Section 5: History doesn't back the bible up

I'm sure most of you know the biblical story of Moses who spoke to the burning bush and freed the Jewish slaves from Egypt. He parted the red sea and drowned the Pharaoh along with his army, or so the bible would have you believe. The bible then talks about the Jews toiling in the desert until they came upon Jerusalem where they settled. Funny thing is, archaeology doesn't back this story up. See the important thing to note about this story as opposed to others in the bible is a matter of records. For most other civilisations around the time record keeping was spotty at best, and a lot of the records that were created have been lost to time as a result of wars or fires or other disasters. On the other hand, the Egyptians kept records about everything, and boy do I mean EVERYTHING! The good, the bad and the neutral, it didn't matter what it was or how it reflected on them, they recorded it. There were records for each years grain supplies, how many slaves they had, where each army was, who was in it, who did what, where and when. EVERY last little thing, recorded on stone no less, preserved for all of time.

Funny thing about the Egyptian records, they mention absolutely nothing about losing thousands of slaves, a parting of a sea or losing an entire army and the Pharaoh (who remember was to the ancient Egyptians considered a god himself) to drowning. We have a group of people who are meticulous about keeping records about everything and they mention not one word about something as huge as thousands of slaves escaping, or the drowning of a Pharaoh or the drowning of an entire army? I mean think about it for a moment, the Egyptians were so good at keeping records that we use them to help validate and get greater insight into other cultures at the time, with whom they traded. It really isn't reasonable to think they'd leave out such important events in history, and have those events as the ONLY events that are left out of record. So one can pretty safely conclude if the Egyptians didn't record it happening then it must be a little bit bullshit...

Nokia have recently announced the brand new N8 as coming soon on their Australian website and this is certainly not a phone to be snubbed. If when looking at the N8 you were confused as to whether it was actually a rather pointy looking iphone you'd be forgiven, and surely this is an outright attempt by Nokia to grab some of the smart phone market away from Apple. I must say that a lack of physical keyboard be it full qwerty or otherwise is a bit of a disappointment for me, there is something rather annoying to me about virtual keypads.

Another disappointing feature is that the N8 will only ship with a stylus in the box to SOME "SELECTED" countries, meaning those outside of the "selected" countries will have to either purchase a stylus separately or just use their fingers. And while the phone is purpose built to be able to use your fingers to control it, I find it unfair that some countries will have the stylus bundled.

But these two faults are where the negatives end and the N8 really starts to shine. Weighing in at just 135g (with battery) it's light enough to carry in your pocket, and comes in Silver, dark grey and green. The screen will auto adjust it's brightness depending on the amount of ambient light, there is an inbuilt compass. Home screens allow a custom mixture of shortcuts and widgets to make your experience completely personalised, but nokia haven't just stopped there; instead they have given you 3 home screens to customise for different times in your day/life. For example much like you can have different ring tones and sms alert tones for work or personal time on most modern mobiles, the Nokia N8 can now have different home screens for work and for your personal life. This allows you to have the widgets and shortcuts providing the information you need when you need it.

Network wise the phone has GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA (CAT 5 & 9) support with the GSM mode working on 850/900/1800/1900 bands and the WCDMA mode working on 850/900/1700/1900/2100 bands, and automatic switching between GSM and WCDMA modes means this phone can be used basically anywhere on the planet on any network making it perfect for those whom travel. There is support for the brand new Bluetooth 3.0 and HDMI, Micro USB (Data and charging), 2mm charging connection and 3.5mm AV connection ports. The phone has an inbuilt FM transmitter allowing you to listen to music from the phone in your car wirelessly. If of course has an FM tuner as well, although I think a digital radio tuner might have been more fitting. The phone even has Wifi b/g/n support.

With 16GB of internal memory and support for up to 32GB of memory with a MicroSD card there isn't a lot you can't fit on this phone. There is the flexibility to store almost as much music, photos and video as you like. The battery also boasts some pretty impressive stats, with 720 minutes of talk time and 50 HOURS of music play back, this isn't a phone that's going to be warning of flat batteries on that critical call. Software wise the phone comes with a full html (4.1) browser, Flash lite 4.0, Quick time 4.6.2, Java, OMA DM 1.2 and OMA Client provisioning 1.1. And there is of course all the usuals like calendar, contacts, Ovi Store, messaging etc.

Email is supported and rather predictably has a customisable home screen widget. WebTV is supported allowing access to your favourite web shows from anywhere you can get a signal. There is even an office document editor and a VIDEO and photo editor! Chat wise the phone has inbuilt support for Ovi Chat, Yahoo!, AIM, Windows Live, Google Talk and Myspace which covers basically everyone you know right? Get a Nokia N8 and you not only get both GPS and A-GPS receivers, but you also get FREE turn by turn navigation for, wait for it, LIFE! That's right, you never have to pay to update your GPS maps again! And where GPS isn't available, the N8 will attempt to locate you via wifi!

Now for the REALLY cool stuff; the phone comes with a 12 megapixel camera meaning you can take both photos and video in FULL HD!!! Right on your mobile phone!! In wide screen!!! Score!! There is also a second VGA (640 x 480 pixels) camera on the front for video calls. A dedicated camera button makes taking photos and video easy as point and shoot. But why only please your eyes when you can also stimulate your ears? The N8 comes with Dolby Digital Plus! Now music and movies will sound superb where ever you are. Gaming is another winner, with the phone boasting a dedicated graphics processor supporting openGL 2.0, or in otherwords, gaming on the mobile phone just got serious!

Green consumers will be pleased to note the phone 80% recyclable and the full user guide is displayed digitally on the device or on the web. The box contains the N8 smart phone (or mobile computer as Nokia are billing it), a Nokia BL-4D battery, a Nokia connectivity cable, a Nokia stereo headset, a compact travel charger, adaptor cables for HDMI and USB and for "selected" countries a stylus. No word yet on a release date, but the Nokia N8 is certainly a phone to keep an eye and an ear out for.

In part for I explore the nature of Jesus in relation to the Jewish faith and how it stacks up historically. Oh and I must apologise for the lateness of this entry.

Section 4: A Jewish God

You know Jerusalem, being the holey city of “god” isn't named that way by accident. In fact at the time Jesus was born Judaism was widely practised in the general region, and weirdly enough worships the same god as other Christian religions. Fact of the matter is the early factions of Judaism are the source of all modern Christianity, including Catholicism and Islam, so in actual fact all Christians worship a Jewish god. In the first 6 decades of the first century CE, Judaism was actually comprised of roughly 24 competing factions, one of which being the followers of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus of Nazareth in English). It is interesting to note that the Synoptic gospels and Gospel of John mention that the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus) very closely matched those of a rabbi named Hillel who lived in the second half of the 1st century BCE, generations BEFORE Yeshua's (Jesus) birth! On a quick side note, they also interestingly continue by stating that Yeshua (Jesus) was charged with what we today would called “aggravated assault” against merchants in the temple, which was considered treason or insurrection by the Roman forces. Both Gospels give that as the reason why Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified and not the outlandish jealousy and insecurity by the king, stated in most modern Christian bibles.

But back to the origins of Christianity in Judaism; in 70 CE the Roman army attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. This devastating blow disrupted Jewish life and caused two new movements to emerge, that of the rabbinical Judaism which was centered in local synagogues, and the early Christian movement. Some of Yeshua's (Jesus') followers, and some who although never meeting Yeshua were inspired by his teachings, settled in Jerusalem. Others spread across what was the then known world, but all of whom, come even within the same city, taught very different messages and held vastly different views on who Jesus was and what he did. So there you go, if you're a christian, you're actually a Jew, because you worship a Jewish god. And the teachings of Jesus were both inline with those already established at the time AND distorted by his followers. Just another reason the bible is just a little bit bullshit...

Russian politician Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claimed on April 26ths edition of a popular russian Tv show that he had been abducted by aliens in 1997. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been the serving president of Kalmykia for the past 17 years. Without any further proof, the interview has sparked concern in Russian parliament with Russian MP Andre Lebedev calling on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to conduct an inquiry into the claims with fears Kirsan Ilyumzhinov may have given away "state secrets" to his alien abductors.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claimed in his Channel One interview that he was falling asleep when he heard someone call him from the balcony. Upon investigating he supposedly found a "spaceship" which was a "half-transparent half tube". Somehow (he didn't explain how) Kirsan claims to have then entered the "spaceship" where he was greeted by "human-like creatures in yellow spacesuits". According to the eccentric politician the aliens then gave him a tour of their spaceship. When asked about communicating with them Kirsan stated "I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps, it was on a level of the exchange of ideas".

On a personal note, while I certainly believe in life on other planets. And could be persuaded to believe in extra-terrestrial life visiting our planet, I find Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's claims completely laughable. It is interesting that this supposed event took place whilst under his own admission he was falling asleep. I think it is far more likely that Mr Ilyumzhinov dreamed the whole event and none of it actually took place. I find it both highly amusing and concerning that Andre Lebedev is worried about aliens gaining state secrets without any actual proof beyond his own word, that aliens ever visited Mr Ilyumzhinov.

Links;

News.com.au
The Sun

I think we can all agree the environment is in an advanced state of disrepair; and likewise I'm sure most rational people can, irrelevant of cause conclude that our climate is changing. That the polar ice caps are disappearing, that permafrost is melting and global weather is acting at best a little bit odd.

WARNINGIf you're one of the minority of people whom still hasn't come to terms with these basic and observable occurrences then I'd say there isn't much point in you reading this post as you haven't caught up with everyone else yet. If you fall into this category I suggest you do a little research or even better go outside and see for yourself.

At this point for most rational thinking people, climate change has become a very real thing; the argument now seems to be centered around what is causing the problem, and how long is left before everything goes extremely pear shaped. To this argument I pose the following ideas which I hope might spur people to get passed arguing and into action.

(1) Science has been warning us about climate change since the mid-70s. That means we've had almost 40 years to argue, fuss and debate out the issue. 40 years is a long time for inaction, in fact its a longer time period than I am old! I find it sad that it's only really in the last 5 or so years, when the effects have become extremely apparent, that the mainstream and governments have actually started to take climate change seriously. I am concerned that it will take “doomsday”, when it's too late before everyone stops arguing about it and is prepared to actually take action.

(2) It seems to me that climate change has become the new religious debate, where people are more worried about the differences, rather than the commonalities. If a meteor was plummeting towards the earth, would we all sit around debating what caused the meteor to plummet toward the earth? Or would we simply trust the scientists whom specialise in the area and I don't know, at least do something, based on their advice to attempt to stop the meteor? I mean would we honestly sit around using the economy as an excuse as to why we can't act against the meteor? It seems to me that we have thousands of climatologists, geologists and other assorted specialising scientists whom are warning about climate change. Doesn't it make sense to listen to the people who go out and research these things, whose job is to know about this stuff? The same people whom warned us almost 40 years ago, that the stuff that is happening with the climate now would happen?

(3) To me, it makes absolute perfect sense to realise that look the climate is stuffed, there are some big changes happening that in all likelihood will effect the land masses (and thus all life upon those land masses, including humans) of this planet in multiple ways. And under such conditions we need to put our own insecurities and arguments to the side and look just do something to fix the problem. It seems insanely logical in such a situation to trust and look to the people for whom not only is it their job to know about this stuff, but whom have predicted, through science everything that has happened climate wise so far.

(4) Does action mean, in part, we need to do things that affect the economy in a negative way? Sure, but take the following into consideration. The economy will be negatively effected regardless of what we do. If we act against climate change with regard for this theory about solar flares, we still would need to take steps which will cost jobs and negatively impact the economy. If we act against climate change with the theory it's a natural process through which the earth is continually undergoing, guess what, still will cost jobs, still will negatively impact the economy. And if we do nothing, if we don't act, people are not only going to lose their jobs, but whole sections of countries (their homes) and even for some, their lives. How do you reckon that is going to impact the economy? We need to be sensible here, the economy is going to be negatively impacted, people are going to lose their jobs whatever we do. With that in mind doesn't it make sense it minimise the damage to both our economy and our planet?
(5) Ultimately what is the point in arguing about this? How does it benefit us in any way, shape or form? The global economy as we know it needs to collapse before we can rebuild it stronger and more environmentally friendly. Heck, even without climate change this needs to happen given currently we have a global economy running on oil, and we passed peak oil in 2005. Think about how much money could be made from a clean, and more importantly unlimited energy source? Particularly when the cost of producing the energy is a mere fraction of what energy costs to produce now. Think of how many jobs that single industry would create in maintenance, research and development, installation and infrastructure and so forth. Research and Development alone would be a massive employment sector for decades to come as we develop new and more efficient ways to extract neutral energy from our environment. Now thing of all the industries such a change would touch, and all the new industries that would spring up because of it. I guess what I'm essentially trying to say here is that in the long term tackling climate change could mean more jobs then we have in our economy now.

I would really like to hear a logical, well thought-out argument for inaction on climate change, so I'm throwing out the challenge, someone please, convince me why we should sit around with our thumbs up our butts from another decade while the planet crumbles around us. But if you're unable to meet the challenge, then you have no choice but to concede inaction is stupidity, arguing about this is stupidity and NOT listening to those whom have been warning about these events occurring for near on 40 years is stupidity.

Links;

ABC.com News