"whosoever shall not be offended in me" - The US Should Accept Muslim Refugees More

A Shinto Shrine around Tokyo

The US Should Accept Muslim Refugees More

Christ Jesus said to leave a town where you are persecuted (for His name).

Therefore, refugees leaving Islamic countries where they are put in a predicament due to civil wars and battles involving Western powers should be warmly accepted in each destination country.

When Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman troops, Israelites became refugees 2000 years ago.  However it seems that they were accepted, somewhat well, in other cities or regions around the Mediterranean Sea under control of the Roman Empire.

Many of those Judaists seem to have moved to around Rome.  And, subsequently they settled in Northern Italy.  Probably Roman citizens did not like to have Judaists in or around Rome where Christianity was gaining population.  Accordingly Judaists opted to live in Northern Italy.  But as the Roman Empire had long colonies in the north of the Alps, those Judaists further decided to move into central Europe along the rivers flowing from the Alps.

Eventually these Judaists came to live in regions along the Rhine and other major rivers running through the present day Germany, probably following Romans travelling there.  Then ancestors of today's Germans and other Germanic peoples started to invade these areas from the north and the northeast.  There they encountered Judaists.

(Before the Judaists settled in these areas, there had been living Celtic people and different types of Germanic peoples than ancestors of today's Germans who had fought troops led by Caesar and other Roman generals.)

Therefore, Judaists had ironically longer history in the area today called Germany or at least in some cities built by Romans there than ancestors of today's Germans had.

But Judaists were almost driven out of Germany and adjacent regions through WWII.  However, the reason is more a difference in tribalism than in religion between Judaists and today's Germans.  It cannot be Christianity Germans observed, to any degree, while trying to annihilate Judaists in the period around WWII.  It is cultural and spiritual heritage they took over from ancestors who had lived in the era before the coming of Christianity to central Europe or the north of the Alps.

Strong tribal features modern Germans inherited from their ancient ancestors seem to have been very exclusive.  Accordingly, they instinctively hated Judaists who had been living in present-day Germany earlier than ancestors of Germans.  Accordingly there had been a danger of ethnic strife between Judaists living in Germany and Germans for 2000 years or so.  This must be the largest underlying cause of the Holocaust Hitler had played a leading part in.

What should be feared now is that today's Islamic refugees heading for Germany and other neighbor nations might face a similar situation eventually to that Judaists once encountered in Europe: ethnic strife between Muslims coming to live in Germany and other neighbor nations and Germans and other Europeans.  Tribal differences must work, at least sometimes, more strongly and profoundly than religious differences.

Probably, the ultimate destination of those Islamic refugees should be America.  Indeed, it is the US that triggered the bloody and violent situations today observed in the Islamic regions.  America's War on Terror should have been fought in a more sophisticated manner.  If so, there would have been no refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. to Germany and other European countries.

The US should accept Muslim refugees more and more.  



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Mat 11:6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
Mat 11:7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?

"What do ye, loosing the colt?" - Prolonged War Entering a New and Worse Phase

Around the National Diet Bldg., Tokyo

Prolonged War Entering a New and Worse Phase

If a war lasts long, something terrible or drastic happens as if it were entering a new phase.

The Empire of Japan had been fighting against China since 1937.  Then the US demanded withdrawal of Imperial troops from mainland China while freezing Japanese assets in the US and imposing embargo of crude oil to the Empire.  Finally in December 1941, Tokyo was virtually forced to attack Pearl Harbor to address the diplomatic impasse.

And in August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the long and bloody battles around the Pacific Ocean.

The Vietnam War was fought between 1960 and 1975.  And after this war, a massacre occurred in Cambodia, adjacent to Vietnam.  One million or more citizens were executed by the communist government led by Pol Pt around 1978.  Even a war broke out between Vietnam and China in 1979.  These tragedies in the Indochina Peninsula were apparently triggered by the Vietnam War.

Afghanistan experienced a civil war with interference from the Soviet Union from 1978 to 1989.  Subsequently the Taliban took over power in 1996 through another civil war.  And, in 2001, the Taliban together with its ally AlQaeda, based in this war-torn country, came to be attacked by the US and its coalition forces after Osama's attack on New York and Washington DC on Sept. 11, 2001.

Iraq was put into a war with the US in 2001 as Saddam Hussein did not surrender in the wake of the 9/11 Terror, though Hussein had no clear connection to AlQaeda.  Around 2006, the US finally almost controlled and kept order all over Iraq, and Barack Obama, after elected as President in 2008, started withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.  Then, an extreme armed group called ISIS began to prevail in regions from Iraq to Syria.

Now Syria has been in a civil war since 2011.  And finally Russians have come to be engaged in this war with military planes to support the Assad regime; on the other hand, the US is going to send special forces there to fight ISIS.  But ISIS is also fighting back, even by setting a bomb in a Russian jetliner flying over the Sinai Peninsula.

So, if a war continues in a longer period of time, something so different in paradigm and scale would often emerge.  In other word, such a long war enters a new and worse phase eventually.

And, today, those prolonged states of wars in the Islamic regions seem to invoke something different, which should be probably called the Third World War.  Indeed, millions of Muslims are fleeing those regions to the center of Europe while the US and Russia are getting involved more and more.  The prospect for these movements looks so ominous.


But, those who call the name of God should be saved.  Since this era might be really in a process of the end of the world for many involved in a tragic manner.  Truly, if the 21st century becomes another century of war following the 20th century, the world can be ended.



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Mar 11:5 And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt?
Mar 11:6 And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go.

"every one that is indebted to us" - Living Poor is Very Correct

33 Km to Tokyo on National Road No. 17

Living Poor is Very Correct

If we admit the existence of God, it naturally leads to a question: what is the relationship between God and mankind?

We cannot believe that God created mankind without a purpose.  There must be a clear and concrete reason for the creation of mankind by God.  The Bible does not give a direct answer.  But Christ Jesus said that God loves mankind so much and thus we must love God as much as possible.

From this teaching of Christ Jesus, we may conclude that God wants love from mankind so that He created this material universe, the solar system, and the earth to generate the human species.  No matter how complicated and difficult this process looks to human beings, it must be a very easy task for God.

According to the teaching of Christ Jesus, our souls, hearts, and minds are linked to the spiritual universe and Heaven.  For instance, Christ Jesus told us to accumulate wealth in Heaven but not in this world that makes any wealth rotten eventually.  Therefore, our love must be reflected in Heaven or accumulated there.  Each time we express and prove our love to God, it must be reflected or recorded in Heaven.  Our love to God might work in Heaven in a manner that makes God happy.

No matter how much mankind has developed and advanced its civilization, God will not be rejoiced.  But, an increase of the number of people who show their love everyday must rejoice God.  In this context, the level of the civilization of mankind may as well be kept at that observed 2000 years ago when Christ Jesus appeared in Palestine.  Growth of material civilization in these 2000 years must be nothing in God's judgment on mankind.  But an increase in a percentage of believers among all must count.

Indeed, the more men accumulate wealth and material knowledge of this world and the nature, the less they have righteous faith in God.  Among very successful wealthy people and very successful scientists, we find rarely true belief in God.  If they attribute their success to God superficially, they most often celebrate their own good lucks but not God.

Science and technology continue to develop.  And, one day somebody might obtain a means to destroy mankind scientifically or financially.  And, Satan will surely seduce such a lucky man or a genius into a catastrophic act for mankind.

The only solution to prevent future annihilation of mankind must be for them to keep the living standard observed 2000 years ago when Christ Jesus appeared on the earth.  In other word, for the human species to survive until the end of the universe it is necessary for them to be as poor as Christ Jesus was 2000 years ago.

It applies to each individual.  Living poor is a very correct thing if you believe the existence of God.

Therefore we have to respect and love poor people if they are refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.



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Luk 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

"Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying" - Love, Freedom, Dictatorship and Wars

 Around Tokyo

Love, Freedom, Dictatorship and Wars

Love needs freedom.  Without liberty no true love is possible.

Accordingly, despotic states should be defeated and dictatorship should be abolished.  Accordingly, old despotic leaders in Libya, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan were drove out of power.  Peoples in those countries obtained some freedom as well as inevitably and sadly bloody tragedies.

In Syria, its half broken government is still somewhat functioning based on support from Russia and Iran, both of which are half despotic states.

In China, there is no sign of immediate fall of the Chinese Communist Party.  As long as its economy is sustained at a certain level, Chinese people seem to dream of being rich rather than being free.

Another issue is that usually a despotic government is only destroyed through a civil war or a foreign war.  Costs for freedom are always very high.

Anyway as the United Nations are still under strong influences of the two despotic nations, Russia and China, the world cannot be completely free from the enemy of freedom, dictatorship.

However, when one nation is competing with another nation that is much stronger, the former needs strong unity of its people to fight out a war against the latter.  Even if the weak nation has a democratic system in its society to some extent, it would restrict the movement toward expansion of democracy and freedom and introduce stern control of its society and industry.  In some case, such a nation might adopt militarism to mobilize all the resources it has toward the war against the strong nation.

This situation was once observed in Japan.

From the abolition of its national isolation and the start of Westernization in the middle of the 19th century, Japan had to face strong foreign powers invading Asia.  Japanese had introduced various systems from Europe and America to become one of major military powers before WWII.  It also introduced democracy to some extent, but to fight out or prepare for wars against Russians, the US, the UK, etc., the then Japanese leaders had to rely on an authoritarian frame of mind.  They must have thought if all the Japanese had become dedicated soldiers, there should have been a chance to win wars against Russians and Western powers who had more advanced industrial power.

In this context, the Japanese militarism in the period of WWII might be justified to some degree.

But, the Empire of Japan had the most advanced and mightiest military forces in Asia before WWII.  If the Empire had made war against other Asian nations, the above justification could not be sustained.  The issue of the war between the Empire of Japan and China in WWII should be reviewed also in light of this paradigm, though, against the background concerning conflicts between Japanese and Western powers.

However, the Japanese people obtained freedom after WWII, which the Chinese people cannot enjoy even today.

Now, in the Islamic world, this issue involves another factor religion.  Religion makes people free from fear and evil, if it is true religion.  But, if the religion Islam is weaker than Christianity and Judaism and Muslims feel fear and evil caused by Western powers and Israelis, can it be justified that Muslims opt to have despotic governments to fight out Christians and Judaists while sacrificing some freedom?

If so, as long as there are stronger Christian Western powers and Israel suppressing or abusing Islamic nations, they might be allowed to have authoritarian regimes in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.  It might be necessary for Muslims so as not to be put under control of Christians and Judaists.

But can they eventually realize free society like Japan after WWII?



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Joh 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
Joh 11:4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

"the works of Christ" - How to Help Old and Poor People

Ginza, Tokyo

How to Help Old and Poor People

There is a movie made in Japan in the middle of 1970s.

The leading character called Tora-san, a kind of care-free vendor, met a half-drunken old man who had no money in a noodle shop annexed to a station in a Tokyo downtown.  As a waitress treated him badly and intended to calｌ the police for bilking on a restaurant bill, Tora-san having a humble meal there stood up.  He gave her a little lecture about humanity and paid a charge for him.  After the incident, they drank together and became friends.  Tora-san even took the drunken old man to his home, which was in fact a rice dumpling shop his uncle ran.

Later the old man was found to be a famous Japanese-style painter.


Apart from a story of the movie, there are some old and poor men who have nobody to rely on and no jobs.  If they could not receive social welfare, they would rather eat in a restaurant to be arrested and sent to a prison, especially when their physical conditions don't allow them to survive on streets as homeless men.  And when they are released from prisons, in most cases they have not enough money.  They will repeat this cycle from a street to a prison.

So, the public administration in Japan is taking some measures to support old discharged prisoners.  Public experts in this field provide them with consultation, help them receive any social welfare, and find jobs for them.

According to statistics in Japan, a recidivism rate of old men is more than 70%.  It means seven of ten old men arrested for shop theft and the like repeat similar crimes.　Recently, the number of those who are 65 years old or older and arrested by the police is more than 46,000, and the number of those, 65 years old or older, put in prisons is 2,200.  (The population of Japan is about 120 million.)  And many of these old inmates need a nursing care in prisons.    　


In the world, there must be more tragic statistics.  But, in Japan, the more the society is matured economically and technologically, the more old men lose connections to families and society.

The advancement of civilization without love does not mean an increase in a number of simple but humane guys like Tora-san.



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Mat 11:2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,
Mat 11:3 And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
Mat 11:4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:

"he sendeth forth two of his disciples" - Foreign Workers in South Korea

Government Office District, Tokyo

Foreign Workers in South Korea

NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, televised a documentary on plights of foreign workers in South Korea.

South Korea puts in practice a system to invite foreign workers as a kind of cheap labor force to work in small and medium-sized businesses at low wages.  South Korea's major enterprises such as Samsung use many subcontractors that are requested to cut costs for benefits of those major companies at the time of  a recession.  To fulfill this requirement, minor companies need foreign workers who work at low costs and can be fired easily.

To facilitate this scheme, the S. Korean Government introduced the system where S. Korea asks other Asian nations to provide lists of young people who want to work in S. Korea.  And, the S. Korea Government presents the lists to minor companies that choose individuals they want to hire.  The S. Korea Government initially boasted that under this system foreign workers can enjoy the same right as that enjoyed by S. Korean workers.  Believing their words, the United Nations officially praised this system.  But it turned to be a system to exploit foreign workers and neglect their human rights.  Even the Amnesty International has blamed S. Korea for this system with full of defects such as restriction of freedom of foreign workers to quit a job and find another at their will.

In Japan, there is a similar system.  But the Japanese Government regards those foreign workers not as regular workers but as on-the-job foreign trainees.  And, since 1990s, many small and medium-sized businesses of Japan opted to transfer their factories to China and other Asian nations rather than simply accepting trainees from foreign countries.

The number of on-the-job foreign trainees in Japan is about 150,000 (though there are 170,000 Japanese Brazilians who work in factories in Japan under a special system applied to Brazilians with Japanese ancestors).  But the number of foreign workers in S. Korea is more than 700,000.

Even in Japan sometimes it becomes news that some bad employer exploits on-the-job foreign trainees.  The Japanese Government is reluctant to strictly regulate this labor issue, but  public administration and the judiciary system will interfere to correct bad labor management of problem companies.  But, in S. Korea, the Government supports problem companies in order to ultimately facilitate profits making of major companies that use those problem companies.

S. Korea businesses enjoyed a merit of its weak currency till recently.  Their exporting companies had competitive edges against Japanese businesses as the Japanese yen had been appreciated so high for years.   But since the Bank of Japan started to provide a huge amount of yen to the market through purchase of government bonds in bulk from the market a few years ago, the yen became weak.  The Korean won became strong relatively.  As a result, Korean export declined.  In August of this year, exports of Korea declined by minus 14% year on year.  Accordingly, major enterprises of S. Korea requests cost cutback to their contract companies and subcontractors.  Consequently, these minor companies stop paying full wages to foreign workers, fire them without full compensations, or force them to work for longer hours without additional pay.    

Today, East Asia is regarded as prosperous as the EU, but the situations in Japan, Taiwan, China, and S. Korea are not necessarily rosy as emphasized by the working and living conditions of foreign workers in S. Korea.  (It is interesting that China has no such a large number of foreign workers, since it has hundreds of millions of poor farmers who can provide cheap labor force for domestic businesses.)

The largest motivation of businesses for their operation is profit making and money making.  Accordingly, problems such as one above stated cannot be eradicated.

But if we obey the word of God and Christ Jesus honestly, we have to formulate a law that forbids businesses to make a profit by sacrificing human beings, namely workers, and especially foreign workers and on-the-job foreign trainees.

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The Japanese version of the memoir of David Rockefeller is sold in two volumes, though in pocket edition.  I bought the first volume only.  But it is interesting enough, so that I may buy the second volume.  However, I don't like to make the super-rich man richer by my purchase of his books.

David Rockefeller was a kind of intelligence officer in WWII.  However, one of his brothers suffered an injury in a battle against the Imperial Japanese Navy.  A kamikaze attack plane hit a US naval ship where he was on board around Okinawa.





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Mar 11:1 And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples,
Mar 11:2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him.
Mar 11:3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither.

"there came down a certain priest that way"- China, Another Nazi Germany?

Eno-shima Island, west of Tokyo

China, Another Nazi Germany?

Some economists in Japan have judged that the growth rate of the Chinese economy is minus 3%.

It is because the most reliable indicator of the Chinese economy is its trade statistics and it showed that the Chinese trade decreased by 15% year on year.  This figure is the same as that observed in the US after the 2008 Financial Crisis, and at the time the US GDP dropped by 3%.  Accordingly, they have judged that the Chinese economy has shrank by 3% but has not increased by 6.9% as the Chinese Government announced.

The Chinese Government is not checked by its people.  There are no democratic systems in China.  No democratic parliament with openly elected representatives exists in China.  No Chinese ministers and elite bureaucrats have a duty to honestly answer questions in free press conferences or parliament sessions.  Rather, any newspapers, TV stations, and other media would be suppressed and attacked by the Chinese Government if they present any reports or comments against official policies or data presented by the Government.

There are stock markets and some financial forums in China.  But they are not rooted in democratic society.  The Chinese market is partially or mostly controlled by the Government that can boost market prices/indexes and exchange rates at will, if necessary.  They even once banned export of rare metals to Japan, the US, etc. for some political reason.

But the Western world seems to think that it is better than chaos, turmoils, or civil war in China.  As long as China can export cheap goods to Japan, the US. the EU, and other global markets, and in return import many products from, and invest big money in, those regions, they don't mind what figures the Chinese Government presents as an official GDP value or other economic data.

However, it is dangerous.  It might be regarded as a great experiment of big economy without support from democracy.  But, it is too risky to the global economy.

For example, even Nazi Germany succeeded in its economic policies before WWII.  Even Germans were at the time practicing democratic processes in their politics.  But China has no such processes.

We may as well regard China of today as another Nazi Germany.    





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Luk 10:31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
Luk 10:34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.