Wednesday Bible Study: X-rated
Chapter 13 features an incestuous rape and fratricide. It also launches the story of Absalom, which through many twists and turns eventually dissolves Israel in civil war and anarchy, until order is restored in the end. This will take up many chapters, so be warned. The immediate story of Chapter 13 tells you everything you need to know about the status of women in Israeli society.13 Now Ab ′salom, David’s son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and after a time Amnon, David’s son, loved her.2 Well no, he didn ' t " love " her, he just lusted after her. To be clear, Tamar is Amnon ' s half-sister...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 2, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Sin and Honor
Basically four things happen in Chapter 12. God sends a messenger, Nathan, to tell David it was bad for him to get Uriah killed and take his wife. Nathan threatens, on behalf of God, to have David ' s wives raped in public. That ' ll teach him! Then he recants the threat and just says that God will kill David ' s and Bathsheba ' s baby. God does kill the Baby. David and Bathsheba have another baby, who will be David ' s successorThe Israelites conquer the Ammonites and enslave them. David gets a new crown (which by the way weighs about 62 pounds).That ' s biblical morality.12 And theLord sent Nath...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 30, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: The worst person in the world
God loves it when David is slaughtering and raping and enslaving people who aren ' t Israelites, but now David does something God doesn ' t like. I do agree it ' s really bad. In a nutshell, he sees a woman he fancies, he rapes her and gets her pregnant, then he tries to get her husband to have sex with her so the pregnancy won ' t be suspicious, and when that doesn ' t work, he has the guy killed. Then he marries the woman, which is another way of saying he rapes her whenever he wants since she obviously has no choice in the matter. So yeah, this displeases the Lord. BTW, the RSV headline for this chapter is " ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 26, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: A big misunderstanding
In Chapter 10, more than 47,000 Syrians get themselves killed, along with an undisclosed number of Ammonites, because of some minor stupidity. Reminds me of theWar of Jenkins Ear. Anyhow ---10 After this the king of the Ammonites died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead.2 And David said, “I will deal loyally with Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father dealt loyally with me.”This refers to a previously unmentioned incident. The only previous reference to Nahash was in 1 Samuel 11, while Saul was King, when Nahash threatened to gouge out the right eye of all the men of Jaeshgilead. Nice guy!So D...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 23, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
The Texas Terrorist Attack and the Foreign ‐Born Terrorist Threat
Alex NowrastehMalik Faisal Akram took four hostages in the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas on the morning of January 15, 2022. Akram let one of the hostages go and the other three eventually escaped. FBI agents then shot and killed Akram when they entered the synagogue. Fortunately, Akram ’s terrorist attack ended without any innocent people being murdered or physically injured. Still, Akram’s attack provides some valuable lessons and insights to understanding foreign‐born terrorism.Akram was born in the United Kingdom and entered the United States in late December, likely through theVisa Waiver Pro...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 21, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
People on the extreme left and right are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories
By Matthew Warren
Belief in conspiracy theories has been linked to various factors, including low levels of critical thinking, a need to feel special, and even a yearning for excitement and thrills. But how does political ideology come into it? Some studies suggest that there is a straightforward association, in which people with more extreme right-wing views are more prone to conspiracy theories. But other work has found a “U-shaped” relationship, where conspiratorial thinking is more common among people on the extremes of both the right and left compared to those with more moderate views.
The latter finding ha...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Political Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Whole lot of smiting going on
Yep, you read that right: David murdered two thirds of the captured Moabites and enslaved the rest.I should have mentionedthat David is himself descended from a Moabite, although that story wasn ' t yet written when this one was. But if you believe the Bible is literally true . . . Why did he hamstring all those perfectly good horses? Who knows. Anyway, he manages to slaughter some tens of thousands of various nationalities -- we don ' t get a full count of all of them -- all for the glory of God. Let me remind you, once again, that fortunately this is all fiction.8 After this David defeated the Philistines and s...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 16, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: False prophecy
Chapter 7 is usually titled God ' s Covenant with David. For some reason God can ' t talk to David directly, even though he often does. Instead he comes up with this character Nathan and has him relay the message. God seems to ask David to build the temple, but then implies that David ' s son will build it, which is indeed what happens. (The temple will be built during the reign of Solomon.) However, God ends up saying "16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever. ’” Sadly, no. The kingdom will be destroyed 400 years after Solomon ' s rei...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 12, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
History
I ' ve been reading a lot of history lately. The Story of China, by Michael Wood, A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, a couple of Jared Diamond books, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan, World War II by Robert Tombs, and other books.Our view of historical time tends to be fairly compressed. We think the future will be an extrapolation of the past we know personally, our own lifetime and maybe that of our grandparents who told us their stories. This makes larger scale historical events seem an abstraction and not anything that can happen to us. Yes, World War II was in the time frame....
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 10, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: A very strange story
2 Samuel 6 accomplishes the historically important task of getting the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, but it does it in a very strange way. Some of the events in this story are absurd, others inexplicable. I ' m sure the theologians have come up with interpretations, but your is probably just as good.6 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand.2 And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Ba ′ale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of theLord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim.3 And they carried the ark of Go...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 9, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Need for a disability rights movement
In Chapter 5 David becomes king of Israel and establishes his capital in Jerusalem, so it ' s definitely a pivotal moment in the imaginary history. (As I ' ve said before the truth is that at the time these events purportedly happened, Jerusalem was at most a small village.) However, I have to say he doesn ' t do any of it in a nice way. He already has at least 7 wives but he takes several more, we aren ' t told exactly how many. Funny thing about that -- Deuteronomy 17:17:The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth i...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 5, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Epistemology
The pervasive term for politics in the U.S right now is " polarization. " It is true that people are divided into sharply divergent and seemingly irreconcilable camps. But the division is not about political philosophy or values or aspirations for society. It ' s about reality, plain facts. I ' ve mentioned before Habermas ' s concept of the " three worlds " of criticizable validity claims. These are intersubjective reality, the world " out there, " what is true; the world of what ought to be, what we consider to be right and just and good; and what happens to please us as individuals, what we find to be sensual...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 3, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
: Sunday Sermonette: Not all is fair it seems in war
Chapter four starts off with some factoids about the ancestry of a couple of minor characters that seem irrelevant to us. The Tanakh is very interested in genealogy as clan and tribe are the organizing principle of the society. Then there is an interpolated bit about Jonathan ' s son Mephibosheth which is a complete non-sequitur. The translators have put it in parentheses. Then we get the murder of Ish-Bosheth, which the perpetrators think will please David as David has been at war with him. On the contrary, David has them killed.David kills people all the time, by the thousands. It is perfectly fine for him to do that if ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 2, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
The Top Five Digital Health Innovations For Food Tracking and Eating
Your body might be your temple, but in principle, we don’t take good enough care of it – not when it comes to the food we consume. In the Western world, we practically have no idea what we eat and how that affects us. Technological innovations can help us track what’s in our food and what we should eat based on our genetic background. In this article, we enlisted the top trends concerning eating and food tracking.
Let’s talk about food.
Almost 700 million people have some health problem with food or eating
For some, eating is the most natural process on Earth. You are hungry, you get some n...
Source: The Medical Futurist - December 30, 2021 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Future of Food Genomics Health Sensors & Trackers digital health eating Innovation Medicine parkinson scanner technology wearable wearables gc3 food sensors food scanner food tracking food trackers digital innovation Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Sex and violence
First a reminder of the situation. David is King of Judah, while the warlord Abner has set upIsh-Bosheth, a son of Saul, as king of the rest of Israel. (Yes, there ' s a continuity problem since supposedly all of Saul ' s house was killed and then this Ish-Bosheth character suddenly comes out of nowhere. Just accept it.) There is a civil war going on between them, although the only reason for it seems to be personal ambition. There follows a convoluted story. For people who claim on Biblical authority that marriage is between one man and one woman, this poses difficulties. We already know that David has two wives curr...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 29, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
