MIAMI BEACH,U.S.A. – In his latest book, Jesus on Homosexuality (http://www.jesusonhomosexuality.com), author and researcher Michael Wood claims that for 1,900 years, Christian scholars missed an essential fact about Jesus’ teachings. He states that Jesus repeatedly taught about a well-established group of commandments called Justices, a group of commandments that established what was required for eternal life and what would matter on Judgment Day but, tellingly, did not include the prohibition on homosexuality.

If Wood is correct, Jesus’ entire salvation message was based upon this well-defined group of commands that didn’t include the prohibition on homosexuality. In other words, Jesus specifically taught that homosexuality was irrelevant to salvation and judgment.

“Christianity originally began as a sect within Judaism, at a time when their law was divided into Justices and Jobs,” explained Wood. “The second-century writings of Justin Martyr show that when the Gentiles dominated the Faith in the second century, they brought with them the false assumption that the law was divided into morality and ritual. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

The Justices covered philanthropy and ethics while the Jobs addressed ritual observances and sexual taboos. The division was based on the precept, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” For example, the command not to rape was a Justice and the prohibition on homosexuality was a Job.

Wood pointed out that Jesus, Paul and James all used the precept, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Now we know that they used this precept to reference a well-established group of commandments — the Justices,” he said. “Each, in his own particular way, used the precept to explain that the Justices alone are the Christian law.”

Wood previously uncovered and wrote about new findings regarding the Bible’s book of Romans and the Dead Sea Scrolls. “Jesus on Homosexuality” (Tubi Publishing, LLC, April 2012) is the result of 10 years of research, and Wood includes numerous footnotes citing historical writings and other scholarly material to document the 1,900-year-old error.

One of the Biblical examples that Wood uses to support his claim that Jesus repeatedly presented the Justices as the entirety of the Law is Jesus’ response to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-19. “In Jesus’ response he cited only ethical commandments and then quoted, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’– the precept designating the Justices,” Wood said.

“In other words, Jesus stated that only the Justices matter. Every Job — every religious requirement — was excluded. That deliberate exclusion was a clear statement of Jesus’ position on ritual (such as the prohibition on eating shellfish and wearing garments made of two cloths) and sexual taboos (such as the prohibition on homosexuality and having sex with your wife during her menstrual cycle). The discovery of the Justices and Jobs finally reveals Jesus’ original message.”

The 56-page ebook can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.JesusOnHomosexuality.com. Wood encourages readers to copy and distribute the book, provided it is copied in full without any editing or modification. “I wrote the book to kick-start a much-needed conversation. It’s time for the conversation to begin,” Wood said.

About the Author

Michael Wood designed REDOC-II – one of the only unbreakable codes in existence today. Wood then turned his cryptanalytic attention to finding a way to solving the problem of managing the physical infrastructure of the Internet. He designed an artificial intelligent system which instructed a computer how to decode the information flowing through its network wires. The computer then used artificial intelligence to assemble the deciphered information into a real-time map of the worldwide physical infrastructure.

Wood also applied his cryptanalytic skills to monitor the real-time level of human parasympathetic activity by decoding subtle changes in heart rate measurements.

Wood then turned his cryptanalytic skills to finding patterns in first-century Jewish language, culture, and law. After ten years of dedicated effort, this eventually led to the discovery of the Justices and Jobs in the writings of the Apostle Paul.

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s leading Muslim civil liberties organization, has condemned “inaccurate and offensive” remarks by GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who said that the concept of equality “doesn’t come from Islam” or “Eastern religions.” He claimed equality comes from “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:

“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality.

“God states in the Quran: ‘Say ye: ‘We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’ (The Holy Quran, 2:136)

“The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stress racial and gender equality. The Prophet said: ‘All people are equal as the teeth of a comb.’

“As the Prophet said in his last sermon: ‘All humankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Also, a white person has no superiority over a black person, nor does someone who is black have any superiority over someone who is white — except by piety and good action.’

“The Prophet once told a companion: ‘You are not better than people (of other races) unless you excel them in piety.’ (Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1361)

“Islam’s holy text also promotes gender equality when it states: ‘So their Lord answers their prayers, saying: ‘I will never let the (good) work of any of you, whether male or female, be wasted. You are members one of another.’ (The Holy Quran, 3:195) The Quran also states: ‘The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another.’ (Quran 9:71)

“The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Whoever has a daughter and does not bury her alive (a pre-Islamic practice forbidden by Islam), does not insult her, and does not favor his son over her, God will enter him into Paradise.’

“We suggest that Mr. Santorum educate himself about Islam and the American Muslim community by reading the Quran that we will send to his campaign headquarters next week.”

[NOTE: CAIR has an initiative designed to send free copies of the Quran to the nation's opinion leaders and policy-makers. The Qurans are sponsored and distributed through CAIR's ongoing "Explore the Quran" campaign.

Hooper noted that CAIR recently called on Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and other GOP representatives to reaffirm their support of an American republic that treats citizens of all faiths as equals after Gingrich told a South Carolina town hall that he would only support a Muslim for the presidency if that person would "commit in public to give up Sharia [Islamic principles].”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

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As talks in Amman, Jordan continue, Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East urges Israel and the Palestinian Authority to summon historic political courage and take the steps that are necessary to return to direct peace talks and the successful negotiation of a final status peace agreement.  On the Israeli side, this would include freezing settlement construction on the West Bank.

“The status quo is not neutral,” according to Rev. Dr. Peter A. Pettit, of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA and Fair Witness Executive Committee member.  “It eats away at the dignity and hope that must ground a peace agreement.  Therefore, we strongly urge Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to refrain from continued settlement building.

We also strongly urge Palestinian President Abbas to engage in direct peace talks without pre-conditions, as the Quartet has proposed, and Israel has agreed.  That is the only way to reach a final status agreement and peace.”

“Both Palestinians and Israelis continue to suffer while their respective leadership appears locked in a ‘lose-lose’ pattern of obstinacy,” lamented Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College and Fair Witness Executive Committee member.   Rev. Chilton added that “continued Israeli settlement building creates facts on the ground while peace talks are delayed.

However, the Palestinian refusal to engage in direct negotiations without a settlement freeze is equally unhelpful.  The way to stop settlement building is to create a mutually agreed upon border.  And that cannot happen until the parties sit down and negotiate.”

“As the New Year begins, we bring the message of peace and goodwill to all people,” says Rev. Pettit.  “We pray especially that peace will finally come to the people of Palestine and Israel.”

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2011 March 2nd  in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan the Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti died.

He was driving through a residential district in broad daylight going to a work meeting after leaving his mother’s home, when suddenly his vehicle was surrounded by several armed men and sprayed with bullets. Witnesses said that before to open fire they asked the minister’s driver to get out of the car sparing his life.

“The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened”, said Wajid Durrani, Islamabad police chief. At the arrival to the capital’s Shifa Hospital his corpse was already lifeless.

The Minister Bhatti was traveling with no security escort when the attack happened .It is not clear yet the reason why he was not accompanied by his guards and did not have the standard ministers’ security vehicle.

In recent weeks he expressed his concern about security after he received death threats from some Islamist militants for his efforts to reform the blasphemy law. He explicitly requested extra security when some shots were fired at his residence in Islamabad by some unknown aggressors and the capital’s police chief insisted that proper security had been provided to him, but inexplicably that fateful day no escort was accompanying him.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab,a branch of the Taliban in the most populous province of Pakistan, claimed the responsibility of the attack. “This man was a known blasphemer of the Prophet [Muhammad]. We will continue to target all those who speak against the law which punishes those who insult the prophet. Their fate will be the same”, said Ahsanullah Ahsan, the group’s deputy spokesman. At the scene of the killing were found pamphlets by the Tehrik-i-Taliban and Al-Qaeda warning anyone opposing the blasphemy laws of the same fate of Shahbaz Bhatti.

The blasphemy laws in Pakistan are the strictest among all the Muslim-majority countries. The religious feelings’ outrage is forbidden, the defilement of the Quran is punished with life imprisonment, and the death penalty is prescribed for the “use of derogatory remarks in respect of the Holy Prophet”.

Bhatti had always criticized the Pakistan’s blasphemy law and had struggled for the support and the saving of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman mother of four children, sentenced to hang in Punjab in November 2010. She was charged with blasphemy for having insulted the Prophet Muhammad during a row with Muslim women villagers about sharing water. She denied the charges and although the minister Bhatti supported her nothing could be done to save her.

Also the governor of the province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, had strongly opposed the blasphemy law and had fought for the presidential pardon for Bibi. On January he was shot and killed in Islamabad by one of his bodyguards,who has been acclaimed as a hero by many people in the country. For both Tasser and Bhatti their involvement in the recommendation to amendments to the blasphemy law has been the cause of their death.

The event was condemned by the government and by the Christians,that in Pakistan are the 1,5% of the Pakistan’s population.

“We have been orphaned today!Now who will fight for our rights?”, told Rehman Masih, a Christian resident of Islamabad.

Shahbaz Bhatti in all his political career had always supported the religious minorities and he dedicated his life to struggle for human equality, social justice, religious freedom, and to uplift and empower the religious minorities’ communities.

With his death Pakistan lost a fundamental figure that represented a gleam of hope for the minorities for equality and freedom in a country where the civilization and the essential human rights are just an utopia.

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