In this weeks Quantum we look at the Beatles new song; the White Album; Gaza/Israel; Netanyahu and the Amalekites; Ben Shapiro answering Oxford students; Australian Islamism; Cancelling Anne Frank in Germany; Met Police advisor; Ohio abortions; Swifties and BTS in Argentinian politics; featured country – Jordan; Woke bird watchers; Problematic books in Cambridge libraries; Maxwells Magic; SEEK 15 – Euthanasia; Remembrance Sunday and Abide with me.
Catch up on last week – Quantum 275 – Friends, Family and the Future – featuring Egypt
Support Quantum here – https://patron.podbean.com/theweeflea
All the music used is on the Spotify November playlist
Erratic menstrual cycles may delay diagnosis of pregnancy quite frequently. Yet the 3 month ultrasound scan shows a very well developed human. Months 4-9 may be more about bulk (and getting ready to breathe) rather than new tissue lay down. The Church tears itself apart on the best approach to LGBTQ+ stuff, yet are 40 percent (or more) of global deaths now due to abortion? We should be a great deal more concerned about heterosexual sex. Is ‘reproductive freedom’ often used where we might equally say ‘careless sexual practice without any thought about the consequences’?
Thank you for playing ‘Now and then’.
Not perhaps the Beatles’ greatest track but a small window into musical genius once more.
Sgt Peppers, The White Album and Abbey Road contain pop music rarely equalled and never surpassed. It is difficult to fully appreciate their originality and variety.
It is remarkable to think of the accumulated total number of hours of musical pleasure that John, Paul, George and Ringo have given the world.
God’s gift of beauty and music is such a blessing in a world in which there is so much ugliness, pain and despair.
David, thank you for your podcast. Even when I disagree with you, I often gain something.
I would encourage you to look at the situation in Israel and Gaza in a much larger context than I heard from your program today. The Hamas terror attack (which was evil) did not occur in a vacuum, but in a much larger, longer context going back to the 1948 war and before. You cannot effectively turn a large urban area into a blockaded prison camp, and then be shocked when the wind one sows becomes a whirlwind.
As to why Jordan and other countries will not take Palestinian refugees, it stems from the history of what has happened in Palestine when Palestinians have fled war and conflict–Israel has taken the land, not allowed refugees to return once war ends, and takes the land for themselves and resettles it. Even Palestinians in Gaza do not, if at all possible, want to leave Gaza, given this pattern. They know that if the present Israeli government gets their way, the land will be ethnically cleansed and yet more settlements established.
As to your concerns about censorship regarding support for Israel, you also need to look at what has happened in the USA, where at universities where student groups have issued statements critical of Israel, some companies have responded by wanting the names of all the students in those organizations, in order to prevent them from getting jobs in their firms, their companies, and businesses. The right is showing itself every bit as committed to cancel culture for anyone who is critical of Israel.
Finally, I would encourage you to give a hearing to the struggles of Palestinian Christians living under occupation. Listen to the talks given by people like Munther Isaac and others, and put the whole situation in a much larger context. Also reflect on the power that American Dispensationalists have wielded in US policy vis-a-vis Israel and the whole middle east, and all it damage it has done over the last decades. Netanyanhu’s remarks about the Amalekites is fulling in keeping with this significant part of the “evangelical” pro-Israel lobby in the USA.
Thanks Walter – I agree – we should look at the bigger picture. And way beyond 1948. You need to look to the ancient nation state of Israel – the fact that Palestine never existed as a nation – that the Jews are the most hated and persecuted people in history, the injunctions in Islam to kill the Jews etc. You also need to ask how many times Arab nations have rejected a two nation solution – or why Gaza is in the state it is in. You need to ask what does ‘from the Jordan to the Sea, Palestine shall be free’ mean. And you need to ask why Iran is harming Hamas and Qatar allows its HQ to be in its country. And then you need to work out how you would feel as a Jew – when anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, the US, Australia and elsewhere – and when so many people want to destroy the only country where you can feel safe.
None of this is to deny the suffering of so many Palestinian Christians, nor to claim that Israel is completely innocent, nor to approve cancel culture – or wacky dispensationalism….but as you said – we need to look at the bigger picture. In fact you have just inspired me to write an article on it – so thanks!