Ueshiba

1935 Asahi News Film

植芝 盛平

植芝 盛平（うえしば もりへい、1883年（明治16年）12月14日 - 1969年（昭和44年）4月26日）は、日本の武道家。合気道の創始者。合気道界では「開祖」（かいそ）と敬称される


Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), en japonés 植芝 盛平,  artista marcial japonés, fundador del arte marcial del Aikidō. Los aikidōkas también lo llaman Ō-sensei ("Gran Maestro") en señal de admiración y respeto.

El verdadero nacimiento del Aikido se dio como resultado de tres momentos de despertar espiritual que Ueshiba experimentó. El primero ocurrió en 1925, cuando Ueshiba derrotó desarmado a un oficial de la marina que le atacó con una katana de madera, sin dañarle. Su segunda experiencia ocurrió en 1940, cuando le pareció que todos los movimientos que le habían enseñado sus maestros eran completamente nuevos. Ya no eran meras técnicas; eran formas de cultivar la vida, el conocimiento y la virtud. Su tercera experiencia fue en 1942 durante la peor lucha de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ueshiba tuvo una visión del "Gran Espíritu de la Paz".

Publicaciones

• Morihei Ueshiba, The Secret Teachings of Aikido (2008), Kodansha International, ISBN 978-4-7700-3030-6 [2]
• Morihei Ueshiba, Budo: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido (1996), Kodansha International, ISBN 978-4-7700-2070-3 [3]
• Morihei Ueshiba, The Essence of Aikido: Spiritual Teachings of Morihei Ueshiba (1998), Kodansha International, ISBN 978-4-7700-2357-5 [4]

El fundador del Aikido

Tomado de Wikipedia

SOBRE EL CUIDADO DE LA CASA COMÚN

CARTA ENCÍCLICA
LAUDATO SI’

DEL SANTO PADRE
FRANCISCOSOBRE EL CUIDADO DE LA CASA COMÚN

The Gaia hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.

The scientific investigation of the Gaia hypothesis focuses on observing how the biosphere and the evolution of life forms contribute to the stability of global temperature, ocean salinity, oxygen in the atmosphere and other factors of habitability in a preferred homeostasis. The Gaia hypothesis was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Initially received with hostility by the scientific community, it is now studied in the disciplines of geophysiology and Earth system science, and some of its principles have been adopted in fields like biogeochemistry and systems ecology. This ecological hypothesis has also inspired analogies and various interpretations in social sciences, politics, and religion under a vague philosophy and movement.

Ecumenismo

Ecumenismo es la tendencia o movimiento que busca la restauración de la unidad de los cristianos, es decir, la unidad de las distintasconfesiones religiosas cristianas «históricas», separadas desde losgrandes cismas. Si bien el término «oikoumenē» se utilizó desde los tiempos del Imperio Romano para expresar al mundo como unidad, en la actualidad la palabra «ecumenismo» tiene una significación eminentemente religiosa, y es usada primordialmente para aludir a los movimientos existentes en el seno del cristianismo cuyo propósito consiste en la unificación de las diferentes denominaciones cristianas, separadas por cuestiones de doctrina, de historia, de tradición o de práctica.

En cambio, la búsqueda de cooperación entre diferentes religiones (tanto entre las religiones abrahámicas —judaísmo, cristianismo e islam— como con otras) se llama diálogo interreligioso.¹

En el sentir de numerosas personalidades cristianas del último siglo, el ecumenismo constituye un camino de superación de las divisiones entre los cristianos, en orden al cumplimiento del mandato de Cristo: «[...] que todos sean uno [...]» {Juan 17:21).²

Entre las muchas personalidades relevantes que tienen o tuvieron influencia en el desarrollo de la conciencia ecuménica se encuentran Robert Gardiner, el teólogo Yves Congar, el hermano Roger Schutz —fundador de laComunidad ecuménica de Taizé—, Chiara Lubich —fundadora del Movimiento de los Focolares—, el patriarcaAtenágoras I, los papas Juan XXIII, Pablo VI y Juan Pablo II, y el arzobispo de Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Catolicismo (del griego καθολικός, katholikós, 'universal, que comprende todo') es un término que hace referencia al carácter de la fe profesada por los cristianos fieles de la Iglesia católica, como así también a la teología, doctrina, liturgia, principios éticos y normas de comportamiento derivadas, al igual que al conjunto de sus seguidores como un todo, a quienes se les denomina «católicos».² El vocablo «catolicismo» se usa por lo general para hacer alusión a la experiencia religiosa compartida por las personas que viven en comunión con la Iglesia de Roma.³

De manera más específica, el término se refiere solamente a la Iglesia católica, compuesta por 23 iglesias sui iuris que se encuentran en completa comunión con el Papa y que en conjunto reúnen a más de mil millones de fieles⁴ (una sexta parte de la población mundial y más de la mitad de todos los fieles cristianos).^5 6 La principal característica distintiva de la Iglesia católica es el reconocimiento de la autoridad y primacía del papa, obispo de Roma.^{Nota 1} Sin embargo hay varias Iglesias que comparten también el adjetivo calificativo de «católicas», como la Iglesia ortodoxa y las Antiguas iglesias orientales, la Iglesia asiria del Oriente y las Iglesias que constituyen la Comunión Anglicana

Morihiro Saito

El más devoto de los discípulos del maestro.

YouTube - Saito Aikido Lessons

YouTube - Aikido Morihiro Saito Sensei

10 Legendary Soldiers Of WWII

Published on Jul 18, 2013


They fought with honor and distinction in biggest war in history, here are 10 legendary soldiers of World War Two.

실미도

Silmido is an uninhabited island next to Muuido Island in the Yellow Sea. Silmido is located in the west coast of South Korea. It has 0.25081km2 land area and 6 km circumference. It is 20 km from Incheon Metropolitan City of southwest and is about 5 km away from Incheon International Airport. Silmido is connected two times a day to Muuido as mud flat. Most of this island consists of mountains that are around 80m high.^[1]
Silmido became historically significant when it was used as the training ground of Unit 684 army group. On 1968, January 21, North Korea’s guerrillas infiltrated the border and reached till Segumjunggogae (Sinyeong-dong, Jongno-gu), a suburb  of Seoul, to attack the Blue House to assassinate the President Park Chung-hee.^[2] Due to this incident the Central Intelligence Agency of South Korea built 209th Detachment, 2325th Group (unit 684- 1968. April) in revenge.  unit 684 members had to endure hellish training for 3 years and 4 months. However, during the training period, South Korean government decided to follow policy that ties the two countries. Unit 684 members escaped Silmido by mutiny. However, they were stoped by government troops in Youngdungpo-gu Daebang-dong. Then, Unit 684 group committed suicide in a stolen bus (they exploded grenades , 4 members survive) on August 23rd 1971.^[3]


After the novel ‘Silmido’(1999) of Baek Dong-ho was published, Silmido became known.

Silmido is a 2003 South Korean film, directed by Kang Woo-suk. It is based on the true story of Unit 684, though parts of the film are extrapolations as the actual details of events are unknown. The film was both critically well received and a financial success, and was the first film in South Korea to attract a box office audience of over 10 million viewers.

On 21 January 1968, 31 North Korean commandos of Unit 124 are shown to have infiltrated South Korea in a failed mission to assassinate President Park Chung-hee.
As a means of retaliation, the South Korean military assembled a team of 31 social outcasts including criminals on death row and life imprisonment, in a plot to kill Kim Il-sung. The team is designated 'Unit 684'. The recruits are taken to the island of Silmido for training. The mission is offered to the recruits as the only way to redeem themselves and show their loyalty to their country. If they succeed, they will win their freedom and a new life. With this goal in mind, they endure their training. The training is shown over several months, with the recruits enduring various forms of extremely vigorous training and regular physical punishment, including being branded. One recruit is killed after he falls from a ropes course.
At the end of their training, they are dispatched on their mission to North Korea, but are recalled not long after their departure. It is revealed that the project has been called off, as the government attempts a peaceful reunification with the North. The recruits return to Silmido discouraged and frustrated. Shortly afterwards two of the Unit 684 members escape from their barracks and rape a female doctor. They are quickly discovered, and believing that they will be executed, decide to commit suicide. One kills the other at his request but is apprehended before he is able to kill himself. The apprehended soldier is then returned to the camp, tied up, and made to watch his fellow Unit 684 members being beaten by the guards for the two men's betrayal. Enraged, one of the Unit 684 members being beaten is able to take his guard's bat and kills the tied up soldier for bringing disgrace to the unit.
To keep the plot to kill Kim Il-sung unknown to the outside world, the South Korean intelligence agency decide to kill all the members of Unit 684. The unit's commander protests, but is told that if his troops failed to follow this order, they too would be killed alongside Unit 684. Torn between his duty to follow orders and his personal honor, the commander intentionally leaks this information to one of the Unit 684 members. Unit 684, realizing they are going to be killed that same night, make plans to mutiny. They attack and kill the majority of their guards, and find out from one of the guards that they legally no longer exist, and never would have received recognition for their mission if it succeeded, nor even be allowed to return to society. Unit 684 decide to escape from the island and make their story known. The 20 remaining members of Unit 684 capture a bus containing civilians and head to Seoul. An official pronouncement is heard over the radio that 20 "armed communist agents" have infiltrated the country, and a state of emergency is declared. After charging through one army roadblock and winning a firefight they are eventually stopped and surrounded by soldiers in front of the Yuhan Corporation building in Dongjak District, Seoul. A firefight ensures, with the South Korean army showing no regard for the welfare of the civilians on board the bus. All of the Unit 684 members are either killed or wounded, and many South Korean soldiers are also killed. The surviving Unit 684 members release the civilians who have not been killed by the South Korean army, before committing suicide using their own hand grenades. An investigation into the incident is shown to have been carried out; however the report is not read and is seen to be filed away in storage.

The release of this film brought public attention to Unit 684, and in 2006 the South Korean government released an official report on the unit and the uprising, officially acknowledging its existence for the first time.^[4] Brigadier general Nam Dae Yeon said that the 31 Silmido recruits who made up Unit 684 were part of an air force squadron. Seven died in training and 20 were killed in the uprising. The four who survived were executed after a military trial in 1972.^[5] Nam stated that documents describing Unit 684's mission no longer exist, but the government has not denied that its mission was to kill Kim Il-sung.^[5]
What actually caused the uprising on August 23, 1971, is unclear. The film shows the government deciding that the recruits had to be killed because they knew too much. The recruits find out and revolt. Jonathan Kim, the film's producer, acknowledges that history is unclear at this point.^[5]
Six guards survived the Silmido uprising. One of the guards, Yang Dong Su, confirmed that the unit's mission had been to infiltrate North Korea and kill Kim Il-sung. Yang stated that though the film portrays the 31 recruits as death-row inmates, most were petty criminals. Yang stated that "They were the kind who would get into street fights a lot". Yang also gives his version of why the uprising occurred.

They revolted because they felt that they were never going to get the chance to go to North Korea and that they would never be allowed to leave the island. They were in despair.^[5]

—Yang Dong Su

On May 19, 2010, the Seoul Central District Court ordered that the government pay 273 million won in compensation to the families of 21 members of Unit 684. The court found that "the Silmido agents were not informed of the level of danger involved with their training, and the harshness of the training violated their basic human rights" and also acknowledged the emotional pain the government caused by not officially disclosing the agents’ deaths to family members until 2006.^[4]

米百俵

Published on Sep 27, 2013

中村嘉津雄 真行寺君枝 尾藤イサオ 三原じゅん子 長谷川明夫
文部省特選
ストーリー： 越後長岡藩が、戊辰戦争で維新政府軍に破れ、その日の糧にも事欠く悲惨な状況にあった­時、分家の三根山藩から米百俵が見舞いとして贈られてきました。しかし、小林虎三郎は­この米を藩士たちに分配せず、学校設立資金として換金しようと決断したのです。「教育­こそ百年の大計、人物を創れ！」怒り狂う藩士たちに向かって死を覚悟で信念を貫き通し­、偉業を成し遂げる物語です。
ハイビジョンアワード1993選定委員長賞受賞
第６回東京国際映画祭出品作品
1993国際エレクトロシネマフェスティバル出品作品

226

Published on Jan 1, 2013

サブタイトル：英語、ハンガリー語
二・二六事件の発生から終結までの四日間を、オールスターキャストで描いた五社英雄監­督作品。原作・脚本は笠原和夫。
　昭和11年2月26日。昭和維新を掲げた陸軍の青年将校たちは、1500人にも及ぶ決­起部隊を率いてクーデターを起こした。彼らは雪の降る中、岡田首相、高橋蔵相、斎藤内­大臣、鈴木侍従長などを襲撃。翌27日に戒厳令が施行され、決起部隊は原隊への復帰命­令を受けた。原隊からの食糧提供も止められ、将校たちは自分の家族や恋人のことを思い­返す。野中大尉は安藤大尉に部隊の原隊復帰を説得、最初は抵抗していた安藤も兵士たち­を投降させることにした。安藤は拳銃自殺を図るが未遂に終わる。野中は拳銃で自決した­。決起部隊の19人の将校たちは軍法会議で有罪となり、銃殺刑に処せられるのだった。

---

The February 26 Incident (二・二六事件 Niniroku Jiken^?) (also known as the 2-26 Incident) was an attempted coup d'état in Japan on 26 February 1936. It was organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents.
Although the rebels succeeded in assassinating several leading officials (including two former Prime Ministers) and in occupying the government center of Tokyo, they failed to assassinate the current Prime Minister Keisuke Okada or secure control of the Imperial Palace. Their supporters in the army made attempts to capitalize on their actions, but divisions within the military, combined with Imperial anger at the coup, meant they were unable to achieve a change of government. Facing overwhelming opposition as the army moved against them, the rebels surrendered on 29 February.^[3]
Unlike earlier examples of political violence by young officers, the coup attempt had severe consequences. After a series of closed trials, 19 of the uprising's leaders were executed for mutiny and another 40 imprisoned. The radical Kōdō-ha faction lost its influence within the army, the period of "government by assassination" came to a close, and the military increased its control over the civilian government.

The Imperial Japanese Army had a long history of factionalism among its high-ranking officers, originally stemming from domainal rivalries in the Meiji period. By the early 1930s, officers in the high command had become split into two main informal groups: the Kōdō-ha "Imperial Way" faction led by Gen. Araki Sadao and his ally Gen. Jinzaburō Mazaki and the Tōsei-ha "Control" faction identified with Gen. Tetsuzan Nagata.^[4][5][6]
The Kōdō-ha emphasized the importance of Japanese culture, spiritual purity over material quality, and the need to attack the Soviet Union while the Tōsei-ha officers, who were strongly influenced by the ideas of the contemporary German general staff, supported central economic and military planning (total war theory), technological modernization, mechanization, and expansion within China. The Kōdō-ha was dominant in the army during Araki's tenure as Minister of War from 1931 to 1934, occupying most significant staff positions, but many of its members were replaced by Tōsei-ha officers following Araki's resignation.^[7][8]

The Young Officers

Army officers were divided between those whose education had ended at the Army Academy (a secondary school) and those who had advanced on to the prestigious Army War College. The latter group formed the elite of the officer corps, while officers of the former group were effectively barred by tradition from advancement to staff positions. A number of these lesser-privileged officers formed the army's contribution to the young, highly politicized group often referred to as the "young officers" (青年将校 seinen shōkō^?).^[9][10]
The young officers believed that the problems facing the nation were the result of Japan straying from the "kokutai" (国体^?) (an amorphous term often translated as "national polity", it roughly signifies the relationship between the Emperor and the state). The "privileged classes" exploited the people, leading to widespread poverty in rural areas, and deceived the Emperor, usurping his power and weakening Japan. The solution, they believed, was a "Shōwa Restoration" modeled on the Meiji Restoration of 70 years earlier. By rising up and destroying the "evil advisers around the Throne", the officers would enable the Emperor to re-establish his authority. The Emperor would then purge Western ideas and those who exploited the people, restoring prosperity to the nation. These beliefs were strongly influenced by contemporary nationalist thought, especially the political philosophy of the former socialist Ikki Kita.^[11]
The loose-knit group varied in size, but is estimated to have had roughly a hundred regular members, mostly officers in Tokyo area. Its informal leader was Mitsugi (Zei) Nishida. Nishida, a former army lieutenant and disciple of Kita, had become a prominent member of the civilian nationalist societies that proliferated from the late 1920s. Nishida referred to the army group as the Kokutai Genri-ha (国体原理派 "National Principle"^?) faction. Involved to at least some extent in most of the political violence of the period, following the March and October Incidents of 1931, the army and navy members of the group split and largely ended their association with civilian nationalists.^[12][13][14]
Despite its relatively small size, the faction was influential, due in no small part to the threat it posed. It had sympathizers among the general staff and imperial family (most notably Prince Chichibu, the Emperor's brother (and, until 1933, heir), who was friends with Nishida and other Kokutai Genri-ha leaders). Despite being fiercely anti-capitalist, it had also managed to secure irregular funding from zaibatsu leaders who hoped to shield themselves.^[15]
The exact nature of the relationship between the Kōdō-ha and the Kokutai Genri-ha is complicated. The two factions are often treated as the same or as two groups forming a larger whole. Contemporary accounts and the writings of members of the two groups make clear they were actually distinct groups in a mutually beneficial alliance, however. The Kōdō-ha shielded the Kokutai Genri-ha and provided it with access while they in exchange benefited from their perceived ability to restrain the radical officers.^[16][17][18]

Political Violence

The years leading up to the February 26 Incident were marked by a series of outbursts of violence by the young officers and their fellow nationalists against their political opponents. Most notably, in the May 15 Incident of 1932 young naval officers assassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. This incident is significant because it convinced the young army officers (who were aware of, but not involved in the attack) of the need to utilize troops in any potential coup attempt. The ringleaders of the incident, as in the previous March and October incidents, received relatively light punishments.^[19]
The direct prelude to the coup, however, was the 1934 Military Academy Incident (November Incident) and its consequences. In this incident Capt. Takaji Muranaka and Capt. Asaichi Isobe, prominent members of the Kokutai Genri-ha, were arrested for planning a coup with a group of military cadets. Muranaka and Isobe admitted discussing such a coup, but denied having any plans to actually carry it out. The military court investigating the incident found there was insufficient evidence to indict, but Muranaka and Isobe were suspended by the army. The two were convinced that the incident was a Tōsei-ha attack on the young officers and began circulating a pamphlet calling for a "housecleaning" of the army and naming Nagata as the "chief villain". They were then expelled from the army.^[20][21][22]
It was at this time that the last Kōdō-ha officer in a prominent position, Gen. Mazaki, was forced from office. The young officers were enraged by Mazaki's removal because, having become disillusioned with Araki for his failures to overcome resistance in the cabinet during his time as War Minister, Mazaki had become the focus of their hopes. Muranaka and Isobe released a new pamphlet attacking Nagata for the dismissal, as did Nishida.^[23][24][25]
On 12 August 1935, in the "Aizawa Incident", Lt. Colonel Saburō Aizawa, a member of the Kokutai Genri-ha and a friend of Mazaki, murdered Nagata in his office in retaliation. Aizawa's public trial (which began in late January 1936) became a media sensation as Aizawa and the Kokutai Genri-ha leadership, in collusion with the judges, turned it into a soapbox from which their ideology could be broadcast. Aizawa's supporters in the mass media praised Aizawa's "morality and patriotism", and Aizawa himself came to be seen as "a simple soldier who sought only to reform the army and the nation according to the true National Principle."

日本映画

日本映画、まだまだここに在りですね。武士の魂を見せてもらった感です。



Yoshimura Kan'ichiro (main character in this movie):
Excerpt, "There is little record of his participation in battle, however his name is seen in some records as a negotiator."

The real story may have been very different.


What a romanticization of the samurai way of life. I liked the Twighlight Samurai film more. This film is well produced and acted, it just seems too sentimental and a waste of emotion on such a historically brutal system of governance and an unbalanced warrior culture.

βιβλία

Por el año 605 a.C., el Pueblo de Israel sufrió una dispersión o, como se le conoce Bíblicamente, una "diáspora". El rey Nabuconodosor conquistó a Jerusalén y llevó a los israelitas cautivos a Babilonia, comenzando de Babilónica" (cf. 2 Reyes 24, 12; y 2 Reyes 25, 1).

Pero no todos los israelitas fueron llevado cautivos, un "resto" quedó en Israel: 2 Reyes 25, 12; 2 Reyes 25, 22; Jeremías 40, 11; Ezequiel 33, 27. También un número de Israelitas no fueron cautivos a Babilonia sino que fueron a Egipto: 2 Reyes 25, 26; Jeremías 42, 14; Jeremías 43, 7.

El rey Ciro de Persia conquistó a Babilonia (2 Crónicas 36, 20; 2 Crónicas 36, 23) y dio la libertad a los israelitas de regresar a Israel, terminando así su esclavitud. Algunos regresaron a Palestina (Esdras 1, 5; 7, 28; y Nehemías 2, 11) pero otros se fueron en vez a Egipto, estableciéndose, en su mayoría, en la ciudad de Alejandría (fundada por Alejandro Magno en el 322 a.C, contaba con la biblioteca mas importante del mundo en esa época). En esta gran ciudad convivían griegos, judíos y egipcios. Así que los judíos estaban disgregados aun después del fin del cautiverio, unos en Palestina y otros en la diáspora, sobre todo en Alejandría. En el tiempo de Jesús habían mas judíos en Alejandría que en la misma Palestina (1 Macabeos 1, 1)

Mientras la primera semejanza de un canon hebreo se empieza a formar, la lengua hebrea comienza a morir y desapareció completamente para el año 135 a.C. Por esta razón Jesús y sus contemporáneos en Palestina hablaban arameo, un dialecto del hebreo.

La Traducción de los Setenta (Septuagésima)

Como en la mayor parte del mundo civilizado, la lengua principal de Alejandría en el siglo III a.C. era el griego. Había por eso gran necesidad de una traducción griega de las Sagradas Escrituras. La historia relata que Demetrio de Faleron, el bibliotecario de Plotomeo II (285-246 a.C.), quería unas copias de la Ley Judía para la Biblioteca de Alejandría. La traducción se realizó a inicios del siglo tercero a.C. y se llamó la Traducción de los Setenta (por el número de traductores que trabajaron en la obra). Comenzando con el Torá, tradujeron todas las Sagradas Escrituras, es decir todo lo que es hoy conocido por los cristianos como el Antiguo Testamento. Introdujeron también una nueva organización e incluyeron Libros Sagrados que, por ser mas recientes, no estaban en los antiguos cánones pero eran generalmente reconocidos como sagrados por los judíos. Se trata de siete libros, escritos en griego, que son llamados hoy deuterocanónicos. Vemos entonces que no hay un "silencio bíblico" (una ausencia de Revelación) en los siglos precedentes al nacimiento de Jesús. 

La Traducción de los Setenta contiene los textos originales de algunos de los deuterocanónicos (Sabiduría y 2 Macabeos) y la base canónica de otros, ya sea en parte (Ester, Daniel y Sirac) o completamente (Tobit, Judit, Baruc y 1 Macabeos).

La Traducción de de los Setenta es la que se usaba en tiempo de Jesucristo y los Apóstoles

La versión alejandrina, con los siete libros deuterocanónicos, se propagó mucho y era la generalmente usada por los judíos en la era Apostólica. Por esta razón no es sorprendente que esta fuera la traducción utilizada por Cristo y los escritores del Nuevo Testamento. 300 de las 350 referencias al Antiguo Testamento que se hacen en el Nuevo Testamento son tomadas de la versión alejandrina. Por es no hay duda de que la Iglesia apostólica del primer siglo aceptó los libros deuterocanónicos como parte de su canon (libros reconocidos como Palabra de Dios). Por ejemplo, Orígenes, (Padre de la Iglesia, † 254), afirmó que los cristianos usaban estos libros aunque algunos líderes judíos no los aceptaban oficialmente.

Al final del primer siglo de la era cristiana, una escuela judía, quizás de rabinos, hicieron un canon hebreo en la ciudad de Jamnia, en Palestina. Cerraron el canon con los profetas Esdras (458 a. C.), Nehemías (445 a. C.), y Malaquías (433 a. C.). Este canon comprendía de 22 a 24 libros. No rechazaron los libros deuterocanónicos definitivamente, pero no los incluyeron entre los canónicos. El canon reconocido por los judíos no se fijó hasta mas de cien años después. Aun entonces, los libros "deuterocanónicos" siguieron siendo leídos y respetados por los judíos. Mientras tanto los cristianos siguieron reconociendo la versión alejandrina. Es así que surgieron los dos cánones del Antíguo Testamento.

Los dos cánones del Antiguo Testamento

El canon de Alejandría (la traducción de los Setenta al griego, hecha antes de Cristo y aceptada por todos los cristianos y muchos judíos, que contiene los libros deuterocanónicos).

El canon de Palestina (Jamnia, traducción hebrea hecha después de Cristo).

Los historiadores ponen como fecha en que se fijaron los cánones de las traducciones de Alejandría y de Palestina para el siglo segundo de nuestra era. El Obispo Melito de Sardis registró la primera lista conocida del canon alejandrino en el año 170 A.D. Contenía 45/46 libros (el libro de Lamentaciones se consideraba como parte de Jeremías). El canon Palestino contenía solo 39 libros pues no tenía los libros 7 libros Deuterocanónicos.

La Vulgata de San Jerónimo

La primera traducción de la Biblia al latín fue hecha por San Jerónimo y se llamó Vulgata (año 383 AD). El latín era entonces el idioma común en el mundo Mediterráneo. San Jerónimo en un principio tradujo del texto hebreo del canon de Palestina. Su estilo era mas elegante y en algunas frases distinto a la Traducción de los Setenta. Además le faltaban los libros deuterocanónicos por no estar en el texto hebreo. Esto produjo una polémica entre los cristianos. En defensa de su traducción, San Jerónimo escribió una carta: Ad Pachmmachium de optimo genere interpretandi, la cual es el primer tratado acerca de la traductología. Por eso se le considera el padre de esta disciplina. Ahí explica, entre otras cosas el motivo por el cual considera inexacta a la septuagésima. Finalmente se aceptó su versión, pero con la inclusión de los libros deuterocanónicos. Por eso la Vulgata tiene todos los 46 libros.

La Iglesia establece el canon

La controversia sobre que libros son canónicos fue larga, extendiéndose hasta el siglo IV y aun mas tarde. Las polémicas con los herejes, particularmente los seguidores de Marción, que rechazaban libros generalmente reconocidos por los Padres, hizo que la Iglesia definiera con autoridad la lista de los libros sagrados (el canon).

Los concilios de la Iglesia, el Concilio de Hipona, en el año 393 y el Concilio de Cartago, en el año 397 y 419, ambos en el norte de África, confirmaron el canon Alejandrino (con 46 libros para el Antiguo Testamento) y también fijaron el canon del Nuevo Testamento con 27 libros. La carta del papa S. Inocencio I en el 405, también oficialmente lista estos libros. Finalmente, el Concilio de Florencia (1442) definitivamente estableció la lista oficial de 46 libros del A.T. y los 27 del N.T.

El canon del Nuevo Testamento se definió en el siglo IV tras un largo y difícil proceso de discernimiento

El mismo nombre de "Nuevo Testamento" no se usó hasta el siglo II. Uno de los criterios para aceptar o no los libros fue que tuviese como autor a un apóstol; su uso, especialmente en la liturgia en las Iglesias Apostólicas y la conformidad con la fe de la Iglesia. Fue bajo estos criterios que algunos evangelios atribuidos a los Apóstoles (ej. Ev de Tomás, Ev. de Pedro) fueron rechazados. El evangelio de San Juan y el Apocalipsis se consideraron por largo tiempo como dudosos por el atractivo que tenían con grupos sectarios y milenaristas.

Todos los católicos aceptaron el canon de la Biblia fijado por los concilios mencionados y, como este canon no fue causa de seria controversia hasta el siglo XVI, no se necesitó definir el canon de la Biblia como una verdad infalible.

A la Biblia Protestante le faltan libros

En el 1534, Martín Lutero tradujo la Biblia al alemán y agrupó los siete libros deuterocanónicos bajo el título de "apócrifos", señalando: "estos son libros que no se tienen por iguales a las Sagradas Escrituras y sin embargo son útiles y buenos para leer." Es así como los protestantes llegaron a considera a los deuterocanónicos como libros no aceptados en el canon, o sea como libros apócrifos.

Siempre los cristianos habían reconocido esos libros como parte de la Biblia. Los concilios del siglo IV y posteriores habían confirmado la creencia cristiana. La opinión de Lutero era mas bien la de los judíos que seguían la traducción de Jamnia. Es por eso que los protestantes, carecen de los libros deuterocanónicos de la Biblia:

• Tobías
• Judit
• Ester (protocanónico con partes deuterocanónicas)
• Daniel (protocanónico con partes deuterocanónicas)
• I Macabeos
• II Macabeos
• Sabiduría
• Eclesiástico (también llamado "Sirac")
• Baruc

Lutero no solo eliminó libros del Antiguo Testamento sino que hizo cambios en el Nuevo Testamento

"Él [Martín Lutero] había declarado que la persona no se justifica por la fe obrando en el amor, sino sólo por la fe. Llegó incluso a añadir la palabra "solamente" después de la palabra "justificado" en su traducción alemana de Romanos 3, 28, y llamó a la Carta de Santiago "epístola falsificada" porque Santiago dice explícitamente: "Veis que por las obras se justifica el hombre y no sólo por la fe". (Scott y Kimberly HAHN, Roma dulce hogar, ed. Rialp, Madrid, 2000, página 57; Scott Hahn fue ministro protestante, presbiteriano antes de su conversión)

Se tomó la libertad de separar los libros del Nuevo Testamento de la siguiente manera:

• Libros sobre la obra de Dios para la salvación: Juan, Romanos, Gálatas, Efesios, I Pedro y I Juan.
• Otros libros canónicos: Mateo, Marcos, Lucas, Hechos, el resto de las cartas de Pablo, II Pedro y II de Juan.
• Los libros no canónicos: Hebreos, Santiago, Judas, Apocalipsis y libros del Antiguo Testamento.

Los protestantes tienen los mismos libros que los católicos en el Nuevo Testamento porque no aceptaron los cambios de Lutero para esta parte del canon.

Los protestantes y evangélicos se encuentran en una posición contradictoria

Reconocen el canon establecido por los concilios del siglo IV para el Nuevo Testamento (los 27 libros que ellos tienen) pero no reconocen esa misma autoridad para el canon del AT.

Es interesante notar que la Biblia Gutenberg, la primera Biblia impresa, es la Biblia latina (Vulgata), por lo tanto, contenía los 46 libros del canon alejandrino.

Posición de la Iglesia Anglicana (episcopalianos)

Según los 39 Artículos de Religión (1563) de la Iglesia de Inglaterra, los libros deuterocanónicos pueden ser leídos para "ejemplo de vida e instrucción de costumbres", pero no deben ser usados para "establecer ninguna doctrina" (Artículo VI). Consecuentemente, la Biblia, versión del Rey Jaime (1611) imprimió estos libros entre el N.T. y el A.T. Pero Juan Lightfoot (1643) criticó este orden alegando que los "malditos apócrifos" pudiesen ser así vistos como un puente entre el A.T. y el N.T. La Confesión de Westminster (1647) decidió que estos libros, "al no ser de inspiración divina, no son parte del canon de las Escrituras y, por lo tanto, no son de ninguna autoridad de la Iglesia de Dios ni deben ser en ninguna forma aprobados o utilizados mas que otros escritos humanos".

Annie Laurie

Annie Laurie, cantada en las trincheras

Un exitoso concierto con armónicas, peines y papel de seda e incluso silbidos fue dado por los guardias británicos en las trincheras de primera línea cerca de Loos. Tocaron viejas melodías inglesas, armonizadas con gran emoción y habilidad técnica.

Esto atrajo a un público inesperado: Los alemanes hacinados en su línea frontal - no muy lejos - aplaudían cada número.

Repentinamente, en buen Inglés, una voz alemana gritó desde su trinchera: "Tocad 'Annie Laurie' y yo la canto".

Los Ingleses tocaron 'Annie Laurie', y un oficial alemán se puso de pie sobre el parapeto - el sol de la tarde de color rojo brillaba trás de él - y cantó la antigua canción escocesa, admirablemente, con gran ternura.

Al terminar hubo aplausos en ambos lados.

Nota histórica: 'Annie Laurie' es una vieja canción escocesa, basada en un poema de un tal William Douglas (1672?–1748). La melodía de la canción fue creada por una tal Alicia Scott quien modificó los versos originales de Douglas allá por 1850. Puede oírse una de las versiones de esta popular vieja canción aquí.

REUNIONES EN LA TIERRA DE NADIE

A medida que se acercaba la Navidad de 1914, una serie de treguas improvisada estallaron en el frente occidental en los que las tropas alemanas y británicas intercambiaban saludos, canciones, e incluso alimentos. El riflero Oswald Tilley de la Brigada de Rifleros de Londres escribió a sus padres el 27 de diciembre en relación con un incidente ocurrido cerca Ploegsteert, justo al norte de la frontera franco -belga:

"La mañana de Navidad, ya que habíamos dejado prácticamente de disparar contra ellos, uno de ellos comenzó haciéndonos señas, por lo que uno de nuestros soldados salió de nuestras trincheras a su encuentro a mitad de camino en medio de vítores. Después de un poco algunos más de nuestros soldados salieron al encuentro de otros más hasta que, literalmente, cientos soldados de cada lado estaban en la tierra de nadie saludándose e intercambiando cigarrillos, chocolate y tabaco, etc ... Sólo piensen que mientras ustedes estaban comiendo pavo yo estaba afuera hablando y dando la mano a los mismos hombres que había estado tratando de matar un par de horas antes... Fue asombroso!"

En los años siguientes las autoridades trataron de desalentar esas treguas. Porque además de romper la disciplina, se tenían problemas para que la guerra se reiniciara.

A finales de 1915 Ethel Cooper, una mujer australiana que vivió en Alemania, conoció a un soldado de permiso del Cuerpo de Saxon XIX que le dijo que su unidad había fraternizado extensamente con un batallón británico durante dos días a partir de la víspera de Navidad. Ella escribió: "El problema comenzó el día 26, cuando se dio la orden de disparar, fue un duro golpe para los hombres. Herr Lange dice que nunca había escuchado el lenguaje empleado por los oficiales y que logró, como único resultado, la siguiente respuesta de los soldados: " No podemos dispararles- son buena gente , y no podemos hacerlo". Finalmente, los oficiales volvieron con los soldados, "Disparan, o nosotros lo hacemos y no contra el enemigo". Ningún disparo había venido del otro lado, pero al fin iniciamos las hostilidades, y posteriormente no llegó un fuego de respuesta, pero ningún un hombre caía. "Pasamos ese día y al día siguiente desperdiciando municiones disparándole a las estrellas del cielo"

The Morality of Evolution

As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions. There is more than one reason why the Church is advising our youth to attend colleges close to their homes where institutes of religion are available. It gives the parents the opportunity to stay close to their children, and if they become alerted and informed, these parents can help expose some of the deceptions of men like ... Charles Darwin.

Ezra Taft Benson

More than other modern societies, United States relies, even depends, on myth to cement its confidence. Americans are profoundly ahistorical.

Our national myths are representations of identity and the actual instrument of acculturation. This process of acculturation through myth, moreover, is achieved through entertainment: television and movies. The culture of a society—its ethos—defines distinctive patterns of individual and group behavior. Culture shapes the way we look at the world. Whatever our immediate group membership, our final sense of identity is shaped by larger cultural patterns. If we define ourselves according to myth, what kind of worldview has it given us?

First, at the core,  the United States has an essentially religious value system. The primal myth of our origin is that of the "Pilgrim’s Progress," with the Plymouth Colony completely overshadowing Virginia and its lineal transplanting of British class and caste. We believe that the source and inspiration of America is bound up in religion: religious freedom, but also the moral vantage of Calvin. The impact of Protestant thought is felt in the ways we talk about mission, service, sacrifice, restraint. It underlies the sense that Americans share of serving a higher calling. This underpinning remains dominant today even though it is highly secularized, and transmuted into legal, constitutional language.

Second, Americans still hew a set of specific myths about the United States. One of these is that America is the source of human progress and can achieve perfection as a society. Americans believe that there has never been a society quite like our own. This American "exceptionalism" suggests that we are a people graced with unusual natural endowments. We think of ourselves literally as a "people of plenty." But our mythology also reminds us that this land was a great "untamed wilderness," a "land of savagery." It was the exceptional will, unity and vision of the American people and their beliefs that transformed the landscape. The twin icons of national bounty and national achievement have inspired two senses of an American national purpose: a conviction that the United States should serve as an example to the world, that America and its people are the model for all human development; and an impulse to change the world for good, to become the active agency of human progress. Tyranny and resistance to change are so entrenched in the world that only direct American intercession can shift the direction of history. America’s gifts demand that it assume a missionary role.

In the United States at the turn of the 20th century, Darwinism was greeted with glee because it seemed so compatible with the prevailing ideology of theday,  where robber-baron capitalists like the Carnegies, Mellons, Sumners, Stanfords and yes, even Jack London, could not stop rattling on about how the "survival of the fittest" justified crushing unions, exploiting immigrant labor or being left unregulated to amass huge fortunes while administering monopolies. In the popular ethos of the United States, there is a confusion of Capitalism with the American worship of the individual and the nuclear family. It can be argued that these ideas are related but they are different and independent. According to the American work ethic you only get what you work for, but this is not what Capitalism is. Capitalism is the idea that market forces, carried out by intelligent agents looking for profit (self interest), let by themselves will generate wealth and prosperity for society as a whole. The dichotomy Capitalism/Socialism is actually dated. If one understands socialism as government control of the economy, all, 100%, of the world's governments are socialist to some degree. In any case, we now live in a competitive society and are often told that to get ahead we require drive, commitment and determination, that we must expend a great amount of energy and, if necessary, use force to get what we want. A ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality is deeply entrenched in our culture. Despite the fact that this Wild West mentality  is a historical byproduct, it is now attributed to Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

Religious fundamentalists are sincere on their view of the World as a battleground between Good and Evil. For them anything that undermines faith in God, specially with regards to children, is utterly evil. The teaching of Science to children, in particular Evolution, is seen as a threat to children indoctrination. Nonetheless,  the attack on Evolution is an attack on Science as a whole. Science is not about what to believe but rather a method to perceive Reality. It is the critical objective look at reality aspect of Science that is perceived as a treat by the religious establishment. However, teaching religious ideas as an alternative to factual descriptions of reality undermines science education by misinforming students about the scientific method — the basis for science literacy.

The scientific method teaches students the fundamentals of science — how to observe data, perform experiments and form scientific theory. Religious explanations for creation are not science – they cannot be confirmed or denied by the scientific method. Teaching them as science confuses and misleads students about the scientific method, thereby warping their ability to live in a technology-driven society

Most people don't read scientific papers because they are extremely complex. Even college science students have a hard time digesting scientific papers. But what is easy to understand is that, since the bible says this, science says that, therefore science is the devil, and since we hate the devil and our job is to fight him, we must hate science and fight it. Christian leaders can be blind sighted to the outside world at times. All this commotion about a science that goes against the bible. The Bible today, still says that the Earth does not move around the sun as much as it did thousands of years ago. The Bible did not change. At the end of the Middle Ages, Christian leaders threatened heavy punishment to Galileo for suggesting that, based on his scientific evidences, the Earth revolved around the Sun. 

Any effort to introduce a theological doctrine into public school science curricula would inevitably offend some teachers and students. After all, a Protestant fundamentalist's "literal" reading of Genesis would likely differ markedly from that of a Catholic or an Orthodox Jew. Both public school educators and religious leaders should be concerned about the prospect of biology lessons degenerating into debates on Biblical or religious interpretation.

Evolution by natural selection, at its core, works like this: living organisms are characterized by heritable variation for traits that affect their survival and reproductive abilities. This heritable variation originates from the (truly random) process of mutation at the level of DNA. The process of evolution turns out to be largely the result of two components: mutations (which are random) and natural selection (which, again, is not random). It is the joint outcome of these two processes that—according to evolutionary theory—explains not only the diversity of all organisms on Earth, but most crucially the fact that they are so well adapted to their environment: those that weren’t did not survive the process. Because the environment changes overtime, and therefore, what characteristics of life forms are better changes, and it cannot be said in absolute terms that extinct forms are inferior to those present today.

You may find it intuitively difficult to believe that two relatively simple natural processes can produce the complex order we observe in living organisms. But the beauty of science is that it so often shows our intuitions to be wrong. Because nature does not always function according to our common sense or intuition, the scientific method a necessity on the quest of the human race for survival.

Evolution is both a theory and a fact, contrary to simplistic creationist views. How can this be? Evolution is a fact in the sense that it is beyond reasonable doubt that living organisms have changed over time throughout the history of the earth. It is a theory in the sense that biologists have proposed a variety of mechanisms (including, but not limited to, mutation and natural selection) to explain the fact of evolution.

The theory of evolution is a fundamental concept of biology and it is supported by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence. Simply eliminating evolution from the public school curriculum in order to ease community tensions would do a great disservice to all students. It would deny public school students an adequate science education – which is more and more becoming a necessity for professional success in a high-tech world.

It must be said that there is a propagandistic perversion of language, and there are religious groups that use the language of science to mislead and actually undermine a scientific conceptualization of Reality. Religious opponents of evolution have cloaked religious beliefs in scientific sounding language and then mandating that schools teach the resulting "creation science" or "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution. Intelligent Design organizations are fundamentalist religious entities that consider the introduction of creation science into the public schools part of their ministry. Creation science rested on a "contrived dualism" that recognized only two possible explanations for life, the scientific theory of evolution and biblical creationism, treated the two as mutually exclusive such that "one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution," and accordingly viewed any critiques of evolution as evidence that necessarily supported biblical creationism. Creation science is simply not science because it depends upon supernatural intervention, which cannot be explained by natural causes, or be proven through empirical investigation, and is therefore neither testable nor falsifiable.

The argument for Intelligent Design (ID) is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God, traced back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer. Although proponents of ID occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed. The writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. Dramatic evidence of ID's religious nature and aspirations is found in what is referred to as the "Wedge Document." The Wedge Document, developed by the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. The Discovery Institute, the think tank promoting ID whose CRSC developed the Wedge Document, acknowledges as "Governing Goals" to "defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" and "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."

ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.

Because Science wins over Religion on factual description of Reality, the attack on Science is made nowadays on moral grounds.  From the point of view of religious fundamentalists, Science is a competing religion, although a silly one at that. Then the scientific community is under attack with this straw-man argument against evolution:

But if design, conversely, is rational, why do so many scientists reject it? Because this is not an issue of science, but of religion. Their religion is that of materialism and naturalism, and they are under no illusions as to the implications of design.

James M Tour, in the blog entry Layman’s Reflections on Evolution and Creation. An Insider’s View of the Academy, claims insufficient understanding of what he calls Macroevolution. Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools.^[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution,^[2] which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population. However, contrary to claims by creationists, macro and microevolution describe fundamentally identical processes on different time scales.

Russian entomologist Yuri Filipchenko first coined the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in 1927 in his German language work, "Variabilität und Variation". Since the inception of the two terms, their meanings have been revised several times and the term macroevolution fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories.^[7]

A more practical definition of the term describes it as changes occurring on geological time scales, in contrast to microevolution, which occurs on the timescale of human lifetimes.^[8] This definition reflects the spectrum between micro- and macro-evolution, whilst leaving a clear difference between the terms: because the geological record rarely has a resolution better than 10,000 years, and humans rarely live longer than 100 years, "meso-evolution" is never observed.^[8]

As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhard Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, Bernhard Rensch, Richard Goldschmidt, and Otto Schindewolf were) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not.

At the end of his article, Tour makes a reference to the movie, “Expelled. No Intelligence Allowed.” He asserts that a subset of the scientific establishment is retarding the careers of Darwinian skeptics. He closes citing  Viktor Frankl , The Doctor and the Soul with the comment If Frankl is correct, God help us:

“If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone.

“I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment; or as the Nazi liked to say, ‘of Blood and Soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers [emphasis added].”

The movie Expelled main theme is that what it calls Darwinism inherently contain the seeds of Nazism, and even more Darwinism equals Nazism. This frighteningly immoral narrative is capped off a la Moore, with shots of the Berlin Wall, old stock footage of East German police kicking around those trying to escape through the wall to the West and some solemn blather by Ben, who calls upon each one of us to rise up in defense of freedom and knock down a few walls in order to get creationism back into the curriculum at American Schools.

There were many nations, such as Britain which embraced Darwinism but saw a considerable number of their population killed trying to eliminate Nazism. There were other nations, such as the Soviet Union, where Darwinism was seen as so dangerous and subversive to State sponsored dreams of social engineering that those who espoused it were killed or exiled and a complete biological fairy tale, Lysenkoism, put into classrooms and agricultural policy ultimately leading to the deaths of millions from starvation.

Now, Christian groups are tying a neutral scientific theory to racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.That is extremely irresponsible and untrue. In fact, Christianity has a stronger link to anti-semiticism and xenophobia than Evolution which is a scientific theory that purports every man is from the same ancestor.
Throughout history, especially in the Crusades, European Christianity has consistently been a xenophobic culture - Jews were expelled out of England, were treated as second class citizens by Christians, and were not allowed to own lands. Black people were expelled by the Protestant Queen Elizabeth during the food shortage in England. Nazi Hitler, had Christianic themes in support of his treatment of the Jews.

The linking of Nazism to Evolution is a dishonest and cheap attempt at trying to personify a scientific theory as the root of all evil in the world. Evolution implies is that every human came from a single
ancestor. Darwin himself was anti-slavery and he said that there was "no clear distinctive characteristics to categorize races as separate species, and that all shared very similar physical and mental characteristics
indicating common ancestry". However this went against Christian beliefs of that time. A German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who wrote "Life of Jesus", "The Positivity of the Christian
Religion" and thought to be Christian by many critics believed that scientific racism - or the use of science to propose that other races such as blacks are of different heritage and descended from apes "fitted well with the Christian belief of a divine Creation following which all of humanity descended from the same Adam and Eve.

The Bible sanctions slavery, and from the 1820s to the 1850s it was cited in the Southern States of the United States of America to support the idea that negroes had been created unequal, suited to slavery, by writers such as the Rev. Richard Furman, Joseph Smith Jr. and Thomas R. Cobb." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism).

Christians are very uncomfortable with the idea that Adam and Eve were Africans - who, by the now debunked scientific racism are deemed to be descendants of apes. This was a central Christian tenet for much more years than evolution was around, and it was the catalyst for the systematic degradation of a particular group of people - the fact that black people were descendants of apes, gave Christians the biblical right to rule over them. Now that evolution has equalized and showed that all men are equal, and given the current taboo of identifying oneself as racist as well as the demise of Scientific racism. Many xenophobic people turn to Intelligent Design as their last ditch attempt to salvage some element of supernatural support for dominion over a certain group of people. This does not mean all Intelligent Design supporters are racists, but it is certainly a comfortable place for xenophobic individuals to channel their energies to.