Wednesday Bible Study: Let the slaughter begin
The action in Ezra 3 is pretty straightforward. The priests build an altar and start up the sacrifices, then they lay the foundation for the temple. This does serve to remind us that the basis of this religion is the ritual killing of animals by a hereditary priesthood to propitiate a narcissistic deity. That ' s what he demands: kill animals and burn them. If you do different rituals to propitiate other gods, he ' ll have you murdered en masse by other tribes. If your hereditary priests kill enough animals and burn them, he ' ll be good to them. That ' s the theology.3 When the seventh month came and the Israel...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Pure evil
That would be Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. He ordered a study of the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine, and when the result of the study was that it is safe, he altered the report to falsely imply that it poses a risk of cardiac complications in young men. In other words, he lied to the world in order to support the pre-ordained conclusion that his boss, the pathological liar and fascist governor of Florida, was touting as part of his political act. The result we can assume is that some people did not get vaccinated who other wise would have, and that therefore people got sick and died because of the lies of " Docto...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 25, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Hit the snooze button
Ezra 2 rivals or beats out a couple of the early chapters of Chronicles for the most boring book in the Bible. It ' s mostly just a list of men ' s names and purported numbers of their descendants who returned from exile. Who cares? I will just note that it ' s highly unlikely that Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped anything like this number of people. He would have taken the royal household, the literate priesthood, and some other high status people who might have been able to challenge his viceroy ' s rule, but obviously most of the population remained.There are a couple of other problems here. This list is repeated in Nehemiah, b...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 23, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
A bit about the history of Medicaid
Medicaid was actually something of an afterthought in the 1965 Medicare legislation. As Moore and Smith write, “There was so little comment that Medicaid did, indeed, seem like a casual add-on. A legislative draftsman said that he could scarcely recall working on Medicaid.” Since retirees receiving Social Security were covered by Medicare, Medicaid originally benefited only recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, AFDC, the program generally known at that time as “welfare,” and the smaller categories of recipients of aid for the blind and disabled.Although state participation in Medicaid was voluntary...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 21, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Literary Complications
What are now considered the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah were originally a single document. Medieval monks separated them and Rabbinical tradition accepted the separation in the 16th Century. Scholars used to attribute Ezra/Nehemiah to the Chronicler, and while composition of the book(s) probably began around 400 BC and may have been associated with Chronicles, it was revised and amended over the next 250 years before being translated into Koine Greek as part of the Septuagint. It contains interpolated documents in Aramaic as well as the main narrative in Hebrew. It is organized around theological conce...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 19, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Literary Complilcations
What are now considered the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah were originally a single document. Medieval monks separated them and Rabbinical tradition accepted the separation in the 16th Century. Scholars used to attribute Ezra/Nehemiah to the Chronicler, and while composition of the book(s) probably began around 400 BC and may have been associated with Chronicles, it was revised and amended over the next 250 years before being translated into Koine Greek as part of the Septuagint. It contains interpolated documents in Aramaic as well as the main narrative in Hebrew. It is organized around theological conce...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 19, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Los testiculos de Jehovah
That ' s what my Puerto Rican friends call them, because they always come in pairs. (In Spanish the cult is Los Testigos de Jehovah.) Los Testiculos are probably the most pervasive and persistent proselytizers, but far from the only ones. I really do not understand the compulsion. I am not in any way temped to go door to door trying to convert people to atheism and scientific naturalism, although I certainly do offer arguments for people who are interested. Aggressive proselytizers do annoy me. In fact two of the Testiculos knocked on my door today. I told them to get lost, butI ' m happy to say I showed sufficient fo...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 18, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Why in the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy would you care . . .
If somebody does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth? That ' s just the way some people are. What possibly harm does it do to anybody else? And how could it possibly harm or offend you if some people like to entertain in the persona of a person of a different gender than they usually present, and other people are entertained by them? (Maybe you should check out Dame Edna.)What we ' re talking about here is the ridiculous ginning up of a moral panic by Republican politicians who have lost the country on abortion and same sex marriage. They don ' t actually want to offer any policy solutions to the econo...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 17, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Getting it over with
The last chapter of Chronicles collapses the story told in the last three chapters of Kings. It ' s pretty much the same story, but the Chronicler seems anxious to get it over with. Just to recap, Kings was originally compiled during the reign of Josiah, but the story of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple was added later, presumably during the Babylonian exile. This doesn ' t add anything. It pretty much ignores the destruction of the northern kingdom, which doesn ' t interest the Chronicler. Although the writers of both books ascribe the downfall of the Hebrew kingdoms to apostasy and Yahwe...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 16, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
The gob, it is smacked
Yesterday was a very busy news day, that gave us plenty to think about, but I have to admit that my brain was most engaged by the story of the leaked classified documents. You may think that out of character, but it ' s because the other news of April 13*, however more important it may have been, unfortunately wasn ' t so surprising and strange. How can it be that a low-ranking enlisted airman has been printing out highly classified documents, folding them up and stuffing them in his pockets, walking out with them, spreading them out on his kitchen counter, photographing them, and posting them online, formonths? Now, ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 14, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Thank God it's almost over
" It " being Chronicles. This chapter is interesting textually simply because the same story is told much more briefly in Kings, where the Passover only takes three verses, IIRC. Since Kings was written in part as a panegyric to Josiah, it ' s curious that this existed but was not included. What could be the source? My best guess is that it was originally in the Book of Kings, was somehow omitted from the canonical version but was still there at the time Chronicles was first compiled. On the other hand, Kings gives a better explanation of the events that ended Josiah ' s life, which are quite mysterious here. Wh...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 12, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sports News from the Shining City on a Hill
Yes, I digress. Given that the Patriots have hit the skids and the Red Sox owners dismantled the team for unknown reasons*, the bean eaters ' hopes have turned to duh Celts and Dah Brewnz. † Duh Celts are actually the second seed in the east heading into the playoffs, but they pretty much have an even chance to win the conference. A game or two in the interminable NBA regular season doesn ' t mean anything, and they have proved they can beat Milwaukee. The persons of wisdom, however, think the NBA champion will come out of the western conference. Their wisdom may be afflicted with bias, however, because the conventi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 11, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
More on the true meaning of Christianity
Again, offered without comment. (Source: Stayin' Alive)
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 9, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: I'm not making this up
This is an absolutely real screenshot from the group Facebook page for my town ' s residents. This is the true meaning of Easter, it seems. (The post also advertises the time and place of the Easter service, which I omit.). This is what Christianity in the U.S. has become. And no, I don ' t recall this sentiment in the Gospels from my Sunday school days.Consider joining us Resurrection Sunday at New Life! Contemporary music, inspiring faith building messages, and childcare through age 10.I have no further comment. Now, turning to Chronicles, Ch. 34 introduces the reign of Josiah. This is largely taken from the Book of King...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 9, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Holier than thou
I will juxtapose two seemingly unrelated news stories. It seems that Tommy Tuberville, whose qualification to be a U.S. Senator was coaching football, issingle handedly preventing the confirmation of high ranking military officers because the military provides troops with access to abortion, which is mentioned exactly once in the entire Bible, Old Testament and New -- specifically inNumbers 5 which prescribes a ceremony for the purpose of inducing abortion:
Tuberville ’s objection has thrown a wrench in what is usually a
routine Senate maneuver in which hundreds of military nominations are
confirmed all at once unde...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 7, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
