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Metadata: A Fundamental Component of the Semantic Web
Jane Greenberg, assistant professor, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, can be reached by e-mail at email@example.com. Stuart Sutton, associate professor, The Information School, University of Washington, can be reached at email@example.com. D. Grant Campbell, assistant professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, is at email@example.com.
In their widely discussed May 2001 article on the Semantic Web in Scientific American (www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21) Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila present a scenario in which a person named Pete is listening to the Beatles through his home entertainment center. Lucy, Petes sister, phones from the doctors office to explain that their mother needs a series of bi-weekly physical therapy sessions. The first few paragraphs of this article tell how both Petes and Lucys Semantic Web agents (hereafter referred to as agents) communicate with each other and transverse the Semantic Web to schedule their mothers physical therapy session, how Pete is not pleased with the initial plan and how later that evening Pete sends his agent back onto the Semantic Web to find an alternative plan. Petes Web agent completes this second task and reschedules several of his personal and less important work appointments.
Realizing this scenario is dependent not only on the ability of Petes and Lucys agents to communicate with each other, but their ability to transverse a system of structured semantic knowledge that is forming the Semantic Web. This system of semantics is metadata. With efforts to build the Semantic Web, we are beginning to see the metadata infrastructure that agents need to carry out tasks that the initial Web has not been able to support. To this end, implementing and harvesting metadata is fundamental to the success of the Semantic Web. This article provides an overview of metadata as a key component of the Semantic Web its vision and architecture; metadata vocabularies; enabling technologies; and authoring and annotation.
Semantic Web: Vision & Architecture
Clearly articulated visions and architectural plans, drawn by great thinkers and experts of the time, form the underpinnings of many of the worlds most significant structures. Consider the Panama Canal. Crossing the mass of land called the Americas at its narrowest point by means of a waterway was a vision shared by many throughout history, including indigenous people of the Americas, Christopher Columbus and merchants worldwide. Execution of architectural plans, first by leading French engineers in 1879 and then by a U.S. Commission, led to completion of the Panama Canal in 1914. In like fashion, an evolving and shared vision, supported by an architectural plan, underlies the development of the Semantic Web.
The Vision. The Semantic Web was envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (Web), and is now being further defined by researchers and visionaries, but it was inspired by a host of creative thinkers who have, throughout history, looked to technological innovation as a way not only to control, but also to transform the worlds mass of information into intelligence. Vannevar Bush was one early pioneer in this area with his vision of the Memex (www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm) a mechanism using associative indexing to link the worlds vast body of scientific recorded knowledge to discover new knowledge. Another significant idea is Alan Turings conceptualization of the Turing Machine and its use of logic to transform numbers into intelligence. (See www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/machine.html.) The vision supporting the Semantic Web draws upon these ideas and new ideas inspired by technological developments to create intelligence.
The Architecture. The Semantic Webs architecture, captured by Berners-Lee, is represented in Figure 1. Each layer supports or has a connection to metadata.
The synopsis provided here shows that metadata permeates each layer of the Semantic Webs architecture, although it is not the only piece, as agents, enabling technologies, authoring and annotation programs, and metadata vocabularies need to be further developed to realize the full potential of the Semantic Web.
Metadata Vocabularies
Metadata vocabularies are synonymous with onotologies, as discussed above. A vocabulary, in a general sense, is a shared system of semantics for concepts or objects. Think about the vocabulary that comprises Portuguese. It is a system of agreed upon meanings permitting intelligible communication among Portuguese people and other persons who speak this language.
The metadata world hosts a range of systems to which the label of metadata vocabulary is applied. These vocabularies range from basic descriptive metadata systems, with limited or single-focused functionalities, to more complex member/class semantic vocabularies. An example of a simple ontology is the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) Elements and Element Refinements (www.dublincore.org/usage/terms/dc/current-elements/), a metadata schema developed mainly to facilitate resource discovery. A more complex metadata vocabulary to which the word ontology is applied is the Ariadne Genomics ontology (www.ariadnegenomics.com/technology/ontology.html). This ontology is used to formalize data on cell proteins for computer analysis: the ontology defines the various proteins, classifies them into taxonomic trees and defines the semantic relationships among them. While many metadata vocabularies in operation were not necessarily created with the Semantic Web in mind, they may be able to play a significant role in its development. For existing and developing ontologies to be used and function fully in the Semantic Web environment, they need to adhere to standards supported by enabling technologies.
Enabling Technologies for Metadata
Although metadata is integral to the Semantic Web, metadata on its own is far from sufficient. Needed are standards to syntactically encode and represent semantic knowledge so that agents can perform tasks in an efficient and comprehensible manner. A variety of enabling technologies have developed over the last few years that are proving significant to the construction of the Semantic Web. Some have developed prior to the conceptualization of the Semantic Web, while others are being developed and refined specifically with the Semantic Web in mind. Among four key developments that are critical for metadata encoding and manipulation by agents are:
The other articles in this special section of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology give attention to each of these and other important technologies.
Semantic Web Authoring and Annotation
As we move on with our discussion of the Semantic Web, we need to account for the notion that all of these impressive developments assume that metadata will exist that authors and third parties will take the time and trouble to create metadata for Web content which can be read, understood and harvested by intelligent agents. This is a daunting proposition since accurate, consistent metadata is notoriously difficult to create, as librarians and information scientists over the world will verify. The challenge, then, is to decentralize a task that has traditionally been centralized in libraries and other information centers, carried out by professionally trained catalogers. The glories of the Semantic Web will ultimately depend on tools that will enable authors to create with very little effort RDF annotations and other useful semantic metadata on their Web pages.
Annotation has been one of the slower developments on the World Wide Web: Berners-Lee's vision of a Web that permits collaborative authoring, in addition to hyperlinked pages, has not yet materialized. At last, however, an encouraging number of annotation tools are appearing, ranging from simple captioning systems to ambitious and sophisticated systems that provide multiple views of annotation in multiple formats. At the most basic level, programs such as Annotea enable multiple users to comment on and provide metadata for a single pool of documents for purposes of collaborative writing and research. Other programs more directly geared to the Semantic Web provide ways in which RDF and ontological data may be easily created and stored in the headers of the document.
Painless creation of RDF metadata depends on two things: a predefined ontology that spares the author the task of creating terms and relationships and a user-friendly interface that permits the author to create metadata instances intuitively. One such annotation program, OntoMat, permits the author to download a predefined ontology that appears in one window, while the HTML document being annotated appears in the other. The author highlights elements of the document to be annotated and places them into a third window, and then uses the ontology to define the data elements and their relationships to each other. The program then generates highly detailed RDF metadata without the author having seen a single angle bracket. With tools such as these, conference organizers, for instance, can require contributing authors to annotate their abstracts with RDF metadata or members of a particular community can annotate their Web pages using a common ontology. Equally important, the tasks can be integrated fairly painlessly into the normal workflow of Web authoring.
A variety of annotation tools are listed at the Semantic Web Authoring and Annotation site: http://annotation.semanticweb.org/tools. They include
These tools, and the tools which improve on them, will hopefully provide the simplicity that is essential for the Semantic Web to grow. The Semantic Web, after all, was not envisioned as a tool for information professionals and computer scientists, but as a tool for everyone. And if Pete and Lucy are ever going to prefer this new Web to their date books and palm pilots, it has to stay simple.
Our perceptions of metadatas role in both the vision and architecture of the Semantic Web are not yet fully focused. While the vision embraces metadata as a first-order prerequisite to that architecture, its roles and mechanisms currently resonate with the evolution of earlier technological achievements. At the turn of the last century, as ships began to pass through the Panama Canal, the fledgling horseless carriage traversed other byways in forms we would hardly recognize today. They asked then, Shall we steer with a wheel or with a stick? Will the brake be on the left or the right of the steering column? Competing variations on the visions theme sought to dominate the architecture of the evolving automobile. In many ways, we stand in a place quite like that occupied by those earlier pioneers when we view the potential roles and forms of metadata in the emerging architecture of the Semantic Web.
Further Reading
Berners-Lee, T. (1997). Axioms of Web architecture: Metadata: Metadata architecture. In Design issues: Architectural and philosophical points (Semantic Web roadmap). Available at www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Metadata.html
World Wide Web Consortium. Metadata activity statement. Available at www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html
Semantic Web authoring and annotation. Available at http://annotation.semanticweb.org/
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Information Science and Technology


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KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Air Zoo has added a new art exhibit to its list of exhibits and experiences included in the museum's free general admission. "The Spirit of Flight: The History of Aviation through Art" chronicles the history of aircraft and aircraft carriers from their earliest beginnings through today's modern airplanes.
The exhibit, located in the Main Campus's Traveling Exhibit Hall, and donated in part by Dr. James C. Lathrop of Saginaw, Michigan, features more than 50 framed prints and posters, most of which are signed by the plane's pilot or crew. It also includes three full-size aircraft cockpit trainers that visitors can climb into and explore. Tom Austin Jr. of San Angelo, Texas, donated a T-28 procedural trainer—painted exactly like the museum's T-28 Trojan—and two F-16 cockpit trainers are on loan from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. A restored Link Trainer is featured as well, courtesy of a donation from Alpha Eta Rho, Western Michigan University's aviation fraternity.
Dr. Arnold Herskovic of Arlington Heights, Illinois, donated three large models of U.S. Navy warships. These include a 9-1/2-foot-long model of the USS Wisconsin, an 8-foot model of the USS Nimitz and a 6-foot model of the USS Arleigh Burke.
The exhibit also includes a display funded by the Good family about Drs. Walter and William Good, two brothers who grew up in Kalamazoo and developed the first successful radio-controlled model airplane, The Guff.
For more information: AirZoo.org or 269.382.6555.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Ducks had won 10 consecutive games but proved they are human Sunday night as the streak was ended by the San Jose Sharks.
Playing the second of back-to-back games after Saturday's overtime win against Phoenix, the Ducks reached San Jose holding a comfortable seven-point lead over their second-place Pacific Division pursuer, knowing they will meet again New Year's Eve in Anaheim.
With urgency lacking against the more desperate rival, the Ducks were immediately swarmed by the more energetic Sharks and fell, 3-1, after six straight road wins. The Ducks' 13-game points streak was also ended.
"It was pretty special, doesn't happen very often," Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler said of the winning streak. "You're going to eventually lose one."
San Jose forward Brent Burns cashed in a high shot past rookie goalie Frederik Andersen's left side just one minute, 17 seconds into the game.
The Ducks (28-8-5) didn't take a shot on Sharks goalie Antti Niemi in the first five minutes and when they had the benefit of a power play, Ryan Getzlaf's one-timer from 20 feet was grabbed in little traffic in front of the goalie.
Logan Couture then gave the Sharks (25-8-6) a 2-0 lead 10:07 into the first by beating Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin and flipping a backhand past Andersen, who had won nine of his first 10 games.
"We knew what they were going to do," Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau said. "We didn't meet their push."
"That was not OK," Ducks defenseman Ben Lovejoy said on Prime Ticket of the team's first-period performance. "We didn't come out with energy, they outplayed us.
"This is a team we're going to need to go through to win the Stanley Cup and we did not have the effort out there."
San Jose's lead became 3-0 when recently recalled forward Bracken Kearns, 32, scored his first career goal nearly midway through the second.
With the Ducks on an extended shift, Sharks forward Andrew Desjardins led a two-on-one by trying a wraparound that glanced in front of the goal right to a rushing Kearns.
Even when they got close to Niemi and had an open shot at the goalie in the second, Kyle Palmieri's stick broke and Saku Koivu and Jakob Silfverberg were denied down low by a mass of Sharks dedicated to protect the goalie.
With 8:28 left in the game, Ducks forward Patrick Maroon took a Corey Perry pass from the back of the net and beat Niemi high to his left.
"We were flat-footed the first five minutes," Maroon told Prime Ticket. "I don't think we were getting bounces like in the winning streak, but we have Tuesday to bounce back."
In the third, Boudreau shuffled lines and even briefly put center Getzlaf as a defenseman to seek a better scoring chance.
Perry also let the Sharks know there's fight remaining by getting a third-period hit-to-the-head penalty by dropping Sharks defenseman Brad Stuart to the ice.
The matchup now shifts to Anaheim. At Honda Center, the Ducks are 14-0-2 overall.
Pugmire reported from Los Angeles.


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Sept. 7, 2007
Courtesy Mass Maritime Sports Information
BUZZARDS BAY, Mass. - The Mass. Maritime Buccaneers (1-1) set the tone Friday night after scoring on its opening drive. The Bucs put the ball in the end zone three times before MIT (0-1) could respond en route to a 39-13 victory.
MMA sophomore Joe St. Pierre plunged into the end zone just over three minutes into the contest from the one-yard line. A failed point after left the Bucs on front with a quick 6-0 lead. Two minutes later on the Bucs ensuing possession, sophomore Kevin Berthiaume broke down the right side of the field for 42 yards and another MMA touchdown. Once again the PAT sailed wide of the uprights leaving the Bucs with a 12-0 advantage.
An interception by sophomore Nick Stralka of a Stephen Toth pass set the Bucs up on the MIT 43-yard line with 5:44 left in the first quarter. Three minutes later, Berthiaume scampered 15 yards into the end zone. A successful PAT by Mike Sarapas put the Bucs comfortably on top, 19-0, at the end of the first quarter.
The Engineers answered in the opening minute of the second quarter on a two-yard run by Thomas Scotton that was set up by a 39-yard pass reception from Toth to Mike Fitzgerald. MMA struck one more time before the half on a 24-yard run by A.J. Flemmi. Sarapas split the uprights on the PAT to give the Bucs a 26-6 advantage at the break.
The Engineers fumbled on their first snap of the second half setting up another MMA score. This time it was freshman Keith Rudolph on a three-yard run up the middle. Freshman Brett Badger took care of the PAT making it 33-6. Freshman Douglas Dike ran it in from 31 yards out with the sixth MMA touchdown.
MIT scored early in the final quarter on a Kevin Foley run. MMA threatened to score again in the final minutes of the game, but time expired before the Bucs could strike. Berthiaume rushed 17 times for 133 yards all in the first half with two touchdowns. Rudolph added 101 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown.
DeRon Brown rushed for 53 yards on 12 carries to pace the Engineers' rushing attack, while Fitzgerald led all receivers with four catches for 64 yards. The Buccaneers outgained MIT, 378-251, in Friday's season opener, including a commanding 293-140 advantage on the ground.
After securing five straight wins against Mass Maritime from 2001-2005, the Engineers dropped their date versus the Buccaneers for the second consecutive season.


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Talmudic Humor and Its Discontents
by Ezra Brand
In honor of Purim, I'd like to discuss a few aspects of humor in the Talmud[1]. But first, a short overview of topic of Jewish humor in general.
A lot has been written about Jewish humor[2]. A very good overview of Jewish humor in general is that of Avner Ziv in the second edition of Encyclopedia Judaica, under the entry "Humor"[3]. However, most of the piece is about Jewish humor from the eighteenth century and on, with only a little bit at the beginning about humor in Tanach, the Talmud, and the time of the Rishonim. He writes a fascinating few lines in the beginning of the entry:
What is generally identified in the professional literature as Jewish humor originated in the 19th century, mainly, but not exclusively, in Eastern Europe. Today in the U.S., Jewish humor is considered as one of the mainstreams of American humor.
At the beginning of the 19th century, sense of humor was not associated with Jewishness. Herman Adler, the chief rabbi of London, felt impelled to write an article in 1893 in which he argued against the view that Jews have no sense of humor. It is perhaps interesting to note that not only Jews but non-Jews as well consider today "a good sense of humor" as one of the noble characteristics of Jews.
Even H.N. Bialik had a similar sentiment about the lack of humor in earlier Jewish sources[4]: "To our great distress, there is very little humor in our literature. It is hard to find five continuous lines in Tanach with humor." The above-mentioned Avner Ziv writes elsewhere: "Even in the Talmud there appear references (though few) to humor, but in total there is not a "treasury" of humor […] not until the end of the 19th century did there appear anything but a few references to Jewish humor."
However, David Lifshitz begs to differ. In 1995, he wrote an entire doctorate on the topic of humor in the Talmud[5]. He wasn't the first to collect pieces of humor from the Gemara. Efrayim Davidson collected humorous pieces from throughout Jewish literature in chronological order, starting from Tanach and ending with Modern Hebrew literature[6]. A few articles discuss different aspects of humor in the Talmud, and there are some seforim that collect humorous pieces from the Gemara[7]. However, by far the most comprehensive discussion is that of Horowitz.
As mentioned, Lifshitz wrote an entire dissertation on the topic, running to 312 pages. He writes that the view that there isn't a substantial amount of humor in earlier sources is mistaken. He feels that this mistake stems from the fact that there has been little research done on the subject of humor in the Gemara, which in turn stems from the fact that humor is looked at as lowly "leitzanus." Therefore, the great amount of humor in the Gemara was ignored.
Critical Humor
One specific aspect of humor in the Gemara is critical humor[8]. Although not necessarily the best example of humor in the Gemara, this genre of humor caused some uncomfortableness[9], which I will also discuss.
Here are some Gemaras where critical humor is used, taken at random. (Translations are from Soncino, with slight changes[10].)
1) Kiddushin 79b[11]:
R' Yosef son of R' Menasia of Davil gave a practical ruling in accordance with Rav, whereupon Shmuel was offended and exclaimed, "For everyone [wisdom] is meted out in small measure, but for this scholar it was meted out in large measure!"
2) Yoma 76a[12]:
And it long ago happened that R' Tarfon, R' Yishmael and the elders were seated and occupied with the portion referring to the manna, and also R' Eleazar of Modi'in commenced [to expound] and said: "The manna which came down unto Israel was sixty cubits high." R' Tarfon said to him: "Modite! How long will you rake words together to bring them up against us?" --He answered: "My master! I am expounding a Scriptural verse."
Beitza 24a[13]:
3) R' Yosef said in the name of R' Yehuda in the name of Shmuel: "The halacha is as Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel". Abbaye said to him: "The halacha is [etc.], from which it would follow that they [the Sages] dispute it!" –He said to him: "What practical difference does it make to you?" –He replied to him: "It should be for you as a song" [Rashi: "This is a parable of fools […] 'Study!' the student says to the fool: learn both truth and mistakes, and it will be for you as a song!"].
A famous responsum of the Chavos Yair, R' Yair Chaim Bachrach, discusses the harsh language sometimes used by one Amora against another[14]. This tshuva was made famous by the Chafetz Chaim, who printed it at the beginning of his Chafetz Chaim.[15] The Chavos Yair is at great pains to show how each "insult" is in fact a subtle compliment. For example, he says that when R' Sheshes says, as he often does, on a saying of Rav, "I say, Rav said this statement when he was sleeping," that this is fact a display of R' Sheshes' great respect for Rav that he never could haved erred so easily. A more difficult kind of attack to explain is the "ad hominem" attack, where one Amora attacks another Amora personally.
Interestingly, some want to say that these kinds of attacks are much more frequent in the Bavli than in the Yerushalmi. In a Hebrew article by Yisrael Ben-Shalom, "ואקח לי שני מקלות לאחד קראתי נעם ולאחד קראתי חבלים"[16], the author shows many instances of negative criticism by Chachamim in the Bavli that don't appear in their parallels in the Yerushalmi. Recently, R' Achikam Kashet has drawn up a long list of 82 basic differences between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi in his very impressive אמרי במערבא (n.p. 2010). This difference is number 53 (page 889)[17].
Later, the Ra'avad was one of the more harsh attackers. When he disagreed, he did so in very strong terms. In general, he was most harsh in his hassagos on the Razah. The following is one of the harsher attacks[18]:
הנה שם השם שקר בפיו וזאת עדות על כל שקריו ופחיזותיו אשר אסף רוח בחנפיו להנבא שקרים ולהתעות הפתיים והסכלים בעדיי אחרים אשר נתעטר בהם ספרי הסירוס אשר חיבר.
Closer to our own time, R' Yitzchak Isaac Halevy, author of Dorot Harishonim, is famous for his harsh language he used against people he disagreed with. While in his magnum opus, Dorot Harishonim, this language is generally used against maskilim and non-Jews, his harshness was not limited to them. R' Halevy's biographer notes[19]:
While Halevy had his reasons which led him almost singlehandedly into battle against the foremost historians, he, in turn, became the target of a formidable list of critics [...] Undoubtedly, Halevy's sharp pen was an added factor that irked many to retaliate in kind. Halevy's inordinate style of writing might have been a carryover from a number of classic rabbinical works […] Thus Halevy's correspondence relating to his own followers at times was penned in a tone which was similar to that reserved for the targets of his ire in the Dorot Harishonim.
After discussing many sources in Chazal of negativity, Efrayim Elimelech Urbach writes that although in the Beis Medrash the Chachamim could be very harsh with each other, in the "real world" a big stress was put on talmidei chachamim looking out for each other, and on the respect that a talmid chacham deserves.[20] It seems clear that although internally there were strong disagreements, towards the outside, there was strong cohesiveness, and the less disagreement and strife exhibited in public, the better[21]. In other words, what goes on the Beis Midrash, stays in the Beis Midrash! In our own time, one of the controversial passages in R' Natan Kamenetski's Making of A Godol was the story of R' Aharon Kotler calling a red-headed student who interrupted his shiur with a question "parah adumah." Marc Shapiro, in one of his recent posts (paragraph 3), makes the same point: that certain off the cuff remarks were never meant to be publicized.
To end off on a not-so-Purim-like note, I'd like to note a word of caution. In our own time, where recording devices are ubiquitous, talmidei chachamim must be far more careful about what they say and how they say it. Even if a talmid chacham says something in a setting where it is perfectly acceptable, such as in a "Beis Medrash"-like setting, with a recorder the statement can easily be spread outside these "walls." We have reached a point where עין רואה ואזן שומעת, וכל מעשיך בספר נכתבין (Avos 2:1) is not just true in Shamayim, but on Earth also.
[1] In a previous post on the Seforim Blog, Eliezer Brodt discussed some parodies from Medieval times and on. Another previous post discussed some modern Purim parodies. Some of my favorite modern parodies are those by Moshe Koppel, a Professor of Computer Science in Bar-Ilan University, who has contributed to the Seforim Blog. Professor Kopple has produced a number of parodies of "pashkevillim." ("Pashkevillim"—"broadsides" in English—are large notices stuck on walls in Chareidi neighborhoods, especially in Meah Shearim. They are often polemical, and written in a flowery Hebrew.) A sampling of these parodies, as well as an interview with Koppel, can be seen here. A parody of his about fundamentalist anti-science is a favorite of R' Natan Slifkin.
[2] See the bibliography in Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale, Bloomington 1999, pg. 500 n. 96; see also the bibliography of the Encyclopedia Judaica article in the next footnote.
[3] Volume 9, pg. 590-599. It first appeared in the 1986-1987 Yearbook, one of the many yearbooks that were published as a supplement to the first edition of Encyclopedia Judaica. I remember reading that the reason that there wasn't an entry on "Humor" in the first edition of the Encyclopedia is because the editors couldn't find someone someone qualified to write it. I could not find the source for this recently.
[4] ח"נ ביאליק, דברים שבעל פה, ספר ראשון, דביר, תל אביב תרצ"ה, עמ' קמד. This quote and the next are taken from Lifshitz, Humor (see next footnote), pg. 11.
[5] דוד ליפשיץ, איפיונו ותיפקודו של ההומור בתלמוד, חיבור לשם קבלת התואר דוקטור לפילוסופיה, רמת גן תשנ"ה. I have not read enough of the doctorate to get a feel for how good of a job he did. One major lack in this work is an index, especially since such a large amount of texts from the Talmud are quoted. It is often difficult to find where a source is discussed.
[6] אפרים דוידזון, שחוק פינו, חולון תשל"ב. The layout is very similar to that of Bialik's "Sefer Ha'agadah," which Davidson was clearly influenced by. Many translations of passages from Aramaic to Hebrew are taken from Sefer Ha'agadah (with ascription).
[7] See, for example, בנימין יוסף פארקאש, עת לשחוק, הוסיאטין תרע"ד.
[8] These sources in the Gemara are brought by Lifshitz, Humor, pg. 158-183. See also a wide variety of sources in this vein which are brought and discussed by E.E Urbach in his Sages (Hebrew ed.), pg. 557- 564.
[9] R' Yitzchak Blau, at the beginning of a lecture entitled "Does the Talmud have a Sense of Humor?" (available on YU Torah) only mentions the following categories "play on words"; "slapstick"; "sharp lines". He does not mention critical humor, even though it is fairly common in the Gemara, for obvious reasons. As an aside most of the lecture is not about the Talmud and humor, but how someone should spend his free time. R' Blau's opinion on the matter has caused some controversy, see Hirhurim blog here and here.
[11] Lifshitz, Humor, pg. 160.
[12] Lifshitz, Humor, pg. 165
[13] Lifshitz, Humor, pg. 172.
[14] Siman 152.
[15] In later editionsof Chafetz Chaim, this addition is generally printed at the end.
[16] In דור לדור: משלהי תקופת המקרא ועד חתימית התלמוד, ירושלים תשנ"ה, עמ' 235-250.
[17] R' Kashet made a similar list of basic characteristics (in Hebrew "לשיטתם"), this time with specific Tannaim and Amoraim, in his earlier, just as impressive, קובץ יסודות וחקירות (Yerushalayim 2004). The issue of "Leshitasam" is a fascinating topic in its own right. Research into this topic only began in the mid-eighteenth century, especially with the publishing of R' D.Z. Hoffman's (German) Mar Samuel. This sefer/book caused a small storm in its time.
[18] Quoted by Twersky, Rabad of Posquierres, Cambridge 1962, pg. 121 n. 24. See Twersky there for more such examples. For a list of hassagos of this sort in the Ra'avad's hassagos on Mishneh Torah, see Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works, Oxford 2005, in the chapter on Mishneh Torah.
[19] R' Asher Reichel, Isaac Halevy, New York 1969, pg. 64-65.
[20] Pg. 564 (idem, footnote 10).
[21] The Gemara itself seems to say so explicitly. See the story in Sanhedrin 31a, where the Gemara first brings a halacha regarding a member of a beis din that has just paskened:
תנו רבנן מניין לכשיצא לא יאמר הריני מזכה וחבירי מחייבין אבל מה אעשה שחבירי רבו עלי תלמוד לומר (ויקרא יט, טז) לא תלך רכיל בעמך ואומר (משלי יא, יג) הולך רכיל מגלה סוד
The Gemara then goes on to bring the following story:
ההוא תלמידא דנפיק עליה קלא דגלי מילתא דאיתמר בי מדרשא בתר עשרין ותרתין שנין אפקיה רב אמי מבי מדרשא אמר דין גלי רזיא:
It is not clear what the nature of the "secret" thing that had happened in the beis medrash was. Rashi simply says that the talmid spoke lashon hara. It is possible that in the heated discussion in the beis medrash, someone had made an off the cuff remark that was not meant to be heard outside the walls of the beis medrash. When the talmid revealed what was said 22(!) years later, he was expelled from the beis medrash for his impropriety. Alternatively, it is possible that he had revealed some internal disagreement about a halacha that the Chachamim wanted to appear unanimous, similar to the case of the psak of a beis din brought before. Either way, the story proves our point.


text:
The youngest position on this young team will be catcher with freshmen, Mollie Mitchell and Vanessa Medina, vying for the starting spot. "They are both going to play this year," said Lady Bisons coach Kristin Peck. "A lot of it is going to come down to hitting and who is getting it done."
Peck is not concerned about having to start a freshman behind the plate.
"Both have the talent to play the position and they both want to play," said Peck. "They both want to be out there. They know it is going to be up to them. With it being competition between the two of them they know one of them is going to win it.
"It is great to have an experienced catcher. They are both going to continue to develop those qualities. We will probably call pitches from the dugout until our catchers learn the game. We will hold off on giving them that responsibility.
Mitchell was a three-time All-State selection from Suwanee, Ga. She was a two-time co-Most Valuable Player selection at Greater Atlanta Christian School.
"Mollie has a great arm," said Peck. "She has a very quick release behind the plate.
"She was really raw coming in. We have really worked with her and fine-tuned some things. We have worked to get her to the college level. She is only going to get better."
Peck expects Mitchell to be strong both defensively and offensively this season.
"It is going to take her a little time to get into the system," said Peck. "She works hard."
Medina is from Bakersfield, Calif. , where she was All-Area First Team catcher, a two-time Most Outstanding Defensive Player and the captain of her high school team.
"Vanessa's hitting has improved tons since she got here," said Peck. "She comes from a very competitive high school program. She played in a good program in the summer. She is used to winning."
Medina is also fine-tuning her game defensively as she makes the adjustment to the college game.
"She has great form behind the plate," said Peck. "She has worked very hard to understand how to catch."
First base is also an open position due to the departure of Heather Collins, a record-setting hitter for the Lady Bisons. Peck admits that the position is up for grabs with a number of candidates.
Kellie Sirus, a junior who is a preseason All-Conference selection, has been working at first base. She has spent most of her time at third. She was member of the A-Sun All-Freshman team in 2007 and was a Second Team All-Conference pick last season. She batted .385 overall, fourth best in the conference, and .400 in conference games only, tying for sixth best.
"Kellie is working both first and third," said Peck. "It has been a transition for her at first since she is seeing the ball from a different angle. Kellie is someone who has to be in our line-up. "
Abby Wilson, a transfer from Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona this season, has been making the adjustment to a new program, but is also in the mix at first. In two years at Chandler-Gilbert she drove in 77 runs, and slammed 32 doubles and nine home runs.
"Abby has really worked hard this semester to take as much in as she can," said Peck. "She is ready to go. A lot of it for her is going to come down to hitting. She has a ton of talent hitting. She is somebody who can also be used as a designated person.
Mitchell and Medina are also getting some work at first.
Starting second baseman Megan Rottler returns for her sophomore season. She started and played in 54 of 55 games last season.
"Megan has really matured a lot both offensively and defensively," said Peck. "Last year she stood out defensively, but struggled some at the plate.
"She has some punch with her swing. She has a good swing. It is a matter of pitch selection and a few mechanical things here and there. She worked extremely hard in the fall and summer. She is going to be pushing to be on the field every day."
Courtney Billington, a freshman, made an impact in the fall both at the plate and in the field. Billington was Co-MVP for her team at Wilson Central in Mount Juliet, Tenn. She also served two seasons as team captain.
"Courtney's upside is huge," said Peck. She has good size for a middle infielder. She is very quick. She covers a ton of ground. She has a very good arm. She gets rid of the ball quickly.
"She is pushing to play at both shortstop and second. She does things right. She carries herself well. Early on it is going to be what is our best scenario all around as to where she is going to fit."
Starting shortstop Abby Keese, a preseason All-Atlantic Sun selection, is back for her junior season. Keese was an A-Sun All-Freshman Team choice in 2007. Last season she led the team with 14 home runs and earned a spot on the All A-Sun Conference Second Team.
"We have opened up the possibility of Abby playing some other places as well," said Peck. "We have to have Abby's bat in the lineup regardless of where she is defensively.
"I think she has stepped up her game at short which is awesome to see. She is somebody who could be our everyday shortstop again. She could be our second baseman. She could be in the outfield. We have worked with her at first base. She has been open-minded to it."
At third junior Christen Campbell will be at third when she is not pitching. Sirus will fill the spot when Campbell is not on the mound.
"It is another healthy, competitive battle that started when they both got here as freshmen and has continued," said Peck. "Christen is so athletic. She has a good arm at third. She reads situations well. Kellie also plays great over there as well. They have continued to make each other better which is great to see."
(Next: Outfielders).


text:
78th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, House Bill 2300, Chapter 1105
Description: Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to the regulation of certain water wells by the Jeff Davis County Underground Water Conservation District.
Date: June 20, 2003
Creator: Texas. Legislature. House of Representatives.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department


text:
April 28, 2006
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The MIT men's tennis team swept the weekly New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) honors for the second time this season. Eric Beren earned his first Singles Player of the Week award after he went undefeated last week in the No. 3 position. Against regionally-ranked No. 2 Williams College, he posted a 6-3, 6-0 victory. He then defeated his Wheaton opponent by the same score, helping the Engineers clinch the No. 1 seed heading into post-season play.
Tindell and Dohlman posted a pair of victories in the No. 1 position for MIT. The duo defeated the No. 4 regionally-ranked tandem from Williams College, 8-5. Tindell and Dohlman closed the week with an 8-3 win over Wheaton, leading the Engineers to their eighth consecutive NEWMAC regular-season title.


text:
Quebec, Quebec
Thanks Heather: troll or not (he is pretty trollish with his distraction and misrepresentation!) he is truly obnoxious. The early attempt to link the Norway attacks with his multicultuarlism/islamaphonic rantings were depraved. When called on it, he then tried to take some moral high ground claiming others were doing precisely what he'd just been called on. He is really quite unaware of himself I think.
I've got strong links to Norway and was particularly disgusted by that one. But his tactics generally are horrible. He is clearly intelligent, but also very narrow minded and just tried to bulldoze his boringly familiar views into every conversation.
So - yes: he really detracts from the site. But then...so does Arcus. And it isn't because I disagree with them: it's because their debating style is so horrible.
By the way Heather...I've appreciated your clear posts since I've joined. It's good that there is clarity and precision somewhere here in the jumble of nonsense and rubbish.
Cheers, Jimmy
Sure - they really are are pretty mindless and I just don't want to reply to them any more.
It's interesting how much the Norwegian extremist's polemic overlaps with theirs...
Sure - they really are are pretty mindless and I just don't want to reply to them any more. It's interesting how much the Norwegian extremist's polemic overlaps with theirs...
Still: there are plenty of open minds and intelligent and informed ones here too, and I learn something new every time I visit which is great. There aren't many atheists where I live (I did see a Darwin fish yesterday and nearly fell off my motorbike! Wanted to chase the car and introduce myself) so this strange online life is really where I "meet" other free thinkers. Thanks for chatting Heather.
Thank you for being my friend Heather
Your welcome and thank you!
I just read your exchange with the santa jesus dude on youtube. Im curious now... what did he offer to send you?
"Alright, I'm on the way out and will need a little time to think about what to send perhaps later this evening or tomorrow. I'm going to erase your post to protect your privacy."
Thanks for accepting!
Thanks Heather, love your profile page!
( )o)===#
The edit button disappeared - again - the other thing that left my jaw on the floor was your little discussion with the vegan. :)
Hope you are doing well Heather.
Doing well, took a break from the forum for a bit of family time.
Hi Heather! I'm i passed by to shamelessly promote the blog i talked to you about: http://mydeconversion.blogspot.com/
Updated the email, so is no longer a personal email and posted my deconversion :) Hope you enjoy it!
yep. I'm amused by how these guys can ramble on about nothing and somehow consider it as an argument for god. I guess the more intelligent apologists figure they have better shit to do than troll atheist forums. I hope our atheist counterparts don't do the same thing.
Hello Heather, glad to make your aquaintance. What's on your mind most these days?
What is your criteria for "evidence"? Before there was "science" as the doctine of a sub-culture, humans knew most of the laws of physics pertaining to what was unseen as in gravity, what goes up comes down, the power in wind, airflight in the birds, requirements for healthy life on all evolutionary strata fuel in sunlight, water, elements, that unseen stuff, air & environmental security all of which were somehow just here and in precise proportions. Genetically those same humans who in their ancestry thought about such things came to not be surprised when tangible evidence (from experimentation (the results of with thought to be absolutes)) showed up the naysayers who always stuck to their guns (the absolutes of times past) against what others somehow had this sense of knowing. At this time, we see scientists world wide puzzelled though most will deny while religionists, spiritualists, paranormalists, pagans and the list goes on, well the same story really. Most everyone is quick to say what's not real or not true if they even pay mind to anything that's going on around them.
Who among us does not need medication of some sort, be it some substance or love or sense of being special and needed.
Your are right. If spamming is contacting a group with an agenda, I am guilty though my agenda is normal. It's not monetary, not narsacistic though I am aware I can at times be overly pleased with myself, what I count as a weekness because of how it promotes delusion. I am fishing but I've succeeded by throwing out the bait. I was caught myself at one time but was thrown back as too young, but I was looking to be caught, though I was very particular of which bait I was willing to comit to consuming as I would expect you must be or you've already made up your mind to not touch much if at all.
I'm not normally so cryptic and I know I'm not witty but the evidence is from two people who went crazy together, a Female and a Male, who have since passed, yet remain, who stand out among everyone else, hated with a passion or avoided like the plague, lied about, cried about, laughed about, con-spiri-tized and for a tiny few, considered and a tiny few more believed and their message was out of this world and clearly beyond the human evolutional kingdom.
The names they last used and are active labels to use now should anyone get an inkling to experiment are Ti and Do, yes like the song notes!
lol vvv. They're drawn to you like moths to a flame.
I only brought up the observations of flying, etc. to demonstrate the evidence of what is possible we have been provided by no effort of our own. Instincts certainly can be flawed and so can various scientifically determinations. For instance how do scientists account for seeing objects in space in orbit about one another when the orbiting objects are much, much larger t han the object seemingly being orbited around? And how do scientists explain witnessing an object that appears tiny seeming to go into the sun and coming out the other side without being drawn into considering that the sun is holding the entire solar system in orbit from a vast difference and if such object is considered to be a comet as one report suggested, and these are from spaceweather.com a JPL/Nasa site, and they say a comet is made of rock and ice, how is it that it could survive the suns heat? Then there is recent evidence on two fronts that light isnt' the fastest something can move. And gravity is of late in question s to whether it's a force pushing down on us or a force field from within or both. My intuition is that it's both. I am an atheist when it comes to Religius depictions of what is Above HUman as it's at this time in particular full of holes, yet the holes I see I'm wager would not be ones others see.YOu seem to have made up your mind about a bunch of things and that's really fine with me. As I've said, I have no personal interest in proving anything to anyone but I guarantee if anyone does take the time to look at Ti and Do they will know one thing for sure. They were unlike anyone else and they were clearly operating outside the human norm so of course would be considered crazy. And as for their students. I was one for 19 years and yet though from the start I knew I'd be giving my life, even literally, I was seen by Ti, (the woman) as needing more lessons and so circumstances came about that I decided to leave, a long story I have posted on my youtube channel name: 3spm , in case anyone cares to examine that. I am quite used to being ridiculed yet it still does pain me some but if anyone had been in my shoes since I was 13 or so and first began to have experiences with the "unseen" world, rebelling from the catholic church, blah, blah, blah to receiving visits in dreams from Ti, then Do, then some fellow students who were all physically deceased where they have told me stuff and some fo it predictions that seem to have come true and the years of getting to know these two amazing people first hand and seeing how they knew stuff way before science yet were not scientitsts (though that's not what drew me to them), well all I can say is that it's mindblowing. Christians are among my greatest oppoents though I can easily shoot down virtually every one of their limited viewpoints. It's not that it's all wrong, waht they think, it's that there is a great deal MORE and I say that to atheists who I respect for discarding religion, while see so many also reject common sense with it. Adn those that are new age spiritualists are in many ways most primed to be seekers of what more t here is, yet most fear looking and especially when they have found a comfort zone. I know for a fact that humans have onkly barely scratched the surface of all that will be revealed in the next months, however many there are before the planet's surface is recyled to allow for a new planting. It really is just that objective, yet I don't say this with the fearfullness many expect. I have no death wish. I have a teenage daugher and friends and family that have degrees of perspective while most don't seem to have much of a clue but even if they do, dont''t express it to me as I am considered crazy for the most part yet at the same time it's clear to them I'm not. But please don't respond further unless you want to see my responses. Unlike most, I KNOW there is a ton to learn and should someone, anyone tell me something that peaks my interest, I'm going to look it over and as long as it peaks my interst I will look it over. But so far, though I stay pretty aware of all the fringe groups nothing even comes close to all the things Ti and Do gave us to think about and I can prove by years and years of first hand examples of Them as leaders, knowing most all of the 38 +3 that laid down theri lives that they knew exactly what they were doing and had to convince Do over years of consideration that they knew the ramifications. I can prove this and have offered lots of it on my youtube channel and blog at: sawyerhg.wordpress.com and it's not hokus pokus proof, like supernatural stuff. For one tiny instance: In 1976 having just formed spontaneously into a group called by the US national press that all cover the story for months, the UFO Two, who had attracted some 96 serious followers over a year on the road, then sent 19 of these out of the group because they felt they weren't ready. I've got tons of examples.
From my limited view thus far, you are very quick to think you've seen all and call a spade a spade. I understand that. The FACT is I did not make an end of the world statement. I said that there would be a recycling and is that not a scientifically proven series of events that has occurred on earth at least one or more times past, according to leading archologists and geologists who have documented seas and plates having been evident where they are not now? Your responses to me are very little different that what I get from Christians. You appear to assume a great deal about yourself and what you know or believe in and that there is no way your going to be tricked to change. LIke I said, that's fine but if you want to fight, I'm game but let's lose the retorick and unfounded accusations as I have brought up. Be specific please. Comment to what I say and ask questions if it's not clear what I am saying please. I know I often say too much or get off topic.
And regarding Do and students laying down their lives, your saying many have done that, unless I am misreading you, I suppose you are referring to anyone who commits suicide and/or the Jim Jones and Solar Temple ppeople, but to compare these and think they are the same because there was some degree of otherworldliness consideration to their retorick and they died and seemingly by their own hands shows you know little to nothing about these situations. Do you know that there is evidence that many or most were actually forced by gunpoint to drink the poisoned kool aid in the jim jones case and there were children in both their camps and the solar temple people in Quebec and France and some were forced there as well. It wasn't presumed forcing. There were ones who survived both who testified how they were cohersed and forced and there are tapes of jim jones yelling at his followers to do it while his body guards with rifles were standing there with guns aimed on the people and some hunted down those who tried to escape into the woods. And in the Jim jones case there were zero indications he had anything to say that remotely coincided with what Jesus said, which can be said of most christians as well. Now with Do and the 38 + 3 students, it was very, very well documented by video tapes of those students that wanted to express themselves. Though there were many x-members and some who didn't believe none had anything to say against Ti and Do. No abuse, no cohersion at all. We were always free to leave.Do Do offerred us $1000 to leave at one point since it becamse a very, very comfortable life style. I have testimony to all of it. So if you are really a reasonable minded person wouldn't you want to ask some questions before you jump on the condemnation bandwagon?
Oh, there is lots more but here's an important distinction: Ti and Do would not allow children or minors to join them. They said that this kind of decision to join and this was before they knew that they would exit their task by their own hand, because it was from the beginning exactly as 2000 years ago in that it was a detachment from our human roots and behaviors to evolutionarily make application to an Evolutionary Level Above Human, where there are physical beings who have physical bodies that they can grow on a vine the way humans grow tomatoes, but that live on a type of photosynthesis whereby their "mind" is grown to actually have more power by a type of metamorphosis in the human vehicle becoming the chrysalis, to build the strength of the mind to a degree that could provide the power supply to one of these non-mammalian vehicles. They are not space aliens as some think though. There is lots more on this and they were talking like this in the early 1970's before star trek though they didn't know all they knew all at once. They gradually pulled the new information into their human brains so to only be a step ahead of their student body because otherwise the human brain can have some adverse responses when reality comes into question. In the past this metamorphic process was called "conquering our carnal nature" as we see repeated in many cultures because this is always what they, the gardeners require to graduate into their environment and Family. But children can't make such a decision. Now there is a ton more to say on all this but perhaps you have no interest so until you care to converse on this or something else, I will consider that I attempted to offer my experience to some of you here on think atheist. But on a closing note. The Level Above Human doesn't need new members. They don't need nor want anything from humans. They can grow humans on many planets in the Universe. Nor do they want robots. However they do have something to offer and they know it's very, very special but that few will seek it out, though they would be glad if it was many. It looks to us that those who laid down their lives were naive and/or nuts or needy but looks are deceiving. But because They don't need us, it's up to us to prove to them we can be trusted, so we have to be willing to give our total self to them eventually. That's not the standard now. As after the one called Jesus, belief alone in Ti and Do gets your soul pocket/container "put on ice" (not literally) to be brought back for the next opportunity. Thus there is no one on earth to believe in, no one to cow tow to, no one to impress, no one to trust, no books to by as all the info Ti and Do left behind is free, no organization to subscribe to, no need to visit my sites or to tell me you believe or don't and until we each die we can choose to petition Ti and Do in secret (in our closet so to speak) to ask their help and to know their will for us, who want to become their students. So if you really want PROOF, give it a shot. Ask Ti and Do to show you some proof they are real and are who They said they were - the promised return of FAther and Son, the woman being the one called the Father and the Son being the same Soul who played the the role of Jesus. And they never ranted and raved or raised their voice or treated any of us poorly. There is a reason they made world headlines for months on two occasions. They were clearly above and beyond human in every way, but you can't know that unless you take a good look to see.
You are correct. I am long winded. If you are ever in my shoes, you may do a better job but at least I'm not drawing all the absolutely wrong conclusions as you appear to do by your statements. You probably think I'm lying to trick people into becoming my students when I absolutely could care less about such. YOu would actually learn that as a fact if you weren't so defensive. YOu want facts - evidence - clear statements and I guess published writings by successful scholors. (and by the way I know I'm a lousy speller and don't care), but like I said in the first comment, in so many words, why bother.
However, I don't blame you for wanting more of what you consider substansive proof, so I ask you, can you think of 2-3 things you'd consider proof of Ti and Do being the Two Witnesses in rev 11, the return of the FAther and Son, the Woman in rev 12 being the FAther/Ti and the white horse in rev 6 being the male, Do, riding the vehicle named AppleWhite, and their taking names that represent notes in a song as in rev. 14, and requireing of their students the same exact things Jesus required and demonstrated no human characteristics of seeking ofpower or money or fame or ego or intellectual recognition - Serving Mammon, and told us as did Jesus, that we'd have to "give our lives" right from day 1 and how they "spoke plainly of the Father" as prophesized, not using parables/stories to illustrate their points and how they both returned to "make our abode (live with) you" thus were both "sons of humans/woman" which is an undercover operation, which the jews missed 2000 yrs ago and christians are largely missing now as they always are led to expect some supernatural phenomena of some being floating in the clouds on their white horse blowing a trumphet so all can rise up to meet him in the air, as Paul said, but by the way I have tons of scriptural proof that Pauls' vision was as Luciferian styled space alien who was allowed by the Level Above Human to present a challenge to students at the departure of the one called Jesus, and Ti and Do fulfilled the rev 11 prophecy by delivering their new information having new names, (first guinea and pig, and then Bo and Peep and then after the first global public notorority Ti and Do), though not exactly the way it was written because what was written was without understanding just how literal even prophecy can be. The greek word they translated to kill is apokteino which means "kill or hault in ANY way" while translators went on to add words to fill out the meaning around a largely misunderstood beginning to their translation. However, it could also have taken the exact path of their translation (like in the king james for instance) that is if the Next Level (what Ti called the Kingdom of God) - because it's the way of the Next Level to not predetermine all their steps as they change according to the response, tough don't change their requirements to make application to become a member of their crew. Now I can go through 100 more illustrations using bible and even certain core hindu (vedas) and buddhist texts that can be shown to be teachign the same lessons as we saw taught by the historic jesus as the jesus of the religious christian sects don't resemble the real Jesus. He was NOT a human family guy, and was not into prosperity and abundance materialistically and was NOT intellectual and there is lots of evidece he did exist but simply not in the form he's thought to have existed now, so in that sense Jesus doesn't exist. Like I said I have lots more of this kind of evidence and if you want to my site on http://www.youtube.com/user/3spm and/or http://www.sawyerhg.wordpress.com you will see lots of pieces of "evidence" that in any real court of law would be considered and a jury would have a hard time not agreeing point to ti and do as the total fulfillment of ALL prophecy.
I guess I stuck my foot in my mouth right from the getgo in this forum by not stating my intention more directly. I tried but I know I didn't just lay it out as I would if someone was genuinly interested, though even then I shoot from the hip.
My excuse is that I didn't know what a bible reading atheist was. Perhaps some in this group read the biblefor a laugh or to find things to use to mock others, or to get ammo to show christians their limited thinking to get them back for all the persecution many so called Christians did to pagans and atheists and anyone who challenged them - Luther, etc. Because if that's the case, no wonder nothing I say means anything to you.
I don't really have to talk "bible" at all. Jesus didn't write the bible, but I don't even know if you think the Jesus story was all made up as some atheists like to throw out there - the Zeitgeist people in particular. I have had "supernatural" experiences but how can I prove what I think they were to anyone who has not had something at least similar or doesn't consider that there does exist a dimension of existence and even life that we simply can't detect in a way that we can easily repeat so to call it a scientific discovery. Actually there has been considerable science around the unseen world and lots of evidence of seemingly miraculous events. To me nothing is "magic" except things David Blaine does and Houdini and such, though even the things they have done, some of them can be attributed to "spirts" - discarnate humans which I have seen on many occasions and while in a "straight" frame of mind.
I have a friend who is a staunch atheist and also a physics teacher and is also very progressive and liberal in ways and in other ways very conservative, not unlike many people I know. I've got him to admit that there will be new discoveries, yet when I suggest an area in which something new might come along, and I even bring so called "evidence" like in the form of a doctor who wrote a book or something, he calls that doctor a quack doctor. When I suggest that I beleive there is a great deal of evidence of Space Aliens among us, not necessarily walking around, except in how they can influence humans to do their bidding, he thinks that's quackery and that I have no proof. I have seen flying objects that other physics teachers thought could have been somethuing out of this world, but for this fellow, it's impossible and what tops the cake is that he says he doesn't have the time to look into what I say is evidence. It's the same way, with all this talk I do about Ti and Do and the REAL Jesus as evidenced by what he was quoted to have said in the historic records we have. When I got banned from an atheist meetup it was because they wanted to have their club and didnt' like someone like me appearing to bust in and perhaps that's how you feel about me now. But I don't know if there are any in this group who do have an open mind really as it's increasingly rare I find.
Sure there are plenty that think they have it and think they are free thinkers until they meet the likes of, well, "me" because I happen to be one who had the most contact with Ti and Do for the longest period that didn't lay down my life with them and I'm talking about it far and wide. (and by the way I've been banned from many Christian blogs as well and from certain new age talk radio and other related sites). In my opinion you are very quick to draw conclusions about me that are not at all correct. As I have said, I have zero interest in followers, even if there were some, and there are actually a few who have suggested to me that I'm their teacher, but I have told them I am not in that way as if they believe this information then Ti and Do are their most immedieate teachers, the last ones incarnate, thus not yet distorted into myth as Jesus has morphfed into, which is a predictible circumstance to happen. And they can simply talk to them by thinking of them by their names and asking them what they want to ask for. Names in the unseen grids (like the matrix story) serve as an address, just like computers have memory and hard disk addresses and They have an assigned crew to receive requests and pass they up the chain of mind of their Family unit, to decide how to handle. Some requests the crew have instructions to handle.
Before Do and the 38 students layed down their lives - what most call "killed themselves" but for any who consider that Jesus was someone special, he was not hardly at all that caring about the physical body, so wouldnt' consider that they killed themselves because He knew they had a "soul body" that would still exist and be in the keeping of the Evolutionary Level Above Human (Ti and Do's terms for what has become known in religious circles as the Kingdom of God from/in the literal Heaven's., aka Outer space.), Do said, through one of his students that did a great deal of writing on his behalf that those that believed after they left could appeal to become Their followers/students but they had to accept all they taught and did and share that same information with others and accept the ramifications for doing so, that is very apparant is generally hostile or condescending and beyond belief for most. And by performing the task of disseminating the information they brought, when we died (not by our own hand as that was for those that had already disconnected from their humans roots and prepared and convinced Do that they were acting on what they wanted to do, which is a long story to actually prove but which I have written about on my blog and youtube channel.
Thus when these few who believe at this time die, their physical vehicle that is, the soul implant that was given them (as all humans are not seeded with a container that holds only Next Level mindstuff) will be in Do's words, "put on ice" what Christians call being "saved". Saved from what? Saved from the fate of all those who don't gravitate in that direction, their end which to most was not at all unexpected anyway so there really is no threat to it. Now it is threatening to those who have received soul implants before, even in a previous civilzation and know the recycling is underway. These are behind the motivating of humans to do their bidding as they too want to escape their fate which last time for many meant finding a cavern to drive their limited space craft into or to team up with the humans who had the technology to build underground bases or to find a location off the Earth that could provide some sustainence. The space aliens are all human or human equivilents. They need to eat and drink and breath some type/mixture of oxygen and they reproduce in a mammalian way though I'm not saying they can't be reptilian and would then reproduce the way reptiles do. But members of the Level Above Human (who are above only because they have been taken through the program that weaned them from their humanness by their efforts to follow the guidelines for doing so, as provided by the Next Level though a "son of man" - an Older Member from that Next Level who as service to their Older Member chooses to engage humans they prepared to become "fruit" for their gardening efforts, the entire purpose for the planet's existtence to begin with.
The Luciferans twisted the truth to make it into a country club belief system. Live a good life, sticking to a few moral rules and believe in Jesus and walla, you'll wake up in a rose garden. It's not at all that simple because the Next Level doesnt' need any new members so they are very, very selective and thereby we need to prove to them we want to be on their crew. They really don't have to prove anything to us. They don't need me either. It's for my growth that I have the task to deliever this info to others, to prove to Them I am trustworthy and will try to do the task they way they would which is a learning/apprentising process.
Well, I've just about said most of the bottom lines so I will move on, though am around for questions. An email anyone can use is email@example.com . And if you ever get in a jam that you are fearful about, you can try to call the names Ti and Do for help and perhaps you will witness a miricle. I know there is no other names that at this time can provide much help.
Hey we chat everyday it was about time!
Welcome friend. It is amazing. Everyone FAILS to see we are born lacking belief, product of coitus & mutations following the creature plan of a DNA toolkit....iow we are related to every living thin on the planet, proven by DNA...and the BRAIN is the creator of the bizarre metnagical beliefs at the ROOT of ALL religions and also Schizophreni making GOD FAITH by educated people a mental disorder...
Amazing...and like schizophrenics the deluded God Believer DO NOT see it...always in denial at their disorder. Shame on blind intellectual atheist like Dawkins et all that do NOT see it...they keep treating the symptoms ignoring the ROOT of the disorder....Blisn fools.
All the best friend.
Not sure what happened to my last comment. Your idea for Hitch reminded me of this
Thanks, Heather! I enjoyed meeting you and listening to those wonderful videos. =P
Thx for the welcome & for accepting @ add.
I really enjoyed some of the things u were saying in chat. Nice meeting someone that knows their stuff =)
I accepted your friend request. I enjoy your posts.
Hi Heather
i wrote my message replying to " can anyone answer me please ??"
let me know your opinion
Are you asking an objective question? I can address that when you answer my questions you suppressed. You see you seem to suppress those things that do point to God and only hang on to those that you deem as opposing Him. So when you want to look at this objectively, I am open to discuss. And until you answer my previous questions, no need to move to science where there is evidence that the existence of God is possible. No I can't absolutely prove Him just as you cannot absolutely disprove Him. That is where reason comes into play.
Well for starters, you never told me who Jesus is. You did not reply to my comment about all the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies in the OT about What Jesus would do and the precise time he would start his ministry. You ignored the point I made of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible that science is just discovering. By the way, the Josephus quote I sent you was from an Aramaic scroll and corresponds to the other translations in other languages of his writings- hundreds of them. Even Wiki admits his writings are valid. And I was responding to your statement that there was no outside validation of Jesus. I never said it was eye witness accounts- doesn't nee d to be if eye witness accounts are recorded and there is no evidence to the contrary in history. That is how main stream historians view ancient records- they give the benefit of the doubt to the document unless there is errors or contradictions written in the same time period. So it is most reasonable to accept the NT books as valid. But just reply on the questions if you are willing to look at this reasonably and open. My sense is that you have not really met the God I know and have personal experience with. So from one point of view, I do not believe in the God you portray either. I know a different one and he has given me reason to believe. My post-atheist life is so different but you are not interested in personal encounters so far.
Oh by the way, I may be slow responding as work dictates otherwise.
You asked for the questions and I sent them. Who is Jesus is plain I think.You still have not told me who he is.
The hundreds of prophecies about him in the OT written hundreds of years before his life need an explanation.
The context was lsot when you did not respond. But we can move on.
The scientific foreknowledge in the Bible need your explanation as they are reasonable indications there is a God telling men these things.
Did you not get my email. There are 3 topics, the first one is a good start. Who is Jesus?
Sorry but there just was not enough time for a legend to accrue. There is art least 2 generations needed typically. Also, the Jews were not inclined to follow legends or myths. Also, these writings were made by men who were brutally killed for their beliefs. So that indicates to me that they actually saw and heard what they saw and heard. Would you die for a myth? Historians say that teh burden of proof is on the one who contradicts written history. To say he did not exist without anything to support it is not like you. The fact that he did exist is not an issue anymore for man stream historians and even most skeptics. So the burden of proof is on you. You must demonstrate that he did not exist when he is the most attested to historical figure in existence.
The gospel writers claim to be historical. The burden of proof is on the person who thinks they are unreliable. If there weren't such a presumption of reliability, there would be little history left, because many events are attested by only one source. Historians take documents at face value. Although the gospels include the supernatural, the gospels don't appear to be in the genre of legend. The authors claim to be eyewitnesses. 1st John: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." The author says that he saw Jesus. Do you believe he was telling the truth or lying? Luke says that many have undertaken to set down in writing the traditions of Jesus. Luke says that he made a careful investigation and that he depends on eyewitnesses. Luke's words fit the format of a standard scientific preface. Do you believe him or not? The burden of proof is on the doubter.
Is ti reasonable that Jesus existed? The reasonable answer is yes it is reasonable to assume that he existed since there is no evidence to the contrary.
Well Heather, That was what I have been trying to ask all along. The way you answered sounded to me like you did not believe he existed. So I am sorry that I missed that but it is good to know who you think he is. So if he did exist, then do you believe that he died on the Cross? (I am still trying to understand what you believe about him)
Well again I am sorry I missed that. I think I do not get all the responses sometimes. So you say he was crucified or can accept that. Do you know the reason the Romans crucified him? ( And I am not an expert on the others guys being raised and it does not take away from Jesus's possible resurrection but we have not got there yet) And how do you acknowledge he existed unless you accept some part or parts of the NT? That is where I started to wonder about my atheism since I know he existed but that meant i had to believe part of the NT)
By the way, I have to be away for a day or so- work is a bummer!
Limited to 5000 characters so it is in several parts PART 1
First, I am sorry for the delay but I may have to do that for a while as work dictates it. Also, I appreciate your honest, candid words about your belief. In fact, I had to read it twice as I can remember thinking those things a few years ago (except for the dead holy men popping out). So if you will allow me, I would like to present my journey through my thinking from that previous point to now as I think it will address comments your comments.
To do so, I have to make some assumptions about what you do accept as historical. You have mentioned that you believe Jesus was a real person and died on the Cross (crucified). Most historians also accept the historical fact that on Sunday after he died that his tomb was found empty. Also, historians agree that the Disciples experienced a post-mortem appearance of Jesus. I will assume that you to accept these as historically correct. Now I do not mean that you agree with the last point but just that this is what they claimed.
If I am mistaken, I can go back and discuss more these with you.
Also, I have a long discussion to make on this. I may need to do this in parts if that is ok with you. I will also try to keep it short but to the point, so I apologize if I am not clear as I am not a great writer. So please be patient with me as we discuss this with reason and honesty.
On the comment about the "dead holy men popping out of their graves", I would like to park this for the moment for a couple of reasons- It is not important to the overall story; It cannot be either verified or denied as lack of evidence is not necessarily a denial of it's truth; lastly, I have not studied this thing enough to make a decision one way or another. At the moment I can only call it a mystery unsolved as it cannot be used to prove or disprove the main story.
Now in my journey, when I was where you are now, I made claims that this was a myth or legend and not true. But I had an empty feeling about this because I had no real reason to support my claim. I am a person that needs reasons for my beliefs. So I went to the history books to look for reasons to support my position. I wanted to find out how historians went about discerning what happened in the past. What I found was several principles that they use to view history. First, the look at a document to see if there is multiple independent attestations to the events described. If there are multiple accounts then it is generally accepted. They also look for the best explanation of those events based on the accounts attested to. So to me that seemed to be a reasonable approach. Part of me wanted to find a valid reason fro my myth belief and part of me wanted to give the account a fair hearing which is the only way I could feel accurate in my reasoning.
So based on that I began to look at the data. I wanted to understand the culture back then and what the Jews were thinking. In my research I found that the Jews of that time (1st century) were under the foot of the Roman government. The Jewish leaders of that day had a "deal" with the Romans where they would let the Jewish leaders be in charge of the Jews as long as they kept them under control. The Jewish leaders had invented hundreds of new rules and had drifted away from their original beliefs and were more concerned with their power than their religion. Now the Jews were expecting a savoir who would take them out from Roman rule and rule the world. They also believer that there was no resurrection of the dead until after the end of the world and then everyone would be resurrected. Also, back then, there was a very strong oral tradition in the Jewish community. From early in childhood they would memorize large quantities of data exactly and some could quote entire chapters of the OT and more. (From that viewpoint, maybe they were better than
Part 2
Into this culture walked Jesus. John the Baptist had come out of the "woods" to announce that a savoir was coming now. Then in walks Jesus and the Disciples were thinking that maybe he was the savoir that their teachings talked about. They followed him for 3.5 years until he was crucified. They were devastated. When he died, they were on their way back to their jobs, despondent that they had followed him perhaps. Then on Sunday, several women found Jesus' tomb to be empty. The empty tomb is generally accepted by most Biblical scholars, even skeptics. The tomb was empty, so the question is what happened to the body. My research convinced me that no one today disputes this event. (So far I think you w are in agreement with me on these facts)
Now I wanted to see what the options were to explain the empty tomb. One was that the Disciples stole the body. Well, I researched that and found that the Jewish leaders, upon finding out that the tomb was empty, gave the guards money to say the Disciples had stolen the body. So did they or why would they? Well, if they did they would have buried him and kept his bones in a small box as it was their custom to do so in order for their bones to be resurrected. But then that would mean that his body would be found, but it has not. There is one account that the Romans posted a "royal" guard (perhaps a dozen or more) around the tomb and sealed it with a Roman seal. This was an elite group of men that could easily thwart the Disciples efforts. The account says the fainted when the tomb stone door rolled open. So this reason did not sound very plausible to me especially since it would have been very easy to dispel any resurrection claims by producing the body. Neither the Romans nor the Jews produced the body. So it seems reasonable to me that this is not a valid reason as it is unsupportable.
Then I found another idea- This idea was that Jesus was not dead and somehow survived the crucifixion and walked out of the tomb. My research on doctor's analysis of his condition indicated that he was real dead when he was taken off the Cross. Several reasons seem plausible for this: He suffered scourging which was done with leather straps impregnated with glass, rock and other shards. It would literally tear the skin off the body and cause extreme bleeding. He was then crucified with nails in hands and feet by Romans who were experts in this type of death. They verified by puncturing his lungs and water/blood came out- a real indication of death. Death was by suffocating since the body was stretched out and a person had to lift himself up to get a breath of air in his lungs. ) I think you agree that he did die on the Cross). So this idea does not seem plausible.
So it looks like the disappearance of his body could reasonably be attributed to being resurrected by God as no other claim seems reasonable to me.
Now as a historian, there are multiple attestations to his appearance to the Disciples after his death. That can be PART 2 when I get to it hopefully soon. The above seems to me to be reasonable and a best explanation of the events so far. So it seems to me that it fits the requirements for historical accuracy. I will send you more in the next few days. Also, there is more to my belief than just Jesus' life: The OT, science and other stuff. So this will involve a lot of discussion and your ideas and counter perspectives would be interesting to hear. Thanks for your patience. I left a lot out for brevity.
Response to First paragraph response:
Sorry for the delay and I do not think I will have time at this moment to answer your entire reply. But I will do it in parts. Thanks for you patience. I will reply to para. 3-4 at a later date.
I can give you 2 references with the time I have now: Dr, Gary Habermas who had been working with skeptics for 20+ years. In his book "The case for the resurrection of Jesus" states: that about 75% of critical scholars today accept the historicity of the empty tomb. Also, you can go on Dr. William Lane Craig's site and read the debates he has had with noted skeptics/atheists and he posits that statement. If you read the debates you will see that the argument is not about the empty tomb itself but the surrounding events. So let's focus on the empty tomb. The other part we can discuss later. It does make reasonable sense to posit an empty tomb in my view. Here is why: The Disciples "story" after their reported encounter with the resurrected Jesus was that he had risen and was no longer in the grave. Well, if he was not risen or at least "missing" from the tomb, all the Jews or Romans had to do was to go look. They could have produced his body- game over. But they could not because the body was gone. Jesus was not an isolated little known figure by that time. He was well known by folks in many cities, well known by the Jewish leaders and the Roman government. So well known that he made it into the history books. The empty tomb conclusion also has explanatory power (another requirement that historians use for reasonableness of a historical document). It does explain how the Disciples were able to make their claim seem valid- the body was in fact gone.
For you to posit the body was still in the tomb yields no explanatory power as to how the Disciples could claim it was not there and yet be believed. They would be dismissed immediately yet that did not happen. So it is easy for me to see why a skeptic would not try to challenge that in front of a knowledgeable Biblical scholar. It just is not reasonable to say the body was there when the "story" which grew rapidly could have easily been demolished with a filled tomb, whether you believe the 75% number or not. Your reply has no merit given what happened- not explanatory at all because it does not explain how the "story" got accepted and grew so fast.
Second paragraph:
I asked that it be parked not ignored. There are several reasons for that. First, for you to bring up the "zombies" (I will call that event Z to save words), you posit that it was not true. To posit it was not true means that your pre-supposition is that God does not exist. But what I am going through is an attempt at a fair analysis of these claims to determine that. So if you want to not believe in God, then you will naturally say things like you said because if God did exist, these things are possible. You can only point to your presupposition as the reason and that is faulty logic. Secondly, you have made a logical fallacy mistake in your statements. Let's say that Z did not happen. That does not mean that the rest of the NT is wrong – a fallacy called hasty generalization. So you want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Lastly, the Z claim is not relevant at all to the information I presented. In fact it is an anecdotal event. Like describing in detail a football game and making a comment about the cheerleaders dress color- not germane to the game but anecdotal. What atheists do not understand is that a believer does not need or use Z as evidence for anything in his/her belief. It is not necessary to the main event. So trying to push it center front does nothing to damage or affect in any way the rest of the NT. So no need to try to make your case on anecdotal stuff, especially when you have no valid reason to do so. If you want to go through this using reason and logic with no pre-suppositions of what is true and use the histo
I am using this to respond to your reply that started :"Is this book by D. Gary.." since I cannot find that posted now.
I was really disappointed with your response. As I have said, if I misinterpret your remarks, then I would welcome you correcting me so I understand what you believe and why. All you had to say was "You misunderstand what I said. I do not believe in the account at all because I do not think it is historically valid." (At least that is what I now interpret as your belief). That would have been just fine and we could have had a discussion about the historical validity of the NT. But you then took an unintended misinterpretation and made all kinds of assertions: called me a liar, dishonest, brain twisted, mentally crippled with vile language. So who is really twisting a misunderstanding into something you have no idea about- who I am? This cuts both ways too. I have told you that the Z story is not relevant to my belief and why. So should I call you these names too? I will not. I was hoping to discuss our beliefs in a reasonable, logical way but you obviously want to use illogical statements (even after they were pointed out to you) and do not want to reason together. To call me those things without even knowing me and then to expand that to all Christians only shows that you can not stay away from ad hominem comments, those occur when a person attempts an attack of a persons character without knowledge. It is a recognized sign of weakness.
There is no need to proceed and I will go find an atheist who does want to converse in a reasonable, logical way. By the way, there are atheists who do accept the empty tomb as true and I was one of them. I had others reasons not to believe. In fact the reasons I listed for an empty tomb came from atheists and their reasons why it was empty. So trying to discern your particular atheist belief apart from others was important to me.
Your belief is not new. Skeptics have been around for 2,000 years and your reasons so far have been rebutted since then. There is a reason that the Bible is the best selling book every year and of all time. There is a reason why brilliant people of all types believe. You have a view of God that is not the one I now know and have had personal experiences with (after I started to believe). But you refuse to want to listen without ad hominem and bad logic.
As a side bar, I was reading about why someone would want to be an atheist and ran onto one idea that stated that it was needed in order to escape a bad childhood. I thought about you and your awful childhood and wondered. Thank you for your time and I only hope you will give God a fair hearing before you get as close to death as I am. BYE


text:
David Cameron has ruled out a fundamental review of the Government's approach to drugs, insisting its current strategy is "working".
The Prime Minister dismissed calls from a cross-party group of MPs to hold a wide-ranging Royal Commission to consider alternative methods, including legalisation.
After a year-long inquiry, the Commons Home Affairs Committee said the Government's current policy was not working.
But, speaking during a visit to Cambridge, Mr Cameron said: "I don't support decriminalisation. We have a policy which actually is working in Britain. Drugs use is coming down, the emphasis on treatment is absolutely right, and we need to continue with that to make sure we can really make a difference. Also, we need to do more to keep drugs out of our prisons. These are the Government's priorities and I think we should continue with that rather than have some very, very long-term Royal Commission."
In a report, the influential Home Affairs Committee said ministers could learn from the experience of Portugal where drugs have been "depenalised" - with possession of small amounts not subject to criminal penalties, even though they remain illegal.
It also urged the Government to fund detailed studies of changes in Washington and Colorado in the United States - where cannabis is being legalised - and Uruguay where a state monopoly of cannabis production and sale is being proposed.
Ten years after its predecessor committee last looked at the issue, it said change was now urgent and that a Royal Commission should be set up immediately so it could report back by 2015, when the next general election is due to take place. In other recommendations, the committee called for the prosecution of senior officials in banks responsible for laundering the profits of drugs gangs and for better drugs education in schools.
Ministers should, it said, open discussions with the United Nations Commission on Drugs on new ways to tackle what it called the "global drugs dilemma" - including "the possibility of legalisation and regulation".
At the same time, the committee was highly critical of the Government's failure to hit the profits of the drugs gangs, saying its approach to money laundering was "far too weak". It said ministers should legislate to extend the "personal, criminal liability" of the most senior office holders in the banks involved, and so that retailers who sell untested "legal highs" can be held liable for any harm the products cause. Committee chairman Keith Vaz said that action was now imperative and ministers could not afford to "kick this issue into the long grass".
However, Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, expressed concern about the possible impact of cannabis use, saying: "If the report is to be responsible, it must take account of the specific damage that cannabis can do to the developing brain, not only as recent studies have shown inducing irreversible cognitive deterioration but in around 10% of cases triggering severe psychotic illness."