The games atheist play. I knew some atheists once who loved to play monopoly. They loved it so much they decided that atheism monopolizes science. I've also known many an atheist who loved doge ball. But then who doesn't sometimes? Hide and seek? No, atheists don't like seeking. They definitely do not like things being hidden. They like scrabble, where things are spelled out clearly and they control the vocabulary.
There are two things I find atheists doing on message boards that drive me up the wall.
The first one, assume no givens, I should say allow no givens. I've seen this in many forms. It's basically the idea that everything has to be totally proven. This tendency to demand that everything be proven is an outgrowth of their epistemology, which through going empiricism, and empiricism in a inductive, scientific sense. True empiricism in the old philosophical sense is not good enough. They demand total absolute proof of any assumption made. This is so extreme I find atheists asking me to prove the assumption that God is love. They will not accept the idea that this comes with the package of a Christian belief system or that it is empirically experienced my own sense of the presence of God.
But the ultimate example of this kind of thinking gone wild was seen a board the other dad (AARM--or RE-AARM) there was a thread called "why would God?" Meaning why would God allow pain and evil. So I began discussion on my soeteriolgoical drama idea, which begins by saying "here are the assumptions I make for this argument." This guy puts my word "assumption" in big blue font and says "you are just assuming!" Yes, chicken pie I know, that's what I said I was doing. Of the idea that all studies, arguments, treatuses, essays and any other sort of heuristic device employs assumptions, is foreign to this guy. Then he really took the cake, he says "This is circular reasoning, because you are assuming God!"
Now, friends, the name of the thread was "why would God?" So the thread assumes God from the get go, and to answer the thread is to assume God. Moreover, the question was about the belief system of Christianity. If you as a Christian believe that God is good, how can you explain that God allows pain, ect ect. The very nature of the question demands that anyone attempting to answer assume God in the answer. But this guy wants to argue that it's circular reasoning just to have a belief a prori. So not only will they not allow any sort of belief things must be proven form the outset, but they confuse this with logic to begin with. I was not making an argument to prove he existence of God. I was explicating my belief system. thus it should perfectly fair and understood that to explain beliefs I have to assume my belief.
But this response of the atheist also highlights the second problem, not understanding logic. How many times have I heard atheists say "your ideas are not logical," only to find that they have no clear idea of any logical rule violated. To them logic just "I like this" and illogical means "I don't like this." When accused of circular reasoning I always ask them to tell me what makes something circular reasoning. Nine times out of ten it turns out they confusing circular reasoning with saying something unproven. In direct response to this question (what is circular reasoning in my argument) the will say things like "we don't know what came before the big bang." This means my argument is circular because I'm making an assumption not based upon absolute evidence but speculation. When I point out that circular reasoning means the premise rests upon the conclusion of an argument, and none of my arguments do this, they just poo poo it like "O how can I be expected to keep track of all those rules." This makes the charge of "circular reasoning" pretty meaningless.
The idea that we know God exists because they Bible says so, and the Bible is the word of God so we can believe it, is a prefect example of circular reasoning. This is entirely because the premise (God exists) rests slap dabe upon the conclusion (God's existence is proven by the bible). The authority of the Bible comes from the thing in question, God. This is akin to begging the question. Circular reasoning is a lot like and is a form of question begging. The proof is based upon the thing in question, and the thing in question is proven by the proof that rests upon it.
None of my arguments have this quality. But what really gets me is these guys are not even assuming that unproven arguments are resting a premise upon a conclusion they are just using the term "circular reasoning" because they've heard it before and its sounds like a logical buzz to employ for the idea "I don't like this idea."
Unfortunately, this is not what people mean when they say "supernatural" nor does it have anything to do with metaphysics. Its' not historically the way the term has been used. More important than metaphysics is theology, because this is primarily a theological term. While I agree that we should take the public use of a term into account, when we have a specialized term that is primarily the property of an academic discipline such as theology, we should consult the history of the term as well as the special to use to which it has been put.
The term suffers from a callsic symptom; he thinks "Super" as the prefix would make supernature the oppossite of nature. So sstarting from this jucture,the assuption that these diametrical oppossites is symptomatic of what has happened in the degrrading of the term in the first place. He then uses his own philosphical hobby horse to define "nature" and thus defining "supernature" (a term he doesn't use but the proper term none the less) is just a matter of advancing the oppossite concept as the definition. But "Super" doesn't mean oppossition nor does it mean oppossite, nor does it mean immaterail, way out, or imaginary. it means "above," "over" or "supirior." What this means for defining the term I'll get to in a moment.
Carrier goes on to illustrate the way the term is used,in his eyes, by talking about ferries and demons and the force in star wars without ever realizing that most of that is not defined as supernatural. I don't recall a line in the movie saying "use the force, Luke,... it's supernatural."
I have previously illustrated my own understanding of supernatural, which excludes this kind of phenomena, the ferries and so forth. That was published on this blog, so I'll repeat it here.
I have several pages about the supernatural on Doxa.
The problem in all these discussions about the supernatural is that we are dealing with a degraded concept. The notion of "Supernatural" is a misgnomer to begin with, because modern people construe the idea as another place, an actual location that you can go to. It's the unseen invisible world that is filled with ghosts and magic and so forth. It's in the realm where God can heaven are, we supposed. But what they don't realize is that this is the watered down, dilapidated concept. It's not even understood well by Christians because it was destroyed in the reformation.
This was the "supernatural" prior to the reformation. It was tied in wiht the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebel against it. St. Agustine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Christians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nature. But the extension of the natural world as "nature" didn't come unitl latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first bsed upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.
Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a seperate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the reformation reality was biphercated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtopposed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is related to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's meyred in sin and natural urges.
I wouldn't say such disparaging things about atheists if they didn't pull such sneaky tricks. Now of course I don't mean all atheists. But there are atheist fundies just as there are Christian fundies, and there's an atheist atheism of the gaps kind of argument. The atheist fundie fools himself into thinking that his view is totally empirical and demonstrated by science but "nothing in Christianity is objective," you know they don't understand anything about epistemology when they start demanding "objectivity." Espeicially to demand it from a world view. I can see asking for "objectivity" in the form of veri similitude for a study on air bags in automobiles, for example, but not backing up a world view! That's as idiotic as believing that you are being scientific because you life white lab coats.
The problem is this kind of atheist fundi fools himself into thinking that eh as some real verification and objective demonstration of his world view, but he's only being fooled by a self induced con job. It works like this. First he imposes a self privileging ideology upon the world. He privies doubt, so in his mind doubt comes to equal truth. Then he orients his world view around a value of accepting "only empirical evidence." He cons himself into thinking that he only accept ideas that are proven with empirical scientific evidence. Then attaches such importance to this concept that he is able to make a leap of faith and pretend that somehow valuing induction proves the materialist conclusions that he leaps to. So he think just because he wants all of his positions to be proven with empirical evidence, they must really be so. And of course he convinces himself that the task of science is to protect form religion and then science becomes his get out of hell free card. Let's review these steps.
(3) sanctions with the arua of science.
Of course he has no such data. There is no data that God doesnt' exist or that there is nothing beyond the material world.He has no of proving this at all. But that's OK he says because it's having a scientific way of life that counts. At least his over all view is supported by his love of "objectivity" so that sanctions his conclusions even if logic doesn't' sanction them.
(1) The existence of other minds.
(4) That a world exists external to his own mind.
Now most of these are reasonable assumptions. But the point is he holds them without the possibility of any sort of real direct empirical scientific evidence, all the while claiming that as the basis of his entire world view.
The thing is, I wouldn't mind that so much, but then he tries to use this in contrast to religious thought. Everything that religious thinkers say or do receives hyper criticism from them. He imagines that theologians like Paul Tallich are just glorified sudayschool teachers with nothing going on up stairs. He waves around the word "objectivity" like there's really something to compare.
But he wont evaluate Christniaity on the terms of its own inner logic and every attempt to expalin what is is met with "but that's not objective, you dont' have anyting objective," that's just the illusion created by their value system.
this was a comment for that thread, but that thread is so old and burried and this raises some issues I would like to deal with. I am, therefore, making a post of its own to deal with it.
The fallacy in your thinking is that because you believe that the OT and Genesis are largely unhistorical, therfore, 'creationism' is incorrect. That is a classic logical blunder called the genetic fallacy.
No it's not. If that was what I thought it would not be the Genetic fallacy. Because the issue would be the historical veracity of the source, not merely because naming the sources demonstrates the wrong nature of the argument. But I never said most of Genesis is unnistorical. I said the cration story is mythology. There's a lot more in Genesis than the creation myth. Moreover, that is not why I consider creationism to be wrong.
I consider cretaionism wrong first, because the facts do not support a six day creation. As for non Yec creationists, they work overtime to make a mythological text fit a quasi scientific theory, it's more logical and eligant to just accept the mytholgocial nature of the creation story and think in terms of evolution, which I believe is born out by the facts. Secondly, I don't see how a creationism could be sicence when the outcome of every experiment is mandated. It's like science without expierment. As though they think science is just so many authorotative prnouncments without no observation.
" Can a "true Christian" accept evolution or must one reject modern science in favor of faith? "
As if evolution is equivalent to modern science.
Creatoinists are always so embrassaged bout the position in the modern scientiific community. This is something I've noticed on ever message board. I used to have a science board for many years as part of my boards at ezb. It never failed but that every time creation squared off agasint evolutionist we woudl hear "you don't know anything about science! you are not a scisnit and I am!" blah blah. LIke I said they think science is just so many authorotative pronouncements.
NO I am not a science guy. But I enough about evolution to hold my on in an arguement with any creationist, becasue creationism cannot be science due to the mandatory nature of its conclusiojns. If a "creationist scientist" ever come to the conclusion that evolution was true he would be out of the club. Sot he forego;ne nature of the conclusion bars any real study of the evidence.
Your main argument against creationism are theological ( "God is the boss dictating a memo to a secretary") not scientific, adding further to my claim that you really are ignorant of what scientific creationism actually is.
That's a misnomer. How can there be 'scientific creationism' when the concludiosn of material is mandated? Try to get your facts stairght. My argument against creationism is not theological. My main argument agaisnt creationism is the fossil record. I never said God is the boss dictating a memo, I say that's the view of the inerrentist.
If you want your position to be taken seriously you should try to support it on a scientific level.
So you didn't read the threads where I defended evoltion? It was last summer. It was on the apologetics board. that was the begining of my down fall from Grace at CARM. If you read that thread youo would know that I argued the fossil record and did so sucessfully aginst all creationsts.
Provide scientific evidence that macroevolution is correct rather that appeal to authority as is all scientists agree with you. Besides, appeals to authority also backfire on you. The majority of astronomers to do not view the Big bang as a supernatural event.
YOu creationists are the one's who are hung up on authority. I don't have prove evoluition. that's the prevailing theory in all of science. There is no science in the world today, no scientific discipline that does not assume evolution as a fact. You show me some credibel sceitnific evidence, without folklore creationist urban legoond, that evolution hasn't happened.
The atheist, and the "Jesus Myther" (those who believe Jesus didn't really exist even as a man in history) are so unconcerned with facts or truth, this came out so clearly in a debate recently. This will probably be about the last debate I have on a message board. These people are so frantic in their hatred of Christianity they are willing to let ordinary language go and to read as they wish it read rather than look clearly at the words to see what they communicate.
These Jesus mythers were so anxious to prove that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus day, (and by association then Jesus didn't either) they were actually reading this quote to say that Nazareth was re-settled in AD 70. The quote clearly said the priests need resettling, it says nothing bout Nazareth needing to be resettled it says they were sent to Nazareth as part of their own resettlement. How this works into the top and how it came about will soon be disclosed.
This business that Nazareth didn't exist in the first century has been floating around the "myther" camp for some time. Like all Jesus-myth arguments it is merely argument from silence. There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist, No one in the first century, or any subsequent century, ever claimed that Jesus came from a fictiscious town. But according to myther lore no one mentions Nazareth either. Josephus doesn't mention it, so it must not have existed. Funny, he does mention Jesus but that doesn't prove anything! Be that as it may, the myther camp is wrong, there is an extra biblical mention of Nazareth from the first century, we quoted it above.Of course this meant nothing to those on the message board. They also calim there is archaeological evidence, no ruins have ever been found, no evidence of habitation in the first century.
In the late Nineeth and early 20th centuries there were excavations of the chruch at Nazareth, but in 1955 major excavation of the general area beban.
The late Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti, O.F.M., professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem, was entrusted with this work. Study began in 1955 immediately after the demolition of the church of 1730. The examination was so thorough that not one square centimetre of the ground or the ruins was left unexplored. Flooring, mosaics and pieces of plaster were removed to allow full examination and the reconstruction of the archaeological picture of the place. Operations continued from 1955 to 1968 and yielded data of great scientific importance, so much so that it is quite true to say that this shrine at Nazareth is one of the most completely documented of all the sanctuaries of the Holy Land.
Misleading Jesus mythers try to argue that the houses were destroyed so they can't excavated and therefore, they have not yeilded any evidence. But this is just a matter of not reading carefully. The houses themselves have been destoryed, but Bagatti found the basements. The basements show where the houses used to be. These were not offices buildings that people went to the monring and left and went home at night, so the basements are obvious evidence of habitation.
On a visit to Nazareth Hospital in November 1996 CSEC's director Stephen Pfann identified an ancient winepress associated with agriculatural terraces on the hospital grounds and the adjacent land. Potsherds found on the surface of the terraceds dated from various periods beginning with the early-to-late Roman Period.
A survey of the area was conducted in February 1997 by CSEC's archaeological staff. Four seasons of excavation, licensed by the Israel Antiquities Authority and under the joint direction of Ross Voss and S. Pfann have been carried out by CSEC, with the help of students and local volunteers. These excavations have confirmed the land to be a complete Roman Period terrace farm with a winepress, watchtowers, olive crushing stones, irrigation systems, and an ancient quarry, and have illuminated previously unknown aspects of terrace farming in the Galilee.
Dr. Nakhle Bishara, Medical Director of Nazareth Hospital, had long hoped to build a visitor's center in Nazareth focusing on the life of Jesus. In light of the archaeological profile of the site, Dr. Bishara invited CSEC to incorporate its vision for an authentic first-century 'model village' with the proposed visitors' center. CSEC was thus contracted to be the academic consultants for the project and to provide the foundational research necessary for recreating a picture of Galilean town life in the first century A.D. Hence the Nazareth Village farm and visitor's center, developed under the direction of Michael Hostetler, was born.(Nazareth Village Farm, University of the Holy Land.
Baggatti and Pfann they just dismissed competley. Baggatti they said was "biased" (the ultimate sin for these guys) because he's religous. So any religious person, espeically a priest, is just no damn good doesn't deserve a hearing. One of the main champions of the myther view on this board, the anaynomous in the post on this blog who attacks me about Helmutt Koester, kept arguing "especially the Fransicians." He doesn't even know the franciscans are respected and have produced fine archaeologists in the past. He can't give spcific indicment or even an example of bias on Baggatti's part, just because he's religoius. So this is just blatant poisoning the well. With this kind of attitude there is no choice but shut down dialuge. If truth doesn't matter, and facts don't matter, and the evidence is frong of your face in three studies but you just refuse to accept it, then I supposse diolauge means prescious little either.
Freund and Darawsha University of Hartford, Savage Drew University and others using high resolution ground penitrating radar under the Cactus house at Nazareth and other locations in the area found evidence of first century habitation. The "cactus house" is a shop located near the "well of Mary" a local landmark the water of which is said to have extensive healing powers. This is near the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. The owners of the Cactus house dug out a basement to expand storage space and found the ruins of an ancient bathhouse dating to the crusader period. but there is also evidence of a bath house under that (third stata of bath house) dating back to the first cnetur, 2000 years.
Here we have a secular source that conducted an excavation but of course they skpetics argued that ground penitrating radiar isn't good enough and they dig up the ground. But we have to assume thsoe square shapes under the soil are not perfectly square boulders, nor should we believe that shouses and squre shaped artifcts grew naturally. The argument finally came down to a mysterious quote to which they kept refurring they called it "the strange quote." At one point they cliamed that Strange,a man's name, conducted a study, an excavation (one I had not heard of) and found evidence of a mysterious resetlement in AD70.
I'm not sure why they call it "the strange quote." But I realized at once this quote is on my site. They got it from Glenn Miller's Christian Think Tank. I'm pretty sure Miller copied it from my page where it's been on Doxa for about 10 years. There's no problem if the did, I've swiped many a quote from him, and it is an honor if he thought one of my quote worth cropping. So I don't care, and he knows I use his quotes and he has told me he doesn't care. But the fact is I researched that quote and It has nothing to do with a resettlement of Nazareth, the only thing being resettaled were the Priests. In fact the quote proves Nazareth was inhabited in the frist century and it takes away the entire myther argument from silence. There is no silence, Naz is mentioned in first century lit, they do no have a case.
But I am left wondering what is with their reading skills? Are they so baised they just see in quotes what they want to see and are blind to what is actually said?
The attitude toward reigious people with credentials and scholarship is just horrendous. It's like the attitude of white peole toward blacks in the nineteeth century. If I were an end times kind of guy I would say that atitude is the prelude the great tributation because I can easily see these people putting men in a concentration and camp and gassing me if I don't accept their mark. Like all hypocrites they have the gaul to reject others for their bias!
I fear what is ahead for us when dialogue is shut down so and when people are so intent on their view that they just don't even accept the evidence when it front of their faces.
The conventional Christian view of Creation as based upon gen1:1 "God created the heavens and the earth" has, for decades, been associated with the Big Bang. It was a great fit too. The verse seems to say "God went zap and there it was, when two seconds before there it wasn't." And the Big bang seems to say "the singularity went "zap" and there was the universe. These two were made for each other and throughout the 1980s atheist physicists sweated out the similarity. Even Fred Hoyle seemed to be wavering in his dedication to steady state and it seemed that God would soon take over physics. In an attempt to move away from this uncomfortable position physicists began coming up with theories that would so alter the Big Bang that they would no longer find the fit plausible.
After Hawking's idea of no boudry, even though far from proven, there is a problem with the conventional view of creation. Since there is no time beyond event horizon (what we used to call 'before the big bang') there can be no time before time, so there can be no beginning. thus creation cannot be an event.
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking presented a new model of a beginningless universe. Hawking does not challenge the idea that the universe is finite in space and time. Consequently, there is no time earlier than 16-10 billion years ago. Nonetheless, if the univese does eventually collapse back into a infinitesimal point, and if we use a mathematical technique known as "imaginary time", we can model space-time as a smooth, uneventful surface, with the Big Bang as the North Pole and the Big Crunch as the South Pole. Hawking's model involves "spatializing" time -- turning time into a spatial dimension, no different from the familiar three dimensions of space. Hence, his model involves a radical rejection of change and becoming: the universe is an unchanging, multi-dimensional whole, given once for all. Change is merely variation along a static dimension.
The problem with this argument in the recent work by Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time in which he preports to prove that the universe had an "unbounded condition," in other words, there is no origin to time. Imagine that time is like a cone and as we move back toward the original point at which time began we move in toward the point of the cone. Hawkings view would say that the end of the come is smooth, or that it has no end. Actually, he says that as we move toward the ultimate moment of origin time fragments and become four seperate coordinates, just as there are four dimension coordinates, in three spacial and one temporal dimension. in this case the one temporal dimension becomes four, making it impossible to say that time has a begining. The practical upshot of all of this is that a universe in which there is no origin to time is essentially a universe that always was, or that has no real begining. In other ways this is expressed by saying that the universe "poped" into exitance with no prior cuase (the big "pop"?).
"Though highly speculative, the Hawking/Hartle model of the "quantum creation of the universe" is an example of the kind of challenge presented by quantum cosmology to the relation between theology and cosmology. If there is not "t=0" in the Hawking/Hartle model, does this 'disprove' the theological claim that the universe is created? Actually the interaction method produces a more nuanced result than this. Recall that, according the Hawking, the universe has a finite past but no past singularity at "t=0;" the universe is temporally past finite but unbounded. If we had too narrowly reduced the theological meaning of creation to the occurrence of "t=0" in standard cosmology we might well have a problem here! (Certainly not the problem Carl Sagan tries to raise in his Preface to Hawking's book - namely that there is nothing left for God to do. Deism like this is not even remotely presupposed by those theologians who do take t=0 as direct evidence for God. For them, as for all contemporary theology in one way or another, God acts everywhere in the universe, and not just at its beginning.) Yet if we kept the two worlds separate, we would have nothing to learn either."
A Theological answer by a physicist and a theologian based upon Hawking's model shows us that Hawking does not do away with the contingent nature of the Universe.
* Evidence of Temporal Begining.
The problem of no "zap" moment of creation ("zap" something from nothing) is not such a problem. An eternal existant can be contingent provided the necessity upon which it is pinned is also eternal. An example would be an eternal flute player. As long as the musician plays his flute the music is eternal. Thee floutist plays eternally the music lasts eternally, but if the player ever stops, the music stops. God is the source of time, time is a conventional frame of reference in the mental construct we call "reality" which is actually nothing more than a thought in the mind of God. This eliminates all problems of time in relation to God.
In these passages creation is likened unto a woman giving birth. This is not so much a "zap" movment of creation exnihilio but of an evolutionary view. Birth is an evolutionary process. The egg changes, it splits, it becomes zygote and fetus and finally emerges form the womb as a "babby." I am not trying to suggest any form of pantheism, but the idea of "creation" being eternal yet continent, and evolving.
We must re calibrate the entire question of God and time.In this model even the consequences of no time do not effect God, since they are also just part of the mental construct. God's true realty is governed by God's imaginatin, not the laws of Physics. The laws of physics themselves are just conventional frames of reference in the fantasy of our "reality." Thus problems such as A and B time and the first moment and temporal begining are all avoided.The temporal beginning problem effects atheists too. They often argue "how could God create if here was no time? He could not think, he could not move, he could not act because there is no change or becoming in a timeless state." But they seldom realize that this also effects the universe of an atheist in the same way. If that assumption is true there should be nothing here. The atheists beg the question and just assume we got here without God because some theory says it could be true, but that theory does not account for the problem of temporal beginning. But if time is a thought in the mind of God the temporal beginning problem is not a problem for God. It is God's imagination and not physics that controls God's reality.
I'm arguinmg wtih one of those know nothings and I say Jesus can be verified to have existed as a man in hisotry but not so Mithra or Zeus or any of the dying/rizing savior gods except Krishna and Buddha and even that evidence is weak. He says that's so stupid. They were all based upon real people.
Get into another argument I argue that the Gospels are good evidence for the existence of Jesus as a man in history. I am not trying to prove he's the son of God, but as a man in history, a flesh and blood man, not a fiction made up. So this gay says that's circualr reasoning because I'm using the bible to prove the bible.
I say well he doesn't know what circualr reasoning is because there is nothing circular about using a text as an artifact. It would be circular if I said "the Bbile says it's the word of god, so its' the word of God." Or "the Bible is the word of God, here let me quote this verse saying "this is the word of God." Of course if you know anything about my past you know that I do not argue for this. In any case he comes back and says "you are trying to use a supernatural books as a natural book so this is circular reasoning."
Aside from the fact he that can't show me why it's circular, he just got through saying that Mithra and all these supernatural mythological figures were real people. So he's using supernatrual figures as artifacts and naturalistic. So why can't I? but when he does it it's logic and reason when I do it it's circualr reasoning.
I have a theory that God is the basis of reality, the framework through which all that can be distinguished from God exists. In explicating that framework I think of it as a mind, and what we know as reality is a thought in that mind. In this essay I would like to briefly explore the results of holding this theory, viz God and time.
The problem of God and time is a thorny one in two respects. First, because the idea that God is outside of time is the most popular Christian view, probably influenced by C.S. Lewis. This causes problems in areas such as foreknowledge. How can we change our minds, and thus have free will, if God knows the result. Any mind changing would prove God wrong. Secondly, its a problem for our understanding of creation. This is in two respects. (a) with God outside of time there can be no change, no motion, no becoming. so how could God think to create, let alone act to create? (b) The problem of the creation as an event. With no time the Big bang is no longer an event with a beginning, middle and end, but an "event horizon" which has no beginning.
This is the conventional view: Imagine a great big room. In that room is a big beach ball and a guy (with a white beard who loves dearly for reasons unknown qua qua qua). God is the guy, the big room is outside of time and beach ball is space/time and on the surface of the ball is time. That doesn't solve the problem but it shows us with what we are dealing. In my view, however, the big room is God's mind. There is no guy and the beach ball, still space/time is a thought in that mind. The difference is the conventional view places God in some strange unknown space called "outside time" the relationship to God is unknown. Now in my "almost Berkeleian" idea there is also ambiguity. What is beyond this mind? In what other reality does this mind exist? I have to assume that there is no "beyond" event horizon where God is concerned. The mind is all there is.
there isn't any. The future has not happened yet, so God can't know it as a "done deal." That sounds heretical and I'm sure it will strike many as "something wrong,deeply wrong." Nowhere in scripture is God's relationship to time spelled. out. It may not be possible to be outside time and this has been pointed out by more than one physicist. But the idea of God sitting beyond it all looking at time spread before him as a tapistry seemed to solve so many problems and became so popular it was stamped with the approval of true doctrine. It is not true doctrine. Before relativity theory no one knew that idea. The Church fathers never thought of God being outside of time in the sense of transcending space/time. Augustine did actually think God was beyond time but that was because he had the concept of the Platonic forms to tell him that, but it still wasn't in that sense of "the laws of physics and the big bang."
This will bother people because they will say "we can't trust God to save us or protect us if he doesn't know the future, How can he know the end of the world?" I didn't say God doesn't know, I said he doesn't know the future as a done deal, as this tapestry of time laid out before him as he sits in his transcendent location beyond event horizon. God knows two things: (1) he can estimate via probabilities better than any super computer or anyone or anything else; (2) he knows what he can do. He knows that if is his purpose to bring about an end, he can bring it about even if the circumstances aren't precisely known. So we can't say "God doesn't know the future" but he may not know it as "done deal." Of course that also means in God's figuring he would naturally leave room for mind changing and thus, free will.
In a timeless state, no change thus no creation. But God is not in a timeless state. Time could run eternally, but an even better answer is that time is just a conventionality in the mental construct of our reality. Moreover, the consequences of non time are as well. The reality in which God dwells is not governed by the laws of physics, those are part of the mental construct that holds this reality in the mind of God. God's true reality is controlled by imagination, God's imagination not physics.
This could get very complex and I don't want it to be so I will deal with this problem tomarrow night.
creation, moral law and the contending versions of revealed truth.
reflective person could ever defend religion rather than dismiss it.
point for any considered debate over religion.
The faith that the new atheists describe is a simple-minded parody.
atheists are separated from the old by their shallowness.
This is what I've been saying all along. Sam Harris sounds like a kid on a message baord.They all sound like they get their ideas from the Secular Web.
The New Atheist Fundamentalism draws upon the work concerning God part of the brain as one of its major weapons.This argument is actually fuitless as is actaully an argument for God not a disproof.
The major atheist objection is that neurological research has accounted for the mechanics of religious experience, thus we know it is not God making the experiences happen it's is nothing more than brain chemistry.
But in this brilliant, groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: the religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain.
Wait, this is a very simplistic notion of the arugment. The argument never said 'O I feel something out of the ordinary, I can't think what would cause it, it must be God." That's the pedestrian understanding. At that rate accounting for the mechanics of the sensation hardly disproves anything. One is still left with many imponderables that offer ratinal warrent for belief if one choose them as such.
(1) The timing in relation to prayer or other religious events.
One can go a lifetime with no religious experiences. One prayer, or one meaningful gesture, one trip to a church during mass, or any such event and one can be reduced to tears, swept away into the transcendent relm, and have one's entire life changed. So the proximity to religious environment as the trigger means this is more than just relaxation or a trick of the mind.
The born again experience hasn't been subjected to the same kind of data gathering techniques, or if it has, I can't find the data. But there are many different kinds of religious experiences and many different aspects to mystical experince this is not the only one.
The only question is "what is it that is happening."
First, the authors claim that their evidence from SPECT scans and EEG's show that religious experience is real. Religious experience is real in the sense that there is something actually occurring in the brain that is not dismissable as something delusional or hallucinatory. While some skeptics might dismiss spiritual experience in this manner, it is not clear that this is what skeptics have in mind when they do not concede that religious experiences are real. A skeptical reader might easily grant that something is taking place in the brain but dispute whether that experience is an experience of some metaphysical entity, i.e. God, or of some kind of metaphysical reality, i.e. that all of reality is unified. Someone claiming to have an intimate experience of God can be understood as making two claims: that a certain spiritual experience is taking place, and that such an experience is an experience of a metaphysical entity (God). The authors' empirical data only establishes the existence of the former reality, and not the latter.
Second, and more important, is the authors' claim that because of their findings it is just as irrational to doubt the reality of God as it is to doubt the reality of the material world: If you were to dismiss spiritual experience as "mere" neurological activities, you would also have to distrust all of your own brain's perceptions of the material world. On the other hand, if we do trust our perceptions of the physical world, we have no rational reason to declare that spiritual experience is a fiction that is "only" in the mind (147).
Now, if we dismissed religious experiences just because we regard them as mere neurological activities in the brain then likewise we ought to dismiss experiences of the material world. That point is trivial, for no skeptic dismisses religious experience for just that reason alone. As the authors seem to be unaware, academic philosophers have debated the existence of the material world for centuries (perhaps too much since Descartes) as well as the existence of God. The authors ignore the fact that philosophers will typically adduce good reasons for not disbelieving in the existence of the material world and for trusting our experiences of it while offering numerous reasons for doubting or disbelieving in the existence of God. In other words, although religious experience and experience of the material world are both neurological activities in the brain, there exist good reasons for thinking that our experience of the material world is genuine and many reasons for doubting or disbelieving that God exists. This is why it can be rational to trust our perceptions of the material world yet still have rational reasons for thinking that spiritual experience is a fiction "only" in the mind.
Just to extend upon Holland's argument, what he's missing is the fact that reasons for disbelieving in God come in all shapes and sizes, just because you have one doesn't mean it's related to nuerological matters or any sort of study data. Its' not enough to just point out the nureological basis of religious experience and then interject any old anti-religious argument and then argue that there are better reasons for doubting God than for doubting the material world. The argument still holds even if we take out material world put in any other belief system, just describing the mechanics of a sensation doesn't reduce the entire experience to nothing. Moreover, Holland shows his naivte because philosophers have lots of reasons for doubting the mateial world too,and no scientific argument can prove the relality of the material world.
If this discovery is such a compelling defeat for belief in God, why is it that the major researcher and the guy who porved the nature of the mechanics of the experience still believes in God?
"The answer, proposes Dr. Andrew Newberg, may be found in the very nature of our minds, in the neurological architecture of our brains. Our brains may, in fact, be naturally calibrated to spirituality. While acknowledging that neuroscience cannot unravel the puzzle that perpetually entrances the human psyche—did God create our minds or did our minds create God?—Dr. Newberg does maintain that neuroscience can elucidate the nature of mystical experiences, their importance in human evolution, and why the abiding need for a concept of God is imperative for the survival of the human species."
"What makes these beliefs more than hollow dreams is the fact that the God that stands behind them has been verified, through a direct mystical encounter, as literal, absolute truth. Any challenge to the authenticity of that truth, therefore, is an attack not only upon ideas about God, but also upon the deeper, neurobiologically endorsed assurances that make God real. If God is not real, neither is our most powerful source of hope and redemption. There can be only one absolute truth; it is a matter of existential survival. All others are threats of the most fundamental kind, and they must be exposed as impostors."
(6) God creates corporeal life, this is just the way he did it.
Newberg believes that mystical experince is opening our minds to a higher realm, and that this is just a desecition of the way God gives corporeal beings a sense of his own presence. IT's not more a disproof of God's presence than arguing that we have lungs,therefore, God didn't create us. Maybe that's just the way God makes for corporeal life to understand himt, its our God finding mechinism. Just because we undersand how it works doesn't mean it's not real. the proof of that is in the results, the data about changes lives and transformations.
Religion and Ethics News Weekly, Feb. 25, 2005.
DR. NEWBERG: "If there is a God, it certainly makes sense that the brain is set up this way, because it would be silly for us to have some fundamental disconnect with the God that created the brain. "
The content of the experience itself grounds one in religious consciousness. Many atheists will claim to have had mystical experince and that they were not thinking religiously, but just because they weren't thinking about God or a religoius tradition doesn't mean they weren't thinking reilgiously. They were aware of their unitfied being with all being and life and of the undifferentiated unity of all things, and that is spiritual transcendence, and the experince creates a sense of awe in the face of the numinous and that is the essence of religious thinking. Moreover, since the transformative affects are real and the content of the experince is explicitely religoius, and it is not triggered by other kinds of thinking, there is every reason to attribute it to God.
By the end of the eighteenth century, when Higher Criticism and the scientific method began to captivate the human mind, the intellectual elite assumed that religion soon would vanish. However, two hundred years later, the concept of God and the primal stories of religion remain with us and, in many instances, appear to be gaining in strength. We humans remain in thrall to spiritual mythologies, to those symbolic commentaries that arise from the unchanging depths of our minds.
In his neurological research, Dr. Newberg considers this question: why would the forces of natural selection, which gave the human brain its inexpressible powers of logical observation and rational analysis—all shaped toward the serious, pragmatic goal of keeping us alive—allow that very same organ to place such fundamental hope and trust in strange, unlikely myths? In answer, Dr. Newberg contends that the very neural architecture of our brains allows us no other option. We are myth-makers in our blood, compelled to explain the world in terms of gods and monsters, compelled by the mind's deepest will to survive.
In this lecture—based upon his book of the same title—Dr. Newberg discusses his research in brain function and neuroimaging, specifically his high-tech investigation of the brains of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan nuns at prayer. Illuminating the chain of neurological events that are triggered by intensely focused spiritual contemplation, Dr. Newberg places these objectively observed phenomenon side-by-side with our ineradicable drive to make myths, proposing that the religious impulse is coded into the biology of our brains. While neuroscience cannot confirm nor dispute the existence of God, it can help us understand why God will not go away so easily.
How could evolution lead to myth making creates as part of a brain structure? that would imply that evolution somehow has conscious understanding of what myth is and somehow protects the myth making process. The myth and it's reltion to archetypes indicates a higher rality at work.


In this section of our website, you'll find various media such as our corporate brochures, checklists and guidelines on various topics of interest and even a video or two.
Here, we provide you with an informative peek into issues we consider when we designed for you, our client, and your specific wants and needs.
The resources you'll find here provide you with access to downloadable company brochures, our collection of useful checklists, videos, and insight into specific topics of interest.
We also address Frequently Asked Questions where even more resources and topic content are provided in depth.
In bringing to life a true garden escape that is exclusively yours and perfect in every way, it takes a dedicated team of professionals to make it all come together. We share the names of those we tend to collaborate with most and also find to be exceptional in their field in our partners section.
Design For... - Issues our team considers when creating your dream garden.
Partners - Professionals and Craftsmen we collaborate with regularly.


From the teachings of Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani as Taught by Shaykh Sayed Nurjan Mirahmadi.
Allah (aj) in holy Quran says, I am going to teach you within yourself and upon the horizons. You will see My signs upon the horizons and you will see My signs within yourself.
It means the way of tafakkur and contemplation is that there must be a reality within me and there must be a reality that Allah (aj) is showing upon the horizons. If we don't understand the secret of tawaf, then we do not truly understand what Allah (aj) wants from us. The tawaf is the circumambulation of the holy Ka'bah. It means for us it is a deep reality. We find out now within ourselves, that our whole holographic image is based on this reality. The whole of our being is based on love. That love, the scientific and reality of love; not the love of lust and people jumping on each other. This is the divinely love, in which the divinely presence grants to our smallest being, our elements, our electrons. The nucleolus of our being is the center of love. If you don't understand the smallest, you don't know what you are doing. It is like you are going around the rocks and stones and become idol worshipers, astaghfirullah (asking for forgiveness). There must be a reality that a believer must have to understand within their heart. Before I can truly sometimes understand, I have to reflect within. Now alhamdullelah (praise be to Allah), they are teaching us from our atoms.
The atom is circumbulates the nucleus. Why is it circumambulating the nucleus? Why do we have the whole hologram of our being based on that love? It means the divine put within the nucleus a divinely love, an attraction; what they call it mass attraction. It is such a powerful attraction that the outer elements want to collide; they want to go in to the nucleus. As a result Allah (aj) creates a slight gentle force. There is a strong nuclear force and a weak force. That weak force is just enough to slightly push. If it was any stronger and hit, then all of the holographic image will be non existence because it will send your love away. It's enough of strength that your love gets into the nucleus and Allah is not giving permission. Therefore, now you begin to look for another way. When the love is there, you are not stopping, so your elements don't stop.
The mass attraction they describe like this; from the circumference your elements want to come to the nucleus. They are attracted by their very being. They have to be into the nucleus because of love, divinely love, a pure, sweet and innocent love. As a result, the electrons don't stop, they have no ego. No ego is telling them that, no go away this is not for us. The electrons move because of the love, like a magnet it pulls. They move, they move, they keep moving to find a way in. They want to be in the nucleus.
It means the electrons; they begin the reality of tawaf. They are going around looking for a way to collide with the center. They want to reach the divinely presence or the symbol of divinely presence because, there is nothing like on to the divinely presence. It's a divinely light, divinely qudrat (power). Later they describe what that light is. It means that the electrons and the elements want to and they begin to move. As a result of their yearning and their love, they are moving to the center, moving to the center. They begin the circumambulation, they begin the tawaf (circumambulation), they begin the tawaf, and they begin the tawaf. And because they have no ego, they are lost within that love.
All the atoms are moving and spinning at a rate of speed that is no comprehensible for us. The vastness of our creation, the vastness of our electrons; all are spinning out of divinely love, giving us an appearance. Allah (aj) says, this life is but an illusion.
Scientist says yes, all of it is an illusion. If the spin stops, it collapses to nothingness. It collapses to something not as great as the sizes that we are seeing. That is the reality of love and that is the reality of our being.
Allah (aj) says everything is in my praise. Everything is in existence out of that divinely love.
Then we find the earth spin around the sun. It's not shirk! But, the sun is the symbol of divinely light. Which is greater? The sun or the light of Sayyidina Muhammad (saws). It's not comparable. The light of the prophetic souls, far out does any imaginary light of the sun because it's all within the bound of creation. Allah (aj) says, this creation is not like a wing of mosquito for me, in value.
It begins to teach us that everything is in tawaf (circumambulation) around the light. The planets make tawaf around the sun. They used to think before that the sun makes tawaf around the earth. But no, the physical must make tawaf around the spiritual, the light. The light is eternal. And all the planets on them are making tawaf around the sun. And everyone on the planet is making tawaf around the sun.
Innama nut'imukum liwajhi Allahi la nureedu minkum jazaa an wa la shukoora.
They begin to teach us, look at the greater reality. You like it or you don't like it, Allah (aj) is making you to make tawaf around the sun. Because Allah is showing the azzimat, the greatness of His greatness. Study the sun. Not to worship the sun because, tawaf is an expression of love. Worship is our salat, prayers and acknowledging the divinely presence and praying to the divinely presence.
These are the ayats (signs) and isharats of the divinely light, divinely creation. Study the sun, and see that your breath is coming from the sun, through photosynthesis. Your vision is coming from the spectrum of light that you can see from the sun. Our whole existence on this planet is from the sun. As a result of respect and ihtram (respect), Allah makes the earth to go around the sun. Be thankful and say shukur (thanks) to me and be thankful to my creation that I give you. All planets begins to circumambulates the sun out of their thankfulness because Allah's 'izzat (honor) and Allah's might and power is in that reality. Allah wants good character. He says, be thankful for what I am giving you.
We said before, which is greater? When you study the sun, you say all of that is coming from the magnificence of the sun. But, the magnificence of Allah (aj) is the power upon that sun. Your breathing, eating and all your abilities come from that. We said which is greater the sun or the light of prophet (saws)? The light of prophet (saws) is greater. Now how much do you owe the reality of prophet (saws). If the sun is doing that for you, imagine the reality of where that sunlight is coming from.
These are the sir (secrets) of Lam Jalala. Everything must come from the secret of la ilaha ilAllah and goes directly to Muhammadun RasulAllah and comes out. This is for us the reality of tawheed and oneness. This is what Allah (aj) showing that for my 'izzat to appear, it must be appearing through the reality of prophet (saws) and the prophetic reality of all the prophets. They carry that reality. Their lights far out shine that sun. Once we begin to understand how much blessings we get from the sun, how much nourishments we get from all of that. Allah (aj) says, just you think then what are you getting from the reality of the souls of whom I love. My light is upon their hearts.
Now begins to open the reality of tawaf. When we understand the micro reality of our being is moving in this love. We are in a hologram of that love. If for any moment the electron stops its love, it collapses. We cease to exist. Yusabihu bi hamdeh.
Allah (aj) says for verily everything is in my praise, in resonance, in an atomic resonance. Their atoms are resonating. It means they are singing. Now they have a technology that they can hear the earth sing. All spiritual masters teach; they can hear the planets. Everything has a frequency, the wood has a frequency, the glass has a frequency, the earth puts out a frequency, the planets and the sun and put out a frequency. It means they are making a dhikr.
maa wasi`anee ardee wa laa ardee wa laakin wasi`anee qalbi `abdee al-mu'min.
but the heart of my Believing Servant.
He is not talking about me and you. He is talking about the prophetic reality. Qalbil Mumin baytullah قلب المؤمن بيت الله (Heart of the Believer is House of Allah). It is very easy. This is a truth in the plane site. The best truth is hidden in the plane sites because people think, no it got to be more complicated than that. No! The heart of the believer is the house of God. Divine says there is nothing up there that is going to hold Me and there is nothing down here that is going to hold Me. But the heart of My believer is My house. It means I reside, my 'izzat, my might resides within that but not for you and me. Not now.
This is towards the understanding of greatness of the prophetic reality. When we go to the ka'bah and say ya rabbi (oh my lord) but the hadith is qalbil mu'min baytullah, now I am facing baytullah (Allah's house), there must be the Qalb e Mumin (Heart of the believer). Why are you guys making it difficult?
The qalbil mu'min. Who are we talking about? It is the heart of the prophet (saws). Allah (aj)'s only concern is prophet (saws)'s reality. That the qalb(heart) of Sayyidina Muhammad (saws) is My house. And if you arrive at His house, who is there? The Mu'min (believer)! It's the rohanyat of Sayyidina Muhammad (saws). Because of the rohaniat (spirituality) of Sayyidina Muhammad (saws), Allah (aj) sends His tajali (light). Why, you think Allah sends His tajali on the bricks so the bricks will be holy or the water and the cement? Or they think may be the khiswa the fabric is holy. They cut it (khiswa) up every year and sell it for billions of dollars to everybody who believes. Allah (aj) is sending all that tajali on a fabric?
There must be something there that every mu'min, needs. Because the rules of paradise is that when you move to paradise, you can never be taken out of paradise. There must be a paradise light there. There must be rohanyat of prophet (saws) there. As a result, all the real mu'min (believers), all the real mukhlis (sincere); Allah (aj) puts a drop of their arwah (souls), drop of their souls; just even an atom is enough. As a result, Allah (aj) puts a drop of the arwah of all the real mu'min (believers), all the real mukhlis (sincere); there. A drop of their souls; just even an atom is enough. That atom is enough to reflect back to their physicality or to their souls, wherever their souls are in barzakh (Purgatory) or in dunya (material world). Because one atom is as if all the atoms are there.
All those lights and all those atoms must be at the holy ka'bah because, this is the hadith. Qalbil mu'min baytullah. Now I came to the baytullah; where are the mu'min? As a result of that, Allah (aj) says, you make tawaf طواف! Weren't you making tawaf around the sun? Which was better? You had no choice in the tawaf طواف around the sun; you sit on the earth. You can't say no put the break, I am not going to make tawaf around the sun. Allah (aj) is showing you that light, you have ihtram (respect), you have respect. Sit on the ard (earth) and go around the Shams (sun). We have no choice. The earth makes a tawaf around the sun at the speed of 6700 miles/hour.
They begin to teach, there must be very holy souls residing in ka'bah. That's what brings Allah's nazar (gaze) and tajali (light). As a result, their souls inside the ka'bah, they are making tawaf around Allah (aj). Because the reality of their souls, the heart within their souls; inside there is making tawaf around Allah (aj). Just like the Sun is making a very slow tawaf. It is making a tawaf to the 'izzat that it is dressed by. The earth makes a tawaf all the way to the Pluto but, they keep the Pluto out. But, they keep the 9th planet out. Whatever it is, that entire galaxy and universe are all making a tawaf.
mam. The Imam recites, he carries the jama'a behind. If the imam is bad, the prayer is off somewhere else. Allah (aj) is showing us that for the sake of that holy light, My nazar (gaze), My dressing, and My blessing is upon that region. As a result, you come by imitation and make a tawaf to be dressed by the lights that those holy souls are already being dressed in.
Lam jalala. This is an active state of reality of prophet (saws)'s soul. It's active because qalbil mumin baytullah and everybody is coming to receive those lights from the Prophet (saws), from the lights of all the souls of all the mu'min (believers), from Ashabin nabi (saws) (Prophet's companions), ahlul bayte Nabi (saws) (Prophet's family), and awliya Allah (saints). People are coming to receive those lights.
What do you think then about the lights of Madinatul munawera. Now we look at the other part of that hadith.
When you go to Madina? What is in Madina? Prophet (saws). What is there? The qalbil of the mumin. The real qalb (heart) that Allah (aj) has created. That house (ka'bah) baytul 'atiq بيت العتيق (the ancient house), is brick and stones that you made with your hands. Allah made it to be holy by the souls of very holy souls. As a result of their souls and their worship, Allah wants you to come and be dressed by that light. Like the sun they are emanating lights. By you just imitating, these lights will dressing and blessing upon you. Just like imam, when it comes time to pray; Prophet (saws) is the Imam. Prophet (saws)'s prayer to Allah (aj) counts and we are the jama'a (people following the Imam in prayer) in Mecca. But, that is baytullah; qalbil mumin. Qalbil mumin (the heart of the believers) are there.
But, if you go to Madina, this is where the Mu'min resides. So What is there? Baytullah (house of God). Do we get it? Baytullah. When you go to Madina tul munawera, prophet (saws) is in fana (annihilation).
Mecca in binary code is one and Madina is zero, Nuqt. Prophet (saws) in is in complete annihilation. As a result of annihilation, the heart of the prophet (saws) IS where Allah (aj) is residing; therefore the light of Allah (aj), the realities and the divinely presence.
If we don't understand the reality and the relationship of La ilaha ilAllah, Muhammadun Rasul Allah (saws), then we are constantly off of our understanding. That's why prophet (saws) came and brought us and thought us to say La ilaha ilAllah, La ilaha ilAllah, La ilaha ilAllah. Make dhikr of Allah, Allah, Allah. But what did Allah (aj) teach you to make dhikr of? In Allaha wa Malayikatahu yusalona alan Nabi.
This is the relationship. Prophet (saws) is teaches, Mecca. Bring yourself to oneness, understand the greatness of the divinely presence. But, even there is the heart of the believers because Allah (aj)'s love is residing there. As a result of Mecca and the acceptance of the tawaf of Mecca, Allah (aj) says, now I want you to be dressed by My divinely presence; you go to Madina. In Allaha wa Malayikatahu yusalona alan Nabi (Allah and his angels send blessings upon the Prophet (saws). Forget about the Ya ayu hal ladhina amano (oh those who believe). They don't care about the rest. But Allah (aj)'s dhikr and malayika's dhikr is on Madina tul Munawera. Allah's nazar and presence and divinely lights are in Madina tul Munawera. And all malayika from the beginning of creation to the end of creation, must be present and making salawat on Sayyidina Muhammad (saws).
Subhana rabbika rabil 'izzati 'ama yasifoon, Wa salamun 'alal mursaleen wal hamdulillahi rabbil 'alameen. Bi hurmati Muhammadil Mustafa wa bi siratil suratil Fatiha.


Dido Belle appears, in her famous portrait alongside her 'sister' and companion Lady Elizabeth Murray, a vision of aristocratic virtue. But she was no normal 18th-century lady, and this was no common painting. Adopted and raised by Lord Mansfield - one of the most powerful men of the day - her mixed race and illegitimacy became the controversy of English high society.
Dido Elizabeth Belle was born in 1761. It would be nearly 100 years before slavery was abolished. The date would be of little importance if not for one important factor: Belle's father was white, but her mother was African. It was an unthinkable act for the time, and Belle's life was destined for only bad things. But remarkably bad things did not happen. Belle was sent to live with her uncle, the Earl of Mansfield; here she was raised as a free woman and given the same privileged upbringing as her cousins. This book tells the inspiring true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, and how the life of a woman most people have never heard helped pave the way for future change.
This book illuminates how the 'long eighteenth century' (1660-1800) persists in our present through screen and performance media, writing and visual art. Tracing the afterlives of the period from the 1980s to the present, it argues that these emerging and changing forms stage the period as a point of origin for the grounding of individual identity in personal memory, and as a site of foundational traumas that shape cultural memory.
This definitive biography depicts one Victorian woman's struggle to stay afloat in a rising tide of prurient scandalmongering and snobbery. Could it be that this woman's character and circumstances informed Oscar Wilde's social comedies? She was the daughter of a leading Conservative Oxford don, vilified as an arrogant fortune-hunter. Her liaison dangereuse with a Duke resulted in ostracism by Queen Victoria's cronies, as well as protracted, widely publicised legal disputes with his family. One battle put her in Holloway Gaol for six weeks. Her supporters, over time, included Disraeli, the Khedival family of Egypt, the de Lesseps, and Sir Albert Kaye Rollit (a promoter of women's suffrage, later her third husband). Her life and that of her family drew in British and European colonialism, and even Reilly, the "Ace of Spies". Various previously untapped letters, diaries and journals allow the reader to navigate through the sensationalist fog of the primarily Liberal press of her time. The book will appeal to anyone interested in Victorian and journalism history, and gender and celebrity studies.


A hammam kit proves to be an innovating solution that offers the well-being and tradition of the hammam concept by means of a modern cabin that is easily integrated into any area.
The kits are composed of slot-in side panels, integrated sloped ceiling (domed and flat version available) and a floor with evacuation system.
Each hammam kit is delivered on a pallet, with all assembly parts in order to facilitate installation.
Each panel should be slotted in and then stuck using a polymer mastic.
Once assembled, you can tile the hammam or choose another finish (not included in kit).
Two models are available : Sivas and Antalya.
The Silvas and Antalya modular panels are made from high-density polystyrene (45kg/m³), guaranteeing solidity.
Featuring excellent thermal insulation (0,032W/m.K) permitting a rapid rise in temperature whilst ensuring a low energy consumption.
Using water-repellent mortar and glass-fibre frame which is applied to both sides of the panel ensures the adherence of the chosen finish, ceramic or other.
- Watertight material ensures excellent thermal insulation.
- Rapid rise in temperature whilst ensuring a low energy consumption.
- Perfect fit of slot-in panels ensures total water tightness.
- Total comfort with made to measure benches.
- Fast and easy installation in comparison to a "built" hammam.
Starting from 4230 eur Including VAT.
You are looking for a spare part for «Hammam kit» ?


text:
Le Grand Prix d'Allemagne était une compétition de combiné nordique organisée au sein de la coupe du monde de combiné nordique, à la manière de la tournée des quatre tremplins qui fait partie de la coupe du monde de saut à ski, ou du Tour de Ski qui fait partie de la coupe du monde de ski de fond. Cette compétition fut organisée de la saison 2001-2002 à la saison 2006-2007, avec comme sponsor la bière Warsteiner.

La compétition se déroulait sur trois épreuves, toutes organisées en Allemagne. L'athlète ayant totalisé le plus de points lors de ces trois épreuves remportait le grand prix, qui était doté, lors de sa dernière saison, de  répartis comme suit entre les six premiers du classement dudit grand prix :
  euros au vainqueur ;
  euros au deuxième ;
  euros au troisième ;
  euros au quatrième ;
  euros au cinquième ;
  euros au sixième.

Palmarès

Références

Compétition de combiné nordique en Allemagne
Coupe du monde de combiné nordique

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Education in the Wild
The Eclectic
Do A Talk
Floating Classroom
Mad World Archive
Edinburgh Settlement
13th March 2014: The Science of Food Additives and Behaviour by Alex Dunedin
Come along to The Counting House at 7pm for a talk by Alex. Share a crust of bread, and hear about food additives…
Title of talk:
The Science of Food Additives and Behaviour
Bullet points of what you would like to talk about:
What are food additives
Why are they called E numbers
Food additives banned by one or more countries
E is for ascorbic acid
Do azo dyes mimic adrenaline ?
Government research and food labelling
Reputable sources of knowledge
A few paragraphs on your subject:
Food additives are compounds added to food for specific reasons – to colour our food, to preserve it, to emulsify fats, etc. The E number system was produced to keep track of what is being added to which food and why – like any warehousing system.
There are a lot of myths about food additives, and they all tend to get lumped into the same category – bad or necessary… Food standards agencies have gathered together a huge amount of research on each element which is added in an industrial food, and for a great many there is sound rationale in doing so. However, there are some which are validly questioned.
We are in a time where we need to unpick the truth about the ingredients which make up our industrialised diet. Understanding where these additives are derived from, and why they have been added is a first step to being in control of our bodies and health. Knowing what research the various governments have done on each is a valuable tool to understanding the safety of each food stuff.
This talk will debunk some of the myths which exist about them and reinforce peer reviewed science on what we find in our food cupboards – from vitamin C to fractured petrochemicals called azo dyes. It will also explore the question of whether the azo dyes mimic adrenaline by nature of the atomic structure, and explore the possible link to behaviour.
A few paragraphs about you:
I have a passion for biochemistry – the chemistry of living tissues. As a library researcher I have been called upon to investigate various aspects of the diet and provide reliable information on what should and should not be included in the diet of certain groups of people – for example, those labelled with hyperactivity or those who suffer from allergic conditions such as bronchial asthma.
I have spent a great deal of time trying to put people at ease about some food stuffs, and trying to raise awareness about the problems of others. Understanding the science, as found in widely acknowledged text books and peer reviewed studies, is something which I take great pleasure in – I feel it empowers me to live a better life by virtue of controlling what I eat.
I have spent a lot of time trying to put into plain terms the science which various governments and government bodies have brought together to inform high food standards. It is my pleasure to be able to share what I have found, discuss it, and have it questioned. We live in a very interesting age where never before has so much quality information been available to so many. This is one reason for optimism.
What free internet knowledge resources do you use?:
Toxicology Principles For The Assessment of Food Ingredients
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/UCM222779.pdf
https://www.msds.com/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=food+additives
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=food+additives&submit=yes&x=0&y=0
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=food+additives&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
Cambridge List of Carcinogens
http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/hands/hazards/chemicals/carcin2.pdf
Food and Behaviour Research: Dr Alex Richardson, Oxford Neurosciences
http://www.fabresearch.org/473
http://www.fabresearch.org/1015
Dr Ben Feingold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Feingold
http://www.feingold.org/bio.html
Click Here For Event Listing
Click Here to Join the Meetup Group
Ragged Talks
Alex Dunedin, Food Additives
13th March 2014: The Ancient A…13th March 201…6th Feb 2014: A History of Man…6th Feb 2014:…
email* (not published)
Action Research: The History of Action Research
The Problematic Links Between Technology Use in Learning and Sustainability: Views From An Educator
Knowledge as an Art Object
Action Research: A Method Reconstructed
The Free Project; Opening Doors To Freedom by Emma Hammond
The Importance of Music Within Society by Daniel Zambas
Inspector Rosenhan Visits The Asylum
The Sociology of Education: A Durkheimian View
Hypothesis, Theory, Model and Law
Social Capital and Pierre Bourdieu: A Digest
Education History: A Brief History of Ragged Schools
Podcast and Transcript: The Dark or Ethical Prince; There Is Always A Choice by Lynne Sedgmore
About Ragged University
Eclectic Articles
Other Archives
Science Primers
The Porous University
COOCs
View @raggedtalks's profile on Twitter
View RaggedUniversity's profile on YouTube
This website has Certified Secure SSL Certificate by Comodo ltd
British Standards Institute certified environmentally managed servers
© Creative Commons Copyright by Attribution 2010 - 2018
Ragged University is part of the public domain
This website uses cookies for functionality and respects privacy.
For a guide on how to block cookies on your computer CLICK HERE For a guide on how to block cookies on your computer

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini in a film directed by Asghar Farhadi.
Some of the etiquette is different. People don't address parents quite the way Americans do, and there is also a question of intimacy. Americans make a play at being very intimate very quickly, which seems disrespectful sometimes to people who aren't used to instant emotional closeness.
These questions of intimacy and respect, and of how both can be violated, beat at the heart of "The Salesman." The role of Willy Loman is taken by Emad Etesami (Shahab Hosseini), a part-time actor who also works as a teacher. By a pleasing symmetry, Willy's wife, Linda, is played by Emad's wife, Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti). Unlike the Lomans, however, the Etesamis have no children—no Happy or Biff to tighten the screws of disappointment. From what we observe, too, Emad seems pretty good at his day job; his pupils, boys in their teens, engage freely in classroom discussion. If, when he falls asleep in class one day, they grab the chance to take pictures of him with their cell phones, well, what high-school kid, anywhere in the world, could refuse such a gift?
The Etesamis' problems start and end at home, a place that soon becomes untenable. A fracture appears in a bedroom wall of their apartment; windows crack without being touched, as if by hostile magic. Residents are told to leave the building, which is listing and shifting because of construction work next door. ("What a disaster, this town," Emad says. "If we could only raze it all and start again." Sounds like a failed marriage.) Needing somewhere else in a hurry, Emad and Rana move into another apartment, recently vacated; the previous tenant has left a roomful of stuff. We never meet her, but, like the first Mrs. de Winter, in "Rebecca," she hovers over the action. "A woman with lots of acquaintances," we are told. "She lived a wild life," a neighbor remarks. We get the point.
One of those acquaintances brings trouble. Rana, taking a shower, leaves the apartment door open for her husband, who is due home. As the gaze of the camera lingers on that door, ajar, we realize that someone else is coming. (Michael Haneke, the maker of "Funny Games" and "Hidden," would surely commend such lingering.) By the time Emad arrives, there is blood in the stairwell, and Rana has been wounded in the head. Beyond those brute facts, though, everything blurs. She never caught sight of her attacker, nor did we. Was a sexual offense committed, too? Was there even an attack, or did she stumble and fall in fear?
What matters is what does not happen next. An American woman, taken to a hospital—as Rana is—to have her injury treated, would be asked about the circumstances, and law enforcement would be called. Not here. When Emad suggests going to the police, his wife demurs. "I don't want to have to tell it in front of everybody," she says, and her fellow-citizens agree that doing nothing is the smartest option. A neighbor tells her that, in regard to her assailant, "you'll have to justify letting him in. There would be a trial and all kinds of stories." So that's it. The woman is the guilty party until proved innocent. Shame inflicts a secondary blow; reputations can be broken as easily as skulls. Western viewers, watching "A Separation," which dealt with divorce and the care of an elderly parent, had to keep pace with an unfamiliar legal system as they went along, but the path taken by "The Salesman" is less public and more oblique. We don't see a single cop, let alone a lawyer or a cleric, yet by their very absence we sense their clamp on society: a clever move by Farhadi, who shows nothing that could vex Iranian censors but whose intent is nonetheless caustic and precise.
Rana is ready to pardon him, but not Emad, who presses for revenge. Indeed, it is his response to Rana's ordeal, more than her own trauma, that dominates the plot, and the one flaw in this formidable work is that its attention rests so instinctively on Emad. "I'm not noticed," Willy complains, in a line from Miller that makes it into "The Salesman," but today's audience may wonder if the play itself takes enough notice of Linda Loman, and the same applies to Rana. You fully believe that Emad loves her, yet you also catch his imperious tone toward her ("Stay there," "Don't interfere"), and you want to know: How about her secrets, or her scars? That urge is all the stronger because she is played by Taraneh Alidoosti, who took the title role in "About Elly," and who has one of those neat round faces that have held the screen since the infancy of cinema, shaded by different moods: a dash of the vamp, for Clara Bow; queenly wit, for Claudette Colbert; waspishness, for Myrna Loy; and a hint of whiskers, for Simone Simon, in "Cat People." Alidoosti, in turn, brings gravity and grief, and the stare that Rana directs at Emad, after his attempts at reprisal have gone awry, is so coruscating that you doubt their marriage can survive. Hence the unforgettable sequence in a dressing room, with the two of them being made up before going onstage. Each sits in front of a mirror, but, as framed by Farhadi, they seem to be inspecting each other face to face, without words or mercy. Why must the show go on?
Barry works in fashion. Hedwig is a nine-year-old boy with a lisp. Patricia is brisk and correct, in a long skirt and heels. Kevin is as restful as a land mine. All are played, with unstinting relish and oomph, by James McAvoy, in "Split." In all, his character possesses twenty-three distinct personalities, which must come in handy at college reunions. By way of a bonus, he also turns up as the Beast, who has preternatural powers, limited social skills, and a taste for human meat.
At the start of the film, this multivalent fellow kidnaps three teen-age girls, played by Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, and Anya Taylor-Joy, who was the eldest daughter in "The Witch," and who must be wondering if anywhere is safe. They are imprisoned, menaced, kept in suspense about which of their captor's personae will show up next, and, over time, stripped down to their underwear. In short, we are watching an old-fashioned exploitation flick—part of a depleted and degrading genre that not even M. Night Shyamalan, the writer and director of "Split," can redeem.


A documentary film presenting the stories of Filipino and Georgian migrants that benefited from the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration support of the International Organization for Migration.
The conference was organized jointly with the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for Diaspora Issues and implemented with the financial support of the IOM Development Fund. The conference gathered local and international experts and diaspora representatives, who shared and discussed experiences on the implementation of diaspora policies and programmes for enabling diaspora engagement in the development process.
In Georgia, IOM closely cooperates with the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. The Ministry is committed to facilitating the integration of the anti-trafficking module into the national school curriculim. IOM has produced auxiliary material to support effective delivery of the anti-trafficking material applied during the lessons.
The project was implemented by the International Organization for Migration; with the financial support from USAID. Under the framework of the project, IOM created an employment facilitation network in Georgia by expanding Job Counseling and Placement (JCP) Centers in Tbilisi and Batumi and creating five new JCP Centers in Kutaisi, Poti, Akhaltsikhe and Telavi. The video was filmed at edited by the project beneficiary.


text:
Simi Valley was a sleepy Southern California suburb in the late 1970s, one frequently ranked near the top of surveys of America's safest cities — in large part because hundreds of police officers from nearby Los Angeles lived there.
The city, however, was shaken when residents awoke on Nov. 11, 1978, to learn of the slaying of a 24-year-old woman and her 4-year-old son. Rhonda Wicht had been strangled and her son, Donald, smothered in his bed.
Read more:Man, wrongly convicted of 1978 killings in Simi Valley, recommended for release from prison
Wicht's former boyfriend, Craig Richard Coley, was arrested on the same day police found the bodies and eventually convicted.
For the next 39 years, he steadfastly maintained that he had never killed anyone. Earlier this week, the police chief and district attorney indicated they believed him. On Wednesday, he was pardoned by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Coley, now 70, walked out of a high desert prison just hours before Thanksgiving, becoming the latest of numerous prisoners to be freed after advanced forensic technology that analyzes DNA showed they either didn't commit the crime or someone else did.
Neither Coley nor a representative for him could be immediately located.
In an application for clemency that Coley filed from prison four years ago, he said a former police detective had framed him by destroying crucial evidence.
"The crimes were not committed by me and had the detective not destroyed the exonerating evidence (including semen and hair), the real suspect(s) could have been apprehended," Coley said. He named a retired Simi Valley police detective he said could corroborate his story.
On Monday, Simi Valley Police Chief David Livingstone and Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten told reporters they had begun reviewing Coley's case last year after a retired detective expressed concerns about the conviction.
"After the completion of this very thorough and very far-reaching investigation and due to the new DNA evidence and really the totality of the new information, we are now convinced that Mr. Coley is factually innocent," Totten said.
Totten and Livingstone sent a letter to Brown recommending Coley be pardoned and released from prison immediately.
Totten, Livingstone and Special Assistant District Attorney Michael Schwartz, who oversees the agency's Conviction Integrity Unit, spoke about the case at a news conference Monday afternoon.
Coley had been in prison since he was sentenced on Feb. 26, 1980. He was tried twice for the crime after a jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction on April 12, 1979. A second jury found Coley guilty on Jan. 3, 1980.
Livingstone said he learned that biological evidence was used to convict Coley and the chief said he thought new technology could reveal more about the case.
However, after Coley exhausted his appeals, the court ordered the case evidence destroyed.
But Dan Swanson, a Simi Valley police cold case detective assigned to the Wicht murders, found that the evidence was still intact.
The two labs that had the evidence went out of business and a third lab in Northern California acquired it, Schwartz said. Testing was done and results started coming in as early as January and as late as last week, Schwartz said.
Using advanced techniques not available at the time of his trial, technicians didn't find Coley's DNA on a key piece of evidence used to convict him. Instead, they found DNA from other people, whom authorities have not publicly named. The evidence was not identified.
"I am also hopeful," Totten said, "that one day soon we will bring to justice the violent man responsible for this most horrific crime."
Totten called Coley's long stint in prison "abhorrent to everything that those of us who serve and seek justice every day believe in and hold dear."
"As district attorney, I must tell you I look forward to the day when I can shake Mr. Coley's hand, apologize to him for the injustice he suffered," Totten said.
On Wednesday, Totten applauded the issuance of the pardon and thanked the governor and prison officials for their speedy action in securing Coley's release.
Coley's arrest was a media sensation in Simi Valley in 1978, when the population of 75,000 was half what it is now. Some public officials complained at the time that newspapers seemed to be attempting to exonerate him in stories that suggested someone else might be involved.
The 24-year-old restaurant manager and son of a retired police officer had never been in trouble. But authorities maintained Coley was angry and despondent after learning Wicht was breaking up with him.
Coley's first trial resulted in a hung jury, with jurors split 10-2 in favor of conviction. He was tried again in 1980, found guilty and sentenced to life without parole.
During his decades in prison, Coley was cited as a model inmate, avoiding gangs and violence and embracing religion.
"The grace with which Mr. Coley has endured this lengthy and unjust incarceration is extraordinary," Brown wrote in his pardon.
The governor said he asked the state parole board more than two years ago to look into Coley's conviction. He said former law-enforcement officials believed Coley was either wrongfully convicted or framed.
"This case is tragic," Livingstone and Totten said in a news release. "An innocent woman and small child were murdered. Craig Coley has spent 39 years in custody for a crime he likely did not commit."
From reports by staff writer Megan Diskin and The Associated Press.


Denver – The national search for a president for Lamar Community College began in March 2016. A search committee comprised of college, community and system representatives has been working to screen and conduct preliminary interviews of applicants in order to identify those most suited to be considered for the role of president. Current President John Marrin will be retiring from LCC on July 31, 2016.
The Colorado Community College System today announced that the search committee has named five semi-finalists for consideration to become the permanent president for LCC.
Full biographies on the candidates can be viewed at: https://lamarcc.edu/presidential-search/presidential-candidate-forums/.
The presidential candidates will visit the Lamar campus on April 27 and April 28 to participate in a series of public forums with faculty, staff, and the community. A public reception will be held Wednesday, April 27. All sessions will help the college's constituents learn about the candidates, their backgrounds and experiences, leadership style, and philosophy on a variety of issues.
All Candidates will be on hand for a Community Reception –Cultural Events Center, City of Lamar Complex, Wednesday, April 27 at 6:30-8:30 p.m.
All of those who attend the forums and the reception will be asked to complete a feedback form providing their thoughts and input regarding the candidates. Feedback submitted will be read by the members of the search committee and Dr. Nancy McCallin, CCCS President, prior to the final selection of a new president. The feedback from the college constituents is highly encouraged and regarded in the decision-making process.