"Fitna" Condemned by World Council of Churches

Article from ChristianToday.com
Global ecumenical body the World Council of Churches (WCC joins 349 churches in 100 countries) has condemned a provocative new film released by a Dutch parliamentarian in which he accuses the Koran of inciting violence. The director of the WCC’s Programme on Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation criticised Geert Wilders’ short film “Fitna” [link to view film] as "a clear case of Islamophobia".
The word ‘fitna’ is an Arabic term that is sometimes translated as ‘strife’. "Through graphic images the filmmaker depicts violent extremism without any attempt to distinguish it from mainstream Islam. Extremism is a problem for most religions and needs to be countered through interreligious dialogue," Dr. Shanta Premawardhana said.
Wilders, who is leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, launched his short video on the Internet last Thursday to the outcry of Muslims around the world. In the film, images of the September 11 attacks on the US and bombings by Islamic extremists appear alongside quotations from the Koran. European Union foreign ministers condemned the film and expressed their support for the Dutch Government, which has distanced itself from Wilders’ film.
"The film equates Islam with violence and this view is sharply rejected," the 27 ministers said in a statement. The EU said, however, that the film did not surpass the boundaries of freedom of expression and that those offended by its content should not react violently. "Feeling offended is no excuse for aggression or threats," the ministers said.

EDITORIAL: It looks to me like "the ministers" are talking out of both sides of their mouth. On the one hand, they say a movie depicting Islam as violent is untrue. On the other hand, they call on Islam not to react violently because of the movie. Odd, huh?
Are the ministers tripping over themselves to call for calm because they KNOW Islam is a violent religion? Of course, they are. Everyone with any good sense knows that Islam is a very violent religion built on the premise of conversion or death. Why do you think so many converts from Islam to other religions are MURDERED by their own families?!? Why? Because ISLAM IS A VIOLENT RELIGION. It's a simple fact.
Fortunately, not all Muslims are violent people. However, the Koran (Qur'an) speaks of violence throughout its text -- and anyone who doesn't see Fitna as at least partial truth has their head in the sand. While the WCC is trying to make peace, violent Muslims are killing innocent people EVERY DAY -- in the name of the Qur'an and Allah. Geert Wilders is not someone I particularly admire, but I do support his telling of the truth about the violence within Islam.

TOPIC: Store Video Shows Customers Stepping Over Stabbing Victim

Article from FOXNews.com

WICHITA, Kansas — As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday. The video showed the 27-year-old Calloway struggling to her feet and collapsing three times without anyone helping her. Worse, one woman who stepped over Calloway four times while shopping eventually paused to snap a photo of her with a cell phone.
"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting." It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said. "This is one of the most disgusting examples of disregard for life I've ever seen," Bassham said of the video. "It is a very, very tragic video to watch. It was revolting to see this lack of humanity."
Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital. Two people -- Cherish M. McCullough and George R. Brown -- turned themselves in to police and were arrested in connection with the death. The district attorney's office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said. It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.
Eagle columnist Mark McCormick told The Associated Press he learned about the video when he called Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams to inquire about a phone call he had received from a reader complaining about a Police Department policy that requires emergency medical personnel to wait until police secure a crime scene before rendering aid. McCormick said Williams then unloaded on him about the shoppers in the stabbing case. Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

SopeBocks: This is an example of the LACK of compassion we have for each other in this country. The violence we see no longer bothers us. We don't want to "get involved", so we step over victims and go about our business. As I've said many times before, we will reap what we sow -- and this is a prime example of what has been sewn through TV, movies, video games, music and the violence of the hip-hop culture. If you think I'm wrong, think about this -- even in countries where terrorist bombings are "regular" occurrence, citizens don't step over dying victims to buy a candy bar. They HELP those victims. In those cultures, there are NO Manhunt or GTA video games, Die Hard movies, hip-hop gangstas nor any The Shield style TV shows. If we do not cherish life, it will not have any value.
When is America going to wake up?!? Compassion is a basic tenant of civilized society. IF we lose it (and we're well on the way to that end), anarchy WILL follow.

TOPIC: Mass Murders at Virginia Tech ... the Blood is on Our Hands
Editorial by Greg Stier of Dare2Share
What do you get when you add easy access to weapons and a culture that increasingly devalues life and glorifies violence from video games to slasher films? A growing, almost exclusively American, problem. The mass murders by a lone gunman at Virginia Tech are the latest in a string of school shootings that are proof of this. As this week marks the eighth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School we couldn’t find a worse way to remember that tragedy than through an even worse one. Our hearts break for the friends and families of the victims of this senselessness [act].
Eight years ago this week, I was sitting in a youth room with six youth pastors promoting Dare 2 Share Ministries, an organisation committed to training and equipping Christian teenagers to know, live, share and own their faith in Jesus. At 11:30 or so the pastor of the church we were at popped in and said, “You guys had better pray. Something bad is going down at Columbine.”
Over the hours and days to follow, all of us discovered the extent of these slayings at the hands of two disillusioned teenagers. Columbine is twenty minutes down the road from Dare 2 Share and I couldn’t help but feel that some of the blood of the victims was on my hands. While I didn’t pull the trigger I hadn’t done all I could do to prevent school shootings. Have you?
I had that same sinking feeling today at 10:45am Mountain Standard Time as I saw on msn.com that another school shooting of even greater magnitude had unfolded at Virginia Tech. To be honest, I feel like the blood is on my hands once again. Do you? I think we all do.
And, just how degrading and violent do video games and movies need to get before moms and dads put their feet down with their own kids and “just say no” to their teenagers?
Movies and video games are getting bloodier and bloodier. And we just hide under the banter that “kids will be kids”. But, ultimately, it is not just a media thing or a gun thing, but a God thing.
America has forsaken her roots as a Christian nation and is embracing a cultural of secularism that devalues life. Without God we only have “survival of the fittest”. In pre-historic days it was those with the biggest claws and jaws that won the day. Today it is those with the biggest guns.
If there is no God then why not pull the trigger, on everyone else and then yourself? If there is no God then there is no heaven and no hope, just the hell and hopelessness of everyday living in a pain-stained world. But if there is a God then people matter, for they were made in His image. If there is a God then there is hope, there is a reason to value life.
Let’s share the good news of Jesus with a culture that has forgotten or forsaken the true value of life. And let’s pray for the family and friends of the victims of another senseless tragedy. Because if we don’t, the blood is on our hands.

TOPIC: Violent Video Games And Hostile Personalities Go Together
Source: Science Daily
Credit: Photo by Bob Elbert
New research by Iowa State University psychologists provides more concrete evidence of the adverse effects of violent video game exposure on the behavior of children and adolescents.
ISU Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson, Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile, and doctoral student Katherine Buckley share the results of three new studies in their book, "Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents" (Oxford University Press, 2007). It is the first book to unite empirical research and public policy related to violent video games.

Study One: Kids' games still have behavioral effect
The book's first study found that even exposure to cartoonish children's violent video games had the same short-term effects on increasing aggressive behavior as the more graphic teen (T-rated) violent games. The study tested 161 9- to 12-year-olds, and 354 college students. Each participant was randomly assigned to play either a violent or non-violent video game. "Violent" games were defined as those in which intentional harm is done to a character motivated to avoid that harm. The definition was not an indication of the graphic or gory nature of any violence depicted in a game.
The researchers selected one children's non-violent game ("Oh No! More Lemmings!"), two children's violent video games with happy music and cartoonish game characters ("Captain Bumper" and "Otto Matic"), and two violent T-rated video games ("Future Cop" and "Street Fighter"). For ethical reasons, the T-rated games were played only by the college-aged participants. The participants subsequently played another computer game designed to measure aggressive behavior in which they set punishment levels in the form of noise blasts to be delivered to another person participating in the study. Additional information was also gathered on each participant's history of violent behavior and previous violent media viewing habits.
The researchers found that participants who played the violent video games -- even if they were children's games -- punished their opponents with significantly more high-noise blasts than those who played the non-violent games. They also found that habitual exposure to violent media was associated with higher levels of recent violent behavior -- with the newer interactive form of media violence found in video games more strongly related to violent behavior than exposure to non-interactive media violence found in television and movies. "Even the children's violent video games -- which are more cartoonish and often show no blood -- had the same size effect on children and college students as the much more graphic games have on college students," said Gentile. "What seems to matter is whether the players are practicing intentional harm to another character in the game. That's what increases immediate aggression -- more than how graphic or gory the game is."

Study Two: The violent video game effect
Another study detailed in the book surveyed 189 high school students. The authors found that respondents who had more exposure to violent video games held more pro-violent attitudes, had more hostile personalities, were less forgiving, believed violence to be more typical, and behaved more aggressively in their everyday lives. The survey measured students' violent TV, movie and video game exposure; attitudes toward violence; personality trait hostility; personality trait forgiveness; beliefs about the normality of violence; and the frequency of various verbally and physically aggressive behaviors.
The researchers were surprised that the relation to violent video games was so strong. "We were surprised to find that exposure to violent video games was a better predictor of the students' own violent behavior than their gender or their beliefs about violence," said Anderson. "Although gender aggressive personality and beliefs about violence all predict aggressive and violent behavior, violent video game play still made an additional difference. We were also somewhat surprised that there was no apparent difference in the video game violence effect between boys and girls or adolescents with already aggressive attitudes," he said.
The study found that one variable -- trait forgiveness -- appeared to make that person less affected by exposure to violent video games in terms of subsequent violent behavior, but this protective effect did not occur for less extreme forms of physical aggression.

Study Three: Violent video games and school
A third new study in the book assessed 430 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, their peers, and their teachers twice during a five-month period in the school year. It found that children who played more violent video games early in the school year changed to see the world in a more aggressive way, and became more verbally and physically aggressive later in the school year -- even after controlling for how aggressive they were at the beginning of the study. Higher aggression and lower pro-social behavior were in turn related to those children being more rejected by their peers. "I was startled to find those changes in such a short amount of time," said Gentile. "Children's aggression in school did increase with greater exposure to violent video games, and this effect was big enough to be noticed by their teachers and peers within five months."
The study additionally found an apparent lack of "immunity" to the effects of media violence exposure. TV and video game screen time was also found to be a significant negative predictor of grades.
The book's final chapter offers "Helpful Advice for Parents and Other Caregivers on Choosing and Using Video Games." The authors say that providing clear, science-based information to parents and caregivers about the harmful effects of exposure to violent video games is the first step in helping educate the people who are best able to use the information.

The Sope-Bocks: I've been preaching this message for years now. Hopefully, people are starting to hear the voices of reason and force the marketplace to change. Specifically, parents should NOT allow their children to play such garbage. Remember, GIGO - Garbage IN, Garbage OUT. What we take into our eyes, mind and brain WILL come out -- in one way or another. Simple, but 100% true.
BTW, the same outcome would be probable regarding exposure to violent music, movies and television (though these studies show less violent behavior from non-interactive exposure).

TOPIC: Violent Irony
I'm sitting here watching SpikeTV this Sunday afternoon. The TV was left on Spike after two episodes of Star Trek:TNG. "Video Justice, crime caught on tape" #1 and #2 were just on. How ironic that VJ talked about the violence of criminals, as though its source is not understood. Throughout the program were commercials showing The Russian Specialist -- a very violent movie, along with commercials for The Ultimate Fighter 4 -- an extreme fighting, pseudo-reality show.
It's ironic that the producers on SpikeTV offer a show that reports on violence as a serious topic -- including the ramifications of the crimes committed. Then, they show commercials of Dolph Lungren shooting people while the dub-over asks, "What's he specialize in?" Second voice sarcastically says, "Killing people, I guess".
On one hand, SpikeTV shows how serious crime is through the lens of video cameras. On the other hand, SpikeTV touts television shows, movies and games that are extremely violent -- as though the two have nothing to do with each other. Sickening!