IWA For Sunday 030908

Hey folks,

It’s Sunday, TIME for the IWA This week, I just could not decide what to do with this one. You can’t make this up, but this guy really is just a complete Idiot. He is using the fact that he is an Israeli researcher, a Jew, as some sort of credibility. Problem is, anyone that so much went to Sunday school as a kid, can see that this guy is either completely clueless, or as I suspect, simply an atheist attempting to further an agenda. Or it could just be a nobody attempting to be controversial to make a name for himself. He has. He is the Idiot of the Week.

Get this. According to the AFP - Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

Bunk. Can he prove it? No.

“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

{Sigh} There you go folks. RIGHT THERE “I don't believe.” He just said that he doesn’t even believe that it was a legend. A story. Nah, they were just all drugies.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

What does his study actually say? I would love to read it. The whole thing. Where is his research? How did he research what? Should be an interesting read.

“The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon,” he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to “see music.”

Where? I checked the Hebrew, King James Version, International, Living, Albanain, Arabic Life Application, Russian, Chinese {I did not even know there was a Chinese Bible.} Where does any of them say people SEE sounds?

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. “I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,” Shanon said.

So HE is a drugy?

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

NO it isn’t. The truth is folks. The Shittah Tree.

The shittah tree is mentioned only once in the Bible (Isaiah 41). Referred to many times as shittum, which is the Hebrew plural, the tree is an acacia, one of the thorny trees found in the Holy Land. It is sweet smelling with leaves colored soft green. Acacia flowers are yellow. The tree grows abundantly across Egypt. Smaller numbers are found in arid areas. It is as large as the mulberry tree. Sharp thorns grow from its angular, spreading branches. The bark is gnarly, black, and rough-textured.

The ark built for the Tabernacle was about 2.9 feet long. It was the first piece of furniture built for the Tabernacle. Shittim wood, from which it was made, is a beautiful orange-colored wood, quite heavy and close grained. As it ages, this wood will darken. It is quite insect-resistant. This tree grows as a torrent tree, thriving in the wadies of Sinai and the Dead Sea, but is not found in upper Palestine. The book of Numbers however, does record that the Israelites pitched their tents by Jordan, from Beth-jesimoth even unto Abel-shittum. Abel-shittum is translated meadow of the acacias. Acacia trees also are found in northeast Africa.

It was used for BUILDING, not smoking, or however you ingest it, or, whatever. NOWHERE can I find, Biblical or not, where it says that ANYONE in the Bible, or not, used this as a narcotic. He even admitted that what HE was on, was NOT from the Shittah Tree. He said, “he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant,” which he CLAIMS are “comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree”

Now is it clear that there is no effect that can be produced by the bark of the Acacia Tree? No, nor is it clear that there is. But one thing I know, Moses was not a drugy.

Congratulations Benny Shanon, for making such assertions that this THEORY of yours is a fact, without any REAL facts to back it up, you are the Idiot of the Week. Now go smoke some bark or do whatever you do and watch the pink bunny dance around the apple tree, uh, make that the Acacia Tree.

Peter
AFP - Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher
Acacia Tree