against what they were not - the outcast. The love of Jesus and the love of His Father through Him, could not rest lightly on any one of them, until it would reach and rest on the one beyond the fringes, the outer edges, and down below - the outcast. This demonstrated in the life of Jesus what the Cross would later show and the Apostles preach - all were outcast to the Holiness of God, and all could be loved by Him and, indeed, were.

==== Miracles ====
Throughout his ministry, Jesus performed many miracles including healing the sick and possessed, feeding 5000, and even raising from the dead.

Miracles were an intrusion of the ordinary, but the ordinary of a different and far-superior Kingdom, into the sordid and sin sick kingdoms of this world. They showed what life was really like there in that Kingdom which was coming and how weak, unstable, subject and cringing were the powers of this corrupted world, "bent" under the heel of God. That a widow should have her dead son restored to her alive, that outcasts such as lepers should be restored to the community, and as a result of their being healed, that darkness should give way to light and sight, that a woman deserving stoning find solace and forgiveness, all of these are the way things are and ought to be in the Kingdom of God because of the way He is. They were, at one and the same time, signs of the Kingdom which was coming and great works of compassion done here below which will never by surpassed or forgotten. And Jesus the Messiah was bringing them in!

Note: See Example 5 of [[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]] for the assault and infiltration of God's Kingdom on and into the Kingdom of Satan.

==== His Preaching was Offensive to the Established Authority ====
As He preached, Jesus ran afoul of the [[Sanhedrin]], the recognized Jewish religious authorities, who were allowed to have considerable religious, political and monetary influence under Roman rule. Jesus chastised them, accusing them of making laws for the people to follow that were the laws of men, not God. The Sanhedrin tried to set traps for Jesus by asking Him questions to either discredit Him with the people or get Him in trouble with the Roman authorities, but all of their efforts failed and they gave up. They lacked the means to stop Jesus until [[Judas Iscariot]] came to them and offered to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He would tell them where Jesus would be that night so they could seize Him.

Notable among Jewish established authorities were the Pharisees, the Saduccees, and the Herodians.

The Pharisees, believing that at the time God had given to Moses the "written Torah" (Torah shebikhtav), He had also given to Moses an "Oral Torah" (Torah shebe'al peh) which would apply the written Torah to all situations and times, and that that Oral Torah had been handed down from generation to generation, finally, it itself written down, making, in the days of Jesus, the beginning of the Talmud. Thus it was necessary to be able to "fill in the rabbis" from whom the teaching came (see [[Judaism]]) - "Rabbi Tarfon says in the name of Rabbi..." But this man Jesus, goes straight to Moses, and straight to Heaven! ''"You have heard it said...but I say unto you..."'' and himself speaks as the ''Mouth of God!''

The Saduccees, not believing in an Oral Torah, and believing much of the written Torah to be irrelevant and impractical in the modern times that they lived, believed that the "blanks" and how the Torah was to be applied in these days, must be decided by the Kingdoms of the World, namely, Roman law and requirement. But this man Jesus speaks of another Kingdom and another King, and not of Rome!

The Herodians saw clearly who their enemy was and who their Savior was and wherein their safety lie - Herod the King of the Jews and all the aura and the might that he possessed. And their enemy was anyone who would claim, or live in the claim of others, that it was he that was the King of the Jews and not Herod (and the royalty after Herod) - such as was doing the man Jesus of Nazareth

Note: Judaism does not have a "unified" theory of Inspiration or practical authority of Scripture. That is, The most authoritative, and capable of being regulatory to life as "law" is the five books of Moses. After that, the Prophets. And after that, the "Writings." The Scripture of the Saduccees was just the Five books of Moses, and since there is little if anything about the resurrection from the dead and the after life in the the Five Books of Moses, they believed in neither. The Pharisees, believing in the on-going of revelation extending, though with lesser authority, to the Prophets (such as Daniel) and the Writings, believed in both.

===The Turning Point===

It was at the city built in honor of Herod's son Phillip, Ceasarea Philippi, dedicated to the worship of Pan at the subterraenean breakout of the spring which was tributary to the Jordon River, the Ban(Pan)ias, that Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am?, Simon finally answered, You are the [[Messiah]], the Son of the Living God. Jesus responded that flesh and blood had not revealed this fact but His Father had. Then Jesus gave him his new name Peter, meaning rock, and told him that he and the Church to be built on the rock would be thrown against the very gates of Hades itself, gates which would be unable to withstand the onslaught, setting Hell's captives free. (See Example 5. of [[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]]). From that place of confession, and from the time of Peter's confession itself, Jesus began to refine to His disciples, excluding all doubt and ambiguity from their minds as to the purpose of His coming, what it was all about. He the Messiah had come to die. They were to go up to Jerusalem, and there he would be rejected and denounced by the priests and elders, handed over to the Gentiles, and be put to death. And so began the 3 days journey from Caesarea Philippi, then along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galillee, along the Jordon river valley, through Jericho, and then the ascent to Jerusalem, Jesus telling his followers repeatedly the same message of His rejection and death, and then, if they could take it in, in such a way as not to suppress from their consciousness the main message He needed to instill into their acceptance, that of his humiliation and death, His subsequent resurrection form the dead. As the Gospel of Mark would record the words of the Lord, "For the Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life for the ransom of many"

=== Last Days of Jesus' Life ===
==== Lord's Supper ====
'''God and man at table are sat down:'''
[[Image:The Last Supper WM.jpg|right|300px]]
It happened before - "Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. and seventy elders of Israel. They saw the God of Israel...they gazed on God. They ate and they drank." Exodus 24: 9-11

It would happen after - "Now while He was with them at table, He took the bread and said the blessing, then He broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and recognized Him. But He had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked to us on the road, and explained the Scriptures to us?" Luke 24:30-32

Eating before the Lord or with the Lord, would be used as the highest form of friendship - Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears My voice and opens the door I will come in to him and share my meal with him, side by side.". Revelation 3:20-21 (NIV)

At the [[Passover Seder]], the last meal the Lord would eat with His followers, His presence so permeated the atmosphere, and what He said and did at that special time, and especially they having received His command to do just what He was doing before them at this time, whenever they would meet together, the Apostles of the Lord and the Gospels after them could not speak of bountiful and miraculous times of the Lord's gracious giving of food feeding the multitudes, without mentioning that which otherwise would not have been mentioned - ''He took the bread, looked up to heaven blessing the bread, He broke the bread, and He gave it to them.'' That is what the Lord did before them, and that is what He commanded them to do after Him, and thus provided for them, and for the Church after them, the one of two universal services - the [[Lord's Supper]], or [[Eucharist]], or [[Holy Communion]].

But in addition, He gave His own particular understanding to the unleavened bread of the Passover and ceremonial cup of wine, the 3rd and "Thanksgiving cup" of wine drunk immediately after the Passover meal was eaten. In slightly varying words, the Gospels and the Church after would perpetuate that understanding by repeating what the Lord Himself said at that Last Supper - "This is My Body which is given for you... This is My blood, the blood of the New Covenant which is shed for you, and for the many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as my own Remembrance". And so He signified to His followers that His life would be given in sacrifice for them and for their benefit. How this benefit would be effected, would be explained by Jesus by other sayings, "Do not think that I have come in order to be served. I have not come to be served but rather to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many."

But His presence remained with them at the continual celebration of this new Christian [[Passover]] of the Communion. Though He had vanished from their eyes as He would return to the Father, yet through the Spirit which He had promised to be in His stead, He was there with them to remain- "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I!"..." Even so, Come Lord Jesus!"

Note 1: The word Maranatha, comes from the Greek word which is translating the Aramaic which comes in two forms according to the accent given. Marana tha - "O our Lord, come!", and Maran atha - "Our Lord has come". This appears in the earliest liturgies of the Eucharist, and was used either as an invocation for the Lord to come, a sort of invite, or as an exclamation that the Lord has indeed come, just as He said He would. In either case, it was a witness to the belief that the Lord was indeed with them when they participated in the Remembrance which He had commanded.

Note 2; What the Lord said, "This is my body... This is my blood...Do this!" (the "Words of Institution", His instituting the Holy Communion until His coming again), is absent in the Gospel of John when recounting the last time of the Lord with His disciples. This is not an oversight, as the Gospel of John, from all contextual indications, has already spoken of the matter in the 6th chapter.

==== Garden of Gethsemane ====
[[Image:Jesus in Gethsemane.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Jesus in Gethsamane]]
Jesus knew that His time was short and that He was about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. He had His last supper with his disciples and went with them to the [[Garden of Gethsemane]] and prayed vehemently knowing what was about to come.

Decision, certainty, from a distance is clearer and easier than when the time approaches for decision's implementation. That is because the here and now, leaves no room for imagining a rescue from all that is around us and in us. Leaving us confused or uncertain, needing assurance, or a once again revelation, of what it was that brought us to decision in the first place. John knowing from the beginning that his cousin Jesus was the promised Messiah, when years later, found himself in prison, and things not going the way he had expected, understood or hoped, required assurance that Jesus was really the One he had thought Him to be. Jesus responded forcefully and completely to that so human request - Tell John what you see, the dead are raised, the sick healed, and the poor are being told of the good news of the Kingdom of God. And it was enough.

Jesus, knowing why He had come, and that He was to mount the cross, to bear the sins of the world, knowing also what that must mean, He who had never "known" sin, now to know it in a way, that man could never know, man who all the time was in it, inured to it, accustomed to it, Jesus prayed. There was a movement in His prayer, taking on anew, the certainty and decision of old, feeling the enormity of it at close hand, and in the garden, he prayed three times, each time agonizing* dripping great drops of sweat, each time making movement in the direction from ''If there be another way, The Father knows and will show, but He would do whatever the Father wills'', towards ''being the Father's will, He would do it. There really is no other way''. And then it was done, He had settled it within Him anew, having prayed, and having received the deep silent Amen of the Father within His soul. It was enough. He was ready.

*note: "Agonize" of the text is from the Greek word "to struggle".

==== Tried before Jewish Authorities ====
Jesus was betrayed by Judas into the hands of the Jewish religious authorities who took Him away and secretly put Him on trial during the night, trying to find justification for their desire to have Him killed. Finally, they convicted Him of blasphemy. For the location of the Jewish trial, see Example 6 of [[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]]

==== Tried before Roman Authorities ====
As they did not have the authority to put a man to death, they took him to [[Pontius Pilate]], the Roman governor of Palestine, with their charges and demanded his execution. Pilate avoided the issue by sending him to [[Herod Antipas|King Herod]] since Jesus was a Galilean, but Herod sent him back to Pilate. Pilate at first tried to release Jesus with a flogging, and then gave the crowd a choice to either spare Jesus or a criminal called [[Barabbas]] as part of the passover tradition. The crowd chose to free Barabbas [Aramaic: "Son of a (the) Father") and Pilate washed his hands to signify that he bore no responsibility for Jesus' death before ultimately condemning Him to [[crucifixion]].<ref>Matthew 27: 15-44</ref>

==== Scourging ====
The penalty of crucifixion was always preceded by scourging (flogging) with the Roman ''flagellum''. a short ox-hide whip knotted with pieces of zinc, lead, and bone which removed swaths of the victims' skin with every stroke. Although the Bible mentions the scourging of Jesus only very briefly, it must have been particularly brutal from the relatively short amount of time Jesus lingered on the cross after the punishment. Victims who suffered less blood loss from the scourging were known to remain alive on the cross for two or three days.

The scourging and physical affliction of Jesus, though not overtly alluded to, may have a significance for benefit to come. There was a prophecy of the Suffering Servant to come:

"Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, 
and He carried our pains; 
but we in turn regarded Him stricken, 
struck down by God, and afflicted." Isaiah 53:4

The Gospel of Matthew would see in this prophesy a foretelling of the various healings and deliverances that Jesus gave to the people, "so that what was spoken through the prophet [[Isaiah]] might be fulfilled: He Himself took our weaknesses and carried our diseases (Matt. 8:17) If not the scourging itself, then all of the sufferings of the Lord, culminating in His sacrifice on the cross, was the source not only for forgiveness, but also for all the many types of healings and restorations for the people.

==== Death on a Cross ====
[[Image:David Christ on the Cross.jpg|right|thumb|Christ on the Cross by [[Jacques Louis David]].]]
Jesus died after suffering and giving up his spirit.

Behind the Cross was the sum total of all the maladies of mankind, that the Old Testament unveiled : Pesh'a - conscious and "high handed" rebellion, for which , under the Old Covenant, there was no forgiveness provided, Khet - an unintended "missing of the mark", as in the deviation from the bull's eye of the bowman, Shigi'a - the mistakes, some causing great harm to others, which come about by plain ignorance, and 'Avon "iniquity" or distortion - the inner twistedness, that causes failure and suffering, seemingly from the very structure of our persons regardless of our intent. These were the sins Godwards as well as towards man, and these are all, Scripture revealed, repugnant to the nature and standard of a Holy God.

On the Cross, in a way which is unfathomable to man, but nonetheless believable, the repugnance fell upon Jesus, the Son of God, and again in a way not fully understandable to us, but believable nonetheless, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not considering us the sinners but rather His own dear Son who had no taint upon Himself. A great transaction had taken place by the imposition of Himself of Christ in our place, absorbing, as if He were a blotter, all the reaction of a Holy God upon Himself, in our place, that we might go free. Unfair to Him, Mercy to us. Yet Jesus was not forced to do it. He did it both in His great love for us and in His obedience to the way that the Father had decided. "No one takes my life from me. I have power to take it and I have power to lay it down...I lay down my life for the sheep". Peter would say, "The Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." Paul would say, "He was made to be sin, He who did not "know" sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him". That was Friday.
[[File:Veronese Lamentation.jpg|thumb|left|[[Paolo Veronese]], Lamentation.]]
On Saturday, when all were at Sabbath's rest, Jesus was not. His body dead, He passed in spirit to those that had died before, those in the period of Noah, and proclaimed, as Peter taught, what He had done. On Sunday, the first day of the week, He would rise from the dead.

The Cross of Christ, and the atonement He accomplished on it, is the very grounds that anyone who will be saved can be saved. The shedding of His blood brings salvation, to anyone who will respond, according to the ability that they have, that is given them. That brings forgiveness and acceptance, even welcome, to the murderer such as Paul, the adulteress such as the "woman taken in adultery", the tax-collecting extortionist, a seeker in the night turned believer, as hopefully Nicodemus proved to be, people that just know that they are sinners without any "grave sin" to specify, and also the "fetus" whose life was cut off in the womb as a "thing", and the severely retarded child banging his head in the institution he finds himself. All, according to the light given them, and repentance and turning to God given to them, will one day know just what was the basis for their salvation - the Cross of Christ. Those who reject, will also one day know the basis by which they could have been saved if they had not rejected - the Cross of Christ
{{Clear}}

=== Resurrection ===
:''See main article: [[Resurrection of Jesus Christ]]''
On the third day after his death, Jesus [[resurrection of Jesus Christ|rose bodily from the dead]]. The [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] Michael Horner of [[Campus Crusade for Christ|CRU]] has an excellent resource which offers a defense of the [[resurrection of Jesus Christ]] entitled [http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/resurrection/index.html Did Jesus really rise from the dead?]. In addition, Dr. [[Gary Habermas]] offers [http://www.garyhabermas.com/audio/audio.htm an online audio library which defends the resurrection of Jesus Christ.]

Jesus' resurrection from the dead was no mere reassembling the molecules of His dead and disintegrating body, but it was a new union of His Spirit and body, in a way that could only be called by the Apostle Paul, in reference to ourselves, when we, in turn, following His pattern, a ''spiritual body''. Having risen from the dead, He was physical enough to eat and drink with His disciples, and we can assume to digest, as well as ingest, and to be touched and felt, having Thomas' hand thrust into His spear riven side, and yet, strangely not held by the physical laws of before, passing through the door to the room where the disciples were assembled, "Peace be upon you!", and to physically ascend, in the sight of all, from a location on the Mount of Olives into the presence of the Father In some way, even the disciples on the Road to Emmaeus, could not recognize Him, perhaps an aspect of the changed body, perhaps the power of the will of Jesus himself blinding them to the fact that It was He, until the breaking of the bread.
Jesus had risen, the stone unrolled, not to let Him out, but to let others in - to have the basis for their testimony, that He is risen indeed!
By the regaining of His life in the resurrection from the dead (Scripture asserts that it was by the power of the Holy Spirit that this took place) Jesus was "certified" to the Church, and to all that would come after, that He was indeed the Son of God, that the verdict of death to Him given by men, was not so much overturned, but used in a far superior way by the Father to accomplish His will for redemption, and has given Him, at the last, ''vindication''.

And for mankind, its individuals in the millions through the centuries who had believed in Him, there came the certainty, that death was also not to be their end, that they too will arise with Jesus, that death, the annihilation of all, or a future only to be dreaded, was not to be their end, that the Presence of Jesus who had gone before them, was a welcoming one, that He had found a way, and now they would be with Him forever and ever, and with good hope for the sight of loved ones again. Death had been conquered and fear could be too.

In recent history, Dr. [[Gary Habermas]] is considered the foremost [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] for defending the [[Resurrection of Jesus Christ|resurrection of Jesus]]. Other notable defenders of the resurrection include: [[William Lane Craig]], [[Ben Witherington]], [[Lee Strobel]], [[Josh McDowell]], [[Edwin M. Yamauchi]], [[N.T. Wright]], and [[Michael Horner]].<ref>
* http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/historical.html
* http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html
* http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html
* http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Early_Traditions.htm
* http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/resurrection/index.html</ref> In addition, much has been written defending the resurrection of Christ in the field of [[Christian Legal Apologetics|Christian legal apologetics]]. In addition, legal scholars, legal authorities, and eminent lawyers such as [[Simon Greenleaf]], John Warwick Montgomery, Lord Darling, John Singleton Copley, [[Hugo Grotius]], Lord Caldecote, J. N. D. Anderson, [[Lionel Luckhoo]], and many others have asserted that western legal standards argue for the resurrection of Christ.<ref>
*[http://www.bibleteacher.org/sgtestimony.htm Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf]
*[http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissart1.htm The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity by Dr. John Warwick Montgomery ]
*[http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0302W3.htm The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ]
*[http://lawreligionculturereview.blogspot.com/2008/05/rules-of-evidence-tools-of-truth.html Rules of Evidence - Tools of Truth]
*[http://www.phc.edu/gj_philjohnsonpap.php JURIDICAL APOLOGISTS 1600-2000 AD]</ref>

===Appearances of Jesus to His followers===
For forty days after his rising from the dead Jesus made appearances to His followers. These appearances were different from other risings from the dead, both in the Old Testrament and in the New Testament. These others are best understood as resusitations from lifelessness.
That is, the people had really died, and really had been brought to life but there type of life was no different in kind from what it was before their death. A prime examploe in the New Testament was Lazarus. All of them, died a second time, waiting for the Resurrection. The very first to attain to the Resurrection was Jesus Christ, and as the first he came the "first fruits" of us all. The resurrected body of Jesus was both the same and different from what it was prior to His death. It could pass through "solids". It coulo be changed, if this be the right interpretation, in such a way as be unrecognizable. And yet it was no mere vision, unreality, or a non-physical "spiritual" reality. He could eat and drink and be touched and felt. He was real in the ways that we know realness. And we too, according to Paul, will be one with Him in having "spiritual bodies".
"And that He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve, after that, He asppeared to 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living,though some have fallen asleep.Then He appeared to James, and then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me..."I Corinthians 15:5-8

=== Ascension into Heaven ===
He was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him form their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, "why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky. Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen Him go there." Acts 1:9-11

Scripture posits two purposes related to man for the ascension of Jesus: 1. it was to the right hand of the Father (showing favorable disposition of the Father to the Son to hear His requests) from which position Jesus intercedes to the Father on our behalf, and 2. Having ascended to the Father, He received from the Father the Spirit. The Father pours out the Spirit "through the Son" upon the Church. The "first Pentecost"

=== Return of Jesus from heaven to earth===
I gazed into the visions of the night and I saw coming on the clouds of heaven, One like a son of man. He came to the One of Great Age and was led into His presence. On Him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship. And men of all peoples, nations, and languages became His servants. His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away. Nor will His empire ever be destroyed. Daniel 7:13-14

The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel and with the Horn of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are still alive remaining here will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so will we ever be with the Lord. 1 Thess. 4: 16,17

You were converted to God and became servants of the real, living God; and how you are now waiting for Jesus, His Son, whom He raised from the dead, to come from heaven to save us from the retribution which is coming. 1 Thess, 1:9,10

==Jesus' Self Consciousness==

Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit, presented a disturbing surprise to his earthly father, Joseph, knowing he had not impregnated his fiancée, Mary. She would ponder the meaning of this miracle all the days Jesus would grow and finally she would behold her son expire on the cross. But Joseph, told by the Lord who his son really was, and how he had come about, and being warned by the Lord to flee the murderous Herod, took his family to Egypt - until the death of Herod made it safe ("Out of Egypt have I called My Son") to return to Israel. The family settled in Nazareth on the elevated rim of the Jezre'el Valley where he grew well and observably no different from the other youth. But when he was about 12 years old, he was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem, and displayed his consciousness that His real Father was God rather than Joseph ("Didn't you know that I must be here about the matters of My Father?".

They returned to Nazereth in Galilee and it wasn't until 28 years later that He began to publicly show His consciousness as to who he was. This was at his baptism at the Jordan River by John, when the voice came, to him, to John, and to the people privileged to be around, "This is my Son, the Beloved, Listen (Shma'a) to Him!" Here and now, against even the desire of John the Baptizer, Jesus, knowing that sin was not in him, chose to identify with sinful mankind in this baptism of John for repentance of sin, knowing that at the end of his time on earth, he would then be giving this sinless life of his on the cross, bearing the sins of the world upon himself.
[[Image:Carpaccio Christus in Emmaus.jpg|thumb|Christus in Emmaus by [[Vittore Carpaccio]]]]
Back, now, in Galilee, he would begin to do works of mercy, miracles of compassion, healings of deliverance, and overthrowing the devastations of Satan upon the people of God's compassion - in short, bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven and of God and supplanting the Kingdom of Darkness. He began to gather around him his followers, simple fishing folk and others, spending most of his time in the area around the north shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). among the Jews of this Jewish area. He was bringing in the Messianic Kingdom to those who would understand it best, the Jews. But all the time, there was burning within him the knowledge that the blessings of Abraham would be extended, according to the promise, to all the peoples of the earth, the Gentiles, and there would be a new Kingdom, a new nation, transcending both Jews and Gentiles, the Kingdom of the people of God the Heavenly Father. He began his forays then into gentile areas, Phoenecia, the Decapolis, and other locales, and finding faith there such as he had not found "even in Israel".

A crossroads occurred, then, in the choice of Jesus, and consequently in the options of his disciples. It occurred in the Tetrarchy of Philip, at the foothills of Mt. Hermon, at the town of Caesarea Philipi. He knowing who he was, would force the question upon others - "Who do people say Me to be?". From the lips of Shim'on, whom he would call Peter, as leader of the others, He would hear - "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" It was enough. Jesus would then begin imparting to them what the nature of His mission to be - not to expel the Romans from the Holy Land, but to go to Jerusalem, to be betrayed, to be spurned and rejected by the High Priests and the Elders of the People, to be hung on a Roman cross at the hands of the Gentiles, to die. Casesarea Philipi was in between, on one hand, Gentile pervaded Roman Tiberius to the southwest of the Sea, and on the other hand, anti-Roman nationalistic and zealotic Gamla to the north east of the Sea. (This latter would end their rebellion against Rome by suicide on Matzada in 73 A.D). Those two polarities were present in the minds of the disciples and Jesus began, on one hand, to divest from their minds the one, the warrior role of the Messiah against the Romans, and the other, to renew their thinking and their commitment to Him as the self sacrificing Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace and the true Messiah of Israel, on the other hand.

This took place on the long 3 or 4 day journey by foot from Galilee to Jerusalem, along the [[Jordan River]] valley, coming to Jericho, ascending to Jerusalem from the east. It was in Jerusalem that he prepared and settled the matter for the perpetuation of the Church at the Lord's last supper of the Passover, to be made palpable later by the descent of the Holy Spirit. It was in Jerusalem, in the Garden of the Oil Press, that what He had been lead to believe about his mission and the meaning and manner of his death was fully embraced and accepted with no reservation or turning back. "Your will be done, Father, if there is no other way", and "There is no other way, Your will be done Father!" It was a perfect decision and commitment, perfecting his life to be a perfect sacrifice. And it was to the west just outside Jerusalem that His teachings came to a concretization and realization on the cross. And just outside of Jerusalem that His Father would vindicate him by raising him from the dead.

"No man takes my life from me. I have power to take it and I have power to lay it down... I lay down my life for the sheep." <ref>Bible, Gospel of John, 10:18,15 http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvJohn.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=10&division=div1</ref>

"Though He was in the form of God, He did not think equality with God something to grasp onto. But He emptied Himself and took to Himself the form of a servant and was made man, And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. For this reason, God has exalted Him..."<ref>Bible, Philippians 2:6-9a, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvPhil.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1 </ref>

==Jesus and the Holy Spirit==
The Holy Spirit was sometimes referred to as the Spirit of Jesus. This was to point out the special relationship that Jesus had to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, rather than having been sired by Joseph. He was filled by the Holy Spirit from the time of His baptism at the Jordon river at the hands of his cousin John, and He was led by the Holy Spirit, not only into the desert to be tempted by the devil, but also all His life on earth. His empowerment to do "works" and miracles came through the Holy Spirit given Him, as the Holy Spirit would afterwards be given to all his followers, and not solely by virtue His being the Son of God. But, beyond this, there was a more special and unique relationship that Jesus had to the Holy Spirit. He taught, and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of Paul would later echo, that the Holy Spirit would be given and poured out, to His followers through Jesus ascended to the Presence of the Father, and that, in some way, perhaps mysterious but concrete, Jesus Himself, would be with them once again, in and through the presence of the Holy Spirit which they would receive. He had gone back to the Father in order to return in a new and more complete way through the Holy Spirit. He would not leave them orphaned. This Holy Spirit, then, with Jesus and the Father, constituted the reality which would reverberate through the ages for all new believers being bought into the Church, the Body of Christ (for every body needs a spirit) - " In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit".

==Following Jesus, believing in Him==
It is sometimes said that there are two faiths in the New Testament. That of Jesus and that of Paul. Paul's religion is that of believing in Christ as Lord and Savior, and as the divine Son of God, and that of Jesus is of following Him in the sense of living and doing as He has taught. But in reality, there is only one faith and the two not in contradiction. For the Jesus of the Gospels, besides setting forth the life that He himself lived, as a pattern for all His followers, also said, "No one knows the Son, except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son choses to reveal Him", and "I and the Father are One", and "If you see Me, you see God". .And Paul, aside, from saying that "if you believe in the Lord Jesus you shall be saved", and "therefore, being justified by Faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ", also said "work out your salvation with fear and trembling", and "Owe no man anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."

Mark 16:16 "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. And he who does not believe, shall be condemned", Jesus said. It is belief in Jesus which brings a person to the waters of baptism, and it is through the waters of baptism, that one enters into the fellowship of the Church, the people of God who are being brought, day be day, one with the other, to the life that Jesus taught about. And so his new belief and his being and living and doing are all unified under the direction of Christ and His under-shepherds. And if one will not believe, of course, then it goes without saying, he will not be baptized.

== Historical Analysis ==
=== Dating Jesus' Birth ===
Modern historians generally place the actual date of Jesus' birth between 7 and 4 B.C., due to problems reconciling the Roman and Jewish calendars with the [[Gregorian Calendar]] which is in use today throughout the industrialized world.

=== Historicity of Jesus ===
Occasionally, non-historians deny the [[historicity of Jesus]] (Having to do with the question of whether Jesus was in fact a real person who had a real life on earth), but few scholars take this seriously. [[Tacitus]], a Roman historian, wrote about Jesus in A.D. 115,<ref>http://www.digisys.net/users/ddalton/evidence_of_jesus_outside_the_bible.htm</ref> and [[Josephus]], a Jewish historian who did not believe in Jesus' divinity, wrote about him.<ref>http://www.christian-thinktank.com/jesusref.html</ref> Dr. [[Gary Habermas]] wrote an extensive analysis of the historicity of Jesus in his work ''The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ'', which discusses many historical sources that mention Jesus.

[[Lee Strobel]]'s book ''[[The Case for Christ]]'' contains a number of interviews with experts on the historical Jesus and a defense of Jesus's resurrection, and is a good resource on this subject.

== Jesus' Name ==
=== ''Jesus'' ===
The bible doesn't tell us much about the meaning of the name ''Jesus'', but does tell us who gave the name, when the name was given, and a reason the name was given. Luke 2:21 tells us that his name was given (1) "by the angel," (2) and it was given "before He was conceived in the womb." The reason for naming him Jesus seems to be given in Matthew 1:21, which says, "...you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

==== Hebrew Origin ====
The Greeks derived the name from the late Hebrew or Aramaic name Yoshua, today’s version of which is “Joshua”. The earlier Aramaic form was Jehoshua (Y’hoshua) or Joshua., deriving from Hebrew Yah, short for Yahweh, and Aramaic y’shuoh meaning “salvation”. The name thus meant “Jah is salvation”. Both Joshua and Jehoshua were common names in the time of Jesus.

=== ''Christ'' ===
Although it appears that "Jesus Christ" is composed of a first and last name, and indeed, the New Testament at times considers the names together as a first and second name, in origin, and through much of the New Testament, "Christ" is used as a title. It is the Greek translation for "Mashiach" (Hebrew), and Meshicha (Aramaic) - meaning "Anointed". Thus He was called, "Jesus, the Anointed One". Kings priests, and prophets were often anointed with oil to consecrate them for their task, and so was Jesus for His task by the descent of the Spirit when He was baptized by John. The Spirit descended on Him and dwelt within Him. This was in fulfillment of Isaiah 61 - "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me for He has anointed (Mashach) Me; He has sent Me to bring good news to the meek, to console the broken hearted, to call out Freedom to the captives, and to prisoners Release." When Jesus ascended into the presence of the Father, the Father sent the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, through the Son, upon the believers and they too, as their Master, were "anointed" for their living and their task.

Note: The change from a title to a name is much more authentic and understandable in Aramaic language than in English. There is no inner connection from "Jesus the Christ" to "Jesus Christ" in English but in Aramaic the connecting bridge is the vocative "O Christ" (O, Anointed One)! "O Christ" and "The Christ" is the same in Aramaic - Meshicha.

== Teachings of Jesus ==
Jesus' special method of teaching was very different from what we know as "class room" teaching, and different from "teaching from definition". Though His students sometimes sat around Him and listened, He often taught them through the actual every day events of life, by parable and much more - as they traveled, as they ate, as they met people. All of life was His text book. He took them from what they understood to what they ''were to understand'', and brought them to understanding of what He meant, by how they saw it enacted and displayed in His own life. His life was the commentary to what they heard from His lips. That is why, besides that He was the Savior of the World, the believers in Him need be followers as well - to learn of His ways by intimate association. They would remember the words of the Savior later on and understand even more once His Spirit would be given them. His Spirit would then be their Guide, just as Jesus had done for them when He was on earth.

The Teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ are found in the four [[Gospels]] and other holy documents.

[http://www.lifeofchrist.com/teachings/sermons/mount/default.asp '''Sermon on the Mount'''] This is the greatest sermon Jesus ever preached. It contains the Lord's prayer, the beatitudes, the golden rule, and practical advice for Christian living.

'''The Lord's Prayer'''

Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the kingdom

and the power

and the glory forever.

[[Amen]].

See [[The Lord's Prayer]] for the Greek and the interlineal transliterated Aramaic and Hebrew versions.

'''The golden rule:'''

"Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you!"

'''Prayer To Receive Him Now '''

''"Jesus, I believe You are the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Thank you for coming to Earth and dying so that I could have eternal life. Please forgive all my sins. I am going to follow You with my life now. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit and direct my steps. In Jesus' name, [[Amen]]."'' <ref> [http://www.jesus2020.com/jesus.html Prayer To Receive Him Now]</ref>

== Resources on becoming a Christian ==
[[File:Hoffman Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.jpg|thumbnail|170px||Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane by Heinrich Hofmann.]]

''see also:'' [[Resources on becoming a Christian]]

'''Below are some resources on becoming a [[Christian]]:'''

*[http://creation.com/good-news Good news of Christianity]

*[http://www.thewordfortoday.org/?page=C2000 Free audio Bible and Bible audio streaming]

*[http://www.gotquestions.org/repentance.html Repentance]

*[http://www.allaboutgod.com/ AllAboutGod.com]

*[[Video testimonies of Christians]]

'''Tips on choosing a Christian church:'''

*[http://www.allaboutreligion.org/choosing-a-christian-church-faq.htm Choosing a Christian Church]

'''Spiritual growth as a Christian:'''

*[http://www.navpress.com/product/9781576839324/The-Pursuit-of-Holiness-Jerry-Bridges The Pursuit of Holiness] by Jerry Bridges
*[http://www.navpress.com/product/9780891099413/The-Practice-of-Godliness-Jerry-Bridges The Practice of Godliness] by Jerry Bridges
*[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/529785.The_Complete_Book_of_Discipleship The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ]

== See also ==
*[[Andrew the Apostle]]
*[[Atonement]]
*[[Byzantine Empire]]
*[[Christianity]]
*[[Eucharist]]
*[[Gospel reading in the Church: the Turgama]]
*[[Lazarus (brother of Mary)]]
*[[Lazarus (Parable)]]
*[[Judaism]]
*[[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]]
*[[Inspiration of Holy Scripture: An Eastern Christian and Jewish Perspective]]
*[[Passover Seder]]
*[[Essay: The Way of Salvation]]
*[[Messiah]]
*[[Messianic Prophecies]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.lifeofchrist.com/life/lifescan/default.asp Summary of the Life of Jesus]
* [http://www.lifeofchrist.com/life/lifescan/teachings.asp Teachings of Jesus]
* [http://www.lifeofchrist.com/teachings/sermons/ Sermons of Jesus Christ]
* [http://www.ccci.org/wij/ Who is Jesus? Is Jesus Christ God?]
* [http://www.bible-history.com/links.php?cat=19&sub=302&cat_name=Jesus&subcat_name=Background Jesus Background] Bible History on line.
* [http://www.lewissociety.org/ C. S. Lewis Society of California].
* [http://www.lewissociety.org/bodily.php The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, by William Lane Craig].
* [http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Historical_Problem.htm Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem, by N. T. Wright].
* [http://www.lewissociety.org/resurrection.php Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by William Lane Craig].
* [http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Justice_Jesus.htm Doing Justice to Jesus: A Response to J.D. Crossan: "What Victory? What God?", by N. T. Wright].
* [http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Historical_Jesus.htm The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology, by N. T. Wright].
* [http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=37 The Wright Quest for the Historical Jesus, by Ben Witherington, III].

[[Category:Jesus]]
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Christian History]]
[[Category:Biblical Persons]]
[[Category:Divine Beings]]
[[Category:Featured articles]]

Prayer

2012-11-23T02:23:28Z

MorganP: Trim

[[Image:Prayer.jpg|right|300px|Praying Hands]]
In [[Christianity]] and many other religions, '''prayer''' is the process of directly connecting to [[God]], usually for the purpose of deliberate communication.

Through prayer our thoughts and hopes are heard and understood. Oftentimes, prayer will result in feeling God's presence or feeling like one is touched by God. This feeling of a connection is cited by many theists as proof of God's existence. It is through prayer that man can understand God's will in his life and ask God for the courage and strength to carry his message to the world. Prayer is common throughout the [[Bible]] in both the [[Old Testament]] and the [[New Testament]].

== How not to Pray ==

In the [[Sermon on the Mount]], [[Jesus]] warned against hypocrisy in prayer:<blockquote>"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."<ref>Matt 6:5</ref></blockquote>

At the time, the religious authorities believed it was necessary to pray at specific times of the day, and would often make sure they were in large crowds of people when those times arose so that they could be seen and heard by all. Jesus did not approve of this.

Jesus also warned against a high word-to-substance ratio in prayer:<blockquote>"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."<ref>Matt 6:7-8</ref></blockquote>

Pagan prayers at the time believed that there was power in continuous repetition of words, that if you said a word often enough, then you could eventually own that object or claim that power for yourself. Jesus condemned this.

== A guideline of how one should Pray ==

In Christianity, Jesus gives a guideline of how one should pray to God with The Lord's Prayer:<blockquote>"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, [[Amen]]."<ref>Matt 6:9-13 </ref><ref>[http://www.lifeofchrist.com/teachings/sermons/mount/lordsprayer.asp Instructions for praying] </ref></blockquote>

God is the only heavenly object of prayer in the Bible

One way that is a great way to pray when you are praying privately (i.e. talking to God as though he is a close friend)is to just thank Him, thank Him for creating you, the world you live on, the stars, the sun, the galaxy, and everything else. We rarely thank him, but more so we usually ask for help, but it is good to thank him whenever you can.

==Private and Public Prayer==

There are many instances in the Bible of praying in private and also of praying within a group, and sometimes even of praying in public.

<blockquote>"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."<ref>{{Bible ref|Luke|5|16}}</ref></blockquote>

[[Image:Jesus praying.jpg|thumb|Jesus praying at Gethsemane]]

Jesus also instructed:<blockquote>"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."<ref>Matt 6:6</ref></blockquote>

Even though he was with his [[Twelve Disciples|disciples]], Jesus also went off alone to pray on the [[Mount of Olives]] when he was about to be seized and [[crucified]].<ref>Luke 22:39-41</ref>

There are also many examples in the Bible of group prayer or praying in front of others:
* [[Solomon]] prayed publicly in dedicating the [[temple]] ({{Bible ref|1_Kings|8|22-61}}).
* [[Daniel (prophet)|Daniel]] prayed alone in his room, but by an open window where he could be seen ({{Bible ref|Daniel|6|10-11}}).
* Jesus sometimes prayed with his disciples ({{Bible ref|Luke|9|18}}).
* The Church prayed for Peter's miraculous release from prison ({{Bible ref|Acts|12|5}}).
* Jesus prayed in public, such as in {{Bible ref|Matthew|19|13-15}} when Jesus prayed for the children brought to him.

Other religions, and even different traditions within Christianity have developed their own practices related to prayer.<ref>"The Modes of Prayer," from the Nazerine Way of Essenic Study [http://www.thenazareneway.com/modes_of_prayer.htm]</ref>

Modern societies often oppose and discourage public prayer. For example, in the United States, government [[school]]s forbid [[classroom prayer]].

Nearly six-in-ten adults in the U.S. say they pray at least once a day.<ref>[http://religions.pewforum.org/ The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life] U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 2008</ref>

== St. Francis Vocation Prayer ==

Most High, Glorious God,

enlighten the darkness of our minds.

Give us a right faith, a firm hope and a perfect charity,

so that we may always and in all things

act according to Your Holy Will. Amen.

==Different types of prayer in the Bible==

The Bible is much a book or prayer, containing about 650 different prayers,<ref>http://www.bible.ca/ntx-prayer.htm</ref> and consisting of various types. Some types that are categorized are,

*1. Prayer of supplication. (1 Kg. 8: 37-40; 54-55; Lk. 11: 9-13; Ja. 5: 17-18)
*2. Prayer of intercession. (Gn 18: 22-33; 1 Kg. 18: 41-46; 2 Kings 4: 32-36 Acts 12: 1-18)
*3. Prayer of faith. (Mk. 11:12-14; 11: 20-25, Luke 7: 1-10; Ja. 5: 13-18, Mt. 9: 18-26)
*4. Prayer of agreement. (Gn. 11: 1-9; Ex. 17: 8-13; Psalm 133: 1-3; Mt. 18: 19-20; Acts 4:23; Heb. 10: 24-25)
*5. Prayer of praise and thanksgiving. (Ps. 100; 149:4-9; Acts 16:16-34; 1Thes. 5:15-19) <ref>http://www.wordlibrary.co.uk/article.php?id=11</ref>

==Quotes on prayer==

*Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16 ([[Bible]])

*In what name they were to present their petitions: Ask in my name. To ask in Christ's name is, (1.) To plead his merit and intercession, and to depend upon that plea. (2.) It is to aim at his glory and to seek this as our highest end in all our prayers. - Matthew Henry

*We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. - Oswald Chambers

*Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. The most praying souls are the most assured souls. - Thomas B. Brooks

*The great thing in prayer is to feel that we are putting our supplications into the bosom of omnipotent love. - Andrew Murray

*We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. - Oswald Chambers

*Teach us to pray that we may cause The enemy to flee, That we his evil power may bind, His prisoners to free. - Watchman Nee

*Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies, the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need. - John Newton

*Pray, always pray; when sickness wastes thy frame, Prayer brings the healing power of Jesus' name. - A. B. Simpson

*Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength. - Dr. Alexis Carrel

*Every time we pray our horizon is altered, our attitude to things is altered, not sometimes but every time, and the amazing thing is that we don't pray more. - Oswald Chambers

*One night alone in prayer might make us new men, changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to triumphing. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

*The less I pray, the harder it gets; the more I pray, the better it goes. - Martin Luther

*He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and a happy life. - William Law

*If you can't pray as you want to, pray as you can. God knows what you mean. - Vance Havner

*It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition. - Oswald Chambers

*We read of preaching the Word out of season, but we do not read of praying out of season, for that is never out of season. - Matthew Henry

*To God your every Want In instant Prayer display, Pray always; Pray, and never faint; Pray, without ceasing, Pray. - Charles Wesley

*Pray, always pray; beneath sins heaviest load, Prayer claims the blood from Jesus' side that flowed. Pray, always pray; though weary, faint, and lone, Prayer nestles by the Father's sheltering throne. - A. B. Simpson

*Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

*Tomorrow I plan to work, work, from early until late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer. - Martin Luther

*In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. - John Bunyan

*Refusal to pray is passive rebellion against God, "in whose hand thy breathe is." - Anonymous

*All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together. - Stephen Charnock

*Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul. - Hannah More

*The best prayers have often more groans than words. - John Bunyan

*Unless I had the spirit of prayer, I could do nothing. - Charles G. Finney

*A man's state before God may always be measured by his prayers.- J. C. Ryle

*Oh, what a cause of thankfulness it is that we have a gracious God to go to on all occasions! Use and enjoy this privilege and you can never be miserable. Oh, what an unspeakable privilege is prayer! - Lady Maxwell

Perhaps the most noted author on prayer is the late Methodist minister [[E. M. Bounds]] (1835 - 1913):

*Prayer honors God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His providence, secures His aid.

*By prayer, the ability is secured to feel the law of love, to speak according to the law of love, and to do everything in harmony with the law of love.

*Praying which does not result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole office and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in the very nature of things that we must quit praying, or quit bad conduct.

*Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter of prayer; but a capacity for faith, the power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God.

*The goal of prayer is the ear of God, a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him, and as we come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.

*Importunity is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter, not with vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions. We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray "with all perseverance." We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We press our pleas because we must have them, or die. <ref>[http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/topics/prayer_quotes.html Famous Quotes and Authors.com Prayer Quotes and Quotations]</ref>

==Effectual prayer==

All faithful Christians attest to answered prayer, as well as countless people who have prayed in times of crisis. An [[evangelical Christian]], [[George Mueller]] (1805-1898), probably best known as the "Father of Orphans", prayerfully met the needs of thousands of children. Mueller and his wife decided to depend on God alone to supply their needs - never again to approach people about them - and 68 years later Mueller had prayed in over seven and a half million dollars, and logged in his journal 50,000 specific answers to prayer - 5,000 were answered on the very day of their asking. <ref>http://www.eaec.org/faithhallfame/georgemuller.htm</ref>

==Prayer in government==
Prayer is a mandated part of governmental affairs within a [[theocracy]] such as [[Islam]], while voluntary prayer may play a part within governments which recognize [[separation of church and state]]. In contrast, refusal to acknowledge God is seen as practically conveying atheism, with prayer being excluded as part of [[atheistic]] systems such as [[Communism]].

In America, upon landing the pilgrims "Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees, and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof…" <ref>William Bradford
November 9, 1620; http://www.dailyencouragement.net/seasonal/pilgrim_history.html</ref>

Three days before George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States, Congress passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the President, he, attended by the Vice President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall proceed to St. Paul’s Chapel, to hear divine service. (Annals of Congress, Vol. 1, p. 25, April 27, 1789)

Samuel Provoost (1742–1815), the newly appointed chaplain of the United States Senate and first Episcopal bishop of New York, performed “divine service” at St. Paul’s Chapel on April 30, 1789, immediately following Washington’s inauguration.

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Rev. John G. Butler, pastor of Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., and chaplain of both the U. S. House of Representatives (1865–1875) and the Senate (1886–1893), organized interfaith inaugural prayer meetings in the nation’s capital commencing in 1869. These services continued well into the twentieth century.<ref>http://www.nationalcathedral.org/about/presidentialInaugurals.shtml</ref>

In America, prayer and worship services have regularly been part of Inauguration Day activities. <ref>http://inaugural.senate.gov/history/daysevents/morningworshipservice.cfm</ref>

===Prayers by American Presidents===

In September 1789, Congress asked President George Washington to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.”

Washington complied, and in early October sent a proclamation to the governors of the states.The proclamation asked the governors to make Thursday, November 26 a day of Thanksgiving, saying:

<blockquote>

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be--That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war--for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

<ref>The Massachusetts Centinel, Wednesday, October 14, 1789 </ref><ref>http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40032</ref> <ref>[http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/original.html Thanksgiving Proclamation - The Original]</ref>
</blockquote>

*George Washington, an undated prayer for guidance from Washington's prayer journal, Mount Vernon:

<blockquote>
O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased thy great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul....

Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the gospel; give me repentance from dead works; pardon my wanderings, and direct my thoughts unto thyself, the God of my salvation; teach me how to live in thy fear, labor in thy service, and ever to run in the ways of thy commandments; make me always watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor an unwillingness to depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber, but daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy son Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto eternal life bless my family, friends, and kindred.
</blockquote>

*Thomas Jefferson; a prayer for the Nation (Washington D.C., March 4, 1801):

<blockquote>
Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
</blockquote>

*Abraham Lincoln; a prayer for peace (Second Inaugural address, March 4, 1865):

<blockquote>
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continues... until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid another drawn with the sword... so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.</blockquote>.

*Franklin D. Roosevelt; a prayer in dark times (D-Day, June 6, 1944):

<blockquote>
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity...

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph...

Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home--fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice... Give us strength, too--strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace--a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
</blockquote>

*John F. Kennedy; a prayer of gratitude (Thanksgiving Day, 1963):

<blockquote>
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings--let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals--and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist.
</blockquote>

Jimmy Carter; a prayer for a meaningful life (inaugural address, January 20, 1977, and Thanksgiving speech to the nation, November 27, 1980):

<blockquote>
I would like to have my frequent prayer answered that God let my life be meaningful in the enhancement of His kingdom and that my life might be meaningful in the enhancement of the lives of my fellow human beings.

I call upon all the people of our Nation to give thanks on that day for the blessings Almighty God has bestowed upon us, and to join the fervent prayer of George Washington who as President asked God to "impart all the blessings we possess, or ask for ourselves to the whole family of mankind.
</blockquote>

Ronald Reagan; a prayer for healing (from a speech to the American people, February 6, 1986):

<blockquote>
To preserve our blessed land we must look to God... It is time to realize that we need God more than He needs us... We also have His promise that we could take to heart with regard to our country, that "If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Let us, young and old, join together, as did the First Continental Congress, in the first step, in humble heartfelt prayer. Let us do so for the love of God and His great goodness, in search of His guidance and the grace of repentance, in seeking His blessings, His peace, and the resting of His kind and holy hands on ourselves, our nation, our friends in the defense of freedom, and all mankind, now and always.

The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America... Our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal. Today, we utter no prayer more fervently than the ancient prayer for peace on Earth.

If I had a prayer for you today, among those that have all been uttered, it is that one we're so familiar with: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace...." And God bless you all.
</blockquote>

George H. W. Bush; a prayer to help others (Inaugural address, January 20, 1989):

<blockquote>
My first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads.

Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: "Use power to help people."

For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord.

The Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us; so that He may incline our hearts to Him, to walk in all His ways... that all peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. <ref>http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Faith-Tools/Meditation/2005/01/Prayers-Of-The-Presidents.aspx?p=2</ref>
</blockquote>

==Prayer in other religions==

In [[Hinduism]], Prayer is an integral part of the daily living. Chanting of [[mantras]] is the most important form of prayer in Hinduism. Some devotees meditate chanting different names of the Gods.

== See also ==
*[[Classroom prayer]]
*[[Hail Mary]]
*[[Rosary]]
*[[Sinner's prayer]]
*[[The Lord's Prayer]]
*[[Nicene Creed]]
*[[Transmigration of Words in Religion: an essay]]

== External links ==

* [http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T7055 Prayer, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=T22qP23L0wwC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=Notable+Prayers+in+the+Bible&source=bl&ots=BzZZpk-8P2&sig=m5Rju2WEIf8glC-qe_Gc8gC6lFw&hl=en&ei=HT76Scy3IpO-Mui_lLwE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#PPA8,M1 All the Prayers of the Bible, with commentary. Online book by Herbert Lockyer]
*[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/BIBLE-PRAYERS.html Compilation of most of the prayers in the Bible]
*[http://christianity.about.com/od/prayersinthebible/qt/bibleprayersind.htm Collection of Notable Prayers Found in the Bible]
*[http://www.catholic.org/prayers/ Prayers] Catholic Online.
* Mates, Nathan, [http://www.visi.com/~nathan/xtian/publicprayer.html Praying in Public] 9th April 2000.
*[http://www.scborromeo.org/prayers/rosary.htm#mary Prayers]
*[http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1879016,00.html The Biology of Belief]
[http://www.prayface.com Online Prayer]

== References==
<references/>

[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: Christianity]]

Overrated Sports Stars

2012-11-18T02:10:00Z

MorganP:

The [[lamestream media]] like to promote athletes based not on skill, but for [[liberal]] reasons. Here's a growing list of the most overrated sports stars (notice how none are on the list of [[Essay:Greatest Conservative Sports Stars|Greatest Conservative Sports Stars]]):

#[[Andre Agassi]] — his rival [[Pete Sampras]] was far better, but Sampras is [[conservative]]. Agassi is a big donor to [[Democrat]] politicians.
#[[Kobe Bryant]] — not as valuable to the game as [[Jeremy Lin]]; hasn't won a title without super-coaching by Phil Jackson, who observes that Kobe is not on the high level of [[Michael Jordan]]; Kobe makes only 46% of his shots, and scores lots of points because he hogs the ball.
#Boomer Esiason — the [[liberal media]] like how he criticizes [[conservative]] [[Tim Tebow]], but Esiason couldn't get the job done himself when he was a player: Esiason failed to win championships despite expectations.
#[[LeBron James]] — 2012's NBA Finals MVP is far from the best player in the [[NBA]], he is way overrated by the liberal ESPN compared to Christian Kevin Durant, who outscored James and Bryant in the Olympics
#[[Magic Johnson]] — lucky enough to play on [[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar]]'s Lakers to win some titles, but was crushed by [[Michael Jordan]] and the Bulls; no problem, Magic was a critic of President [[George H.W. Bush]], which thrilled liberals.
#*People look at him, and say, 'Hey, it's OK to get HIV because I'm living with it.' That is the wrong message. [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500202_162-57319698/20-years-since-magic-johnsons-hiv-stunner/]
#[[Peyton Manning]] — a [[quarterback]] who won only one [[NFL]] championship, despite being voted by the media and others to be NFL MVP 4 times, AFC Player of the Year 6 times, and Pro Bowler 11 times. The [[liberal media]] treated him like the Second Coming of [[Christ]] in order to oust [[conservative]] [[Tim Tebow]] from his leadership position in the [[swing state]] of [[Colorado]] prior to the [[Presidential Election 2012]].
#[[Steve Nash]] — an [http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2009/3/25/809516/steve-nash-on-media-bias-t outspoken liberal who supported Obama], Nash was chosen ''twice'' by the [[lamestream media]] as the [[NBA]] MVP despite never leading his team to even an NBA Finals.
#[[Mark Sanchez]] — the [[New York Jets]] [[quarterback]] is being touted as the team's best QB over [[conservative]] [[Christian]] [[Tim Tebow]] despite falling apart at the end of the 2011–12 season. Now that Tebow's on-board, [[liberals]] are championing the former [[USC]] star as the superior player despite his mediocre play throughout his career.
#[[Tiger Woods]] — hasn't won a major golf tournament in four years, and yet he's still the only one liberals want to talk about while reporting on tournaments. Had a spectacular early career, but his performances got worse and worse due to his womanizing and partying lifestyle. Has never attained his promise.
#[[Danica Patrick]] - Has won a single race in the Indy Car series, but has yet to win a race in either the NASCAR Sprint Cup or Nationwide series, finishing no higher than fourth, although ESPN promotes her first and foremost when showing highlights of the NASCAR races in which she participates.
#[[Wayne Rooney]] - Burst onto the scene as a 16 year old and called "The English Pele". 10 years on and he has still failed to fulfill his potential, especially at international level, and still behaves like a childish immature 16 year old.
#[[David Beckham]] - retired early to the weak American MLS league, so his wife could shop in Beverly Hills. Has chosen the celebrity lifestyle over true sports greatness.
#[[Ronaldinho]] - looked like a wonderful player in early years, but quickly became overweight due to his 'partying' lifestyle. Fired from minor Brazilian team, he declared he's finally "just going to party"
#[[Barry Bonds]] - all his baseball records were due to his extensive use of steroids.
#[[Alex Sanchez]] - same as Bonds.
#[[Cristiano Ronaldo]] - his spectacular talents have been ruined by his self-obsession, vanity and cravings of celebrity. He is now officially "sad", despite being one of the luckiest men alive.
#[[Lance Armstrong]] - he ''"won"'' the [[Tour-de-France]] seven times due to “''the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen''”.

(please revise or add to list)

[[Category:sports]]

Arc elasticity of demand

2012-11-17T16:37:57Z

MorganP: Citation

Central Intelligence Agency

2012-11-17T16:35:20Z

MorganP:

[[Image:CIA HQ.jpg|thumb|right|The CIA Headquarters]]
The '''Central Intelligence Agency''', or CIA is an intelligence-gathering agency in the [[United States]] government. As the U.S.'s primary [[intelligence agency]], it is responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, entities, and persons, and reporting such information to the branches of the U.S. government. The head is the "Director of Central Intelligence" (DCI).

It is also involved in covert [[espionage]] and paramilitary operations in support of its mission to protect the national security of the United States.

Based in Langley, [[Virginia]], the CIA is a widespread organization spanning the globe.

[[Image:CIA Logo.gif|thumb|left|The CIA Seal]]

==History==

===OSS in World War II===
In 1941 President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] was relying on intelligence information provided by British intelligence (and slanted by them to favor their position.) In 1941 he created the '''OSS''' [[Office of Strategic Services]], which was the first independent US intelligence agency. Due to extensive Soviet-Communist penetration,<ref>[http://webroots.org/library/usamisc/oss-cia0.html ''The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency''], Michael Warner, CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Published: United States Central Intelligence Agency, 2000. </ref> the OSS was disbanded after the war and its functions were split between the Departments of State and War. A Central Intelligence Group was reorganized in January 1946.<ref>https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/6-12th-grade/operation-history/history-of-the-cia.html#changing-face-of-intelligence</ref>

===CIA established 1947===
in 1944, [[William J. Donovan]], the OSS's head, proposed a new organization directly supervised by the President: "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies." Under Donovan's plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services, including those run by the military. He also proposed that this agency have authority to conduct "subversive operations abroad," but "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."

In September 1947, the National Security Act of 1947 established both the "National Security Council" and the Central Intelligence Agency. Americans, still mesmerized by the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor, welcomed the new spy agency because it seemed to promise the nation would always stay on alert. The CIA's Ivy League intellectuals and scions of high society contrasted sharply with the Pentagon brass; an adversarial relationship was born that still sours relations between the two. The CIA's budget was minuscule ($5 million) until NSC-68 in 1950 provided blueprints for an active Cold War.

====Congress====
From the start isolationists warned of the danger that the CIA might become an out-of-control "American Gestapo" like the Nazi secret police, which could trample American civil liberties On the other side was fear of a nuclear Pearl Harbor without warning.

In general Congress defered to the White House until the 1970s on intelligence matters. Only a few members of a few select committees had any legislative oversight; they kept floor debate and written records to a minimum. Congress supported covert action, even though Roscoe Hillenkoetter (DCI 1947-50) and Walter Bedell Smith (DCI 1950-53), both military men, showed little interest. President Eisenhower, by contrast, demanded more covert activities and Allen Dulles (DCI 1953-61) obliged.

Congressional support for more aggressive policies increased throughout the 1950s. Congress took its oversight responsibilities seriously and even challenged the CIA when an alarming intelligence failure, such as when the CIA failed to predict the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb (1950), the Korean War (1953), the [[Hungarian uprising]] (1956), or the U-2 downing (1960). Eisenhower discouraged Congressional probes of agency activities, but Dulles, sometimes gained Congressional support by leaking bits of information to influential conngressmen.<ref>David M. Barrett, ''The CIA & Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy'' (2005)</ref>

The CIA often functions as a resource to both individual legislators and congressional committees supplying related background and assessment for congressional decision. An example of this is the 1991 referral to the agency by Senator [[Jesse Helms]], ranking member of Minority Staff of the Committee on Foreign Relations, requesting information and verification of information coming from Israel concerning the survival of the passsengers and crew (including Cong. [[Larry McDonald]]) of [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]], shot down by the Soviets in 1983. Helms wrote his letter [http://www.rescue007.org/helms_letter.htm] to Boris Yelstin requesting the military communications of the shootdown and locations of camps holding suvivors based on the CIA response to his request [http://www.rescue007.org/nance_letter.htm].

===Soviet Estimates===
The CIA began systematic estimates of the Soviet economy during Max Millikan's tenure as the founding director of the Office of Research and Reports (1951-1952). The strategy was to start with an "inventory of ignorance" and then reduce the list of unknowns through successive approximations. Soviet military expenditures were estimated by the "building-block method," which began by estimating the number ships, planes, jeeps, barracks and even soldiers in use, then estimating the procurement and operating costs of each, and adding them up using estimated prices. The building blocks had advantages in that published data on physical units seemed accurate and in any case were easier to verify through covert means. The elaborate reports of the 1990s included almost 1800 such categories. Since the Soviets lackd computers and had rudimentary accounting procedures, the CIA had a better overall picture of Soviet military spending than did the Kremlin. The reports emphasized physical units, realizing that expenditures alone could not predict what sort of military threat in the future would be presented by the Red Army. To estimate costs the CIA used analogs--using Soviet trucks or American tanks, for instance, to estimate the costs of Soviet tanks--and then adjusted for differences in weight and performance. Analog-based data, far shakier than direct-cost data, accounted for over half of earlier estimates, dropping to about one-third by the late 1980s. In the 1960s the CIA increasingly used quantitative techniques, of the sort promoted in American business schools. A crisis in the mid-1970s was caused by as a combination of external pressures, new data (some from a key Russian who defected to the West) and internal works forced a major revision of the defense burden, showing the proportion of of the overall Soviet economy devoted to the military. The crisis sparked heated public debate when the CIA announced that their earlier estimates of Soviet defense spending at 6-8% of GNP was too low by as much as half; the revised estimated burden ranged from 11-13%, indicating a severe economic burden that slowed Soviet growth.<ref> Noel E. Firth and James H. Noren, ''Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990.'' (1998)</ref>

===Directorate of Science & Technology===
The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services. Albert D. "Bud" Wheeler (1963-66) and Carl E. Duckett (1966-76) built the directorate into a strong component of the CIA and then guided it through its golden age of technical innovation. In contrast, decisions by Ruth David (1995-98) contributed, Richelson (2001) argues, to a decline in the importance and status of the directorate as it lost control over key responsibilities, including the analysis of satellite photography.

Richelson (2001) explains the major DS&T's achievements, especially reconnaissance airplanes and a series of increasingly sophisticated surveillance satellites, with cameras that could photograph Soviet bomber bases and missile sites with startling clarity from orbits deep in space. In 1960, the first effective satellite produced coverage of more than one million square miles, surpassing all previous U-2 photography combined. This imagery revealed that the Soviets had far fewer bombers and (later) [[ICBM|ICBMs]] than the Pentagon expected. The worst-case estimates of the U.S. Air Force proved wildly exaggerated, and the myths of the bomber and missile "gaps" were punctured by empirical data.

===Dulles years 1953-51===
[[Allen Dulles]], who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during the Second World War, took over from Smith, at a time where US policy was dominated by a containment policy, with serious discussions of roll-back policies going on, especially in the State Department. Dulles enjoyed a high degree of flexibility, as his brother, [[John Foster Dulles]], was simultaneously Secretary of State. Allen Dulles was head of CIA 1953-61.

Allen Dulles became the trusted advisor on what was going to happen in the world to President Eisenhower and to his brother John Foster Dulles. The CIA gathered information and provided written assessments of the capabilities and intentions of all world leaders. Its regular briefings gave each president the sense that he knew exactly what was happening across the globe. Like ingenious prognosticators through the ages, the CIA's predictions seemed highly explicit yet never could quite be pinned down. They failed to predict any of the major surprises of the postwar era. On the other hand, estimates of the performance of the Soviet economy proved much more accurate than the information Moscow itself possessed, and forecast the failure of that economy in the 1980s.

Numerous covert actions were launched to neutralize perceived Communist expansion in Iran and Guatemala. Some of the largest operations were aimed at [[Cuba]] after the coming to power of the communists in early 1960. In 1960-61 the CIA organized Cuban exiles, whose invasion of Cuba failed totally at the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion.

Dulles devoted 80% of his much enlarged budget ($82 million) to covert (secret) operations to contain Communism. On the other side was the Soviet [[KGB]]. The head of the K.G.B.'s first chief directorate, Leonid Shabarshin later explained, "The essence of the KGB's active undertakings was to inflict political and moral damage on our basic opponent, the United States. . . . [so] We compromised political figures, organs of the press, and Americans whose activities were in some way unwelcome [to the Soviets]." The KGB veteran revealed that every "active measure" against the enemies of the Soviet Union abroad was submitted by KGB to the Politburo “and was implemented only with its permission. The results of the action were also reported to the Politburo."<ref> See [http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.139/news_detail.asp Herbert Romerstein, "Divide and Conquer: The KGB disinformation campaign against Ukrainians and Jews," ''Ukrainian Quarterly'' Fall 2004 online edition]</ref> Which side performed better remains an open question. CIA money subsidized anti-communist intellectuals and strengthened liberal political parties across Europe and the Third World. Striking low-cost successes early on reinforced the CIA's mastermind image. CIA-supported parties defeated the Communists in Italy and France in the late 1940s. A handful of agents provided assistance to opposition groups which forced anti-American prime ministers out of office in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954). CIA counterintelligence tried to neutralize the KGB and other hostile agencies, like the GRU (Soviet military intelligence), Communist East Germany's [[Stasi]] and Cuba's DGI.

===Early Operations===
The principal problem facing the first generation of covert operators was murky objectives. Was covert action designed merely to "contain" the Soviet Union or to "roll it back?" Covert operations were handled by the CIA's "Office of Policy Coordination" (OPC). There was confusion on its mission OPC --was it merely to stir up trouble behind the Iron Curtain or to "liberate" and [[rollback]] the Kremlin's Eastern European satellites? One early covert operation was a total failure in Albania, where the OPC worked with Britain's [[MI6]] to train and deploy anti-communist commandos committed to overthrowing the Soviet-backed regime of Enver Hoxha. Frank Wisner, the first OPC director, regarded the Albanian operation as "a clinical experiment to see whether larger rollback operations would be feasible elsewhere," but [[Kim Philby]], a Soviet mole inside MI6, leaked the details to the Kremlin, with ghastly results for the anti-Hoxha forces.

====Iran 1953====
Prime Minister [[Mohammed Mossadegh]], originally elected in one of the Shah's elections, had driven out the Shah and become the de facto dictator of Iran, as he dissolved the Parliament and abolished free elections with a secret ballot, after declaring victory in a referendum where he claimed 99.9% of the vote.<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-chapter2.html | title=Trying to Persuade a Reluctant Shah | work=The New York Times}}</ref> He gained power through organized terrorism and received funding from the [[KGB]].<ref>http://jebhemelli.net/mossadegh/mossaddegh_1951m_of_y%20Page%202.htm ''Time'' article from 1951 on Mossadegh's seizure of power</ref> Suppressing widespread discontent, as recounted in a 2003 ''Time Magazine'' report, he ordered police to violently massacre more than 300 unarmed protestors.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-1,00.html</ref> Under his rule, Iran became the first Middle Eastern country to simply steal and nationalize Western oil fields--even though the Iranians did not know how to use them on their own.<ref>http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=2635</ref> The result was the total collapse of the Iranian economy. Iranian oil supplies were taken off the world market.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-1,00.html</ref><ref>http://jebhemelli.net/mossadegh/mossaddegh_1951m_of_y%20Page%202.htm</ref> This doomed all future economic development in Iran, a "basket-case" nation plagued with rampant disease, illiteracy, and religious fanaticism.
President Truman had met with Mossadegh and pledged US support against the English, expressing admiration for his efforts at economic justice. His administration concluded that England sought "''a rule or ruin''" policy on Iran. The Eisenhower administration saw things rather differently.

When Mossadegh delayed settling with Anglo-Iranian Oil on the takeover of the company, the British, under [[Winston Churchill]], approached the CIA with a plan to remove the Premier. The British could not do it alone. Allen Dulles, the CIA director, and his brother John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, agreed. The Dulles brothers assigned the task of overseeing the clandestine venture to intelligence operative Kermit Roosevelt.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-1,00.html#ixzz16K23QRPB</ref> According to ''Time'':
<blockquote>
The CIA's fingerprints were everywhere. Operatives paid off Iranian newspaper editors to print pro-Shah and anti-Mossadegh stories. They produced their own stories and editorial cartoons and published fabricated interviews. They secured the cooperation of the Iranian military. They spread antigovernment rumors. They prepared phony documents to show secret agreements between Mossadegh and the local Communist Party. They masqueraded as communists, threatened conservative Muslim clerics and even staged a sham fire-bombing of the home of a religious leader. They incited rioters to set fire to a pro-Mossadegh newspaper. They stage-managed the appearance of Mossadegh's successor, General Zahedi, whose personal bank account they fattened.
</blockquote>

Mossadegh was overthrown, and the ousted [[Mohammed Reza Pahlavi| Shah]] returned to Iran in triumph. Cheering crowds trumpeted his return, as he promptly launched new electoral reforms introducing voting to all members of society--including women. Iran was praised in the West as a beacon of stability, and maintained close relations with the United States until 1979.

The administration of [[Bill Clinton]] formally apologized to Iran for the CIA-supported coup in a speech made in 2000.<ref>http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/speeches/albright-17-03-00.htm</ref> President [[Barack Obama]] also made a seperate apology.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227855/zeal-zelaya/conrad-black</ref>

Conrad Black, arguing that the CIA role was minimal as compared to the efforts of the Iranian army and the internal fighting in Iran, mocked Obama over "''his apology for President Eisenhower’s approval of the overthrow of the deranged Iranian demagogue Mohammed Mossadegh.''"<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227855/zeal-zelaya/conrad-black</ref>

====Guatemala 1954====
The CIA helped overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in [[Guatemala]] in 1954. This was one of its most controversial operations, its model for subsequent covert action against countries like [[Cuba]], and its first attempt at regime change in Latin America.

Arbenz was elected without a secret ballot. He considered himself a communist and joined the Communist Party in 1957. His land reform, designed by the Communist Party, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which he then purged. His regime openly praised Stalin, relied on the communists for key decisions, and received arms from the Soviet
bloc.<ref>Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954
(Princeton University Press, 1991), pp84, 147, 145, 155, 181-2, a virtual hagiography of Arbenz.</ref> He killed hundreds of his opponents.<ref>“Antecedentes Inmediatos (1944-1961): El derrocamiento de Arbenz y la intervención militar de
1954,” in Comisión para el Esclaracimiento Histórico (CEH), Guatemala: Memoria Del Silencio
(Guatemala, 1999), Capítulo primero (findings of Guatemala's independant truth commission after the restoration of civilian rule and democracy)</ref> The CIA intervened because it feared that a communist dictatorship would become a Soviet beachhead in the Western Hemisphere.<ref>Nicholas Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of its Operation in Guatemala,
1952-1954 (Stanford University Press, 1999) pp24-7, based on the CIA archives</ref>

The Truman administration began developing contingency plans to remove Arbenz in 1952, in the event that he became a threat to American interests in the region. In the face of widespread popular discontent in Guatemala and mass protests organized by the Catholic Church, the CIA used black propaganda to spread panic among the population. In the midst of a low-level internal civil war, the Eisenhower administration mobilized disaffected Guatemalan exiles to invade the country from neighboring [[Honduras]]. Arbenz, a fighter until the end, donned his colonel's uniform and prepared himself for war with the United States. Ultimately, however, there was very little fighting at all; the military failed to support Arbenz due to its own concerns over his perceived radicalism. The US-armed rebellion quickly took over the country, to the surprise of the CIA, which had expected much fiercer resistance. With the army promptly joining the revolt, Arbenz fled the country in a panic. He was allowed exile by the new regime.

Vice-President [[Richard Nixon]] praised the new elections held by the military regime, declaring that Guatemala represented "the first time in history that a Communist government has ever been overthrown and replaced by a free one." However, Guatemala would be plagued with instability for decades. A series of military coups rocked the country, as Soviet and Cuban support for Communist violence caused bloody civil strife. After a 1982 coup, Guatemala was placed under a US arms embargo imposed on human rights grounds. A vicious genocide reminiscent of the mass killing of the Hmong in [[Laos]] was then carried out against the Mayan Indians, in which scores of thousands were massacred.

In Guatemala in 1954, the CIA operation was marked by chronic lapses in security, the failure to plan beyond the operation's first stages, the Agency's poor understanding of the intentions of the Guatemalan Army, the local communist party (the Guatemalan Labor Party), and the government, the hopeless weakness of invasion leader Carlos Castillo Armas's troops, and the failure to make provisions for the possibility of defeat. Just as the entire operation seemed hopeless, and before there were any significant violent attacks against it, the leftist Guatemalan government suddenly, inexplicably collapsed and a pro-American government took over.<ref> Nick Cullather, ''Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.'' (1999)</ref>

====Congo Crisis====
Humberto Fontova has written with his characteristic wit and élan:
<blockquote>
Later, many of these Cuban-American BOP vets itched to get back into the fight (but with ammo and air cover this time). The CIA obliged and sent them with ex-marine Rip Robertson to the Congo in ‘65. There they linked up with the legendary mercenary "Mad Mike" Hoare and his "Wild Geese."

Together Mad Mike, Rip and the Cubans made short work of the alternately Chinese-and Soviet-backed "Simbas" of Laurent Kabila, who were murdering, raping and munching (many were cannibals) their way through the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony.

Forget Frank Church and the Clintonites. Ask the hundreds of Europeans rescued from butchery (literally!) by these men. You'll hear a different song, believe me. You can read about their exploits in Hoare's book, "Congo Mercenary," and in Enrique Ros' "Cubanos Combatientes" (sadly, available only in Spanish).

Kabila made Idi Amin look like Gandhi. Castro, itching to be rid of this nuisance, sent Che (code-named "Tatu") and a force of his rebel army "veterans" to help these cannibals. The Congolese reds, unfamiliar with Che's true record, accepted Tatu gratefully.

The masterful "Tatu's" first order of business was plotting an attack on a garrison guarding a hydroelectric plant in a place called Front Bendela on the Kimbi River in Eastern Congo. His masterstroke was to be an elaborate ambush of the garrison.

The wily Tatu was stealthily leading his force into position when they heard shots. Whoops! ... Hey?! WHAT THE?! Ambushers became ambushed – and by the same garrison he thought was guarding the plant. Che lost half his men and barely escaped with his life.

....Thing was, any teen gang member in East L.A. or south Bronx has 10 times the battle experience and savvy of any of these strutting Fidelista "Comandantes." Imagine the Germans atop Monte Cassino outnumbering and outgunning the Allies 10 to 1 in early ‘44. Hell, they'd STILL be there. It was a defender's dream.

Well, the brilliant Tatu and his comandantes had that very set-up in a place called Fizi-Baraka in Eastern Congo for their second clash with the mad dogs of imperialism. Mad Mike and his CIA allies sized the place up and attacked. Within one day the mighty Che's entire force was scrambling away in panic, throwing away their arms, running and screaming like old ladies with rats running up their legs.<ref>http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/world/cuba/4455-the-real-che-guevara.html</ref>
</blockquote>

====Brazil 1964====
On March 30, the American military attaché in Brazil, Colonel Vernon A. Walters, telegraphed the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]. In that telegraph, he confirmed that Brazilian army generals, independently of the US, had committed themselves to acting against President João Goulart within a week of the meeting, but no date was set.<ref>[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36291.htm 192. Telegram From the Army Attaché in Brazil (Walters) to the Department of the Army] United States State Department. March 30, 1964. Retrieved on August 20, 2007.</ref>

Declassified transcripts of communications between Lincoln Gordon and the US government show that, predicting an all-out civil war, President Johnson authorized logistical materials to be in place to support the coup-side of the rebellion as part of U.S. ''Operation Brother Sam''.<ref>[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36291.htm 198. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Brazil]. Washington, March 31, 1964, 2:29 p.m. Retrieved on August 20, 2007.</ref>

In the telegraphs, Gordon also acknowledges US involvement in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies…and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business" and that he "may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future."<ref>[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36291.htm 187. Telegram From the Ambassador to Brazil (Gordon) to the Department of State] Rio de Janeiro, March 28, 1964. Retrieved on August 20, 2007</ref>

====Chile 1970-3====
The CIA opposed the Communist regime of [[Salvador Allende]] in Chile, which was originally elected with a minority of the vote and subsequently achieved dictatorial powers.

The CIA, as recounted in the Church Committee report, was involved in various plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate: It tried to buy off the Chilean Congress to prevent his appointment, attempted to have him exiled, worked to sway public opinion against him to prevent his election, tried to foil his political aspirations during the [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] administration, and financed protests designed to bring the country to a stand-still and make him resign.<ref>http://www.history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0120a.htm</ref> Convinced that a conventional military uprising was still not possible in Chile, the CIA, acting with the approval of the 40 Committee—the body charged with overseeing covert actions abroad—devised what in effect was a constitutional coup. The most expeditious way to prevent Allende from assuming office was somehow to convince the Chilean congress to confirm Alessandri as the winner of the election. Once elected by the congress, Alessandri—a party to the plot through intermediaries—was prepared to resign his presidency within a matter of days so that new elections could be held.<ref>http://www.history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0120a.htm</ref><ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref> The CIA also learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually intervened to prevent one of the plots for fear it would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the US would not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.<ref>http://www.history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0120a.htm</ref> In addition, the CIA provided funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973. Though the CIA maintained contact with a notorious right-wing extremist named Roberto Viaux, Nixon and Kissinger, recognizing that "nothing could be worse than an abortive coup," repeatedly relayed messages to him urging restraint and went to great lengths to deter him from staging a coup.<ref>http://www.history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0120a.htm</ref><ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref>

Although the US considered economic sanctions against the Allende regime, it never actually implemented them. Although Latin Americans viewed the US as omnipotent, future Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet mocked it as a paper tiger and felt free to launch terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C., during his reign. The US ended up giving more aid to Allende's Chile than any of the prior administrations. The US worked to diffuse potential coups that it had once warmly encouraged, fearing that it would be blamed if they failed. Though hesitant and uneasy, the CIA vowed to "continue to put pressure on every Allende weak spot" even after his appointment. The CIA had warned that the odds of either a military or a constitutional coup succeeding were one in twenty; after they both failed to occur in 1970, US policy shifted towards maintaining a democratic opposition to the Allende regime.

US intelligence reports implicated Allende in the assassination of several opponents,<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf Includes discussion of intelligence reports of Allende-backed hit jobs; note that Cuban intelligence reached the same conclusion--hence the infamous "packages" scandal.</ref> while KGB files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds from the Soviet Union.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Allende was formally condemned by Chile's parliament for systematically destroying democracy in Chile.<ref>“Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy,” Resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile, August 22, 1973.</ref> The Chilean Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22, 1973, accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country. In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated the coup, large quantities of weapons were sent from Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists in Chile.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law.<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref> By 1973, as a result of covert US aid to Chilean dissidents and financing of pro-democracy protestors, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held.<ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref> According to ''The Wall Street Journal,'' faced with illegal seizures of farms and factories, of defiance of judicial orders, unchecked street violence and death threats against the judges themselves, the Supreme Court warned on May 26, 1973, in a unanimous and unprecedented message, that Chile faced "a peremptory or imminent breakdown of legality."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> Inflation reached 1,000%. Volodia Teitelboim, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss of human lives, between half a million and one million."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref>

On September 11, 1973, Allende committed suicide during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief [[Augusto Pinochet]], who became President. Allende's policies had turned the country into a dictatorship that would kill thousands.

On September 16, 1973, the following exchange about the coup took place between Kissinger and President Nixon:

: '''Nixon''': Nothing new of any importance or is there?
: '''Kissinger''': Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.
: '''Nixon''': Isn't that something. Isn't that something.
: '''Kissinger''': I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.
: '''Nixon''': Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one though.
: '''Kissinger''': We didn't do it. I mean we helped them....created the conditions as great as possible.
: '''Nixon''': That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played.<ref>[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/chile.htm The Kissinger Telcons: Kissinger Telcons on Chile], National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, edited by Peter Kornbluh, posted May 26, 2004. This particular dialogue can be found at [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/Box%2022,%20File%203,%20Telcon,%209-16-73%2011,50%20Mr.%20Kissinger-The%20Pres%202.pdf TELCON: September 16, 1973, 11:50 a.m. Kissinger Talking to Nixon]. Retrieved November 26, 2006.</ref>

Kissinger is clearly telling the President that any direct US role in such a coup would be abhorrent but that the coup itself was preferable to a Communist take-over (with both agreeing that the US did not assist the plot).

Chilean author Joaquín Fermandois, noting the meetings with Chilean generals in which the US encouraged a potential coup, concluded that the US "wanted Allende out" and that the notion of free elections being held subsequently was not a prerequisite, but simply one possible outcome (i.e., if the Allessandri plot worked). He wrote: "What they wanted was to prevent Allende from coming to power, if necessary by the intervention of the military."<ref>www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_3236_1698/r92_fermandois_ing.pdf Translated from Spanish; ''Commentary'' accepts at face value the idea that an "interim junta" would have voluntarily stepped down and held new elections after a few days if the military had intervened; but Fermandois points out that "few believe this to be so" and expresses his own doubts about the thesis; Fermandois writes that the Americans did ''not'' "see all this as a way towards a new election"--but obviously, the attempts to influence the 1970 election and the aid to Chilean dissidents in its aftermath could not have served another purpose, and the attempt to buy off the Congress so that it would vote differently could not have imposed dictatorship (indeed, it would have saved Chilean democracy along with thousands of Chilean lives). However, the CIA's encouragement of a military coup, he is right to say, could not have served the purpose of holding elections, except in that it would remove Allende. But Fermandois acknowledges that despite the repeated encouragement, the US steadfastly refused any material support of its own for such a scheme. His point is far from profound: When the CIA sends messages like "it is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup," it is not referring merely to a constitutional coup. However, it does make a moral difference if the US is only encouraging such a coup as a last resort, and against a Communist dictator, and without offering the plotters material aid.</ref> However, considering the involvement of Cuba, Russia, Brazil and other powers at the same time, he discusses whether or not this support was "moral, immoral, or amoral," concluding that the CIA was unable to make a serious difference and that Chile illustrates the tragic irony of "the myth of American omnipotence." The conflict was an internal civil war, and one should not be surprised to see foreign powers involve themselves in it; the notion that "the CIA was behind everything," he says, is simply a myth. (In fact, the Soviet Union and the United States were the two powers that both refused, unlike Brazil and Cuba, to materially assist plans to establish a dictatorial regime in Chile.) While Fermandois condemns the violence perpetrated by the Allende regime, including the illegal armed regiment from Cuba, he argues that it is as mythical to assert that it justified Pinochet's excesses as it is to call Allende a typical democratic leftist.<ref>Ibid.</ref> One supposes that the ''realist'' response to all this would be that if they're planning a coup either way; we might as well intervene against our possible foes and encourage our potential friends, as long as we don't materially assist the gambit (especially if one has already tried and failed to remove the de facto dictator through democratic means).

Kissinger and Ford began viewing Pinochet's regime as a serious Cold War liability as early as 1975 and the US engaged in repeated diplomatic confrontations with it from 1977 on.<ref>www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_3236_1698/r92_fermandois_ing.pdf Translated from Spanish</ref> The CIA warned that "internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys;" therefore, the US had a vested interest in moderating the way they behaved.

Using its leverage over Pinochet to curtail Chilean human rights abuses, the US simultaneously pressured Chile to introduce a series of free market economic reforms, a process that escalated sharply in the eighties. This led to a period of rapid economic expansion and development without precedent in Latin America, in which growth averaged 7% annually, that came to be known as the "''miracle of Chile''" (it also included the region's greatest reductions in infant mortality<ref>Nick Eberstadt, The Poverty of Communism (Transaction Publishers, 1990), pp188,
196-206, 240-6, in which he discusses living standards in Communist Cuba versus Pinochet's Chile.</ref>). In turn, this allowed Chile to make a long-term transition to sustainable democratic rule that would likely have been otherwise inconceivable.<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref>

Another aspect of the American role in Chile was an alleged attempt on the life of Chilean general Rene Schneider in 1970, due to his support for the appointment of Allende. The Church hearings found that the CIA did in fact give weapons to a group of men who it knew had attacked him twice before, ostensibly as a test of loyalty so that the CIA would remain privy to their information, but that the weapons provided and the group thereby armed were not the ones who actually killed him. The weapons were returned unused to the CIA and then discarded in the Pacific Ocean.<ref>http://www.history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0120a.htm</ref> On June 11, 1971, Kissinger and Nixon said the following in a private conversation:

: '''Kissinger''': —when they did try to assassinate somebody, it took three attempts—
: '''Nixon''': Yeah.
: '''Kissinger''': —and he lived for three weeks afterwards.<ref>http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/07/nixon_tape_reveals_oval_office.html</ref>

There are two possible interpretations of these remarks: a) Kissinger was telling the President that a military coup could not succeed in Chile because there were no officers both willing and ''able'' to carry one out; or b) the two men were mocking the CIA's squeamishness about killing Schneider.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/07/nixon_tape_reveals_oval_office.html | work=The Washington Post | title=Nixon and Kissinger joked over Chile assassination}}</ref>

The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its investigation of the matter, concluded that since the machine guns supplied to Valenzuela had not actually been employed in the killing, and since General Viaux had been officially discouraged by the CIA a few days before the murder, there was therefore "no evidence of a plan to kill Schneider or that United States officials specifically anticipated that Schneider would be shot during the abduction." This view has been disputed by writer [[Christopher Hitchens]].<ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/feb/24/features.weekend</ref>

====Iraq 1959 and 1973-5====
The US-backed Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, an event which shocked President Eisenhower. Worse, the new regime was led by a de facto [[Communist]] dictator, General Abdel Karrim Qassem. Qassem was far bloodier than his predecessor. Further, he withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, an agreement between Iraq, [[Iran]], [[Pakistan]] and other countries in the Middle East intended to deter the Soviets from intruding in the affairs of the region. Openly admiring of the USSR, Qassem repeatedly threatened his neighbors, including Iran, where a CIA-sponsored counter-coup had saved the Shah's regime from collapse in 1953. He publicly declared that Khuzestan province in northern Iran was really a part of Iraq, and allegedly armed secessionist revolts from the Arabs who lived there. He amassed troops to invade Kuwait, a move that nearly led to war between Iraq and [[England]] (which was committed by treaty to defend Kuwait).

Qassem was overthrown in a 1963 coup orchestrated significantly by the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party gained limited power in the new government, though it lacked control of the Presidency. It struggled with the military men who had assisted the coup for absolute power. The Ba'ath was purged a few months later, and would have to work to regain political influence. A series of coups and power struggles plagued Iraq until 1968, when the Ba'ath Party gained long-term power.

In July 1968, a bloodless coup led by General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, Saddam Hussein and Salah Omar Al-Ali besieged the Iraqi presidential palace and forced Iraqi President Abdul Rahman Arif to resign. The new regime immediately freed all of the Communist and [[leftist]] political prisoners of the regime, and heightened tensions with Iran. The [[Lyndon Johnson]] administration was vociferously opposed to the new regime, viewing it as a "radical" government brought to power in a "counter-coup" that strengthened the Soviet Union.<ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/critchfield.html</ref> As a result, diplomatic relations with Iraq, cut off due to the 1967 Six Day War with Israel, remained completely severed for the next 16 years. The Iraqi government promptly seized all foreign oil fields for the purposes of "combating imperialism." The US made all arms sales to Iraq under this new regime formally illegal in a law passed by the US [[Congress]].

In 1973, Kissinger and Nixon approved a covert [[CIA]] campaign of subversion and sabotage designed to bring down the Socialist government of [[Iraq]]. Done in collaboration with the [[Shah]] of neighboring [[Iran]], it involved Soviet arms captured from Egypt and [[Syria]] in the 1973 war being dispatched to Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq. The Shah cynically used the Kurds to pressure the Ba'athist government to back down on a number of serious territorial disputes between the two nations. The US brokered a peace treaty between Iraq and Iran in 1975, and aid to the Kurds was subsequently cut off. The Kurds were then viciously slaughtered. "''Covert action should not be confused with missionary work,''" Kissinger famously declared.<ref>http://www.slate.com/id/2156400/</ref>

The CIA under Eisenhower had dealt with the rather similiar problem of Qassem's leftist regime in a rather similar manner: CIA-sponsored regime change. While Qassem was actually killed by a firing squad of the Ba'ath party that overthrew him, there had been a separate CIA plan to incapacitate him. In their request, they said the target's death would not be unacceptable to them, but was not the principal objective: "We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop."

====Angola 1975====
In the Angolan Civil War, the Communist MPLA (''People's Movement for the Liberation of [[Angola]]'') government was pitted against various right-wing insurgencies as well as an invasion from [[South Africa]]. The CIA covertly attempted to overthrow the MPLA dictatorship in 1975,<ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c35COXObeo8&feature=fvw Former CIA head in Angola discusses the operation on CNN</ref> but Cuba militarily intervened to save the regime from certain collapse. The Communist government subsequently killed up to one million people through massacre and forced starvation.<ref>Médecins Sans Frontières, “Angola: An Alarming Nutritional Situation,” August 1999</ref> The U.S., advised by Kissinger, supported the rebels FNLA (''National Front for the Liberation of Angola''), led by Holden Roberto, and UNITA (''National Union for the Total Independence of Angola''), led by [[Jonas Savimbi]], as well as the ''Mozambican National Resistance'' (RENAMO), and the invasion of Angola by South African troops. The FNLA was defeated and UNITA was forced to take its fight into the bush. Only under Reagan's presidency would U.S. support for UNITA return. (See [[Reagan Doctrine]])

Angola would be plagued for decades with constant civil war. In 1992, blatantly rigged elections were held with next to no international supervision, in which MPLA claimed victory. After 500,000 UNITA voters were disenfranchised, UNITA sent a peace delegation to the capital; all of its members, along with 20,000 civilian supporters, were brutally massacred.<ref>National Society for Human Rights, Ending the Angolan Conflict, Windhoek, Namibia, July 3, 2000</ref> Nevertheless, Savimbi remained supportive of the elections, until the MPLA systematically exterminated many tens of thousands of UNITA supporters throughout the country. Human rights observers have accused the MPLA of "genocidal atrocities," "systematic extermination," "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity."<ref>Namibia's National Human Rights Organisation, Press Releases, September 12, 2000, May 16, 2001</ref>

The Democrats in Congress cut off aid to UNITA under President Ford, just as they abandoned South Vietnam and Cambodia to murderous Communist bloodbath. "''A great nation cannot escape its responsibilities,''" Ford admonished them. Emboldened, Cuba would soon militarily intervene on behalf of the Communist dictatorship in [[Ethiopia]], which killed 1.25 million people through massacre and forced starvation.<ref>Washington Post, March 18, 1978; New York Times, December 14, 1994.</ref>

===Scandals===
Attacks on the CIA came to a head in the early 1970s, around the time of the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]] political burglary affair. A dominant feature of political life during that period was the attempts of Congress to assert oversight of U.S. Presidency, take control of war-making, and more closely supervise the executive agencies.<ref> Kathryn S. Olmsted, ''Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI.'' (1996). 255 pp. </ref> Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations. Hastening the Central Intelligence Agency's fall from grace were the burglary of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party by ex-CIA agents, and President [[Richard Nixon]]'s subsequent use of the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary.<ref> In the famous "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, [[H.R. Haldeman]], to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]] of Cuba, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".</ref>

The CIA sent hundreds of agents to Vietnam and Laos to build up anticommunist guerrilla groups. The CIA assisted (but did not actually operate) the "Phoenix" program by which South Vietnamese police forces identified and arrested Viet Cong leaders (torturing many and killing several thousand of them). In the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, it planned several assassinations, with [[Fidel Castro]] a target of "Operation Mongoose." Castro was never harmed. Indeed, as a hostile Senate committee concluded, the agency did not in fact assassinate anyone. Congress has never passed a law forbidding assassinations, but every president since Ford has issued executive orders that prohibit direct (or indirect) attempts at assassination.

===Revival under Reagan===
In 1981 President Reagan appointed his campaign manager [[Bill Casey]] to run the CIA; Casey, a dynamic veteran of O.S.S. espionage, revived the CIA into a powerful instrument of rollback policy. With nuclear deterrence tying the Kremlin's hands, Casey used the CIA to attack the weak links in the Soviet empire. In Afghanistan, it funded and trained Mujahidin guerrillas who deliberately created "another Vietnam" to weaken the Soviet invaders, and indeed finally did defeat the Soviet invasion. Anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan and Cambodia received strong support from Congress, but operations in Angola and especially Nicaragua became the focus of intense political controversy. When Congress one year prohibited the CIA from operating in Nicaragua, Reagan's White House exploited a loophole by sending its own staffer, [[Oliver North]], to funnel arms and money to the Contra guerrillas.

====Afghanistan 1978-89====
From 1950 to 1979, U.S. foreign assistance provided Afghanistan with more than $500 million in loans, grants, and surplus agricultural commodities to develop transportation facilities, increase agricultural production, expand the educational system, stimulate industry, and improve government administration. The [[Peace Corps]] was active in Afghanistan between 1962 and 1979.

After the April 1978 Saur Revolution, relations between the two nations deteriorated. In February 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph "Spike" Dubs was murdered in Kabul after Afghan security forces burst in on his kidnappers. The U.S. then reduced bilateral assistance and terminated a small military training program. All remaining assistance agreements were ended after the [[Soviet-Afghan War| Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]].

President [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Soviet invasion, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents.<ref>http://www.slate.com/id/2166661</ref> Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand -- it just baffles me -- why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?"<ref>http://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0310/031029.html</ref> The Soviets brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.

One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants.<ref>Time Magazine, 13 May 2003, "The Oily Americans," http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-2,00.html</ref> About $3 billion dollars were sent to equip them through the [[Pakistan]]i secret service, the ISI, in a program called ''Operation Cyclone''.

The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]] and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of SALT II ratification to other Soviet activities, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.

According to Brzezinski, a National Security Council working group on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the US provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region.<ref>{{cite web|author=“” |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjAsQJh7OM&feature=channel |title=Brzezinski and the Afghan War Pt2 |publisher=YouTube |date= |accessdate=2010-07-10}}</ref> Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1581.jpg</ref><ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1579.jpg</ref> Vance's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading."<ref>''The Nation'', November 12, 2001</ref> The American aid provided in 1979 was purely humanitarian in nature.

The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans.<ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Afghanistan</ref> Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict," thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight."<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1110&Itemid=143</ref>

With US and other funding, the ISI armed and trained over 100,000 insurgents. On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced pursuant to the negotiations that led to the Geneva Accords of 1988,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/ungomap/background.html |title=United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Background |publisher=United Nations |date= |accessdate=2008-11-21}}</ref> with the last Soviets leaving on February 15, 1989.

The operation was a quintessential case of American ingenuity, in which the US offered overwhelming aid to a people resisting foreign subjugation, often through inventive and daring means. The invasion prompted an outpouring of sympathy in the United States, with films such as ''Rambo III,'' ''The Living Daylights,'' and ''The Beast'' romanticizing the rebels. President [[Reagan]] stated: "''To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom.''"

One of the Big Lies about this period is that the US supported the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, or al Qaeda. This silly myth has been extensivively debunked. Paul Bogdanor writes in ''The Top 200 [[Chomsky]] Lies'':
<blockquote>
This is "not true" since CIA money "went exclusively to the Afghan mujahideen
groups, not the Arab volunteers" (Jason Burke). Bin Laden was "outside of CIA eyesight" and
there is "no record of any direct contact" (Steve Coll). There is "no evidence" of funding,
"nor is there any evidence of CIA personnel meeting with bin Laden or anyone in his circle"
(Peter Bergen). There is "no support" in any "reliable source" for "the claim that the CIA
funded bin Laden or any of the other Arab volunteers who came to support the mujahideen"
(Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin).<ref>http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf</ref>
</blockquote>

====Cambodia 1979-95====
The Reagan Administration sought to apply the [[Reagan Doctrine]] of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad to Cambodia, which was under Vietnamese occupation following the [[Cambodian genocide]] carried out by the Communist [[Khmer Rouge]]. The Vietnamese had installed a Communist dictatorship led by a Khmer Rouge dissident. According to R.J. Rummel; the Vietnamese invasion, occupation, puppet regime, ongoing guerilla warfare, and ensuing famine killed over one million Cambodians in addition to the roughly 2.2 million who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP4.HTM</ref> Ironically; the largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore; Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, known as the KPNLF and then run by Son Sann; in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation. Eventually, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell.<ref>[http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1988/february/Sa13957.htm "Cambodia at a Crossroads," by Michael Johns, ''The World and I'' magazine, February 1988.]</ref> Later, US troops, in concert with UN forces, invaded Cambodia and held free elections.<ref name="UN_SRES7451992">{{UN document |docid=S-RES-745(1992) |type=Resolution |body=Security Council |year=1992 |resolution_number=745 |accessdate=2008-04-09|date=28 February 1992}}</ref>

====El Salvador 1980-92====
In the Salvadoran Civil War between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing militias; the US supported the Salvadoran military government.<ref name="DiPiazza">{{Cite book|title=El Salvador in Pictures|author=Francesca Davis DiPiazza|page=32}}</ref><ref name="supply">(No author.)[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922440,00.html "Supply Line for a Junta,"] ''[[TIME Magazine]]'' March 16, 1981. Retrieved 2008-07-16.</ref> America also supported the centrist Christian Democrats, who were targets of death squads. The security forces were split between reformists and right-wing extremists, who used death squads to stop political and economic change. The Carter Administration repeatedly intervened to prevent right-wing coups. The Reagan Administration repeatedly threatened aid suspensions to halt right-wing atrocities. As a result, the death squads made plans to kill the American Ambassador.<ref>Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1982 (Christian Democrats killed); Washington Post, February 24, July 13, 1980 (Carter); New York Times, November 20, 26, December 12, 1983 (Reagan); New York Times, June 24, 1984, Washington Post, June 27, 1984 (Ambassador)</ref> After years of bloody fighting; the rebels were forced, in part due to US involvement, to concede defeat. The US then threatened to cut off aid to the Salvadoran regime unless it made democratic reforms, which might have let the rebels regroup. The regime accepted. As a result; a new Constitution was promulgated, the Armed Forces regulated, a ''civilian'' police force established, the FMLN metamorphosed from a guerrilla army to a political party that competed in free and fair elections, and an amnesty law was legislated in 1993.<ref>[http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37088 Amnesty Law Biggest Obstacle to Human Rights, Say Activists] by Raúl Gutiérrez, [[Inter Press Service News Agency]], May 19, 2007</ref> El Salvador is today a prosperous and democratic nation. In 2002, a BBC article about President [[George W. Bush]]'s visit to El Salvador reported that ''U.S. officials say that President George H.W. Bush's policies set the stage for peace, turning El Salvador into a democratic success story.''<ref name="brutal">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1891145.stm "US role in Salvador's brutal war,"] BBC, March 24, 2002. Retrieved 2008-07-16.</ref>

====Nicaragua 1981-90====
After seizing power in Nicaragua, the Sandinista regime instituted dictatorial rule as early as December 1979, and formally announced a State of Emergency in 1982.
Under the new "Law for the Maintenance of Order and Public Security" the "Tribunales Populares Anti-Somozistas" allowed for the indefinite holding of suspected counter-revolutionaries without trial. The State of Emergency, however, most notably affected rights and guarantees contained in the "Statute on Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans. Many civil liberties were curtailed or canceled such as the freedom to organize demonstrations, the inviolability of the home, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and, the freedom to strike. <ref>West, W. Gordon. "The Sandista Record on Human Rights in Nicaragua (1979-1990)" http://www.reds.msh-paris.fr/publications/revue/pdf/ds22/ds022-03.pdf (PDF). Réseau Européen Droit et Société. Retrieved 2009-03-30.</ref>
All independent news program broadcasts were suspended. In total, twenty-four programs were cancelled. In addition, Sandinista censor Nelba Cecilia Blandón issued a decree ordering all radio stations to hook up every six hours to government radio station, La Voz de La Defensa de La Patria.<ref>Chomorro Cardenal, Jaime (1988). La Prensa, The Republic of Paper. University Freedom House. p. 20.</ref>
The rights affected also included certain procedural guarantees in the case of detention including habeas corpus.<ref>West, W. Gordon, ibid.</ref> The State of Emergency was not lifted during the 1984 elections. There were many instances where rallies of opposition parties were physically broken up by Sandinsta youth or pro-Sandinista mobs. Opponents to the State of Emergency argued its intent was to crush resistance to the FSLN. James Wheelock justified the actions of the Directorate by saying "... We are annulling the license of the false prophets and the oligarchs to attack the revolution.” <ref>"Behind the State of Emergency". Envío. November 1985. http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/3413. Retrieved 2008-02-16.</ref>

Jamie Glazov describes human rights under this goverment as follows: "All Nicaraguans had to take part in the Marxist experiment. Thus, in perfect Khmer Rouge style, the Sandinistas inflicted a ruthless forcible relocation of tens of thousands of Indians from their land. Like Stalin, they used state-created famine as a weapon against these "enemies of the people." The Sandinista army committed myriad atrocities against the Indian population, killing and imprisoning approximately 15,000 innocent people. The crimes included not only mass murders of innocent natives themselves, but a calculated liquidation of their entire leadership – as the Soviet army had perpetrated against the Poles in Katyn in 1943. According to the Nicaraguan Commission of Jurists, the Sandinistas carried out over 8,000 political executions within three years of the revolution. The number of "anti-revolutionary" Nicaraguans who had "disappeared" in Sanadinista hands or had died "trying to escape" were numbered in the thousands. By 1983, the number of political prisoners in the Sandinistas' ruthless tyranny were estimated at 20,000. Torture was institutionalized. Numerous human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, have documented the atrocious record of Sandinista human rights abuses, which stood as the worst in Latin America. Political prisoners in Sandinista prisons, such as in Las Tejas, were consistently beaten, deprived of sleep and tortured with electric shocks. They were routinely denied food and water and kept in dark cubicles that had a surface of less than one square meter, known as chiquitas (little ones). These cubicles were too small to sit up in, were completely dark and had no sanitation and almost no ventilation.”<ref>http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=25257</ref>

The Sandinistas sent Soviet helicopter gunships and elite army units to attack the Indians; carried out mass arrests, jailings and torture; burned down 65 Indian communities; inflicted ethnic cleansing on 70,000 Indians; and tried to starve the Indians by cutting off food supplies. The Sandinistas boasted that they were “ready to eliminate the last Miskito Indian to take Sandinism to the Atlantic Coast.” <ref>Roger Miranda and William Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua (Transaction Publishers, 1993), pp253-4.</ref>

For decades, Nicaragua had experienced some of the fastest economic growth in the hemisphere. Within a few years of Sandinista rule, wages had been fixed below poverty level and there was mass unemployment. There were shortages of nearly all basic goods, with inflation at 30,000%. Government studies found that three-quarters of schoolchildren suffered from malnutrition, while living standards were lower than Haiti. The World Bank found that Nicaragua was on the economic level of Somalia.

From 1981-90, the CIA aids the Contra revolution, plants harbor mines and sinks civilian ships to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. After the Boland Amendment was enacted, it became illegal under U.S. law to fund the Contras; National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North and others continued an illegal operation to fund the Contras, leading to the Iran-Contra affair. The U.S argued that:<ref>"Nicaragua's role in revolutionary internationalism". U.S. Department of State Bulletin. 1986.</ref>

<blockquote>
The United States initially provided substantial economic assistance to the Sandinista-dominated regime. We were largely instrumental in the OAS action delegitimizing the Somoza regime and laying the groundwork for installation for the new junta. Later, when the Sandinista role in the Salvadoran conflict became clear, we sought through a combination of private diplomatic contacts and suspension of assistance to convince Nicaragua to halt its subversion. Later still, economic measures and further diplomatic efforts were employed to try to effect changes in Sandinista behavior.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Nicaragua's neighbors have asked for assistance against Nicaraguan aggression, and the United States has responded. Those countries have repeatedly and publicly made clear that they consider themselves to be the victims of aggression from Nicaragua, and that they desire United States assistance in meeting both subversive attacks and the conventional threat posed by the relatively immense Nicaraguan Armed Forces.
</blockquote>

Due to US pressure, the Sandinistas held a blatantly rigged<ref>Martin Kriele, “Power and Human Rights in Nicaragua,” German Comments, April 1986, pp56-7, 63-7, a chapter excerpted from his Nicaragua: Das blutende Herz Amerikas (Piper, 1986). See also Robert S. Leiken, “The Nicaraguan Tangle,” New York Review of Books, December 5, 1985 and “The Nicaraguan Tangle: Another Exchange,” New York Review of Books, June 26, 1986; Alfred G. Cuzan, Letter, Commentary, December 1985 and “The Latin American Studies Association vs. the United States,” Academic Questions, Summer 1994.</ref> election in 1984. On October 5, 1985 the Sandinistas broadened the 1982 State of Emergency and suspended many more civil rights. A new regulation also forced any organization outside of the government to first submit any statement it wanted to make public to the censorship bureau for prior censorship.<ref>Chamorro Cardenal, Jaime (1988). La Prensa, A Republic of Paper, Freedom House, p. 23.</ref>

As the Contras continued to advance due to US aid, the Sandinistas struggled to maintain power. They were overthrown in 1990, when they ended the SOE and held an election that all the main opposition parties were allowed to compete in. According to P.J. O'Rourke, the Sandinistas were forced to agree to the elections by the US and the Contras, and lost them despite "the unfair advantages of using state resources for party ends, the Sandinista control of the transit system that prevented UNO supporters from attending rallies, the Sandinista domination of the army that forced soldiers to vote for Ortega and the Sandinista bureaucracy keeping $3.3 million of U.S. campaign aid from getting to UNO while Daniel Ortega spent millions donated by overseas people and millions and millions more from the Nicaraguan treasury.”<ref>“The Return of the Death of Communism: Nicaragua, February 1990," a chapter in Give War a Chance... by P. J. O'Rourke. Grove Press; reprint edition (November 2003, ISBN 0-8021-4031-9).</ref>

The Contras and the United States were accused of war crimes{{fact}} for fighting against the brutal dictatorship. Nicaraguan voters in the 1990 elections, however, thought otherwise, thanking the US for liberating them from Communist slavery: "The longer they were in power, the worse things became. It was all lies, what they promised us" (unemployed person); "I thought it was going to be just like 1984, when the vote was not secret and there was not all these observers around" (market vendor); "Don’t you believe those lies [about fraud], I voted my conscience and my principles, and so did everyone else I know" (young mother); "the Sandinistas have mocked and abused the people, and now we have given our vote to [the opposition] UNO" (ex-Sandinista officer).<ref>New York Times, March 5, 1990.</ref>

====Angola 1980s====
Dr. Peter Hammond, a Christian missionary who lived in Angola at the time, recalled:
<blockquote>
There were over 50,000 Cuban troops in the country. The Communists had attacked and destroyed many churches. MiG-23’s and MI-23 Hind helicopter gun ships were terrorising villagers in Angola. I documented numerous atrocities, including the strafing of villages, schools and churches. In 1986, I remember hearing Ronald Reagan’s speech – carried on the BBC Africa service – by short wave radio: “We are going to send stinger missiles to the UNITA Freedom Fighters in Angola!” Those who were listening to the SW radio with me looked at one another in stunned amazement. After a long silence as we wondered if our ears had actually heard what we thought we heard, one of us said: “That would be nice!” We scarcely dared believe that it would happen. But it did. Not long afterwards the stinger missiles began to arrive in UNITA controlled Free Angola. Soviet aircraft were shot down. The bombing and strafing of villagers, schools and churches came to an end. Without any doubt, Ronald Reagan’s policies saved many tens of thousands of lives in Angola."<ref>http://www.frontline.org.za/Letters%20to%20Editor/reagan_saved_lives_Angola.htm</ref>
</blockquote>

===9-11===
A major criticism is failure to forestall the [[9-11 Attack]] in 2001 because of three organizational deficiencies: the inability of multiple American intelligence agencies to work together, organizational incentives to take the wrong analytical actions, and resistance to new technologies and ideas.<ref>Amy B. Zegart, "CNN with Secrets": 9/11, the CIA, and the Organizational Roots of Failure." ''International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence'' 2007 20(1): 18-49. Issn: 0885-0607 </ref> The ''9/11 Commission Report'' identifies failures in the IC as a whole. One problem, for example, was the FBI failing to "connect the dots" by sharing information among its decentralized field offices. The report, however, criticizes both CIA analysis, and impeding their investigation. The CIA Inspector General in 2007 concluded that former DCI [[George Tenet]] failed to adequately prepare the agency to deal with the danger posed by [[Al Qaeda]] prior to the [[9-11 Attack]].

==Image and Reputation==
Cloak and dagger stories became part of the popular culture of the Cold War in both East and West, with innumerable novels and movies that showed how polarized and dangerous the world was. Soviet audiences thrilled at spy stories showing how their KGB agents protected the motherland by foiling dirty work by America's nefarious CIA, Britain's devious MI 6, and Israel's devilish Mossad. After 1963, Hollywood increasingly depicted the CIA as clowns (as in the comedy TV series "Get Smart") or villains (as in Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1992). In the genre of spy thrillers, the films 'Three Days of the Condor' (1975) and 'Spy Game' (2001) have been among the top box office attractions in American cinema. They both star Robert Redford and both portray the CIA as a wicked organization.<ref>Loch K. Johnson, "Spies In The American Movies: Hollywood's Take On Lese Majeste." ''Intelligence & National Security'' 2008 23(1): 5-24 </ref> The plotlines of Robert Ludlum's novel 'The Bourne Identity' (1980) and the 2002 film based on the novel mix truth and fiction. Some topics are distorted while others stick very closely to the truth. Congressional oversight, ethical dilemmas tied to assassination, and real-life antagonists play significant roles in both the novel and the film. In the book the antagonists are terrorists, particularly Carlos the Jackal, but in the movie version the 'bad people' are CIA officials. Although the antagonist changes between the novel and the film, they both are realistic aspects that draw the audience in.<ref>Shannon Mollie Eppa, "The Bourne Actuality: A Look at Reality's Role in the Bourne Identity Novel and Film" ''Intelligence & National Security'' 2008 23(1): 103-111 </ref>

Leftists around the globe routinely blamed the mysterious CIA for events that displeased them, putting the image of the USA as a champion of freedom and democracy in disrepute. The CIA lost influence after 1963. President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] disliked its pessimistic forecasts about Vietnam; President [[Richard M. Nixon]] and his national security advisor [[Henry Kissinger]] did not seek its advice. After Watergate (1974) it came under heavy attack for promoting right-wing governments, hampering the success of genuinely democratic protest movements, illegally monitoring dissent inside the USA, and frustrating democracy at home by its secrecy and lack of accountability. Was it needed in an age of detente? With 15,000 employees in 1973, it had a budget of about $740 million, of which $440 went to clandestine operations. Congressional committees began to monitor the agency closely. Employment and budgets were cut sharply (the totals are secret), and most covert operations were abandoned. Morale plummeted as the agency retreated to a mission of collecting and interpreting information about the Soviets.

==See Also==
[[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] - [[Jesse Helms]]/CIA verification of survivor reports

==External Links==
* [https://www.cia.gov/ CIA website]
* [https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/history-of-the-cia/index.html CIA history], CIA official website
** [https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/6-12th-grade/operation-history/history-of-the-cia.html CIA history], CIA website aimed at students

==Bibliography==
===Surveys===
* Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri and Andrew, Christopher, eds. ''Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA.'' (1997). 246 pp.
* Powers, Thomas. ''Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda'' (2004) [http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Wars-American-Al-Qaeda-Collections/dp/1590170989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210939963&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Ranelagh, John. ''The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. From Wild Bill Donovan to William Casey.'' (1986). 847 pp
* Rositzke, Harry. ''The CIA's Secret Operations: Espionage, Counterespionage, and Covert Action'' (1988) 290 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/82295474?title=The%20CIA's%20Secret%20Operations%3a%20Espionage%2c%20Counterespionage%2c%20and%20Covert%20Action online edition]
* Trahair, Richard C. S. ''Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations'' (2004) [http://www.questia.com/SM.qst?act=adv&contributors=Richard%20C.%20S.%20Trahair&dcontributors=Richard%20C.%20S.%20Trahair online edition]
* Weiner, Tim. ''Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA'' (2008) [http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254153112&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]

===Special topics===
* Arbel, David, and Ran Edelist. ''Western Intelligence and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1980-1990: Ten Years That Did Not Shake the World'' (2003) [http://www.questia.com/read/108511611?title=Western%20Intelligence%20and%20the%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union%2c%201980-1990%3a%20%20Ten%20Years%20That%20Did%20Not%20Shake%20the%20World online edition]
* Barrett, David M. ''The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy.'' (2005). 542 pp.
* Coll, Steve. ''Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.'' (2004) 695 pp. [http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210940048&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search]
* Conboy, Kenneth and Morrison, James. ''The CIA's Secret War in Tibet.'' (2002). 301 pp. Covers the entire history of CIA support for armed Tibetan opposition to Chinese rule: from the seizure of Lhasa in August 1951 and subsequent flight of the Dalai Lama, to the rout of the last Tibetan guerrilla redoubt by the Royal Nepalese Army in 1974. It is a record of almost unmitigated failure. [http://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Secret-War-Tibet/dp/0700611592/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210940048&sr=1-10 excerpt and text search]
* Darling, Arthur B. ''The Central Intelligence Agency: An Instrument of Government, to 1950'' (1990) [http://www.questia.com/read/23121271?title=The%20Central%20Intelligence%20Agency%3a%20An%20Instrument%20of%20Government%2c%20to%201950 online edition]
* Firth, Noel E. and Noren, James H. ''Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990.'' (1998). 291 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/8097712?title=Soviet%20Defense%20Spending%3a%20A%20History%20of%20CIA%20Estimates%2c%201950-1990 online edition]
* Grant, Zalin. ''Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam.'' (1991). 395 pp.
* Haines, Gerald K. "An Emerging New Field of Study: U.S. Intelligence." ''Diplomatic History,'' June 2004, Vol. 28 Issue 3, pp 441-449, in [[EBSCO]]
* Higgins, Trumbull. ''The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs.'' (1987). 224 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/105410511?title=The%20Perfect%20Failure%3a%20%20Kennedy%2c%20Eisenhower%2c%20and%20the%20CIA%20at%20the%20Bay%20of%20Pigs online edition]
* Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. ''The CIA and American Democracy.'' (1989). 338 pp
* Johnston, Rob. ''Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study.'' (2005) https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/analytic-culture-in-the-u-s-intelligence-community/full_title_page.htm
* Kent, Sherman. ''Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy.'' (1947) (2000 reprint)). Seminal work on CIA intelligence analysis, especially the estimative process.
* Kessler, Ronald. ''The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror,'' (2003), 496 pp [http://www.amazon.com/CIA-War-Inside-Campaign-Against/dp/0312319320/ref=sid_dp_dp excerpt and text search]
* Moyar, Mark. ''Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong.'' (1997). 416 pp
* Olmsted, Kathryn S. ''Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI.'' (1996). 255 pp. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5001364299 online edition]
* Powers, Thomas. ''The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA.'' (1979). 393 pp.
* Prados, John. ''Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby.'' (2003). 380 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/103547153?title=Lost%20Crusader%3a%20The%20Secret%20Wars%20of%20CIA%20Director%20William%20Colby online edition]
* Prados, John. ''Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA.'' (2006). 696 pp
* Richelson, Jeffrey T. ''The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.'' (2001). 386 pp.
* Richelson, Jeffrey T. ''The U.S. Intelligence Community'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/read/59323941?title=The%20U.S.%20Intelligence%20Community online edition]
* Russell, Richard L. ''Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong and What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right.'' (2007). 232 pp.
* Saunders, Francis Stonor. ''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.'' (2000). 509 pp.
* Scott-Smith, Giles. ''The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-War American Hegemony.'' (2002). 233 pp.
* Taubman, Philip. ''Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage.'' (2003). 441 pp
* Thomas, Evan. ''The Very Best Men. Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA.'' (1995). 427 pp.
* Troy, Thomas F. ''Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson, and the Origin of CIA.'' (1996). 259 pp.
* Wise, David. ''Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That Shattered the CIA''. (1992). Source on James Jesus Angleton's searches inside the CIA, and on the Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy.
* Woodward, Bob. ''Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987'' (2005)
* Zegart, Amy B. ''Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC.'' (1999). 317 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/35536329?title=Flawed%20by%20Design%3a%20The%20Evolution%20of%20the%20CIA%2c%20JCS%2c%20and%20NSC online edition]

===Primary sources and memoirs===
* Central Intelligence Agency. ''A Compendium of Analytic Tradecraft Notes'' (1997) http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cia/tradecraft_notes/contents.htm. The basic training guide for CIA analysts.
* Cullather, Nick. ''Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.'' (1999). 142 pp. [http://www.questia.com/read/79224452?title=Secret%20History%3a%20The%20CIA's%20Classified%20Account%20of%20Its%20Operations%20in%20Guatemala%2c%201952-1954 online edition]
* Gates, Robert. ''From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War,'' (1997).
* McAuliffe, Mary S., ed. ''CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962.'' (1992). 376 pp.
* Murphy, David E.; Kondrashev, Sergei A.; and Bailey, George. ''Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War.'' (1997). 530 pp. brings together personal recollections from CIA and KGB officers, and previously unpublished documents.
* Tenet, George. ''At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA'' (2007), DCI 1997 to 2004
* Turner, Stansfield. ''Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition.'' (1985). 304 pp.
* Westerfield, H. Bradford, ed. ''Inside CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal, 1955-1992.'' (1995). 489 pp.

====references====
<references/>
[[Category:Espionage]]
[[Category:Intelligence Agencies]]
[[Category:United States Intelligence Agencies]]

Overrated Sports Stars

2012-11-17T16:34:15Z

MorganP: These sports stars are not overrated.

Overrated Sports Stars

2012-07-04T16:45:38Z

MorganP: Removed bad-faith edits

The [[lamestream media]] like to promote athletes based not on skill, but for other reasons. Here's a growing list of the most overrated sports stars (notice how none are on the list of [[Essay:Greatest Conservative Sports Stars|Greatest Conservative Sports Stars]]):

#[[Andre Agassi]] — his rival [[Pete Sampras]] was far better, but Sampras is [[conservative]]. Agassi is a big donor to [[Democrat]] politicians.
#[[David Beckham]] — far from the best, but promoted like he's [[Pele]]. Not even good enough to play on [[Britain]]'s weak Olympic team, despite its having three spots for older players. Is Beckham socially [[liberal]] like some of the others on this list?
#[[Kobe Bryant]] — not as valuable to the game as [[Jeremy Lin]]; hasn't won a title without super-coaching by Phil Jackson, who observes that Kobe is not on the high level of [[Michael Jordan]]; Kobe makes only 46% of his shots, and scores lots of points because he hogs the ball.
#[[LeBron James]] — 2012's NBA Finals MVP is far from the best player in the [[NBA]], he is way overrated by the liberal ESPN compared to Christian Kevin Durant
#[[Magic Johnson]] — lucky enough to play on [[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar]]'s Lakers to win some titles, but was crushed by [[Michael Jordan]] and the Bulls; no problem, Magic was a critic of President [[George H.W. Bush]], which thrilled liberals.
#*People look at him, and say, 'Hey, it's OK to get HIV because I'm living with it.' That is the wrong message. [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500202_162-57319698/20-years-since-magic-johnsons-hiv-stunner/]
#[[Peyton Manning]] — a [[quarterback]] who won only one [[NFL]] championship, despite being voted by the media and others to be NFL MVP 4 times, AFC Player of the Year 6 times, and Pro Bowler 11 times. The [[liberal media]] treated him like the Second Coming of [[Christ]] in order to oust [[conservative]] [[Tim Tebow]] from his leadership position in the [[swing state]] of [[Colorado]] prior to the [[Presidential Election 2012]].
#[[Steve Nash]] — an [http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2009/3/25/809516/steve-nash-on-media-bias-t outspoken liberal who supported Obama], Nash was chosen ''twice'' by the [[lamestream media]] as the [[NBA]] MVP despite never leading his team to even an NBA Finals
#[[Mark Sanchez]] — the [[New York Jets]] [[quarterback]] is being touted as the team's best QB over [[conservative]] [[Christian]] [[Tim Tebow]] despite falling apart at the end of the 2011–12 season. Now that Tebow's on-board, [[liberals]] are championing the former [[USC]] star as the superior player despite his recently poor play.
#[[Tiger Woods]] — hasn't won a major golf tournament in four years, and yet he's still the only one liberals want to talk about while reporting on tournaments.
#[[Michael Schumacher]] — has failed to perform after his return to [[Formula One]] racing and has been consistently outperformed by his teammate. His first podium finish since 2006 came only after many drivers in front of him retired from the race. Schumacher still receives generous media attention.
#[[Sol Campbell]] — Is known to be sympathetic towards [[homosexual]] rights campaigners. During his England career they failed to win a single major tournament. While at Arsenal he failed to win the champions League, only ever making the final once and only won the Premier League a measly two times. Despite this, he has had a career which has seen him play for some of the best clubs.

(please revise or add to list)

[[Category:sports]]