Saturday, May 23, 2009

[Real World Atheism] Concentration Camps

Thank you Mike.


You are a nice one.

Yours,

monk

okay, i think.

cdesign proponentsists: eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Christ Conspiracy Saving Christiany All Weekend on Aeon Byte!!!

Saving Christianity. The Abrahamic faiths are on a collision course. Churches are empty across the Western World. Christianity has become a mile long but an inch thin, faltering under a fast changing society of science, reason and logic. Is this the beginning of the end for the world's largest religion, or can the old approach of the Gnostics transform all of its tenets into a liberating force of body, mind and spirit for the 21st Century human? And perhaps this transformation might influence the other Abrahamic faiths before we are plunged into another World War/Crusade.

Astral Guest— Tom Harpur, author of `The Pagan Christ' and `Water Into Wine'.

Topics Discussed:

--Tom's journey from an Anglican Priest to a Gnostic and a Mystic.
--Is it possible that the Gospel writers themselves new they were creating an allegory for the ages and not a historical account?
--The benefits of taking the Bible entirely allegorically as a means for inner transformation instead of a tool for exterior dogma.
--Why Liberal Theology is just as dangerous as Fundamentalism in our modern times.
--Understanding the key elements of the gnosis of Saint Paul.
--How the Gnostics got it right and how their teachings can help resuscitate Christianity.
--Yet more evidence on the non-historicity of Jesus, but an avatar of many rising/dying godmen in the Eternal Champion Saga.

And mucho mas!

Just go to http://www.thegodabovegod.com/. The program is broadcast all weekend long. Listen to it at your convenience.

All past shows of Aeon Byte are available at http://www.thegodabovegod.com/shop/. Digital or CD copies in bulk can also be purchased through our homepage.

Next week we take a course on `A Course In Miracles' in order to find if it has Gnostic or other occult elements.

Abraxas


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[Real World Atheism] Atheists cite "pattern of proselytizing" in military

AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org

For more information, please contact:
Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director 732-648-9333
Kathleen Johnson, Vice President and Military Director 318-542-1019

ATHEISTS CITE "PATTERN OF PROSELYTIZING" IN MILITARY, CALL FOR
CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT, PROBE

An Atheist public policy group today called upon the U.S. Congress to be
more pro-active in monitoring what it described as a "pattern of
proselytizing" within the military.

Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists, said that
recent events "raise critical concerns that the Pentagon brass is not
doing enough to prevent unconstitutional and inappropriate religious
proselytizing both at home and abroad."

He cited a recent incident where the Al Jazeera television network aired
a segment showing troops in Afghanistan discussing the distribution of
bibles printed in the native languages, and exhortations for a military
chaplain telling soldiers that they should "hunt men for Jesus."

"In this case, the military did the right and destroyed the bibles; but
what about other religious materials that U.S. - based churches are
printing up for distribution by our military troops in Afghanistan and
elsewhere? Congress needs to identify the scope of this problem."

Mr. Silverman added that any investigation should look into whether or
not any troops have been killed or injured while handing out bibles or
engaging in other proselytizing acts. "Are individual soldiers and even
units of military personnel endangering their own safety, or that of
civilians, by engaging in this unconstitutional activity? We need to know."

Kathleen Johnson, Military Director for American Atheists added that
some officers are "pushing religion" on to rank-and-file personnel. It
has become common practice for the most senior members of our government
to use their rank and positions as a bully-pulpit to spread their faith
on the grounds that any attempt to rein-in these activities violates
their right to free exercise of religion, which includes the right to
proselytize," said Johnson.

Johnson warned that proselytizing by U.S. troops could fuel perceptions
that America is engaged in an "anti-Muslim holy war" and play into the
hands of al Qaeda and other faith-based extremists. "We can't defeat
terrorism by becoming modern-day Christian Crusaders," Johnson added.

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for
Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and
addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

American Atheists, Inc.
PO BOX 158
Cranford, NJ 07016
Tel.: (908) 276-7300
Fax: (908) 276-7402

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Randigram for May 22, 2009

James Randi Educational  Foundation
May 22, 2009

Unsubscribe info at the bottom

JREF Activities & Events

http://www.amazingmeeting.com
  • TAM 7 registrations are growing daily, but there's still space for you. Join us!


Randi Speaks

In this episode, Randi recalls the phenomenon that was "Carlos," and how the media is often responsible for creating phenomena simply by reporting it in a credulous fashion.
Click here to see the original YouTube video and comments.

SWIFT Digest
The official blog of the JREF, here are this week's entries:

This week's topics include:

Can You Apply Too Much Critical Thought?

pressurecookerReaders of this site, by and large, already accept the idea that applying critical thought is good for you. But can you apply too much?
Consider the purchase of an automobile. You have a long commute, so you want the most fuel-efficient car possible. The dealer in the area has a model that gets 40mpg, and meets all your criteria. He has two of these cars on the lot. One of them is white, and the other is black. Which car do you pick?
Actually, the proper question is: how do you decide which car you'll pick? A skeptic might make a list of pros and cons over the colors. White cars have a higher resale value and hide dirt and blemishes better. Given those facts, it seems the obvious choice is white.
A friend of mine answered this by saying "I'd never buy a white car. I think they're ugly. Only the black one could work for me."
Was she exercising critical thinking in her decision? I may surprise you by saying yes, she was.

Read more

UFO Mystery Solved! Er.. umm.. well..

ufobibleHere at the JREF, we believe in UFOs. That is, we believe that there are Flying Objects that for a time can be Unidentified. Most of these sightings have a rational explanation, however some remain unexplained. And then there are cases like this one.
Probably the most well-known UFO incident in the United States is the Roswell Crash, in New Mexico. The common rational explanation is that a secret balloon project crashed there, causing the military to act in a secretive fashion, which in turn gave fodder to the "alien spaceship" theory of so much contemporary lore.
However, at this year's UFO Festival (July 3-5... you can do this and still make TAM 7!), a Christian group plans to expose the "real" explanation for the crash. They found the answer in the Bible.

Read more


Watch Out, Willy Wonka

Let's be clear here: I like chocolate. It's not my intent to have this article bash chocolate in general. Nor is it my intent to suggest that eating chocolate can't make you feel better. However, it is my intent to suggest that the chocolate makers at Intentional Chocolate make dubious claims. What claims you ask? How about this one:
All Our Chocolate is Embedded With This Intention:
"Whoever consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well-being for the benefit of all beings."
Wow, I need some of that! Or do I?

Read more

Another Loss..




Gift Items of the Week
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The James Randi Educational Foundation (www.randi.org) is a not-for-profit organization that promotes critical thinking, science education, and skeptical inquiry by providing the public and the media with reliable information about paranormal, supernatural, and pseudoscientific claims.

Randigram is the weekly e-bulletin of the JREF. Contents © 2006-2009 James Randi Educational Foundation.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Christ Conspiracy Enlightening Ebooks!

Hi there -
I hope you are faring well these days. In case you're looking for something interesting and enlightening to read over the weekend, do check out my ebooks, if you haven't already!
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/ebooks.html
My ebooks contain dozens of pages of juicy, quality data on the most fascinating subjects of the day, IMHO. You can download them instantly and print them out.
As you may surmise, writing is my main medium for expression, as well as my occupation, and I pour my heart and soul into it on a daily basis, day in and day out. Right now, I'm still fervently working on my "Gospel According to Acharya S," which is coming along, but, as always, I wanted to make it special and as polished as possible - just for great people like you!
In this quest, I always appreciate all the help I can get, and right now I continue to need your assistance. One way you can help me is by obtaining and reading my ebooks.
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/ebooks.html
Please help me, yourself and the the rest of the planet! :)
Thank you for your kind and continued interest in my work.
Enjoy!
Acharya S/D.M. Murdock
Author, "The Christ Conspiracy," "Suns of God," "Who Was Jesus?," "Christ in Egypt" and "Jesus as the Sun"
http://TruthBeKnown.com
http://StellarHousePublishing.com
http://TBKNews.blogspot.com
http://FreethoughtNation.com
P.S. If you haven't looked at my "Gospel" page, here it is again:
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/gospel.html



------------------------------------
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Christ Conspiracy Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan

Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan
May 20, 2009
"(CNN) -- Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.
The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.
Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.
"The decision was made that it was a 'force protection' measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims," Wright told CNN on Tuesday.
Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.
The Bibles were written in the languages Pashto and Dari.
This decision came to light recently, after the Al Jazeera English network aired video of a group prayer service and chapel sermon that a reporter said suggested U.S. troops were being encouraged to spread Christianity.
The military denied that earlier this month, saying much in the video was taken out of context.
"This was irresponsible and dangerous journalism sensationalizing year-old footage of a religious service for U.S. soldiers on a U.S. base and inferring that troops are evangelizing to Afghans," Col. Gregory Julian said.
The military says a soldier at Bagram received the Bibles and didn't realize he wasn't allowed to hand them out. In the Al Jazeera video, which shows the Bibles at the prayer service, an unnamed soldier says members of his church raised money for them.
The chaplain later corrected the soldier and confiscated the Bibles, Wright said.
Military officers considered sending the Bibles back to the church, he said, but they worried the church would turn around and send them to another organization in Afghanistan -- giving the impression that they had been distributed by the U.S. government.
That could lead to violence against troops or U.S. civilians, Wright said.
Al Jazeera English, a Qatar-based international news service, said its reporters tried to get a response from military officials for its story but were unable to do so.
The U.S. military air base at Bagram is home to thousands of troops from all branches of the U.S. military. The vast majority of the troops do not leave the base and are in various support roles for U.S. troops across Afghanistan."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/20/us.military.bibles.burned/index.html
;
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Christ Conspiracy Taj Mahal: Was it a Vedic Temple?





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The story goes that the creation story of the Taj Mahal was redressed in order to conform to Islam, so that Muslim terrorists wouldn't blow it up.

What else is new. The whole world will soon capitulate to these savages. Apparently they have succeeded in terrorizing a number of individuals off YouTube as well.


Click the following to access the sent link:
Taj Mahal: Was it a Vedic Temple?*
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*This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser.
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/was_the_taj_mahal_a_vedic_temple.htm


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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

[Real World Atheism] Atheists call for Congressional probe of Afghanistan bible incident

AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org

For more information, please contact:
Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director 732-648-9333
Kathleen Johnson, Vice President and Military Director 318-542-1019

ATHEISTS CALL FOR CONGRESSIONAL PROBE OF AFGHANISTAN BIBLE INCIDENT

An Atheist public policy group today called upon Congress to investigate
the unauthorized distribution of bibles by U.S. military troops in
Afghanistan.

The incident was revealed on the Al Jazeera television network, and
consisted of video shot by a U.S. filmmaker. It shows military
chaplains at Bagram Air Force base planning distribution of bibles
printed in the native Pashto language to Muslims. Such an act
reportedly violated regulations.

Kathleen Johnson, Military Director for American Atheists says that the
year-old video footage is "a public relations disaster for the United
States."

"This film depicts our troops as modern-day 'crusaders' who are out to
proselytize and convert Muslims," said Johnson. "We're supposed to be
fighting terrorism and helping the Afghanis build a new civil society
that educates women, protects human rights and brings economic
development. Religious conversion is not and should not be on our
government's to-do list."

Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists, said that
Congress needs to investigate. "We've been told that the Bibles were
destroyed when the Al Jazeera documentary came to light; what we don't
know is whether this practice is continuing, and we can't trust the
military brass on this issue."

"We already know that the chaplains were trying to cover-up the incident
when they claimed that the bibles -- printed in a foreign tongue -- were
for 'personal use. That doesn't make sense."

Silverman also cited a sermon by Lt. General Gary Hensley, chief of
military chaplains in Afghanistan, preaching that troops were followers
of Jesus Christ and should "be witnesses for him."

"This is mixing private religion with an official military mission. No
branch of our government, including the Pentagon, should be promoting
religion, especially when Islamic fundamentalism is one of the major
problems in Afghanistan."

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for
Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and
addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

American Atheists, Inc.
PO BOX 158
Cranford, NJ 07016
Tel.: (908) 276-7300
Fax: (908) 276-7402

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

diagroup was edited

Recently changed pages on diagroup

TRC Mark Sneak Peek

edited by John F. Felix

The TRC is an attempt at a new collation of at least the synoptic gospels, in order to provide functionality as an electronic tool for textual reconstruction, concordance and other applications, as an aid to further research on the so-called "synoptic problem." In addition, it is laid out in a database format for importation into Jet DBMS, for the express purpose of experimentation with sophisticated Structured Query Language queries.
The basic notion that started it was the beginning insight that every Greek text since Erasmus has been a collation of manuscripts. To best collate the Greek scriptures, then, it seemed logical to collate the collations, as each collator(s) produced what they each believed to be the most likely Greek text that would be closest to a hypothetical original; however later actual codexes and papyrii were included in our new collation.
A word needs to be said about the column headings:
1. ID Identficication number (a unique database identifier)
2. B Book (i.e., Mark = 2)
3. C Chapter
4. V Verse
5. W Word
6. TRC2009lex - The lexical forms for the TRC2009
7. TRC2009 - The current Textus Receptus Criticalis
8. TC2009lex - The lexical forms for the TC2009
9. TC2009 - The "textus criticalis," my own collation of UBS4 and NA/27, a critical text
10. TC2009elt - A third-party English Literal Translation based on the critical text
11. PAPYYnorm - The "normalized" papyrus witnesses (i.e., the lacunae are shown as if they were actually present)
12. PAPY - The papyrii with lacunae shown by brackets, for reference
13. AV2009rev_i - The King James Version in its actual English order (reverse interlinear)
14. REV_W - re-ordered Greek words in order of the AV
15. AV2009i - The AV in the order of the Greek
16. VUL - Jerome's Vulgate (Latin)
17. TR1894 - Scrivener's Greek text underlying the AV (deviations from the 1550 and other Greek mss are not reconstructed)
18. TR1550 - Stephanus 1550
19. TR1624 - Elziver's Greek text of 1624
20. MT2009 - My own collation of two Majority Texts: Hodges & Farstad 1985 and Pierpont & Robinson 2005
21. TISCH1872 - Tischendorf's critical text
22. WH1881 - Westcott-Hort 1881 critical text
23. RGNT2009 - My sub-project of the Resultant Greek NT based on the following
24. SINAI - Codex Sinaiticus (Greek, not Syrian)
25. ALEX - Codex Alexandrinus
26. VAT - Codex Vaticanus
27. TRGLS1872 - Tragelles critical text (date is an inference)
28. Not shown - Codex Bezae through chapter 5

The native format is in MS-Excel, mainly for the purposes of concordancing and proof-reading/correction. Therefore, an arbitrary order for the text was decided upon first, based rigorously on the NA/27 and UBS4 manuscript order. All other collated texts are re-arranged to fit this order of words. The texts for such codexes as Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, (Bezae is not shown), etc., should not be seen then as being in anything but an arbitrary order, and definitely not a guide to what the manuscripts actually record.
The reason this order was established first is because of Excel's "auto-filter" feature, which the readers can research for themselves. In order to align all the Greek and other texts across each column, certain principles were devised, the first principle being that each text must be normalized to minimize any differences between the texts, so all diacritics that may have existed in the e-texts have been removed (and the entire corpus reduced to lowercase), and all texts are maintained in unicode. Greek words that occur at the same location, but may differ, are aligned by whatever method reduces dissimilarities, e.g., if one text uses one conjunction and another uses another conjunction, then the words are aligned, and autofiltering can show the similarities and differences for each word in each place it occurs in the corpus. There is also the concept of conceptual similarity, which I won't delve into with this blog post, but will expand upon in an article posted to a wiki page at a later date.

Monday, May 18, 2009

diagroup was edited

Recently changed pages on diagroup

TRC Mark Supplement

edited by John F. Felix

Supplement to the Mark Sneak Peek main article.
The Excel file as it is constructed fulfills multiple project needs at once. One sub-project is to create a "resultant Greek" version of Mark, based on the three major codexes, namely, Sinaiticus (Aleph), Vaticanus (B) and Alexandrinus (A), in the tradition of Weymouth and the dreaded (by some) Concordant Greek New Testament. If anyone knows of an e-text of Weymouth's Resultant Greek Text, I would appreciate the information. The e-text that is actually available for the CGNT is NA 26/27 and/or Westcott-Hort, although a digitized eclectic text based on A. E. Knoch's work may be in the works.
brackets (i.e., italics) than Scrivener ever dreamt of, as well as a real attempt to "reverse engineer" a Greek text to match the English translation, which is merely an academic exercise, i.e., for "fun.".
Additional resources will be adapted for the main, or primary, project, specifically the use of "Louw-Nida" numbers for the TRC, which are numbers that map the Greek to their "semantic domains." This information will be very useful in deciding the text of the TRC.
More texts are to be collated; I hope to include a version of the Peshitta in square Aramaic (which was done experimentally for Matthew, another project that I work on from time to time), rather than Syriac, for more detailed use with such software programs as Logos Bible Software's Libronix Library System, to interact with its rich Aramaic resources. Of course, the new collation entitled the Textus Receptus Criticalis is the main goal, but the collation that is finalized will go on to be a project of its own. This spreadsheet will continue as a separate tool once all resources are finished, because of the concordancing properties described in the main article.

diagroup was edited

Recently changed pages on diagroup

TRC Mark Supplement

edited by John F. Felix

Supplement to the Mark Sneak Peek main article.
The Excel file as it is constructed fulfills multiple project needs at once. One sub-project is to create a "resultant Greek" version of Mark, based on the three major codexes, namely, Sinaiticus (Aleph), Vaticanus (B) and Alexandrinus (A), in the tradition of Weymouth and the dreaded (by some) Concordant Greek New Testament. If anyone knows of an e-text of Weymouth's Resultant Greek Text, I would appreciate the information. The e-text that is actually available for the CGNT is NA 26/27 and/or Westcott-Hort, although a digitized eclectic text based on A. E. Knoch's work may be in the works.
Another sub-project is a new interlinear of the Authorized Version (for no other reason than it is public domain), including, as the sharp-eyed may have seen, a reverse interlinear. If you are familiar with the world of digital interlinears, none of the existing versions will quite meet up to the standards of this project. Meanwhile, much more will be included in brackets than Scrivener ever dreamt of, as well as a real attempt to "reverse engineer" a Greek text to match the English translation, which is merely an academic exercise, i.e., for "fun.".
Additional resources will be adapted for the main, or primary, project, specifically the use of "Louw-Nida" numbers for the TRC, which are numbers that map the Greek to their "semantic domains." This information will be very useful in deciding the text of the TRC.
More texts are to be collated; I hope to include a version of the Peshitta in square Aramaic (which was done experimentally for Matthew, another project that I work on from time to time), rather than Syriac, for more detailed use with such software programs as Logos Bible Software's Libronix Library System, to interact with its rich Aramaic resources. Of course, the new collation entitled the Textus Receptus Criticalis is the main goal, but the collation that is finalized will go on to be a project of its own. This spreadsheet will continue as a separate tool once all resources are finished, because of the concordancing properties described in the main article.
Copyright (c) 2009 by John F. Felix. All rights reserved.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

diagroup was edited

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02_mk_trc_01.pdf

uploaded by John F. Felix

diagroup was edited

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FrontPage

edited by John F. Felix

Only formatting differences

diagroup was edited

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New Septuagint Sneak Peek

edited by John F. Felix

(Use your browser back button to return here.)
The work on the Septuagint is to go beyond all previous editions. Here we attemtp to re-construct both the Greek and the Hebrew, when one or the other is not present in the textual location. In addition, this project incorporates a new Hebrew morphology, differing from Westminster and other systems, though based on rigorous attention to Masoretic Hebrew and the Koine Greek of the late centuries preceeding the Common Era.
For purposes of this interlinear, the order of the Hebrew, or supposed Hebrew, is considered primary, and the order of the Greek conforms to that order. This new Septuagint, then, is a hopefully useful "what-if" tool, for scholarly research into textual history and problems, e.g., what if what is taken in the Greek as merely stylistic actually represented a now unknown Hebrew textual variant, and what would that look like in pointed Masoretic Hebrew? The same would apply to the Alfred Rahlfs's LXX, used as the basic Greek text here. We hope to add other editions to the interlinear, as well.
In addition, the interlinear features the hard to find public domain e-text of the Septuagint to English translation (1808) of American Charles Thompson, secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789.
The New LXX and this page Copyright (c) 2009 by John F. Felix. All rights reserved.

New Septuagint Sneak Peek

edited by John F. Felix

Only formatting differences

FrontPage

edited by John F. Felix

Only formatting differences

[Real World Atheism] Humanist Network News

American Humanist Association
http://AmericanHumanist.org
Washington, DC
800.837.3792

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

May 6, 2009

Humanist Network News

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Read all articles on one page: http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=396&showAll=true

diagroup was edited

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FrontPage

edited by John F. Felix (diagroup@)
Welcome to DIAGroup - Digital Interlinear Analysts Group wiki!
Just added:
Scriptures → Greek → LXX → Genesis → Sneak Peek
General → Science Fiction → Kubrick 2001 →MoreRuminationsonKubrick's2001-Part1
General → Science Fiction → Battlestar Galactica → Ruminations on the BSG series - Part 1