The late Christopher Hitchens, paid twice the bribe to Chrysostomos A archbishop of Cyprus, in order to get married legally in Cyprus.
Watch him saying it
Chrysostomos I of Cyprus
Τετάρτη 27 Ιουνίου 2012
Ποιος πλήρωσε διπλά τον Χρυσόστομο Α᾽ της Κύπρου για πάρει άδεια να παντρευτεί ;
The late Christopher Hitchens, paid twice the bribe to Chrysostomos A archbishop of Cyprus, in order to get married legally in Cyprus.
Watch him saying it
Chrysostomos I of Cyprus
Dr. Neil DeGrasse - A fascinatingly disturbing thought
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| Multiple Intelligences (Photo credit: London Permaculture) |
Are we alone in the universe just because we cannot "see" other forms of life?
If the difference of 1% in DNA between humans of today with other primates of today is called special and intelligence, think if another species had an extra 1% more than the humans have today.
Would we be able to communicate with them? How often do you have a conversation with the 99% human intelligent primate ?
This is how it could be if we ever have an encounter with another a little more intelligent species !!!
Chinese Mafia destroy Illuminati - Interview with D. Rockefeller - Benja...
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| Adam Weishaupt, Illuminati (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Desist with your plans for world depopulation or else you and your families will be assassinated."
"We will pluck out the eye at the top of the Illuminati pyramid," Fulford told us. "We have trained ninjas close to them all. They will be wiped out in a matter of hours."
Τρίτη 26 Ιουνίου 2012
UK/Europe has HIGHER HOMELESS RATES Than the USA
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| Subregions of Europe (UN geoscheme) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
UK/Europe has HIGHER HOMELESS RATES Than the USA...Europeans Kept In The Dark About FACTS.
I guess its not their fault, their rulers just do not release this kind of information because its not a free and open society, like the more superior USA.
THOMAS ERNSTING/BILDERBERG-NETWORK
DOWN AND OUT: Around 10% of Europe’s homeless are rough sleepers, like these men in Frankfurt
Down And Out In Europe
The number of homeless in Western Europe is at its highest level in 50 years — and rising. What should be done? | By APARISIM GHOSH
Big Sid tells lies. During the course of a single three-hour conversation on a London street corner, he relates his life story four times, each version more fantastical than the last. In one, he swims to the middle of the Thames in midwinter to rescue a drowning dog. In another, he vanquishes a phalanx of machete-wielding skinheads with his bare hands. Sid is a black man who says his parents came to Britain from the Caribbean, but the specific biographical details he serves up vary so dramatically he might easily be talking about three or four completely different people; the narrative inconsistencies mount as he works his way through a two-liter bottle of hard cider. By the halfway point, he's contradicting himself almost every other sentence, and lapsing into incoherent repetitions of his two favorite phrases: "short-term" and "long-term."
Depending on which version of the saga you believe, Big Sid was born in South London, or in Yorkshire; he's a high school dropout, or played football at university; he was married (and divorced) twice, or never. He may be 35, or 40. He claims to be utterly alone in the world, an orphan with no relatives at all, but asked if he will allow himself to be photographed for this article, he balks. "I have family, man," he says, his high voice abruptly dropping to an embarrassed whisper. "I don't want them to pick up your magazine and see me in this condition."
His condition is the one certain, cruel, truth about Big Sid: he is homeless. On this bitterly cold winter night, he will make a bed of flattened cardboard boxes in the recessed doorway of a music store, squeeze into a fluorescent green sleeping bag that's too small for his angular 2-m frame, and rest his bald head on an old postman's sack that contains his every possession. He's been a rough sleeper for much of his adult life, wandering from city to city in a near-constant alcoholic haze. Once or twice a year, he will go to a shelter for homeless people, to get out of inclement weather or to have a doctor look at the sores on his feet. But these interludes rarely last more than a few days: Sid finds sustained human company stressful, and is deeply suspicious of anything that smacks of officialdom. "The shelters are okay for short-term, for a bath and medical treatment," he says, "but they aren't for long-term, man, not for me."
"That Europe's homelessness problem is roughly the same as America's is a shock. After all, Europe sees itself as more socially responsible than the U.S. "
Finding long-term solutions for people like Big Sid is an enormous — and growing — challenge for Western Europe, where homelessness has quietly been climbing to levels not seen since the end of World War II. Hard numbers are scarce, but according to the European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), a Brussels-based umbrella body of homeless organizations, at least 3 million Western Europeans are homeless this winter — and between one-fifth and one-third of them are members of homeless families. Only a small proportion, less than 10%, sleep rough like Big Sid; most huddle into shelters or temporary housing, live in shanties, or bed down in the houses of friends and family. Think homelessness is an American problem? Think again. As a percentage of population, it's as bad in Europe as it is in the U. S., where there are an estimated 2 million homeless, according to Dennis Culhane, a social-policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania, who extrapolates his figure from attendance at homeless facilities in nine U.S. jurisdictions.
That Europe's homelessness problem is roughly the same as America's — and that one of the fastest-growing segments of Europe's homeless population is families — is a shock. After all, Europe sees itself as kinder, gentler and more socially responsible than the U.S., with an extensive, expensive social safety net that's designed to nurture and protect the most vulnerable sections of the populace — the kind of people who are thrown to the wolves in winner-take-all America. But that might just be the point: it's easier to be homeless in Europe, where even the down-and-out get social-welfare checks.
Activists and experts, however, hesitate to make a direct cause-and-effect correlation between the dole and homelessness. They point, instead, to inadequate and incoherent social-welfare policies that throw money at the problem but don't do enough to move the homeless from the streets and shelters into jobs and permanent housing. "The safety net is failing some of the most vulnerable sections of European society," says Freek Spinnewijn, FEANTSA's director. "A lot of people are falling through — people with mental-health problems, drug and alcohol problems, and people who have suffered physical and sexual abuse."
What's even more scary is that 3 million is almost certainly an underestimate: most European countries simply don't know where to look or how to count the homeless. Government data are as confusing, and about as reliable, as Big Sid's stories. Austria and Spain have no official statistics at all. Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. have what are best described as estimates, many of them regarded with skepticism by voluntary organizations that work with the homeless. INSEE, France's national statistics agency, admits that its official count of 86,500 is only based on the number of adults that went at least once to a soup kitchen or an accommodation service. FEANTSA estimates that the real number of French homeless is closer to 200,000, but many aid organizations claim that even this figure is too low. The British government claims there are just 596 rough sleepers across the country, but those who work in London's shelters say there are more than 1,000 in the capital alone.
It doesn't help that different European governments (and indeed different voluntary organizations) have varying definitions of homelessness. In Italy, only rough sleepers qualify — there are around 17,000 of them, according to the official count. At the other end of the spectrum, Finland includes as homeless people staying temporarily with relatives and friends, and even prisoners about to be released who have no homes to go to. FEANTSA, the closest thing to a pan-European authority on the subject, uses a combination of official statistics, data from voluntary groups and its own research to make educated guesses.
"They have come to the capital hoping to scrounge a living on the fringes of the fantastic wealth they have seen depicted on TV"
Inconsistent definitions also explain why some homelessness groups express surprise at the comparison between homeless numbers in Europe and the U.S. "This is such a difficult phenomenon to quantify, and it's hard to know whether the Americans use the same yardsticks as we do," says Jeremy Swain, chief executive of the London homeless charity Thames Reach Bondway. But even if the calculations are imprecise, experts say, they've seen enough anecdotal evidence in recent years to know that Europe's homeless population is enormous, and growing all the time.
And it is compounded by Europe's other chronic predicament, immigration. The proportion varies sharply: in France, anywhere between 50% and 80% of those using homeless services are immigrants; in Germany, it's just over 10%. These calculations only include migrants who are legally entitled to state assistance, but social researchers say illegal immigrants tend not to remain homeless very long. With no access to social welfare, they have to find jobs and accommodation to get off the streets, where they risk being caught and sent back home. It doesn't follow that immigrants who use homeless services are welfare slobs, lacking the incentive or will to break out of their dependence on the state. Many are homeless because they are discriminated against, in jobs and housing — or simply can't afford Europe's high cost of living.
But economics is only a small part of the problem. Unlike Eastern Europe and Russia, where homelessness is mostly a result of massive unemployment, the profile of Western Europe's homeless is much more complicated. A large proportion owe their condition to nonfinancial difficulties — alcoholism or drug addiction, mental disabilities, or trauma brought on by physical or psychological abuse. "We're talking about people who have been raped or severely beaten up as children, who've had bad marriages, lost loved ones, been thrown out of jobs or suffered other kinds of indignities," says Dublin social-research consultant Brian Harvey. "Homelessness is the end of the line in a series of personal disasters."
Christelle won't say what her personal disaster has been, or why she recently left her Algerian-born husband. At the Cité Saint Martin in Paris, an aid center and shelter near the Bastille run by the Association of Catholic Relief Shelters, Christelle (not her real name), 23, tries to keep her three-year-old daughter Julie entertained. Sitting in the playroom, there are different toys everywhere, and after sampling building blocks and crayons, Julie (also not the child's real name), wearing a red dress with a matching red bow in her curly brown hair, finally settles down with a small plastic truck, driving herself around the room to her own engine sounds. Christelle smiles, but sees beyond the happiness that a well-stocked playroom can provide. "The hard part is living communally," she says, relaxing in a sweatshirt and jeans — a comfy outfit thrown on after a day out looking for work. "For my daughter, it's difficult. I don't want her to become too accustomed to this situation."
Most homeless people in Europe are single or separated men, like Big Sid. But voluntary agencies say the fastest-growing segments among the homeless are like Christelle: young, female and part of a family. The explanations range from the predictable (the general economic downturn) to the counterintuitive (women's independence may be a contributor: more assertive women are more likely to dump abusive husbands and move into homeless shelters). When the numbers were small, Europe did well by homeless families and women, giving them priority in temporary and permanent government housing. But as their numbers swell, the infrastructure is being stretched thin. Spinnewijn says that single women with children make up the majority of homeless families in Europe. "One of the main reasons for the increasing number of homeless families is divorce," says Spinnewijn. "There has been a rise in the number of divorces, and often divorced women with children find it very difficult to have an economically sustainable life."
Christelle, originally from northwestern France, moved into the shelter last September. According to the government's rules, she can only stay six months, which means she has until early March to find a new place to stay. Christelle is worried about the deadline, but is optimistic that she will have a job and an apartment by the spring. She hopes to get a divorce soon. With no friends in Paris and what appears to be a distant relationship with her family, who live several hours away, she contacted a social-aid worker who placed her at the Cité Saint Martin.
Résumé in hand, she goes out each day looking for work. "I'd like a job in the hospitality industry, maybe as a receptionist," she says. But the job market is tight, and so she tries to hide her circumstances from potential employers, to duck prejudice against homeless people. "Nobody knows I don't have my own home, and I don't tell them," she says. That includes her estranged husband and her family; when she calls her parents, she lets them believe she has a place.
The music of Jennifer Lopez plays on the radio in the background, and Christelle says what she'd really like to do is live in the U.S. "I dream of Los Angeles," she says. "Things just seem better there." But for the moment, it's enough to care for her daughter and keep going out everyday looking for a job. "When I was young I would see people from shelters and thought it must not be easy to live like that, without a place of your own," she says with an awkward smile. "Now I know."
It's hard to know what traumas torment the short, stocky man slouched on a bench in Berlin's Hallesches Tor metro station at 11 p.m. one freezing winter night. He is plainly drunk, the smell of alcohol on his breath mingling with the stench from his urine-stained trousers. His blue eyes are bloodshot, his brown beard mottled. Asked for his name by a worker from the Berlin City Mission, he comes up with "O'Brien," although he's plainly German. He agrees to be taken to a shelter run by the Mission, which is sponsored by the Lutheran Church. When he gets there, he is searched for weapons, drugs and alcohol, and is required to surrender the black table lamp that he jealously guards at all times. He's then handed a bowl of hot soup, but screams out that he wants spaghetti. After some soothing words from the kitchen volunteers, he begrudgingly takes his bowl of soup to the almost-empty dining room, where several other guests have passed out under the tables.
A drunken tantrum is nothing more than a small nuisance for those who work with the homeless. Volunteers routinely encounter hostility, even violence, particularly from rough sleepers. "Those who've been on the streets for years get very uncomfortable when they are suddenly in a confined space, surrounded by lots of people," says Susan Fallis, project manager at a West London hostel, one of several run by the charity Broadway. "They are suspicious and angry, and get put off by even the simplest things."
Fallis' hostel is a relatively rare "wet" house: it allows booze (but not drugs) on the premises, on the principle that alcoholics would otherwise remain in the streets and beyond help's reach. Residents are provided hot meals, clean bedrooms, even well-being services like foot massages and aromatherapy. They are also encouraged to sign up for government detox programs. The hostel receives around €450 a week from the British government for each of its 30-odd residents. It also charges them a small fee, about €12.50 a week, for things like electricity, water and gas. It's a pittance they can afford to pay from their welfare checks. The small fee has another function: it is meant to help residents deal with simple real-world chores like paying bills. "They need to take small steps toward a normal life," Fallis says.
But many find even the smallest steps too daunting, and their fear turns easily into resentment. Michael Ion, a 10-year rough sleeper and alcoholic who stayed at the hostel for a few weeks this winter, was enraged when one worker reminded him his monthly fee was overdue. "Why should they remind me about a payment?" he fumes. "I'm not in debt, or anything. And they're getting money from the government anyway." Although he concedes that the hostel is less hidebound than most, Ion complains that there are too many rules. "I'm used to being by myself in the open air, with nobody to tell me what to do," he says. "These places are like prisons for me."
Both O'Brien and Ion are back on the streets now. Few rough sleepers ever last more than a couple of months in a shelter: their addictions and psychological problems won't be solved by hot meals and a roof over their heads. And their welfare checks, more often than not, only feed their addictions.
And yet europe's traditional response to homelessness has been to throw money at the problem, in the form of benefits. Unemployed single French citizens over the age of 25 and with no dependents are entitled to an allowance of around €400 a month. In Britain, people can claim €50-80 per week in unemployment benefits, and in Germany, the homeless are entitled to a subsistence allowance of €9 a day, which they can pick up at the social-welfare office. Social researchers know that "it's not a matter of giving someone several hundred euros a month and expecting them to find a place to live and make a life," says Martin Hirsch, president of Emmaüs France, a voluntary organization that runs shelters and provides housing across the country. "Money isn't enough for people with problems — physical, psychological — who can't take care of themselves."
Can Europe fix its homelessness problem? Not before it acknowledges that the problem is graver than officials currently admit. Social researchers say an accurate count of the homeless is as crucial as an accurate national census. Central governments would be smart to pass that job on to provincial and local authorities; they're closer to the problem and better able to quantify it. "There's plenty of evidence that local authorities are more responsive to the homeless than central governments," says Dublin consultant Harvey. This is borne out by the experience of Germany's länder, or states, which under German law are responsible for dealing with homelessness. As a result, they provide the most accurate representation of the problem among the major European countries: after peaking at 590,000 in 1997, the number of homeless Germans fell to 390,000 in 2000. The decline also suggests that local authorities do a better job, not just of counting the homeless but of getting them off the streets.
"Few rough sleepers ever last more than a couple of months in a shelter: their addictions and problems won't be solved by a roof over their heads"
Other countries are coming around to the idea that workable solutions for homelessness must come from local authorities. England's Homelessness Act came into force last summer, requiring each of its 354 local-government housing authorities to produce a homelessness strategy by mid-2003. Then the real work can begin.
So far, the response from voluntary groups has been mixed. Alastair Jackson, director of policy for the housing organization Shelter, says the law has already "improved the quality of help" available to homeless people. But he and others worry that the central government hasn't yet explained how the local authorities will cooperate and coordinate their work with national bodies, voluntary groups and policymakers. And yes, European governments will still need to throw more money at the problem — to pay for more affordable housing, more shelters, and for the detox, rehab and therapies many homeless people need to overcome their personal demons.
Big Sid doesn't think that's possible. It's two weeks since that bender with the hard cider, and he's back on the streets of London after a trip to the beach resort of Brighton. The begging there was good, and he shows off a bottle of cheap whiskey tucked into his sack. But that's for a special occasion; for now he's still drinking cider. And he's still telling tall tales, but they've taken on a much darker tone, with him playing the victim instead of the hero. The villains, inevitably, are representatives of the state, from doctors in public hospitals who don't give him the medicines he wants to policemen who beat him up for no reason. "Governments hurt people," he says, recounting years of abuse he endured — or did he? — in a state-run correctional school 20 years ago. "Government programs are all short-term, and nothing good comes of short-term." Finding long-term solutions for the Big Sids of Europe may be the hardest part of dealing with homelessness.
With reporting by Theunis Bates and Adam Smith/London, Grant Rosenberg/Paris and Regine Wosnitza/Berlin
Δευτέρα 25 Ιουνίου 2012
The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks
The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks
By Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action
Posted on June 18, 2012, Printed on June 25, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/155926/the_loch_ness_monster_is_real%3B_the_kkk_is_good%3A_the_shocking_content_of_publicly_paid_for_christian_school_textbooks
This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur. The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.
On the list of schools approved to receive funding through the new voucher funding, that critics warn could eventually cut public school funding in half, are schools that teach from the Christian fundamentalist A Beka Book, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education curriculum.
What's in that curriculum? Last year, researcher Rachel Tabachnick and I co-produced a 35-minute documentary on the spread of a similar voucher program in Pennsylvania and other US states, titled "School Choice: Taxpayer-Funded Creationism, Bigotry, and Bias". Embedded at the end of this post is an eight-minute video segment from that documentary with scans from material in currently used A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press texts (in this May 25, 2011 story Tabachnick provides quotes from those textbooks.)
One of the schools cleared to receive substantial new funding through LA governor Bobby Jindal's voucher program is Eternity Christian Academy, in Westlake, LA, which according to Independent Weekly writer Walter Pierce,
...has been approved to accept 135 new students. That's a considerable uptick in enrollment, which at the end of this school year stood at 38 -- a more than 300 percent increase. Talk about buttressing the budget; $1 million in tax dollars will be diverted from the public school system to Eternity Christian, a school that, according to its mission statement, offers "a quality faith-based curriculum that is soley [sic] based on principles from the Bible ...
According to the Eternity Christian Academy website, the school uses the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. So, what's in the ACE curriculum?
An August 29, 2009 story in the Times Educational Supplement, a British publication for teachers, provides an excerpt from an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook:
Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.
Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? `Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.
Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."
Extract from Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc. (1995)
Is the text still in use today? The answer is yes, according to U.K. critic Jonny Scaramanga, who was raised on the ACE curriculum and now runs a blog titled "Leaving Fundamentalism: Examining Christian Fundamentalism in The UK".
In a popular post titled Top 5 Lies Taught By Accelerated Christian Education, Scaramanga states, "I called ACE [Accelerated Christian Education] on May 3rd, 2012, and was told that all of these PACEs are still in print and the content has not changed. These lies are still being taught in over fifty British schools today."
In the post, Scaramanga provides more detail on what ACE's curriculum Science PACE 1099 has to say about the Loch Ness Monster:
Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark.... are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence...
Among the other claims taught in ACE science curriculum, according to Scaramanga, are the following (the last three ACE curriculum claims are detailed in a subsequent post by Scaramanga titled, 5 Even Worse Lies from Accelerated Christian Education),
- Science Proves Homosexuality is a Learned Behavior
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution
- No Transitional Fossils Exist
- Humans and Dinosaurs Co-Existed
- Evolution Has Been Disproved
- A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur
- Solar Fusion is a Myth
One of the latest posts on Scaramanga's blog is a testimony from a professed "survivor" of the ACE curriculum who says he nonetheless went on to become a synthetic biologist and worked on the Human Genome Project, and writes,
Everything about ACE is inimical to responsible education. It serves no purpose except to brainwash children and give parents the feeling that their children are being placed on the way to godliness. It is a travesty of schooling. Any teacher with any dignity or integrity would not put children anywhere near ACE.
Scaramanga's broader critique of ACE takes on the curriculum's primitive teaching methods, and its racial and cultural insensitivity:
Learning and assessment methodologies
...ACE tests almost exclusively consist of multiple choice, matching, or fill-in-the-blank questions. These means only test factual recall, not understanding. Even if the students are trying to take a deep learning approach, they are not given the opportunity...
ACE prescribes a system of rewards and punishments for students.4 Those who achieve academic and behavioural goals are awarded privileges such as extended break times and the freedom to move without permission. All the rewards offered are forms of extrinsic motivation, emphasising that learning itself is not the thing of value.
ACE assessments do not provide evidence that deep learning has taken place. Options on the multiple choice tests are frequently meaningless, such as "Jesus died on the (cross, toss, chrome)".5
[...]
ACE rejects virtually all modern educational theory.7
Science
The ACE curriculum includes no practical science and accordingly no investigation. This would be troublesome for any ACE student embarking on a science higher education course.
"The PACEs are based on the reading comprehension mode of learning... There is no room within this method of learning for the negotiation of topics, for whole class problem solving, for the generation of ideas, for the formulating and testing of hypotheses, discussion of results and social application."10
...Rather than weighing evidence objectively, the ACE system rejects any science that contradicts the Bible, stating:
"True science will never contradict the Bible because God created both the universe and Scripture...If a scientific theory contradicts the Bible, then the theory is wrong and must be discarded."11
[...]
Racial insensitivity
The ACE curriculum shows insensitivity towards blacks, Jews, and natives.16 Cartoon strips used for the teaching of "Godly character" in the PACEs depict students attending racially segregated schools.17 ACE materials about Aborigines are unacceptable to the Aboriginal people.18 ACE's stance on apartheid is also of concern. During apartheid, ACE claimed that if blacks were given the vote, it would destroy the South African economy.19 Subsequently, they have written about apartheid in terms that are equivocal at best:
"For many years, the four racial groups were separated politically and socially by law. This policy of racial separation is called `apartheid'. South Africa's apartheid policy encouraged whites, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to develop their own independent ways of life. Separate living area and schools made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children."
[...]
Political Bias
ACE materials do not allow the consideration of any opposing point of view. This fails to develop skills required for degree-level study such as forming an argument, considering different opinions, and analysing the validity of claims. Rather than engaging with differing points of view, ACE derides them.21 ACE's approach to politics borders on propaganda, with opinions presented as fact.22"
Like the ACE curriculum, A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks promote Young-Earth creationism, are heavily laden with political bias, and at times verge on racism. As shown in the following video, among the dubious, factually incorrect, politically tendentious, and racially and culturally insensitive claims in A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks are the following:
- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."
- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ."
- It "cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere's ozone layer."
- "God has provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists."
- the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
- "Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created."
- Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.
- "The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth."
Bruce Wilson is Co-Founder, with journalist Frederick Clarkson, of the website Talk To Action, which covers the intersection of religion and politics.
© 2012 Talk To Action All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/155926/
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- The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks
- The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks
- How American fundamentalist schools are using Nessie to disprove evolution - Rachel Loxton - Herald Scotland
- Shocking Christian school textbooks
- A quick peek at the future Louisiana science curriculum
Critical Approaches to the Bible: Introduction to Genesis 12-50
LECTURE DESCRIPTION
This lecture introduces the modern critical study of the Bible, including source theories and Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis, as well as form criticism and tradition criticism. The main characteristics of each biblical source (J, E, P, and D) according to classic source theory are explained. This lecture also raises the question of the historical accuracy of the Bible and the relation of archaeology to the biblical record.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course examines the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient Israel, and a foundational document of Western civilization. A wide range of methodologies, including source criticism and the historical-critical school, tradition criticism, redaction criticism, and literary and canonical approaches are applied to the study and interpretation of the Bible. Special emphasis is placed on the Bible against the backdrop of its historical and cultural setting in the Ancient Near East. Note - due to copyright limitations, only three lectures from this course appear below. For the remainder of the lectures, please visit: Open Yale Courses - Introduction to the Old Testament
RELATED RESOURCES
Lecture Transcript and Reading Assignment
Open Yale Courses Terms of Use
Open Yale Courses
RELATED VIDEOS
Biblical Religion in Context
YALE / HUMANITIES
Christine Hayes
Studying the Old Testament
YALE / HUMANITIES
Christine Hayes
New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin (playlist)
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| Elias Hutter New Testament Polyglot (Photo credit: FirewallJC) |
This course provides a historical study of the origins of Christianity by analyzing the literature of the earliest Christian movements in historical context, concentrating on the New Testament. Although theological themes will occupy much of our attention, the course does not attempt a theological appropriation of the New Testament as scripture. Rather, the importance of the New Testament and other early Christian documents as ancient literature and as sources for historical study will be emphasized. A central organizing theme of the course will focus on the differences within early Christianity (-ies).
About Yale University Courses
Κυριακή 24 Ιουνίου 2012
(not) Understanding the Bible (Old Testament)
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| Terah was the father of Abraham mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Excerpts from the opening lecture of Yale's "Introduction to the Old Testament" course. In this lecture, prof. Christine Hayes, provides an introduction to the literature of the Hebrew Bible and its structure and contents and some of its origins in neighboring mythologies. Common misconceptions about the Bible are dispelled: the Bible is a library of books from diverse times and places rather than a single, unified book; biblical narratives contain complex themes and realistic characters and are not "pious parables" about saintly persons; the Bible is a literarily sophisticated narrative not for children; the Bible is an account of the odyssey of a people rather than a book of theology; and finally, the Bible was written by many human contributors with diverse perspectives and viewpoints.
To see the whole lecture click here:
http://academicearth.org/lectures/bible-parts-of-the-whole
To see the entire course click here:
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebre...
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| Leningrad Codex text sample. A very old manuscript of the hebrew bible. A former possession of karaït jews. They claim his author was karait, a position refused by rabbanite jews. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
To see the whole lecture click here:
http://academicearth.org/lectures/bible-parts-of-the-whole
To see the entire course click here:
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebre...
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