Most scholars, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, are of the opinion that Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism in views relating to angelology and demonology, and probably also in the doctrine of the resurrection, as well as in eschatological ideas in general, and also that the monotheistic conception of Yhwh may have been quickened and strengthened by being opposed to the dualism or quasi-monotheism of the Persians. But, on the other hand, the late James Darmesteter advocated exactly the opposite view, maintaining that early Persian thought was strongly influenced by Jewish ideas. He insisted that the Avesta, as we have it, is of late origin and is much tinctured by foreign elements, especially those derived from Judaism, and also those taken from Neoplatonism through the writings of Philo Judæus.
The scholarship is about 110 years out of date, and was conducted without two of the key tools of modern investigation into the past, at least one of which would be almost certain to have a major impact on the work.
Although there are no doubt people today who hold to that view, even at the time it was written the view expressed wasn't universal as you see in the fuller passage I quote above. I'm inclined to stick with more current scholarship on this question: ZOROASTRIANISM AND BIBLICAL RELIGION
Many in the West cannot conceive of things being different in any way if foundations of its morality and culture are destroyed, but that is an epic mistake. Things will change, and many of the possibilities make for something that may not be nice at all.
Mod parent up. If these fragments were truly the word of god, then surely they would contain useful information that would increase our knowledge of the world/universe and would remain true even today. Instead, we get re-worked fables plagiarized from other sources, tribal customs codified into law, doomsday prophecies, and rants against various enemies (all of which the old testament is full of).
And what do you have on offer? Rants against the Bible, spurious theories already disproven, unsupported assertions, and nonsense. That isn't an improvement. . . . it isn't even competitive.
Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise;
When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent. -- Proverbs 17:28
Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor’s house,
Or he will become weary of you and hate you. -- Proverbs 25:17
It is better to live in a corner of the roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. -- Proverbs 25:24
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will also be like him. -- Proverbs 26:4
Like an archer who wounds everyone,
So is he who hires a fool or who hires those who pass by. -- Proverbs 26:10*
A fool always loses his temper,
But a wise man holds it back. -- Provers 29:11
And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER; YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY; YOU SHALL NOT STEAL; YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS; 19HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER; and YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” -- Matthew 19:17-19
* How far we have fallen - this seems contrary to the governing philosophy and practice of most corporate and government projects.
Jewish scriptures changed tremendously during the Babylonian captivity, which indeed occurred around 600BC (it basically blended in ideas from Zoroastrianism, chiefly the ideas of angels, demons, hell, and basically morality and good vs evil; and its final written form got written around then), but the general ideas of judaism had been around for far older than the end of the mideast bronze age.
When you write, "Jewish scriptures changed tremendously," that is a bit misleading. There were new books added to the Jewish scriptures, including prophetic works during that period. But did the nature of the Jewish faith and scripture change in the manner you indicate? It doesn't look like it. Although the snippets I quote below are instructive, the whole paper is relatively short and informative.
. . . as Eichrodt insists, "the idea that the eschatological resurrection hope, in the form attested in the Old Testament, was influenced by Persian conceptions, can be shown by any reasonably detailed comparison to be inadmissable."
To this point, I have spoken of Persian or Zoroastrian matters as if they themselves were composed during and reflective of the Persian era of contact with the exiled Judahites (fifth-fourth centuries BCE). But they were not. In fact, the severe deficiencies in the written sources of Zoroastrianism make accurate analysis virtually impossible. No modern scholar dates Zoroaster earlier than ca. 1400 BCE, and while both Arabic and Avestan29 traditions date Zoroaster to the sixth-fifth centuries BCE, most scholars are more comfortable with a date between the two extremes; the date 1000 BCE is most widely presumed. But scholars of written literature are faced with a problem that has yet to be solved. No written materials are linked to the era of Zoroaster regardless of when he lived, and even scholars who argue that early Iranian texts are linked to ca. 1000 BCE, admit that these Gathas ["hymns" (of Zoroaster)] are so difficult that their meaning can be grasped, "only with the help of the later Zoroastrian scriptures."30
Iranian priests of the early first millennium actually rejected the use of writing for their holy beliefs, and the fact is that these beliefs existed only in oral form until the sixth century CE! And yet these written texts are the ones which Persian scholars are required to use in interpreting the teachings of Zoroaster, who lived between 1000 and 2000 years earlier. Shaul Shaked has framed the matter accurately and concisely:
All arguments about possible contacts between Israel and Iran come to the stumbling block of the problem of chronology. All detailed accounts of any aspect of Zoroastrian theology exist no earlier than in books compiled during the Sassanian period [third - seventh centuries CE] or later, after the Arab conquest of Iran.31
In short, the texts being examined in comparison to the Bible were written more than 1000 years later than the Persia with which Judahites came into contact.
Still, the larger problem with the written sources of Zoroastrianism is not their late date of composition, but rather the fact that even these late written sources present very few close parallels to biblical ideas.
In light of this chronological difficulty, it would seem to make more sense to compare Zoroastrian religious texts with talmudic literature. And even here, Neusner, the scholar with the greatest knowledge of Babylonia during the era of Sassanid rule, has concluded that what the rabbis of the Talmud knew of Zoroastrianism amounted to virtually nothing at all.
. . . Yet, it seems obvious that the claims for Zoroastrian influence on biblical doctrines have been vastly overstated. . . . it should follow that the use of late, very late, written sources of Persian theological tenets must be ruled out as evidence of any significance whatsoever regarding biblical texts. 33
The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.
A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.
It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.
Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.
By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.
France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population.
The Home Office says there has been a downtrend in overall violence for the past decade.
But last October it emerged that levels of violent crime in England and Wales had been underestimated for more than a decade because of a blunder in recording methods.
Recorded assault increased again in 2007, to 840 per 100,000, compared with 623 per 100,000 in 1996. The 2007 rate was the highest recorded since 1996.
THE controversial ban on the ownership of handguns which was introduced after the Dunblane massacre has failed to halt an increasing number of crimes involving firearms.
An independent report, Illegal Firearms in the UK, to be published by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London tomorrow, says that handguns were used in 3,685 offences last year compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40 per cent.
Do you weep for the masses of children that died because Saddam stole the Oil for Food program money intended for food, medicine, and clean water to build palaces and buy weapons? Do you shed a tear for the children killed in school by the Taliban, or blown up on the roads by Al Qaeda? Since they were not killed by Americans, do you count them as persons at all? It is the same old story: one person killed by an American is an "international outrage", a village massacred by America's enemies is to be ignored.
*An estimated 3.7 million burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007.
*A household member was present in roughly 1 million burglaries and became victims of violent crimes in 266,560 burglaries.
*Simple assault (15%) was the most common form of violence when a resident was home and violence occurred. Robbery (7%) and rape (3%) were less likely to occur when a household member was present and violence occurred.
*Offenders were known to their victims in 65% of violent burglaries; offenders were strangers in 28%.
*Overall, 61% of offenders were unarmed when violence occurred during a burglary while a resident was present. About 12% of all households violently burglarized while someone was home faced an offender armed with a firearm.
*Households residing in single family units and higher density structures of 10 or more units were least likely to be burglarized (8 per 1,000 households) while a household member was present.
*Serious injury accounted for 9% and minor injury accounted for 36% of injuries sustained by household members who were home and experienced violence during a completed burglary.
The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. Britons have been taught, in the words of a 1992 Economist article, that such policies are “a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilized countries, essential to the happiness of others.” The author contrasted those policies with “America’s vigilante values.”
The result of that tradeoff of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Many Americans, either unaware of, or unconcerned with, the perverse impact of British policy, insist that our public safety demands a similar sacrifice. But an examination of the experience of the British people offers a cautionary tale. A few examples underscore the situation in Britain today.
A homeowner who discovered two robbers in his home held them with a toy gun while he telephoned the police. When the police arrived they arrested the two men, and also the homeowner, who was charged with putting someone in fear with a toy gun. An elderly woman who scared off a gang of youths by firing a cap pistol was charged with the same offense. The government is now planning to make toy guns illegal.
The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “Call the Police” rather than “Help.” Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault. . .
. . . The impact of such policies on public safety has been stark. An amazing trend of nearly 500 years of declining interpersonal violence in England reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 Britain had the highest level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were at three times the level of the next worst country. “One thing which no amount of statistical manipulation can disguise,” the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, pointed out in October 2003, “is that violent crime has doubled in the last six years and continues to rise alarmingly.” Indeed, with the exception of murder, violent crime in England and Wales is far higher than in the United States. And while the American murder rate has been in decline for more than a decade, the English murder rate has been rising. You are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City. More than half of English burglaries are “hot burglaries”(someone is at home), while in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police, only 13 percent are “hot burglaries.” As for the effectiveness of stringent gun control, since handguns were
Hundreds of other mass murderers have perpetrated their crimes without automatic firearms. Frenchman Pierre Riviere killed his mother, sister, and brother with a bill hook in 1835. In 1932, Julian Marcelino, a Filipino immigrant of relatively small stature, managed to kill six and wound 15 on a Seattle street using only a pair of blades. In 1915, Monroe Phillips shot seven dead and wounded 32 with a shotgun in Georgia.
Guns aren’t even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, only 52 percent involved guns.
The U.S. mass murder rate does not seem to rise or fall with the availability of automatic weapons. It reached its highest level in 1929, when fully automatic firearms were expensive and mostly limited to soldiers and organized criminals. The rate dipped in the mid-1930s, staying relatively low before surging again in the 1970s through 1990s. Some criminologists attribute the late-century spike to the potential for instant notoriety: Beginning with Charles Whitman’s 1966 shooting spree from atop a University of Texas tower, mass murderers became household names. Others point out that the mass murder rate fairly closely tracks the overall homicide rate. In the 2000s, for example, both the mass murder and the homicide rates dropped to their lowest levels since the 1960s.
A mass murderer’s weapon of choice depends somewhat on his victims. Attacks with guns, fire, knives, and bare hands are far more likely to be directed against family and acquaintances than total strangers, while mass murderers prefer to use explosives against people they don’t know. Also of note: Those who use firearms in a killing spree turn the gun on themselves 34 percent of the time, while only 9 percent of mass-murdering arsonists take their own lives.
Do you have equal concerns about Venezuela and Iran? Or just the Jewish state?
Do you think Israel is less corrupt, as corrupt, or more corrupt than Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority, all of whom receive large amounts of US aid?
Private companies (no direct access) may want to manufacture something similar.
Even if we image that to be true, your thinking is that it is not possible for contractors and various engineers to get access to the military bases, maybe even have an office there, where they could both examine the engines and have access to the personnel trained to maintain them - including disassembly - for a bit of help? Besides, even if they drove there, Israel is not a big country.
Its an example how the spirit of sharing from BSD is not as strong as having a license enforce it.
There are multiple BSD kernels that share ideas and code all the time, not to mention user space. There is one Linux kernel handed down from Linus for everyone to use and customize. Code goes to Linus for approval. BSD involves sharing, Linux involves tribute.
The only sick thing is the amount of Apple users promoting BSD.
When it comes to *nix, Linux may own the server farm, but the BSD based Mac owns the *nix desktop. And yes, Apple has given back.
In the western world, however, authoritarian personalities are almost universally associated with reactionary conservative politices.
That is utter rubbish. Eastern Europe was ruled for 50 years by a circus of "authoritarian personalities" in the form of Communist party leaders with their own cults of personality. I don't think you are going to find many takers to the idea that Communism is part of "reactionary conservative politics".
Simply put, the US is in no position to lecture anyone about incarceration rates [wikipedia.org].
Simply put, you just changed the subject from one which many Europeans and Westerners would rather avoid, limits on free speech, to the ever popular topic of US prison population (Why do they have so many people in jail when crime rates are dropping? Duh!)
I assume you'll let me know when they recall the entire year's production of ground beef from all domestic producers as well as all imports?
Would you concede that recalling even a trifling million pounds from a single producer might have an adverse impact on their profitability let alone their ability to stay in business?
I don't know why this wa modded as 'troll' except for perhaps a lack of knowledge about recent history wherein US Born Anwar al-Awlaki was murdered by drone attack, without the application of any due process whatsoever, because of things he said. In other words, Obama murdered an American over exercising free speech rights. And yeah, Alwaki didn't say nice things, but think about the implications.
I'm afraid the lack of knowledge is pretty much entirely yours. al-Awlaki received all of the due process he was due under the Law of War which was the basis for the attack that killed him, not criminal law. Mark that - killed him, not murdered him. He was no more murdered than these men shot down en mass by the US Federal government without warrant, arrest, trial, conviction, or warning - and appropriately so. Al-Awlaki put himself in the same category as the men in that video. Al-Awlaki left the United States, entered Al Qaida controlled territory, and joined up with them in body to complete what he had already been accomplishing in word and deed. He made his intent known. He was connected to multiple terrorist attacks. He certainly appears to have earned his Hellfire, in this life and the next. And yes, the United States is at war with Al Qaida as authorized under the terms of the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress which is legally equivalent to a declaration of war - a point of well settled law.
Ah, Chomsky and the Iranian news in one youtube video! The esteemed Dr. Chomsky approaches truth in an almost clinical fashion, preparing the most potent concoctions he can develop, in a homeopathic sense: the more dilute the "medicine", the more "powerful" it is. I must admit that diluting his already minimal truthfulness in the sea of lies of the Iranian news is a stroke of homeopathic genius! The result is more dilute than a needle of truth in a haystack of lies, and therefore so much more powerful. A pity the video is so short, there is obviously so much potential from that collaboration.
Here are words that you never thought you’d hear a Pakistani general utter about the drone strikes that batter Pakistan’s tribal areas: “A majority of those eliminated are terrorists, including foreign terrorist elements.”
That would be yawn-worthy if it came from the CIA, which never misses an opportunity to credit its drone strikes with taking out al-Qaeda and its affiliates. But it was the main message of an official briefing from Maj. Gen. Ghayur Mehmood in Miram Shah. He’s the commander of Pakistan’s Seventh Division, charged with leading troops in North Waziristan.
“Myths and rumours about US predator strikes and the casualty figures are many,” Mehmood said, according to Dawn, “but it’s a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners.”
The United States has been downgraded. Reporters Without Borders has released its annual World Press Freedom Index and the United States fell 27 points to No. 47 on the list.
The US tie with Argentina, Romania and Latvia at âoesatisfactoryâ levels of freedom.
The crackdown on protest movements and the accompanying excesses took their toll on journalists. In the space of two months in the United States, more than 25 were subjected to arrests and beatings at the hands of police who were quick to issue indictments for inappropriate behaviour, public nuisance or even lack of accreditation
So some journalists and probably many "journalists" were mixed in with the "Occupy" crowd and didn't comply with orders to vacate? Not going to sweat that too much without evidence of actual wrong doing.
The United States will recall a million pounds of ground beef if a half dozen people are killed by tained meat, and you can't figure out they just might, might, want to prevent this from happening again? I'll meet the moderators that gave you that +5 half way - you do have a rare insight, but I wouldn't give it a +1.
BTW - is the tainted meat recall about control too?
I can't imagine why anybody would trust or accept the rationale given to them by somebody who threatens them with physical force. But somehow government is different. Right.
Threats of force seem to work in suppressing speech.
During the Cold War, factual reports of typical American life did seem like propaganda to the Soviets. The gap in what American society provided versus what Soviet society provided, even to the fairly privileged, and at least into the mid 1970s, was rather startling. A Mig-25 pilot by the name of Victor Belenko defected to the United States in 1975 by flying his plane to Japan. His story is told in the book, "Mig Pilot.*" Reading of his experiences encountering American society is eye opening. His ultimate evaluation of American society then was that it had basically achieved in terms of economics and social services what the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had been promising would arrive under "true Communism" that was always 5-10 years away. His encounter with an ordinary supermarket is instructive. He thought it was a special showplace to fool visitors about the wealth of American society, a Potemkin village, as it were. You can read the an account of it in this selection from Mig Pilot, or the more muted account from an interview:
Belenko: First of all American super-market, my first visit was under CIA supervision, and I thought it was set-up; I did not believe super-market was real one. I thought well I was unusual guest; they probably kicked everyone out. It's such a nice, big place with incredible amount of produce, and no long lines! You're accustomed to long lines in Russia. But later, when I discovered super-market was real one, I had real fun exploring new products. I would buy, everyday, a new thing and try to figure out its function. In Russia at that time (and even today) it's hard to find canned food, good one. But everyday I would buy new cans with different food. Once I bought a can which said "dinner." I cooked it with potatoes, onions, and garlic-it was delicious. Next morning my friends ask me, "Viktor, did you buy a cat?" It was a can of chicken-based cat food. But it was delicious! It was better than canned food for people in Russia today. And I did test it. Last year I brought four people from Russia for commercial project, and I set them up. I bought nibble sized human food. I installed a pâté, and it was cat food. I put it on crackers. And they did consume it, and they liked it. So the taste has not changed. By the way, for those who are not familiar with American cat food. It's very safe; it's delicious, and sometimes it's better than human food, because of the Humane Society. -- Viktor BELENKO
The Communist party made a concerted effort at internal propaganda to shape the thoughts and behaviors of the Soviet people. They often distorted or outright lied about conditions in the US and the West, as well as exaggerated the accomplishments and performance of Soviet society, including the economy. It was these very exaggerations that prompted cynicism among the people. But even with that cynicism, the natural reaction for many of them was to act in accordance to some degree with the information they were given in propaganda.
Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very efficient. It penetrated even social
. ..The art of subtlety - lying through context, false assumption and obfuscation.
If you want a good view of the situation, read Glen Greenwald over a period of time, . . .
Surprisingly I pretty much agree with you. That does seem to be a good summary of Greenward. In fairness though, I think Greenwald actually believes much of what he writes. The problem comes from his fringe politics resulting in extreme positions and nonsense. In many cases you will end up closer to the truth to assume his position, or yours for that matter, is backwards and start from there.;)
Slashdot Mirror
It's occasionally helpful to pop a wiki page before ranting mindlessly
Most scholars believe[26] that key concepts of Zoroastrian eschatology and demonology influenced the Abrahamic religions.
i visited that Wiki page, and here is what I found. The phrase you quote is sourced (26) to:
"ZOROASTRIANISM - JewishEncyclopedia.com". jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 23 February 2012
I then went to the page linked and found this:
Most scholars, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, are of the opinion that Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism in views relating to angelology and demonology, and probably also in the doctrine of the resurrection, as well as in eschatological ideas in general, and also that the monotheistic conception of Yhwh may have been quickened and strengthened by being opposed to the dualism or quasi-monotheism of the Persians. But, on the other hand, the late James Darmesteter advocated exactly the opposite view, maintaining that early Persian thought was strongly influenced by Jewish ideas. He insisted that the Avesta, as we have it, is of late origin and is much tinctured by foreign elements, especially those derived from Judaism, and also those taken from Neoplatonism through the writings of Philo Judæus.
Now, here is the interesting thing: Note the source - The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
Here are the dates from the Bibliography: 1904, 1897, 1905, 1899, 1902, 1803, 1866, 1881, 1878, 1893, 1891, 1897, 1898, 1901, 1902, 1902, 1904, 1903.
Radio carbon dating was invented in 1949. Computers for use in textual analysis probably weren't used until the 70s.
The scholarship is about 110 years out of date, and was conducted without two of the key tools of modern investigation into the past, at least one of which would be almost certain to have a major impact on the work.
Although there are no doubt people today who hold to that view, even at the time it was written the view expressed wasn't universal as you see in the fuller passage I quote above. I'm inclined to stick with more current scholarship on this question: ZOROASTRIANISM AND BIBLICAL RELIGION
While we don't need religion to tell us that murder is wrong,
Although arguments have been made regarding humanity's innate moral sense, I still have to ask, are you quite sure about that?
Druids Committed Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism?
Human sacrifices 'on the rise in Uganda' as witch doctors admit to rituals
Four held for kidnapping kids for human sacrifice
Nigeria: Prevalence of ritual murder and human sacrifice and reaction by government authorities (March 2000-July 2005)"
Evidence found of human sacrifice in North America
"Chilling" Child Sacrifices Found at Prehistoric Site
Many in the West cannot conceive of things being different in any way if foundations of its morality and culture are destroyed, but that is an epic mistake. Things will change, and many of the possibilities make for something that may not be nice at all.
Mod parent up. If these fragments were truly the word of god, then surely they would contain useful information that would increase our knowledge of the world/universe and would remain true even today. Instead, we get re-worked fables plagiarized from other sources, tribal customs codified into law, doomsday prophecies, and rants against various enemies (all of which the old testament is full of).
And what do you have on offer? Rants against the Bible, spurious theories already disproven, unsupported assertions, and nonsense. That isn't an improvement. . . . it isn't even competitive.
Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise;
When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent. -- Proverbs 17:28
Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor’s house,
Or he will become weary of you and hate you. -- Proverbs 25:17
It is better to live in a corner of the roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. -- Proverbs 25:24
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will also be like him. -- Proverbs 26:4
Like an archer who wounds everyone,
So is he who hires a fool or who hires those who pass by. -- Proverbs 26:10*
A fool always loses his temper,
But a wise man holds it back. -- Provers 29:11
And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER; YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY; YOU SHALL NOT STEAL; YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS; 19HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER; and YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” -- Matthew 19:17-19
* How far we have fallen - this seems contrary to the governing philosophy and practice of most corporate and government projects.
They also adopted Zoroastrian monotheism. . . . . The term is henotheism.
The proper term is rubbish.
Jewish scriptures changed tremendously during the Babylonian captivity, which indeed occurred around 600BC (it basically blended in ideas from Zoroastrianism, chiefly the ideas of angels, demons, hell, and basically morality and good vs evil; and its final written form got written around then), but the general ideas of judaism had been around for far older than the end of the mideast bronze age.
When you write, "Jewish scriptures changed tremendously," that is a bit misleading. There were new books added to the Jewish scriptures, including prophetic works during that period. But did the nature of the Jewish faith and scripture change in the manner you indicate? It doesn't look like it. Although the snippets I quote below are instructive, the whole paper is relatively short and informative.
ZOROASTRIANISM AND BIBLICAL RELIGION - CHARLES DAVID ISBELL
. . . as Eichrodt insists, "the idea that the eschatological resurrection hope, in the form attested in the Old Testament, was influenced by Persian conceptions, can be shown by any reasonably detailed comparison to be inadmissable."
To this point, I have spoken of Persian or Zoroastrian matters as if they themselves were composed during and reflective of the Persian era of contact with the exiled Judahites (fifth-fourth centuries BCE). But they were not. In fact, the severe deficiencies in the written sources of Zoroastrianism make accurate analysis virtually impossible. No modern scholar dates Zoroaster earlier than ca. 1400 BCE, and while both Arabic and Avestan29 traditions date Zoroaster to the sixth-fifth centuries BCE, most scholars are more comfortable with a date between the two extremes; the date 1000 BCE is most widely presumed. But scholars of written literature are faced with a problem that has yet to be solved. No written materials are linked to the era of Zoroaster regardless of when he lived, and even scholars who argue that early Iranian texts are linked to ca. 1000 BCE, admit that these Gathas ["hymns" (of Zoroaster)] are so difficult that their meaning can be grasped, "only with the help of the later Zoroastrian scriptures."30
Iranian priests of the early first millennium actually rejected the use of writing for their holy beliefs, and the fact is that these beliefs existed only in oral form until the sixth century CE! And yet these written texts are the ones which Persian scholars are required to use in interpreting the teachings of Zoroaster, who lived between 1000 and 2000 years earlier. Shaul Shaked has framed the matter accurately and concisely:
All arguments about possible contacts between Israel and Iran come to the stumbling block of the problem of chronology. All detailed accounts of any aspect of Zoroastrian theology exist no earlier than in books compiled during the Sassanian period [third - seventh centuries CE] or later, after the Arab conquest of Iran.31
In short, the texts being examined in comparison to the Bible were written more than 1000 years later than the Persia with which Judahites came into contact.
Still, the larger problem with the written sources of Zoroastrianism is not their late date of composition, but rather the fact that even these late written sources present very few close parallels to biblical ideas.
In light of this chronological difficulty, it would seem to make more sense to compare Zoroastrian religious texts with talmudic literature. And even here, Neusner, the scholar with the greatest knowledge of Babylonia during the era of Sassanid rule, has concluded that what the rabbis of the Talmud knew of Zoroastrianism amounted to virtually nothing at all.
. . . Yet, it seems obvious that the claims for Zoroastrian influence on biblical doctrines have been vastly overstated. . . . it should follow that the use of late, very late, written sources of Persian theological tenets must be ruled out as evidence of any significance whatsoever regarding biblical texts. 33
Seriously kid, stop watching fox, your bain is rotting away. Australia and Europe both got lower crime rates.
Rather bad news, I'm afraid, it seems that the rot has got you as well.
UK is violent crime capital of Europe - 02 Jul 2009
The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.
A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.
It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.
Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.
By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.
France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population.
The Home Office says there has been a downtrend in overall violence for the past decade.
But last October it emerged that levels of violent crime in England and Wales had been underestimated for more than a decade because of a blunder in recording methods.
Regarding Australia:
Violent crime statistics
Recorded assault increased again in 2007, to 840 per 100,000, compared with 623 per 100,000 in 1996. The 2007 rate was the highest recorded since 1996.
AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN
Since it "can't happen" . . .
Gun crimes soaring despite ban brought in following Dunblane - 15 Jul 2001
THE controversial ban on the ownership of handguns which was introduced after the Dunblane massacre has failed to halt an increasing number of crimes involving firearms.
An independent report, Illegal Firearms in the UK, to be published by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London tomorrow, says that handguns were used in 3,685 offences last year compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40 per cent.
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade - 27 October 2009
Do you weep for the masses of children that died because Saddam stole the Oil for Food program money intended for food, medicine, and clean water to build palaces and buy weapons? Do you shed a tear for the children killed in school by the Taliban, or blown up on the roads by Al Qaeda? Since they were not killed by Americans, do you count them as persons at all? It is the same old story: one person killed by an American is an "international outrage", a village massacred by America's enemies is to be ignored.
Okay, how about this. When out hunting you don't need hundreds of rounds, and even if for some reason you do you don't need high capacity magazines.
Sorry, but wrong.
You could even buy your own and keep it at the range, or even keep it in your house but keep the cartridges at the range.
Right, pull the other one!
Perhaps, some day, the home of a British subject will be a castle again.
Much like the "pertectin' mah fambly" gun nuts who build up arsenals against the mythical home invasion,...
National Crime Victimization Survey - September 2010
Victimization During Household Burglary
*An estimated 3.7 million burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007.
*A household member was present in roughly 1 million burglaries and became victims of violent crimes in 266,560 burglaries.
*Simple assault (15%) was the most common form of violence when a resident was home and violence occurred. Robbery (7%) and
rape (3%) were less likely to occur when a household member was present and violence occurred.
*Offenders were known to their victims in 65% of violent burglaries; offenders were strangers in 28%.
*Overall, 61% of offenders were unarmed when violence occurred during a burglary while a resident was present. About 12% of
all households violently burglarized while someone was home faced an offender armed with a firearm.
*Households residing in single family units and higher density structures of 10 or more units were least likely to be burglarized (8 per 1,000 households) while a household member was present.
*Serious injury accounted for 9% and minor injury accounted for 36% of injuries sustained by household members who were home
and experienced violence during a completed burglary.
A school teacher, who had two 9mm handguns and a rifle. I say there's a good chance she was mentally unstable too.
Pot, meet kettle?
I can understand your thinking though. Things have only recently started to be made right in Britain after a long period of decline:
Self-Defense: An Endangered Right (March/April 2004)
The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. Britons have been taught, in the words of a 1992 Economist article, that such policies are “a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilized countries, essential to the happiness of others.” The author contrasted those policies with “America’s vigilante values.”
The result of that tradeoff of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Many Americans, either unaware of, or unconcerned with, the perverse impact of British policy, insist that our public safety demands a similar sacrifice. But an examination of the experience of the British people offers a cautionary tale. A few examples underscore the situation in Britain today.
A homeowner who discovered two robbers in his home held them with a toy gun while he telephoned the police. When the police arrived they arrested the two men, and also the homeowner, who was charged with putting someone in fear with a toy gun. An elderly woman who scared off a gang of youths by firing a cap pistol was charged with the same offense. The government is now planning to make toy guns illegal.
The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “Call the Police” rather than “Help.” Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault. . .
. . . The impact of such policies on public safety has been stark. An amazing trend of nearly 500 years of declining interpersonal violence in England reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 Britain had the highest level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were at three times the level of the next worst country. “One thing which no amount of statistical manipulation can disguise,” the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, pointed out in October 2003, “is that violent crime has doubled in the last six years and continues to rise alarmingly.” Indeed, with the exception of murder, violent crime in England and Wales is far higher than in the United States. And while the American murder rate has been in decline for more than a decade, the English murder rate has been rising. You are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City. More than half of English burglaries are “hot burglaries”(someone is at home), while in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police, only 13 percent are “hot burglaries.” As for the effectiveness of stringent gun control, since handguns were
Don't kid yourself, the toll can vary.
Going Postal, Pre-Pistol - How did mass murderers operate before the advent of modern weapons?
Hundreds of other mass murderers have perpetrated their crimes without automatic firearms. Frenchman Pierre Riviere killed his mother, sister, and brother with a bill hook in 1835. In 1932, Julian Marcelino, a Filipino immigrant of relatively small stature, managed to kill six and wound 15 on a Seattle street using only a pair of blades. In 1915, Monroe Phillips shot seven dead and wounded 32 with a shotgun in Georgia.
Guns aren’t even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, only 52 percent involved guns.
The U.S. mass murder rate does not seem to rise or fall with the availability of automatic weapons. It reached its highest level in 1929, when fully automatic firearms were expensive and mostly limited to soldiers and organized criminals. The rate dipped in the mid-1930s, staying relatively low before surging again in the 1970s through 1990s. Some criminologists attribute the late-century spike to the potential for instant notoriety: Beginning with Charles Whitman’s 1966 shooting spree from atop a University of Texas tower, mass murderers became household names. Others point out that the mass murder rate fairly closely tracks the overall homicide rate. In the 2000s, for example, both the mass murder and the homicide rates dropped to their lowest levels since the 1960s.
A mass murderer’s weapon of choice depends somewhat on his victims. Attacks with guns, fire, knives, and bare hands are far more likely to be directed against family and acquaintances than total strangers, while mass murderers prefer to use explosives against people they don’t know. Also of note: Those who use firearms in a killing spree turn the gun on themselves 34 percent of the time, while only 9 percent of mass-murdering arsonists take their own lives.
Endemic Corruption - How your American tax dollars are spent by Israel.
Fascinating. And you know this how?
You're assuming that those jets were not ones the Israelis purchased? Do you have any grounds for that?
Were these jet engines stolen at an American Air Force base due to "endemic corruption," or the activity of simple thieves?
HAFB THIEVES CANNOT SET THE VALUE OF 3 STOLEN JET ENGINES, SAYS JUDGE
Do you have equal concerns about Venezuela and Iran? Or just the Jewish state?
Do you think Israel is less corrupt, as corrupt, or more corrupt than Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority, all of whom receive large amounts of US aid?
Speaking of endemic:
Rising Anti-Semitism on the Left
The European Left and Its Trouble With Jews
The Full-Blown Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe
They'd love to get into the fighter-aircraft business or even the jet engine business.
News flash - the Israelis already have their own design for a jet fighter called the Lavi.
It would be a tough sell in a world market dominated by US, Western European, Russian, and Chinese designs used by their air forces. Ask the Swedes.
The military has the engines.
Private companies (no direct access) may want to manufacture something similar.
Even if we image that to be true, your thinking is that it is not possible for contractors and various engineers to get access to the military bases, maybe even have an office there, where they could both examine the engines and have access to the personnel trained to maintain them - including disassembly - for a bit of help? Besides, even if they drove there, Israel is not a big country.
Its an example how the spirit of sharing from BSD is not as strong as having a license enforce it.
There are multiple BSD kernels that share ideas and code all the time, not to mention user space. There is one Linux kernel handed down from Linus for everyone to use and customize. Code goes to Linus for approval. BSD involves sharing, Linux involves tribute.
The only sick thing is the amount of Apple users promoting BSD.
When it comes to *nix, Linux may own the server farm, but the BSD based Mac owns the *nix desktop. And yes, Apple has given back.
In the western world, however, authoritarian personalities are almost universally associated with reactionary conservative politices.
That is utter rubbish. Eastern Europe was ruled for 50 years by a circus of "authoritarian personalities" in the form of Communist party leaders with their own cults of personality. I don't think you are going to find many takers to the idea that Communism is part of "reactionary conservative politics".
Simply put, the US is in no position to lecture anyone about incarceration rates [wikipedia.org].
Simply put, you just changed the subject from one which many Europeans and Westerners would rather avoid, limits on free speech, to the ever popular topic of US prison population (Why do they have so many people in jail when crime rates are dropping? Duh!)
Why free speech is baffling to many
European Free Speech Under Attack
Are there limits to freedom of speech?
Muslim Protests Show Limits of Free Speech
I assume you'll let me know when they recall the entire year's production of ground beef from all domestic producers as well as all imports?
Would you concede that recalling even a trifling million pounds from a single producer might have an adverse impact on their profitability let alone their ability to stay in business?
I don't know why this wa modded as 'troll' except for perhaps a lack of knowledge about recent history wherein US Born Anwar al-Awlaki was murdered by drone attack, without the application of any due process whatsoever, because of things he said. In other words, Obama murdered an American over exercising free speech rights. And yeah, Alwaki didn't say nice things, but think about the implications.
I'm afraid the lack of knowledge is pretty much entirely yours. al-Awlaki received all of the due process he was due under the Law of War which was the basis for the attack that killed him, not criminal law. Mark that - killed him, not murdered him. He was no more murdered than these men shot down en mass by the US Federal government without warrant, arrest, trial, conviction, or warning - and appropriately so. Al-Awlaki put himself in the same category as the men in that video. Al-Awlaki left the United States, entered Al Qaida controlled territory, and joined up with them in body to complete what he had already been accomplishing in word and deed. He made his intent known. He was connected to multiple terrorist attacks. He certainly appears to have earned his Hellfire, in this life and the next. And yes, the United States is at war with Al Qaida as authorized under the terms of the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress which is legally equivalent to a declaration of war - a point of well settled law.
No, he kinda kicked it up a notch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjniYBfsX7I
"Hope. Change."
Ah, Chomsky and the Iranian news in one youtube video! The esteemed Dr. Chomsky approaches truth in an almost clinical fashion, preparing the most potent concoctions he can develop, in a homeopathic sense: the more dilute the "medicine", the more "powerful" it is. I must admit that diluting his already minimal truthfulness in the sea of lies of the Iranian news is a stroke of homeopathic genius! The result is more dilute than a needle of truth in a haystack of lies, and therefore so much more powerful. A pity the video is so short, there is obviously so much potential from that collaboration.
Pakistani General: Actually, The Drones Are Awesome
Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge – The Observer
Noam Chomsky: The Last Totalitarian
The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky
The United States has been downgraded. Reporters Without Borders has released its annual World Press Freedom Index and the United States fell 27 points to No. 47 on the list.
The US tie with Argentina, Romania and Latvia at âoesatisfactoryâ levels of freedom.
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2011-2012
The crackdown on protest movements and the accompanying excesses took their toll on journalists. In the space of two months in the United States, more than 25 were subjected to arrests and beatings at the hands of police who were quick to issue indictments for inappropriate behaviour, public nuisance or even lack of accreditation
So some journalists and probably many "journalists" were mixed in with the "Occupy" crowd and didn't comply with orders to vacate? Not going to sweat that too much without evidence of actual wrong doing.
The United States will recall a million pounds of ground beef if a half dozen people are killed by tained meat, and you can't figure out they just might, might, want to prevent this from happening again? I'll meet the moderators that gave you that +5 half way - you do have a rare insight, but I wouldn't give it a +1.
BTW - is the tainted meat recall about control too?
I can't imagine why anybody would trust or accept the rationale given to them by somebody who threatens them with physical force. But somehow government is different. Right.
Threats of force seem to work in suppressing speech.
BBC Covers Muslims Differently Because of Violence
How to Stifle Speech - Lessons from the Netherlands, the University of California, and Yale.
Self-Censoring South Park
With that said, it should be blindingly obvious that censorship isn't about stopping terrorism. It's about profit,
At the moment it seems to be mainly about "the Prophet," not profit.
America Again Submits to the Istanbul Process
Call to Ban Bible Under Pakistan’s Elastic Blasphemy Laws
During the Cold War, factual reports of typical American life did seem like propaganda to the Soviets. The gap in what American society provided versus what Soviet society provided, even to the fairly privileged, and at least into the mid 1970s, was rather startling. A Mig-25 pilot by the name of Victor Belenko defected to the United States in 1975 by flying his plane to Japan. His story is told in the book, "Mig Pilot.*" Reading of his experiences encountering American society is eye opening. His ultimate evaluation of American society then was that it had basically achieved in terms of economics and social services what the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had been promising would arrive under "true Communism" that was always 5-10 years away. His encounter with an ordinary supermarket is instructive. He thought it was a special showplace to fool visitors about the wealth of American society, a Potemkin village, as it were. You can read the an account of it in this selection from Mig Pilot, or the more muted account from an interview:
Belenko: First of all American super-market, my first visit was under CIA supervision, and I thought it was set-up; I did not believe super-market was real one. I thought well I was unusual guest; they probably kicked everyone out. It's such a nice, big place with incredible amount of produce, and no long lines! You're accustomed to long lines in Russia. But later, when I discovered super-market was real one, I had real fun exploring new products. I would buy, everyday, a new thing and try to figure out its function. In Russia at that time (and even today) it's hard to find canned food, good one. But everyday I would buy new cans with different food. Once I bought a can which said "dinner." I cooked it with potatoes, onions, and garlic-it was delicious. Next morning my friends ask me, "Viktor, did you buy a cat?" It was a can of chicken-based cat food. But it was delicious! It was better than canned food for people in Russia today. And I did test it. Last year I brought four people from Russia for commercial project, and I set them up. I bought nibble sized human food. I installed a pâté, and it was cat food. I put it on crackers. And they did consume it, and they liked it. So the taste has not changed. By the way, for those who are not familiar with American cat food. It's very safe; it's delicious, and sometimes it's better than human food, because of the Humane Society. -- Viktor BELENKO
The Communist party made a concerted effort at internal propaganda to shape the thoughts and behaviors of the Soviet people. They often distorted or outright lied about conditions in the US and the West, as well as exaggerated the accomplishments and performance of Soviet society, including the economy. It was these very exaggerations that prompted cynicism among the people. But even with that cynicism, the natural reaction for many of them was to act in accordance to some degree with the information they were given in propaganda.
Propaganda in the Soviet Union
Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very efficient. It penetrated even social
. . .The art of subtlety - lying through context, false assumption and obfuscation.
If you want a good view of the situation, read Glen Greenwald over a period of time, . . .
Surprisingly I pretty much agree with you. That does seem to be a good summary of Greenward. In fairness though, I think Greenwald actually believes much of what he writes. The problem comes from his fringe politics resulting in extreme positions and nonsense. In many cases you will end up closer to the truth to assume his position, or yours for that matter, is backwards and start from there. ;)