yayyyyyy God

[Kanada Kev]

I've just watched a bunch of videos by the woman in that rebuttal (such a treat after listening to Kirk chirp away):

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZOMGitsCriss

She's really good ... and that accent

This woman has some great videos too (i've only seen a few):

http://www.youtube.com/user/DefenderOfReason

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Somewhere buried on a bookshelf are my copies (bought at a Mall-Wart for $5 a piece) of Kirk in the Left Behind movies. Absolutely cringe-worthy, on so many levels.

[Kanada Kev]

I just read the 50 page intro to this "free" Origin of Species edition by the fundies. UGH!

http://assets.livingwaters.com/pdf/OriginofSpecies.pdf

All I could think about, while they attempt to tear apart Darwin's works (and his personal life), was to change the subject to being that of a fundamentalist and how they defend their faith's "truths."

Hand out as many of these as you like. For the few converts that may be acquired by this tactic, I would guess that the intelligence of post-secondary students would actually flock to the other side of the argument they are trying defend.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Agreed. As with most (imo) things in popular evangelicalism, this has more to do with people stroking their own egos and identities than contributing to any sort of broader discussion (which I honestly don't think is possible, as long as they hang on to the literalist approach).

[SaggyBalls]

Thanks, Siggy.

The right to death: this debate needs to be about power and victimization rather than God's Law...

[Esau.]

[Kanada Kev]

That is from a great (scary) doc called Jesus Camp. I believe that woman's camp has been shut down since filming ... phew

http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp

I have a copy somewhere if anyone wants me to upload it to sendspace or something.

[Esau.]

yeah its the trailer for the movie. Just thought it was suitable for this thread since it had me laughing.

The camp in the film isn't used anymore, but they (the "ministry") haven't stopped at all.

[Esau.]

For the record, what had me laughing was

"warlocks are enemies of god - had it been in the old testament harry potter would have been put to death"

It is scary (in a uncomfortable way) that children are taught like this.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

And creepy that she deliberately wants to model their childrearing on what she sees going on with radical Islamic groups, so that the kids can eventually be sent into the fray to fight.

Deep psychiatric problems here, being passed on through the generations...

[d_rawk]

Deep psychiatric problems here, being passed on through the generations...

Indeed. I saw that doc when it came out and it was disturbing in that "I don't even know how to process this it is so facked up" kind of way.

Chilling.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

And everybody's got 'em, too.

(from today's Globe)

A Hostile Takeover of Zionism

Patrick Martin

Jerusalem — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 26, 2009 03:56AM EDT

Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has come a long way.

No longer are they the inward-looking anti-Zionists who only cared that the government provide them with money for their separate schools, welfare and exemptions from military service. These days, many of the Haredim – the word means “those who tremble†in awe of God†– have joined with right-wing religious Zionists to become a powerful political force.

They now are equipped to redefine the country's politics and to set a new agenda.

Two decades ago, they were confined mostly to a few neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Today, they have spread throughout the country, in substantial numbers in several major communities, as well as building completely new towns only for their followers.

One Haredi leader who almost won Jerusalem's mayoralty race last fall, boasts that, within 20 years, the ultra-Orthodox will control the municipal government of every city in the country. And why not? Of the Jewish Israeli children entering primary school for the first time this month, more than 25 per cent are Haredi, and that proportion will keep growing. There are between 600,000 and 700,000 Haredim in Israel, and they average 8.8 children a family.

A decade ago, there were almost no Haredim in the West Bank settlements. Today, the two largest settlements are entirely ultra-Orthodox, and the Haredim are about a third of the almost 300,000 settlers.

Now that they have tightened the rules on who can be a Jew and have forced the public bus company to provide gender-segregated buses in many communities, a discouraged secular community is starting to emigrate.

Nehemia Shtrasler, a business and political columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, wrote this summer that the country is risking destruction. “We will survive the conflict with the Palestinians and even the nuclear threats from Iran,†he wrote. “But the increasing rupture between the secular and ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel will be the end of us.†Mr. Shtrasler said: “It's a struggle between two contradictory worldviews that cannot exist side by side.

Will Israel adhere to its founding secular values or will it become a theocratic Jewish state?

Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has been toiling for decades to make Israel a Halachic state (one that adheres to Jewish religious law). The former chief Sephardi rabbi (from 1983 to 1993) was one of five men who founded the Brit Hakanaim – the Covenant of Zealots – an underground organization of the early 1950s that attacked non-kosher butcher shops and torched cars that were driven on the Sabbath.

Rabbi Eliyahu was imprisoned for 10 months after an apparent plot to attack the Knesset was uncovered. He said at his trial that Israel was turning against God's will when it proposed a law to draft women into the military. Their place is in the home, he insisted, and still insists.

He was the spiritual adviser to Meir Kahane, founder of the racist Kach Party that was banned from the Knesset, and later outlawed completely when one of its members murdered 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994. He has long urged the release from prison of Yigal Amir, who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Rabbi Eliyahu had his greatest impact as spiritual leader of Israel's National Religious Party. He believed that the line separating the Orthodox from the Haredim was artificial and that many Haredim could be brought into the nationalist camp.

The rabbi has an exclusive view of who really is a Jew, having denounced Reform and Conservative synagogues as “reeking of hell.†And he has often said that democracy has no place in Judaism.

SURPRISING MERGER

Rabbi Eliyahu and his followers have succeeded in tying the knot between Haredim and religious nationalists. There is even a new name for the new group, the Hardal, derived from Haredim and Mafdal (the acronym for the National Religious Party).

While the NRP has disappeared, the ideas and the name have grown. The powerful Shas Party, of Sephardi and Haredi disciples, is the best example.

Together, the Hardal are 20 per cent of the Jewish population, says Nachman Ben Yehuda, a sociologist at Hebrew University whose book on the Haredim, Theocratic Democracy , is to be published next year.

Such a merger is quite a feat, considering the anti-Zionist origins of the Haredim.

During the age of enlightenment in the 18th century, the first Haredi communities took shape, as an attempt to maintain distinctive Jewish communities when many Jews were being lured into liberal European culture. Haredi rabbis targeted, first, the Reform Jewish movement and, later, the Zionist movement, as abominations counter to God's will.

They opposed the creation of Israel, arguing that using the holy Hebrew language for daily discourse and having “unbelievers†proclaim a “Jewish state†were sacrilegious. Some insisted that the Zionist project brought down the wrath of God in the form of the Holocaust.

For Israel's first four decades, Haredi leaders continued to oppose it, even as many gravitated to the state.

“There still is a strong anti-Zionist aspect,†said Prof. Ben Yehuda, “but most Haredi leaders have been persuaded that if there must be a Jewish state, then it should be run properly, as a theocracy.â€

In the Haredim, the religious Zionists have acquired potent allies. Their followers obey orders without question. “They fear excommunication,†explained Prof. Ben Yehuda. “They are largely unprepared for surviving outside their tight-knit communities.â€

The two groups are united in wanting greater religiosity in Israel.

They seek strict adherence to Biblical rules governing the Sabbath, to Halachic rules concerning food, to age-old traditions of separating men from women, and to the strict observance of Orthodoxy in all aspects of people's lives, from birth, through education, marriage and death to burial.

They also want their rules to be followed in deciding just who is a Jew and who therefore can enjoy the privileges of a Jewish state.

To obtain these goals they have influenced the platforms and growth of political parties, appointments to the rabbinical courts and government policy.

As a result, religious schools get a disproportionate share of the education budget, El Al planes don't fly on the Sabbath and publicly run buses are segregated on a growing number of runs.

DEMOCRACY IN QUESTION

Ironically, considering these religious leaders have made such use of the democratic process, they continue to say democracy is not consistent with Halacha.

“In many ways these guys are closer to Islamic fundamentalists than to anything else,†Prof. Ben Yehuda said.

They also do not shrink from violence.

Prof. Ben Yehuda's research found that violence is the number-one criminal infraction among Haredim. He also found that most of that violence is for political purposes.

This past summer witnessed many vivid examples. Thousands of Haredim rioted on several successive Saturdays to protest the opening on the Sabbath of a privately owned parking garage near the Old City of Jerusalem; thousands more rioted when social-services personnel arrested a Haredi woman in Jerusalem who was starving her child.

This week, a young woman was beaten for not being dressed modestly enough in the central Israeli town of Beit Shemish. The town, where many Sephardi refugees settled in the 1950s, recently has had an influx of Haredim. Earlier this month, a man and woman were beaten by Haredi youth when the two sat next to each other on a bus bound for the town.

Violence has become so widespread that there are Haredi communities where the police won't go. This summer, a police car was torched and several officers injured when attacked by a rock-throwing mob, when the police responded to a call for help.

It's upsetting to many Israelis, such as the columnist Nehemia Shtrasler, but when Haredi neighbourhoods become no-go zones for authorities, and when people must think twice before opening a private business on the Sabbath, the violence is having its desired effect.

And, as the Haredi community expands and finds government funding harder to come by, growing numbers of Haredi women and men will be compelled to enter the work force. The impact of that, says Prof. Ben Yehuda, is that businesses and workplaces will be forced to comply with the religious demands of their new workers.

Already, he said, in high-tech workplaces, where many Haredim work, the offices are segregated and cafeteria food is kosher.

Even in the Israel Defence Forces, the Haredim are having an effect. An exclusive Haredi battalion has been created, to accommodate a growing number of ultra-Orthodox who want to serve.

In other battalions, religious Zionists have refused to ride in military vehicles driven by women. Their demands have reportedly been met.

With the demographic shift in favour of the Haredim only going up, those in the private sector, government and the military who decline to accommodate Haredi demands will become fewer and fewer.

And with growing numbers of Haredim in West Bank settlements, Israel's conflict with the Palestinians takes on an increasingly religious fervour.

Prof. Ben Yehuda has no doubt that many of the country's emigrants are leaving, in part, because of the rise of the Hardal. But it's not the major reason, he says.

“However, as this place becomes more and more like Iran, the secular community will leave in droves.â€

So, is Israel to be a Jewish state, or a state of the Jews?

“Jews come in many forms,†notes Prof. Ben Yehuda: “Reform, Conservative, traditional, secular, as well as Orthodox.â€

Should one group get to determine what rules the country will follow?

[SaggyBalls]

Just adding to its awfully sordid history...

...lovely.

[SaggyBalls]

...another gem...*ugh*

Five Hate Bills Surge Forward In Congress

By Rev. Ted Pike

9-21-9

The Christian/conservative right is bruised by hate bill victory in the House/Senate and distracted by healthcare debate; the Jewish Anti-Defamation League is losing no time pushing four more of its freedom-destroying, pro-homosexual hate bills. This antichrist legislation is intent on banning criticism of homosexuality in the workplace, on the airwaves and internet, and in public schools.

These bills join the federal hate crimes bill, now moving toward signing by Pres. Obama.

Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) HR 3017 and S 1584. This is ADL's workplace hate bill establishing preferential rights for homosexuals and transgenders in business and possibly church-operated businesses. ENDA is scheduled for its first hearing on Wed., Sept. 23, in the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime. Learn more in my two previous articles at www.truthtellers.org; "How ENDA Ends Workplace Freedom: Part One, Part Two."

Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, HR 1966. This extremely dangerous ADL legislation makes it a federal thought crime, punishable by two years in prison, just to "intend" to cause "substantial emotional distress" by criticizing homosexuality over the airwaves or internet. It doesn't matter if no homosexuals are actually distressed by your speech! Your intent will be a federal crime. A House Judiciary (Democrat) spokesperson told me a hearing on HR 1966 will be held this month.

The Safe Schools Improvement Act of 2009, HR 2262. This ADL bill outlaws criticism of homosexuality in public schools to the extent that such criticism "adversely affects the ability" of gay students to be involved in certain activities or programs.

Christians are morally obligated to publicly speak out against all sin including sodomy. HR 2262 amounts to a ban on Christian speech in schools. It defines "persistent or persuasive" criticism of homosexuality in schools as "bullying and harassment." It would require school programs to "teach students about the consequences of bullying and harassment" and prevent public disapproval of homosexuality. Parents and students will be taught to intervene when criticism occurs. The government will provide "grievance procedures for students and parents that seek to register complaints regarding the prohibited conduct." Incredibly, this bill defines "persistent or pervasive" criticism of homosexuality as "violence."

Like the federal hate crimes bill, HR 2262 does contain a caveat saying nothing can be done to limit free speech. What that really means is that "hate speech" will join the few types of forbidden speech, which include shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater and inciting to riot.

I was told by the House Judiciary spokesperson that HR 2262 will be discussed in the upcoming cyberbullying hearing, even though hearings are yet to be scheduled.

National Hate Crimes Hotline Act of 2009, HR 2684. This is a streamlined repackaging of the David Ray Ritcheson Hate Crimes Prevention Act introduced in January. Introduced in June by Rep. Steve Israel, it is a thinly disguised ADL attempt to control a federal hate crimes hotline, website, information center and hate crimes database in Washington DC. It will authorize even more "training and education to local law enforcement" than ADL already massively provides. It will encourage the "prevention" of hate crimes in America through ADL-assisted education against "homophobia," "domestic terrorism," "anti-Semitism," etc.

Borrowing from statements by ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center (also Jewish), this bill says "the number of hate groups in the United States have increased by 54 percent over the past eight years." Who are these hate groups? ADL/SPLC make abundantly clear on their websites that the highest profile haters are those they label "anti-Semitic:" strong critics of Israel, Jewish control of big media, finance, Congress and war-making powers in the Mideast (for the benefit of Israel). These include racialist groups and those who suggest the possibility of Israeli/Mossad complicity in 9/11. Lower-tier haters are those who oppose excessive immigration, abortion (a "woman's right to choose") and homosexuality. SPLC labeled a mainline pro-Zionist Christian watchdog group, Traditional Values Coalition, a "hate group" for opposing sodomy. All anti-homosexual leadership groups (even though pro-Zionist) are regarded by ADL/SPLC as hateful.

The Hate Crimes Hotline Act specifies that for the first three years this federal hate crimes command center will be run by one or more selected non-profit organization(s) (probably ADL/SPLC). The hotline will then revert to autonomous control by a non-profit entity with 'recognized expertise in the area of hate crimes' i.e. ADL. Thus, ADL will exploit this legislation to control a nascent hate crimes gestapo in Washington with federal funds. ($3.5 million) But after three years ADL will be free of federal restriction, allowed to investigate, educate, and recommend prosecution and punishment unfettered. Tightly buckled into the driver's seat of persecution of Christians and free thinkers and having ended free speech, ADL will be a super-powerful NGO, accountable to none.

Stop the Terror

Do you think the most effective way to protest these hate bills is generalized mass demonstrations against Obama's healthcare bill and big government? It is not. Rep. Steve King says the most effective protest is phone calls from you to the Senate and House offices of your elected representatives.

Call your two Senators and House member toll free at 1-877-851-6437 or 202-225-3121 toll and say, "I am angry that the Democrats are moving forward even more freedom-stealing hate crimes bills. I will vote against the Senator/Congressman who votes for hate and bias crime legislation."

Again, Steve King recommends you send a similar message to the pivotal members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. (Names available HERE on the Action Page at www.truthtellers.org)

Hate Bills Surge While Right Distracted

This very month-while millions of concerned and angry Americans protest socialist healthcare-the elements of a working hate crimes bureaucracy are being set in place! Virtually all evangelical watchdog organizations are riding the tsunami of healthcare protest, hoping to destroy the Democrat majority in Congress at mid-term elections. Thus, they are largely silent about these bills and how we can effectively stop them. They also tend to avoid the hate crimes issue because Jewish ADL is just beneath the surface.

Scripture says that in the last days, "the wicked profane Prince of Israel," Antichrist, (Ezekiel 21:25) shall gather the whole earth as one gathers a clutch of abandoned eggs and none will effectively resist him (Isaiah 10:14). He will override all opposition, establishing world government in Jerusalem where, in a rebuilt temple, he will proclaim himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This is unfolding before our eyes! The present thrust for world hate crimes jurisdiction and sovereignty will lead to an end of free speech, persecution of Christians and anti-Christ world dominion. It comes straight from organized world Jewry-ADL/B'nai B'rith International.

Yet those Jewish activists who aggressively subvert Christian values, symbols and freedom are regarded by most evangelicals as "God's chosen people." Christians will not criticize or resist them-fearing God's curse. Thus, evil Jewish supremacists render evangelicals and their leaders powerless to effectively restrain a global world revolutionary movement that right now is hammering the legislative chains of our bondage in the House Judiciary subcommittees. These bills will enable ADL to establish a workable, federally sanctioned and legally enforceable hate crimes gestapo in America. This will ultimately end free speech, unite federal and local law enforcement into a single police state system, create a bias-oriented, parallel justice system in America, force business and church businesses to hire homosexuals, and criminalize criticism of homosexuality on the airwaves and in public schools.

Yet, even now, no major evangelical group has the courage to publicly utter the name of ADL, much less inform their followers that ADL is Jewish and has the most sinister ambitions. This reveals an incredible irony. The greatest force empowering Jewish one-world domination-prophesied to extirpate Christianity-is not that small minority of Jewish conspirators and activists of ADL/B'nai B'rith International. Rather, it is the vast majority of Israel-first evangelicals and their leaders who empower such ascendance. United in silence, they remain committed to a heretical interpretation of the Bible that forbids them to expose the synagogue of Satan or resist it. As such, they provide an unobstructed highway for the great harlot, Israel, to ascend to dominion over the nations.

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

Let the Anti-Defamation League teach you how they have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians, and spearhead attempts to pass the federal hate crimes bill: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.

[Kanada Kev]

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Scripture says that in the last days, "the wicked profane Prince of Israel," Antichrist, (Ezekiel 21:25)

This always cracks me up. For people who claim to read the Bible carefully, as well as literally, there's always this funny way they overlook the fact that there the word "antichrist" is never used in the Bible with the definite article, "the". I still find this the best look at that whole issue - Naming the Antichrist: the History of an American Obsession

And the need to describe the Southern Poverty Law Center as "another Jewish group" is another thing altogether.

[Kanada Kev]

[bradm]

N.S. bishop faces child porn charges

A Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia, who resigned suddenly over the weekend, has been charged with possessing and importing child pornography.

Raymond Lahey, a native of Newfoundland who was with the Antigonish diocese until his resignation, was returning to Canada from the United States on Sept. 15 when he was arrested at the Ottawa Airport after members of the Canada Border Services Agency performed a random check of his laptop computer.

No court date has been set.

Lahey once oversaw a $15-million settlement with people who said they had been sexually abused by priests in the diocese, in a case dating back to 1950. [emphasis added]

Aloha,

Brad

[Thorgnor]

You just can`t trust that damn Lahey!!!

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Bye bye missing link. This is bound to muddy the waters.

Oldest "human" skeleton found - disproves "missing link"

Jamie Shreeve

National Geographic magazine

October 1, 2009

Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago (interactive time line: how the new discovery changes human evolutionary theory).

The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi's key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.

Announced at joint press conferences in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the analysis of the Ardipithecus ramidus bones will be published in a collection of papers tomorrow in a special edition of the journal Science, along with an avalanche of supporting materials published online.

"This find is far more important than Lucy," said Alan Walker, a paleontologist from Pennsylvania State University who was not part of the research. "It shows that the last common ancestor with chimps didn't look like a chimp, or a human, or some funny thing in between." (Related: "Oldest Homo Sapiens Fossils Found, Experts Say" [June 11, 2003].)

Ardi Surrounded by Family

The Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in Ethiopia's harsh Afar desert at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, just 46 miles (74 kilometers) from where Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was found in 1974. Radiometric dating of two layers of volcanic ash that tightly sandwiched the fossil deposits revealed that Ardi lived 4.4 million years ago.

Older hominid fossils have been uncovered, including a skull from Chad at least six million years old and some more fragmentary, slightly younger remains from Kenya and nearby in the Middle Awash.

While important, however, none of those earlier fossils are nearly as revealing as the newly announced remains, which in addition to Ardi's partial skeleton include bones representing at least 36 other individuals.

"All of a sudden you've got fingers and toes and arms and legs and heads and teeth," said Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, who co-directed the work with Berhane Asfaw, a paleoanthropologist and former director of the National Museum of Ethiopia, and Giday WoldeGabriel, a geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"That allows you to do something you can't do with isolated specimens," White said. "It allows you to do biology."

Ardi's Weird Way of Moving

The biggest surprise about Ardipithecus's biology is its bizarre means of moving about.

All previously known hominids—members of our ancestral lineage—walked upright on two legs, like us. But Ardi's feet, pelvis, legs, and hands suggest she was a biped on the ground but a quadruped when moving about in the trees.

Her big toe, for instance, splays out from her foot like an ape's, the better to grasp tree limbs. Unlike a chimpanzee foot, however, Ardipithecus's contains a special small bone inside a tendon, passed down from more primitive ancestors, that keeps the divergent toe more rigid. Combined with modifications to the other toes, the bone would have helped Ardi walk bipedally on the ground, though less efficiently than later hominids like Lucy. The bone was lost in the lineages of chimps and gorillas.

According to the researchers, the pelvis shows a similar mosaic of traits. The large flaring bones of the upper pelvis were positioned so that Ardi could walk on two legs without lurching from side to side like a chimp. But the lower pelvis was built like an ape's, to accommodate huge hind limb muscles used in climbing.

Even in the trees, Ardi was nothing like a modern ape, the researchers say.

Modern chimps and gorillas have evolved limb anatomy specialized to climbing vertically up tree trunks, hanging and swinging from branches, and knuckle-walking on the ground.

While these behaviors require very rigid wrist bones, for instance, the wrists and finger joints of Ardipithecus were highly flexible. As a result Ardi would have walked on her palms as she moved about in the trees—more like some primitive fossil apes than like chimps and gorillas.

"What Ardi tells us is there was this vast intermediate stage in our evolution that nobody knew about," said Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State University in Ohio, who analyzed Ardi's bones below the neck. "It changes everything."

Against All Odds, Ardi Emerges

The first, fragmentary specimens of Ardipithecus were found at Aramis in 1992 and published in 1994. The skeleton announced today was discovered that same year and excavated with the bones of the other individuals over the next three field seasons. But it took 15 years before the research team could fully analyze and publish the skeleton, because the fossils were in such bad shape.

After Ardi died, her remains apparently were trampled down into mud by hippos and other passing herbivores. Millions of years later, erosion brought the badly crushed and distorted bones back to the surface.

They were so fragile they would turn to dust at a touch. To save the precious fragments, White and colleagues removed the fossils along with their surrounding rock. Then, in a lab in Addis, the researchers carefully tweaked out the bones from the rocky matrix using a needle under a microscope, proceeding "millimeter by submillimeter," as the team puts it in Science. This process alone took several years.

Pieces of the crushed skull were then CT-scanned and digitally fit back together by Gen Suwa, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tokyo.

In the end, the research team recovered more than 125 pieces of the skeleton, including much of the feet and virtually all of the hands—an extreme rarity among hominid fossils of any age, let alone one so very ancient.

"Finding this skeleton was more than luck," said White. "It was against all odds."

Ardi's World

The team also found some 6,000 animal fossils and other specimens that offer a picture of the world Ardi inhabited: a moist woodland very different from the region's current, parched landscape. In addition to antelope and monkey species associated with forests, the deposits contained forest-dwelling birds and seeds from fig and palm trees.

Wear patterns and isotopes in the hominid teeth suggest a diet that included fruits, nuts, and other forest foods.

If White and his team are right that Ardi walked upright as well as climbed trees, the environmental evidence would seem to strike the death knell for the "savanna hypothesis"—a long-standing notion that our ancestors first stood up in response to their move onto an open grassland environment.

Sex for Food

Some researchers, however, are unconvinced that Ardipithecus was quite so versatile.

"This is a fascinating skeleton, but based on what they present, the evidence for bipedality is limited at best," said William Jungers, an anatomist at Stony Brook University in New York State.

"Divergent big toes are associated with grasping, and this has one of the most divergent big toes you can imagine," Jungers said. "Why would an animal fully adapted to support its weight on its forelimbs in the trees elect to walk bipedally on the ground?"

One provocative answer to that question—originally proposed by Lovejoy in the early 1980s and refined now in light of the Ardipithecus discoveries—attributes the origin of bipedality to another trademark of humankind: monogamous sex.

Virtually all apes and monkeys, especially males, have long upper canine teeth—formidable weapons in fights for mating opportunities.

But Ardipithecus appears to have already embarked on a uniquely human evolutionary path, with canines reduced in size and dramatically "feminized" to a stubby, diamond shape, according to the researchers. Males and female specimens are also close to each other in body size.

Lovejoy sees these changes as part of an epochal shift in social behavior: Instead of fighting for access to females, a male Ardipithecus would supply a "targeted female" and her offspring with gathered foods and gain her sexual loyalty in return.

To keep up his end of the deal, a male needed to have his hands free to carry home the food. Bipedalism may have been a poor way for Ardipithecus to get around, but through its contribution to the "sex for food" contract, it would have been an excellent way to bear more offspring. And in evolution, of course, more offspring is the name of the game (more: "Did Early Humans Start Walking for Sex?).

Two hundred thousand years after Ardipithecus, another species called Australopithecus anamensis appeared in the region. By most accounts, that species soon evolved into Australopithecus afarensis, with a slightly larger brain and a full commitment to a bipedal way of life. Then came early Homo, with its even bigger brain and budding tool use.

Did primitive Ardipithecus undergo some accelerated change in the 200,000 years between it and Australopithecus—and emerge as the ancestor of all later hominids? Or was Ardipithecus a relict species, carrying its quaint mosaic of primitive and advanced traits with it into extinction?

Study co-leader White sees nothing about the skeleton "that would exclude it from ancestral status." But he said more fossils would be needed to fully resolve the issue.

Stony Brook's Jungers added, "These finds are incredibly important, and given the state of preservation of the bones, what they did was nothing short of heroic.

But this is just the beginning of the story."

[Kanada Kev]

yayyyyyyyy Dog:

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Aie aie aie, where do you start with this one?

Conservative Bible Project Cuts Out Liberal Passages

Lo and behold, the Bible has gotten too liberal, according to a group of conservatives. And it needs a little editing.

That's the inspiration behind the Conservative Bible Project, which seeks to take the text back to its supposed right-wing roots.

Yes, even scripture is not orthodox enough for the modern conservative. Not that it's the fault of the author(s), exactly. The group cites a few reasons why the Bible is too progressive: "Lack of precision in the original language ... lack of precision in modern language" and "translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one."

So how can the Bible be conservatized? The group has proposed a Wikipedia-like group editing project. Some of the ideas would only bring the translation closer to the original. But others would fundamentally change the text.

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Among the words to be eliminated: "government." A conservative columnist at Beliefnet described the effort as "just crazy ... like what you'd get if you crossed the Jesus Seminar with the College Republican chapter at a rural institution of Bible learnin'."

A lot of this seems to be about re-coding the language to play into current hot button conservative issues, which they already do a lot of anyway, but number 8 just kills me.

Here , apparently, is said new "translation", complete with before-and-after versions.

[nibbler]

Have you read A.J. Jacobs: The Year of Living Biblically

He spent a year following the Bible literally- turns out to be a hilarious read: here's an excerpt from the book:

They shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them

Leviticus 20:27

Day 64. It’s been more than a month since my mixed fiber adventure. Time for me to tackle the second item on my list of Most Perplexing Laws. Capital Punishment.

The Hebrew scriptures prescribe a tremendous amount of capital punishment. Think Saudi Arabia, multiply by Texas, then triple that. It wasn’t just for murder. You could also be executed for adultery, blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath, perjury, incest, bestiality and witchcraft, among others. A rebellious son could be sentenced to death. As could a gluttonous or a drunkardly son.

The most commonly mentioned punishment method in the Hebrew Bible is stoning. So I figure, at the very least, I should try to stone. But how?

I can’t tell you how many people have suggested I get adulterers and blasphemers stoned in the cannabis sense. Which is an interesting idea. But I haven’t smoked pot since I was at Brown University and I wrote a paper for my anthropology class on the hidden symbolism of bong hits. (Brown was the type of college where this paper actually earned a B+).

Instead, I figured my loophole would be this: the bible doesn’t specify the size of the stones. So…pebbles.

A few days ago, I gathered a handful of small white pebbles from Central Park, which I stuffed in my back pants pocket. Now all I needed were some victims. I decide to start with Sabbath breakers. That’s easy enough to find in this workaholic city. I noticed a pot-bellied guy at the Avis down our block had worked on both Saturday and Sunday. So no matter what, he’s a Sabbath-breaker.

Here’s the thing, though: Even with pebbles, it is surprisingly hard to stone people.

My plan had been to walk nonchalantly past him and chuck the pebbles at the small of his back. But after a couple of failed passes, I realized it was a bad idea. A chucked pebble, no matter how small, does not go unnoticed.

My revised plan: I would pretend to be clumsy and drop the pebble on his shoe. So I did.

And in this way I stoned. But it was probably the most polite stoning in history – I said ‘I’m sorry,’ and then leaned down to pick up the pebble. And he leaned down at the same time, and we almost butted heads, and then he apologized, then I apologized again.

Highly unsatisfying.

Today, I get another chance. I am resting in a small public park on the Upper West Side, the kind where you see retirees eating tuna sandwiches on benches.

“Hey, you’re dressed queer.â€

I look over. The speaker is an elderly man, mid-70s I’d guess. He is tall and thin and is wearing of those caps that cabbies wore in movies from the Forties.

“You’re dressed queer,†he snarls. “Why you dressed so queer.†I have on my usual fringes, and, for good measure, have worn some sandals and am carrying a knotty maple walking stick I’d bought on the Internet for $25.

“I’m trying to live by the rules of the Bible. The 10 commandments, stoning adulterers…â€

“You’re stoning adulterers?â€

“Yeah, I’m stoning adulterers.â€

“I’m an adulterer.â€

“You’re currently an adulterer?â€

“Yeah. Tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, two weeks from now. You gonna stone me?â€

“If I could, yes, that’d be great.â€

“I’ll punch you in the face. I’ll send you to the cemetery.â€

He is serious. This isn’t a cutesy grumpy old man. This is an angry old man. This is a man with seven decades of hostility behind him.

I fish out my pebbles from my back pocket.

“I wouldn’t stone you with big stones,†I say. “Just these little guys.â€

I open my palm to show him the pebbles. He lunges at me, grabbing one out of my hand, then chucking it at my face. It whizzes by my cheek.

I am stunned for a second. I hadn’t expected this elderly man to make the first move. But now there is nothing stopping me from retaliating. An eye for an eye.

I take one of the remaining pebbles and whip it at his chest. It bounces off.

“I’ll punch you right in the kisser,†he say.

“Well, you really shouldn’t commit adultery,†I say.

We stare at each other. My heart is racing.

Yes, he is a septuagenarian. Yes, he had just threatened me using corny Honeymooners dialogue. But you could tell: This man has a strong dark side.

Our glaring contest lasts ten seconds, then he walks away, brushing by me as he leaves.

When I was a kid, I saw an episode of All in the Family in which Meathead -- Rob Reiner’s wussy peacenik character -- socked some guy in the jaw. Meathead was very upset about this. But he wasn’t upset that he committed violence; he was upset because it felt so good to commit violence.

I can relate. Even though mine was a Stoning Lite, barely fulfilling the letter of the law, I can’t deny: It felt good to chuck a rock at this nasty old man. It felt primal. It felt like I was getting vengeance on him. This guy wasn’t just an adulterer, he was a bully. I wanted him to feel the pain he’d inflicted on others, even if that pain was a tap on the chest.

Like Meathead, I also knew that this was a morally stunted way to feel. Stoning is about as indefensible as you can get. It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality? Later that week, I ask my spiritual adviser Yossi about stoning. Yossi was born in the Midwest, and calls himself a “Jewtheran†– Jewish guilt and Lutheran repression mesh nicely, he told me. He’s an ordained Orthodox rabbi, but never practiced, instead opting for the shmatta trade – he sold scarves to, among others, the Amish. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with a neatly-trimmed beard. In his spare time, writes wry essays about Jewish life, including a lament about how his favorite snack, Twinkies, recently became non-kosher. I met him through Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox outreach group. He isn’t fazed by my question at all.

We don’t stone people today because you need a Biblical theocracy to enforce the stoning. No such society exists today. But even in ancient times, stoning wasn’t barbaric.

“First of all, you didn’t just heave stones,†says Yossi. “The idea was to minimize the suffering. What we call ‘stoning’ was actually pushing the person off the cliff so they would die immediately upon impact. The Talmud actually has specifications on how high the cliff must be. Also, the person getting executed was given strong drink to dull the pain.â€

Plus, the stonings were a rare thing. Some rabbis say executions only occurred once every seven years, others say even less often. There had to be two witnesses to the crime. And the adulterer had to be tried by a council of 70 elders. And weirdly, the verdict of those 70 elders could not be unanimous– that might be a sign of corruption or brainwashing. And so on.

I half-expected Yossi to say they gave the adulterer a massage and a gift bag. He made a compelling case. And yet, I’m not totally sold. Were ancient times really so merciful? I suspect there might be some whitewashing going on. As my year progresses, I’ll need to delve deeper.

[hamilton]

I read that last year; it's a great book - entertaining, informative, non-judgmental and touching.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Agreed - it was one of those ones I felt perfectly happy passing on to the inlaws . I loved his approach - very balanced, conscientious, and informative. The bit about the Hasidic dance party I really remember well.