| • USA HOCKEY OPEN BOOK REFEREE EXAM! can you please help!? |
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1. A team does NOT have on-ice strength affected whenever a misconduct penalty is assessed.
True False
2. The non-offending team inadvertently scores into it's own goal during a delayed penalty. The goal is allowed.
True False
3. If play is stopped because of an apparent player injury, the player, other than the goalkeeper, is required to leave the playing area until play has resumed.
True False
4. The puck is being played in the attacking zone. The blue line is part of:
(a) only the Neutral Zone.
(b) only the zone that the puck is in.
(c) both the Neutral Zone and the zone in which the puck is being played.
5. Which penalty may NOT be assessed for illegal contact to an opponent's head?
(a) minor penalty.
(b) double minor penalty.
(c) major penalty.
6. The goal posts should be anchored only if they will become dislodged when a normal degree of force is applied by a player sliding into the post. This is true because of Rule:
(a) 103(a)
(b) 103(b)
(c) 103(e)
7. Play must be stopped whenever a penalty is signaled and the offending team gains possession and control of the puck.
True False
8. GIRLS HOCKEY. Mouthpieces must be worn in Girls classifications (excluding Seniors):
(a) starting at 12-or-under, and older.
(b) starting at 14-or-under, and older.
(c) All age classifications.
9. When icing is completed, the rear Official blows his whistle.
True False
10. Under the Standard of Play Initiative, a defensive player in front of the net may use his body position and strength to gain an advantageous body position on his opponent. This is allowed as long as he does NOT use his arms or stick to create space between him and his opponent or use his stick to impede his opponent's ability to move in a desired direction.
True False
11. The following simplified procedure determines which penalty, if any, terminates with the scoring of a goal.
# At the time of the goal, is the scored-upon team below the on-ice numerical strength of the scoring team because of a time penalty?
# At the time of the goal, is at least one penalty which is then being served by the scored-upon team a non coincident minor or bench minor penalty (being displayed on the penalty clocks)?
If the answer to both questions is YES, then the minor penalty with the least time remaining on the penalty clocks terminates.
In the following situation, determine which player, if any, returns to the ice once the goal is scored.
CLOCK TIMETeam "A"Team "B"
5:00X - 2 min
4:30 P - 2 min
3:30 Goal Scored
(a) Player "X" returns to the ice.
(b) Player "P" returns to the ice.
(c) No penalty may be terminated.
12. A player checks an opponent that is no longer in "possession and control" of the puck. This action is penalized under what rule?
(a) 606(a)
(b) 640(b)
(c) 621(a)
13. Which of the following would NOT result in a Misconduct penalty?
(a) Mouthpiece violation.
(b) Profane language by the Coach.
(c) Player throws equipment out of the rink.
14. Penalty options for "High Sticking" include a minor, major, and major plus game misconduct penalty.
True False
15. FROM THE BASIC MANUAL
These situations simulate play during a Youth game under a two-Official system.
For an end zone face-off at one of the two circular spots, the Official NOT conducting the face-off should be positioned:
(a) on the goal line.
(b) directly opposite the face-off location.
(c) in the vicinity of the closer blue line.
16. Under the Standard of Play Initiative, which of the following actions does NOT warrant a minor or major penalty for slashing?
(a) contact is made on the glove of the opponent, causing them to momentarily lose control of the puck.
(b) contact is made on the body of the opponent in an intimidating manner.
(c) contact is made on the lower portion of the opponent's stick for the purpose of dislodging the puck.
17. If the puck is directed into the goal by the skate of an attacking player, the goal is allowed.
True False
18. If three players from the same team are on the penalty bench serving non-coincident minor penalties assessed at different times, when the first penalty time expires:
(a) the player whose penalty has expired returns to the game immediately.
(b) nobody returns to the game and the third penalty time begins.
(c) all players must remain on the penalty bench until the next stoppage of play.
19. The following simplified procedure determines which penalty, if any, terminates with the scoring of a goal.
# At the time of the goal, is the scored-upon team below the on-ice numerical strength of the scoring team because of a time penalty?
# At the time of the goal, is at least one penalty which is then being served by the scored-upon team a non coincident minor or bench minor penalty (being displayed on the penalty clocks)?
If the answer to both questions is YES, then the minor penalty with the least time remaining on the penalty c
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| • do you believe the bible is a fact based book? ? |
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Archaeologist says he found oldest Hebrew writingAP – In this photo taken on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008, Archeologist Yossi Garfinkel displays a ceramic shard bearing …
HIRBET QEIYAFA, Israel – An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old pottery shard — a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based on written texts.
A teenage volunteer discovered the curved shard bearing five lines of faded characters in July in the ruins of an ancient town on a hilltop south of Jerusalem. Yossi Garfinkel, the Israeli archaeologist leading the excavations at Hirbet Qeiyafa, released his conclusions about the writing Thursday after months of study.
He said the relic is strong evidence that the ancient Israelites were literate and could chronicle events centuries before the Bible was written. This could suggest that some of the Bible's accounts were based on written records as well as oral traditions — adding credence to arguments that the Biblical account of history is more than myth.
The shard was found near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.
The Israelites were not the only ones using the proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult — perhaps impossible — to conclude the text is Hebrew. However, Garfinkel based his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning "to do," a word he said existed only in Hebrew.
"That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found," he said.
Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and near the ruins of Goliath's hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath.
Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site as the pottery shard helped archaeologists date it to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of King David's rule in Jerusalem.
Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David's time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to argue the Bible's account of the period inflates the importance of him and his kingdom. Some have even suggested his kingdom may not have existed at all.
But the fortified settlement where the writing was found contains indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed near Jerusalem in David's time, says Garfinkel.
If his claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible's accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was recorded in the Old Testament several hundred years later.
Modern Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a way of strengthening the Jewish claim to Israel and regarded David's kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. As a result, finding evidence of his rule has importance beyond its interest to scholars.
The script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years. History's best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later.
The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including "judge," "slave" and "king." The inscription was shown to other scholars at a peer presentation of the findings.
Some scholars are hesitant to embrace Garfinkel's interpretation, and his findings are already being wielded in the ongoing debate over whether the Bible — written hundreds of years after many of its events are supposed to have occurred — is more fact or legend. But the find is certain, at the very least, to prove useful in understanding the development of language and ancient alphabets.
Other prominent Biblical archaeologists warned against jumping to conclusions.
Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription is "very important," but suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far.
"The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear," he said.
If the inscription is Hebrew, it would connect the Hirbet Qeiyafa settlement to the Israelites and make the text "one of the most important texts, without a doubt, in the corpus of Hebrew inscriptions," said Aren Maier, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist.
While the site is likely to add another "building block" to the historical record, archaeologist Israe
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| • psychology (Basics of the Nervous System) help me with my study guide? |
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1. Researchers can now see actual thought processes by measuring _____________.
neuron exchanges in the brain
spikes in the brain’s electrical currents
increases in blood flow and oxygen to different parts of the brain
past and present research on the brain
2. __________ is an older technique for monitoring brain activity.
3. PET’s and PECT’s commonly use _______________ materials such as oxygen, fluorine, carbon, and nitrogen. (1 point)
radioactively labeled
non-invasive
naturally occurring
deadly
4. In PET scans, the breakdown of radioactive materials in the body and the release of gamma rays produce a ____________ view of the brain.
5. Local police detectives are trying to determine their victim’s cause of death. They suspect that the victim might have died as a result of trauma to the head and brain. Which of the following brain imaging techniques would be most useful in this case?
MRI
fMRI
PET
EEG
For questions 6-10, fill in the blank with the letter of the description that best matches the type of brain scan.
Descriptions
A. Uses electrodes placed on the scalp to detect and measure patterns of electrical activity emanating from the brain
B. Uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce high-quality two- or three-dimensional images of brain structures without injecting radioactive tracers
C. Detects changes in blood flow to particular areas of the brain to provide both an anatomical and a functional view of the brain
D. A scanner detects radioactive material that is injected or inhaled to produce an image of the brain
E. Uses a series of X-ray beams that are passed through the head
6. MRI
7. CT
8. fMRI
9. PET
10. EEG
best answer will be awarded
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| • Voting Question: Is it worth becoming legally independent on taxes to claim residency in a state for college? |
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I'm 20 years old, I haven't lived home for more than three consecutive months in about a year. Since July I've lived in Delaware in my own apartment that I have paid for. I own I car, that I pay for.
However, I'm still claimed as a dependent on my parents tax returns (in New Jersey), I'm still on their health and auto insurance, my car is still registered in NJ and I still have an NJ drivers license.
I'm wondering if it would make financial sense (in order to get in state tuition at the university of delaware) to file my own taxes and get health and auto insurance in my own name in order to claim residency in delaware. By the time next year starts (when I plan to enroll at university of del) I will have lived 12 consecutive months at a permanent location (my current apartment).
However, my parent's still have cosigned on my student loans, my car loan, and my apartment application, so I'm wondering if that will prevent me from claiming residency in order to gain in state tuiton. *(mainly because it says ' (4) does not receive financial educational assistance in any form based solely or in part on the income, assets and liability of parents,' so i'm wondering if them cosigning on my loans is considered a 'liability'
Here's some more info from the college website.
C. Independent shall mean a person who meets all of the following conditions: (1) has attained the age of 18 years or is married, (2) has established and maintained a domicile separate from that of his or her parents for at least twelve consecutive full months as of the first day of classes in the semester or session for which classification as a Delaware student is sought, (3) is not claimed as a dependant for federal income tax purposes by any other person in any jurisdiction, (4) does not receive financial educational assistance in any form based solely or in part on the income, assets and liability of parents, and (5) demonstrates the ability to provide tuition and a minimum of his or her living expenses without financial support from his or her parent or relative.
" Section 3. Qualification as a Delaware Student
To qualify as a Delaware student the person on whom the classification depends must have been domiciled in Delaware for at least twelve consecutive full months as of the first day of classes in the semester or session for which the classification is sought. Such classification shall apply for the entire semester or session and thereafter until changed. It shall be the student's responsibility to notify the University of any change in circumstances that might result in termination of Delaware student status and such classification shall terminate one year after the person on whom the classification depends ceases to be a domiciliary of Delaware.
Section 4. Types of Evidence Considered in Determining Delaware Domiciliary Status
A. Although each case shall be decided on the basis of all information submitted by the student, the following facts regarding the person on whom the classification depends, although not conclusive, have probative value in support of a claim of domicile:
place of residence;
the person's purpose in establishing residence in Delaware;
full-time employment in Delaware or contiguous area which results in residence in Delaware;
filing of Delaware resident income tax returns;
B. The following are not necessarily sufficient evidence of domicile:
payment of property or income tax in Delaware;
ownership of real property in Delaware;
registration to vote in Delaware;
possession of a Delaware driver's license;
motor vehicle registration in Delaware;
continued presence in Delaware during periods when the University is not in session."
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| • Bad Depression; How can life go on? |
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I am currently 18 years old, and I suffer from great paranoia in terms of my intelligence as well as depression and...unfortunately...bad teeth. You see, ever since I was little and was exposed to bad circumstances that soon became horrible memories of brushing my teeth, I just...stopped. And now, about 11 years later, my teeth are looking kind of bad. What looks like plague sits on my two front teeth right at the gums, going down about an 2-3 centimeters. At the bottom section of my jaw, the lower teeth, barely noticeable plague. Also, my gums are turning kind of red, and I can feel my teeth slightly move.
Now, my depression is mainly amplified by my teeth. I have never dated although I have been asked out. I am relatively handsome (so some girls say) and I can be a funny guy, however I believe I also have trouble talking (My tongue can kind of, although I can't explain it, stall or stumble and cause me to spout meaningless words as I panic) although no one has ever said anything about it. People tend to say I mutter a lot, which may be true because I'm technically afraid to pronounce my words due to my teeth. Also, when I was young, the string (whatever the name is) at the bottom of my tongue had to be cut because it was too short. Because of that, I couldn't speak for a week or so. I wonder if its a residual effect of that.
I also begin to achieve a high level of paranoia about my intelligence as at times I can view the world in a dull light (although I never remember viewing the world as such in the past; might be new and all in my mind. My mind might be doing all of this due to my depression). I have taken about 3 IQ tests on the internet. First was 87, and drowned me even further. Second was 108, and the third was 113. Which is correct I don't know... I sometimes wonder if I'm partly mentally retarded, if even at an low to intermediate level. I can have trouble thinking of words when I'm talking, but when i'm typing I have time to think and my brain can jump around tossing ideas around, and I can craft very intelligent peices of text.
I tend to sink into this black pit every now and then, and I can come out and into a blisful mood for quite some time, until something sends me back into a depressing state. What also adds to this is that I am currently in year 12 with 32 days of school left, and exams shortly after that. I am a B & C student, and I could achieve higher results but I am really lazy I have to admit. When I do put the work in, I can achieve in the low 90's, or even the high 90's. And to add to this the work pressure and that fact I'm addicted to games (part because of my depression, the other because I'm a pure gamer) Now, with my grades and the occasional D over the past two years, I fear about university. I really am inclined and have my mind set on taking Economics as a major. Perhaps IT as a minor. But will I get in...
I am on the occasion considering suicide, and when i'm driving my mind can access the corners of the road, the islands, etc and guess what would happen if I were to suddenly and easily turn the wheel and go careening off the road. Would I die? Oh how easy it would be to do it!!
I have a small crush on some girls in my school, and two of them I believe may have one on me. However, with my paranoia this may be false. One likes to indulge in conversations with me, and of course I believe I sound unintelligent so I will either converse or say a few words and get back to doing what I was currently doing prior to the interruption. The other tosses smiles my way, and sits to the left of me in Math class. Her eyes can tend to wander over to me.
Unfortunately, I take great measures in making sure I keep a barrier between me and the rest of my peers. This tends to come as no hard feat as well given that I am typically a loner and a quiet guy by nature (if I do have trouble speaking, this could be why? Conversational skills at a minimum???). Every time I glance at these girls, my heart pierces at the thought I'll never get to date. I'll never know true happiness. And with the prom coming up in November or so, I have had a couple girls subletly and casually ask me If I was going to the prom after asking my opinion on a dress. Part of me wants to go. The other part of me warns against it, and knows it will be a disastrous mistake if I go (dancing with someone bare inches from my teeth and perhaps bad breath?)
I have currently thought about going to a dentist to look over my teeth, however I know that if it is bad, I will be crushed. I do NOT want dentures, and implants are expensive and I cannot afford them. I have not told my family about my condition of depression (even after 6 years of having depression, they have not yet noticed) and of my bad teeth. I am afraid if I tell my family, they will never look at me in the same light again, nor treat me the same.
I am an insecure guy as it is, without this building up. If my teeth are bad, and nothing presents its
My parents don't even know, nevertheless will pay for it. I won't let them find out if I can help it...
Thank you Kelly W. I've been thinking about it, and I may schedule a fake "I'm going to work for a few hours today" line to my parents so they are oblivious to what I am actually attempting.
Though the hard part is in actually 'going'. Wrestling up the courage is the hard part. Especially given I live in a small town of around 2 thousand or less, and everyone can know everyone else.
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| • SHOULD I REALLY KILL MYSELF? |
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Before I even get started; please don't post ANY websites or phone numbers if those links or numbers require any information or registration from me. If you are going to answer this question, please answer it in full in your post or suggestion, without you providing further information that I would have to surf away from this thread. I think its really crappy of some people to exploit people who are in serious need of answers, by giving out advertisement links or spam that can only make things worse. If you think you must post a link, at least explain the link and make sure that I don't have to provide ANY information if I go to your crappy site to find answers. Again, please do not provide me with any links that will require me to register or give any information to help me. I am seeking Answers, not more things to do.
I am considering quietly murdering myself because of several issues that have mounted on top of each other in a large unsolvable stink of a pile.
1. I have a very extensive criminal record that is for the most part not sealable. I have never murdered anyone, but i have a felony that I am a fugitive from - a drug charge from over seven years ago. I was not dealing, but we did have medication in a car I was in. I have a few misdemeanors on my record. I also have several dismissed cases that I cannot afford to get sealed.
2. I am disabled by state approval, it is hard for me to work. I am highly antisocial and do not get along well with anyone.
3. I am ugly and skinny and male. I am an adult. Because I have no money to take care of my teeth, the deep scars on my face, and my body getting older, I have serious issues all around. I am balding, I have distended muscles. Most of my problems come from damage in aging and I have no support from others to help me back to mental and physical health.
4. I have ABSOLUTELY no family support and no friend support. As a result of something my parents did to me in my life, I have suffered immeasurable trauma, which has caused serious further issues.
5. I am likely 100,000 dollars in debt and I own NOTHING worth equity. My debt includes repossessions and loans insurmountable b/c I cannot work a job. The debts are only getting worse but luckily I can't afford much any more.
6. I have no degree worth more than minimum wage, noone will hire me b/c of a criminal background unexpungable, and b/c I am in such poor health.
7. B/C I have no money except for the disability check I get each month and food stamps, I have little left for myself and for anything extra. It is nearly impossible to wash clothes, or do anything else but sit at home and let the bills rack up.
8. I am in current criminal trouble b/c someone took advantage of my living situation. I wrote a bad check from a closed bank account that I had, I did not know I wrote the check on the closed account. When I found out the person was trying to steal from me, I reported it. However, they reported the check to the police later. I cannot afford small claims, an attorney, assistance, phone calls, and I cannot afford probation.
9. I would rather not be homeless. I live in a small shack of an apartment and I live alone. I cannot afford a pet.
It is true that I am looking for a simple answer, or if the answer is not simple - then just one answer that will make it all better. Perhaps there IS NO ANSWER. I don't care if there are plenty of others like me, I don't care about them, I care about me. If I cared about them and if I had anything to offer the homeless or others, I would. I don't care about 'having an attitude of gratitude', that makes things worse and doesn't pay bills.
Based on these issues, I feel like killing myself could be one possible solution that would make everything be solved. Since I don't have any family looking after me or wanting me to be part of their lives, and since I don't have a circle of friends, death is one viable answer. That is to say that I don't foresee myself becoming someone who is going to be socially acceptable any time soon because of severe physical issues and physical damage, my debt issues, my issues with trauma and people, and my overall life with finances and legal issues.
I realize that I am looking for something that will finally amount to anything in my life. Everything that I have had in my life has either gone, turned on me, or turned into something not worth having.
I am looking for one answer, possibly, that would make a difference in my life. Working at min. wage job at my age, in my thirties, is hardly an option b/c i do not want to be around others who are of the same poor health, or teenagers who wine, or people who are needy. I am sick of people who see that I am damaged and further try to damage me or steal from me. Yes, I am paranoid of people b/c I live in the USA and we are taught to be needy and selfish to others; entrepeuneurial or whatever. I am alone and only older people who are worse than me seem to want to hang out. I write a little bit, but it just seems as if when things sometimes may start to look upward, something else always happens.
God is NOT going to help unless IT finally reveals ITSELF to me after thirty and more years of praying and nothing happening and feeling guilty for something that does not exist, praying does not help, and I have played the lottery and not won. I do not feel down or as if I am being irrational, I am not being pessimistic here but I am being rational about solutions. I am tired of being at the bottom of everything. I want a difference in my own life that does not relate others trying to help me as if I owe them anything. I am not looking for acceptance, just something that says I matter here, because there is just one bad thing after another in my long life of bull. I understand that if I tackle one problem at a time I will be okay, but I'm just tired of doing that. I don't want to wait and wait for problems to get better. I need something that will make one noticeable difference in my life, and something that will give me incentive to take all of the other harsh things in my life in stride so much that they will get solved quicker.
I do own a van but it's not worth much at all. I own a personal computer but it's crap. I own a television and a leather couch. I own clothes, and some other crap. But I can't do anything with them really. I'm lost.
My former college found out I had a criminal record, they expelled me. I got back into a community college but can't do much with it right now. Last year I got out of a five year relationship that was really really bad b/c the other person was also disabled like me. She stopped by the other day after things were looking up, and it really caused me to go into a downward spiral again. I started coldcalling all the connections I was starting to make. I wish she would leave me alone, but I made the mistake of calling her to talk and lie to her to throw her off the scent about what I was doing with my life now. I told her I was engaged and the new woman was pregnant. I feel really alone and powerless like I did when I was with her. I am glad I ended it with her. Not that I am better than anyone, but its people like that who have severely damage my life all along. I guess that is one good thing that I am finally getting away from people like that.
Thank you Mike, Big, Zia for your words of encouragement and honesty. I want to improve though it seems like I have one unsolvable problem after another. I think you have good answers that are rational and well thought. After I wrote my very long description last night, I laid down and eventually I fell to sleep. I think it is right to look at any answer that may or might not help me, including death. I don't believe in a power outside myself though it is true I constantly look outside myself for answers. It is true that I like things to be easy. I do like a challenge. Maybe a few more days can't hurt. If I hustle, maybe, just maybe, I can come up out of this huge pile of issues. I guess at least; I'm glad I'm not super obese that I can't walk. And at least I'm not in prison where I have to defend myself or couldn't even write this thread, that would really suck. Uuum, at least I'm not paraplegic. Perhaps if I am a little more patient, an answer might come to me. Perhaps. Thank you!
Thank you scottidawg.
Thank you ? for your specific comments. I agree with you: there is nothing outside of myself. I also appreciate you reminding me that I am somewhat intelligent. I have made some really bad decisions in my own life, but fortunately these decisions can very slowly be turned around if I make them turn around and push a little more. At least, I can believe they will turn around even if the decisions can't be undone, and maybe belief and dreams sometimes is all a human has.
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| • Will that 9 year old incomplete/failed bachelors help me in any way? |
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After my 12th grade I took admission in bachelor program session 1997-99
I got 2.68 GPA in BSc Part1 Examination. In Part2 Examinations I failed in English and have been given chance to reappear in that subject.
On reappearing I got B grade in English, but my college says that you have failed in Bachelors of Science Part2 because you could not secure the required aggregate marks.
Here is my B.Sc. result
B.Sc. Part I
Subjects
Grade
Grade Point
English
C
2.2
P-Studies
D
1.9
Statistics
B
3.2
Mathematics
C
2.8
Economics
B
3.3
GPA 2.68
B.Sc. Part II
Subjects
Grade
Grade Point
English
B
3.0
I-Studies
D
1.0
Statistics
C
2.3
Mathematics
C
2.7
Economics
C
2.8
GPA 2.36
So this makes an overall GPA 2.52
GRADE FORMULA
Standard Score
Grades
Grade Points
90 and above
A
4
80 - 89
A
4
70 - 79
B
3.0 - 3.9
60 - 69
C
2.0 - 2.9
50 – 59
D
1.0 – 1.9
But my college says that you could not secure the required aggregate so you are declared failed, without giving me a chance to improve it.
After that I’ve done 3 year diploma in Information Technology and started my professional career.
Now I’ve 6 years of work experience in IT Sector (winch includes Computer Programming in Dot Net and Java Technologies , Network Engineering and Administration, Database design and Administration)
But I still don’t have a bachelors degree. Now planning to complete my bachelors
Will that 9 year old incomplete/failed bachelors help me in any way to transfer any sort of credit hour... because I have cleared all the subjects
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| • U.S. Goverment HElp needed ASAP |
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1. What was the result of the lifting of religious and property owner restrictions in America?
A. Rebellion
B. More people could vote
C. The Catholic Church took over power
D. Renters could not vote
2. What is distressing about the number of people voting in America?
A. Too many people vote
B. Not enough registered voters vote
C. Too many businessmen vote
D. Too many religious groups vote together
3. In what year was the lowest voter turnout in American history?
A. 1992
B. 1996
C. 2000
D. 2004
4. Which of the following was not part of the post Civil War civil rights amendments?
A. 13th
B. 14th
C. 15th
D. 19th
5. Who is denied the right to vote in modern America?
A. Some convicted felons
B. Those declared mentally incompetant
C. Both of the above
D. None of the above
6. What group was barred from voting until 1920?
A. American Indians
B. African Americans
C. Women
D. 18 year olds
7. What type of interest groups lobby for a collective good?
A. Public Interest Groups
B. Religious Interest Groups
C. Private Interest Groups
D. None of the above
8. What method can be used to contact your local congresspersons?
A. Faxes
B. E-mail
C. Letters
D. All of the above
9. Which presidential candidates were the first to debate on network television?
A. Eisehower-Stevenson
B. Kennedy-Nixon
C. Johnson-Goldwater
D. Ford-Carter
10. What instrument was George Gallup responsible for creating?
A. A poll.
B. A thermometer.
C. The internet.
D. The fax machine.
11. Who lead the Democratic-Republican Party?
A. Alexander Hamilton
B. Thomas Jefferson
C. James Madison
D. John Adams
12. Which party was founded in opposition to Andrew Jackson?
A. Democrats
B. Republicans
C. Whigs
D. Democratic-Republicans
13. Who won the governship of Minnesota in 1998 as a Reform Party candidate?
A. Jesse Ventura
B. H. Ross Perot
C. Barry Goldwater
D. Randy Moss
14. Which political analyst would argue that individuals should align there concerns with the needs of their community?
A. H. Ross Perot
B. Craig Rimmerman
C. Sandy Alderson
D. George Washington
15. What is probably the most important form of public servitude?
A. Being a politician.
B. Being a judge.
C. Joining the Peace Corp.
D. Serving in the military.
16. Which amendment was created with the rationale,"If you're old enough to fight for your country, you should be old enough to vote."?
A. 23rd
B. 24th
C. 25th
D. 26th
17. What law required the Department of Justice to monitor southern elections?
A. Voting Rights Act of 1965
B. 14th Amendment
C. Civil Rights Act of 1964
D. 16th Amendment
18. What amendment banned poll taxes?
A. 14th
B. 15th
C. 18th
D. 24th
|
| • 336 useless fact STAR IF U LIKE? |
|
Useless Facts
For every human being on earth, there are about 200 million insects.
The harmonica is the world's most popular instrument.
By the time they are 65 years old, most Americans have watched more than nine years worth of television.
The puck in ice hockey can travel at up to 118 mph (190 km/h).
If you stretched all the nerves in the body from end to end, they would be about 47 miles long.
Humans have more than 600 muscles in their bodies.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
The largest cabbage weighed 144 lbs.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" - and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A."
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Tigers have striped skin, not just stripped fur.
In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!)
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
Many hamsters blink one eye at a time.
The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.
The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites.
Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.
Whitby, Ontario has more donut stores per capita than any other place in the world.
Starfish have no brain.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter "E".
Bulls are color blind.
A can of SPAM is opened every 4 seconds.
"Babe" was played by over 48 pigs.
Mosquitoes have 47 teeth.
Lip stick contains fish scales.
The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2200 people.
The largest known kidney stone weighed 1.36 kilograms.
Kidney stones come in any color from yellow to brown.
Women blink twice as many times as men do.
The McDonalds at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario is the only one in the world that sells hot dogs.
A bowling pin only has to tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
The first episode of Leave It To Beaver aired on October 4, 1957.
Beaver Cleaver's locker number is 9.
The first flushing toilet seen on TV was on Leave It To Beaver.
Jerry Seinfeld's apartment number (on the show) is 5A. In the old episodes it was 3A.
The life span of a taste bud is ten days.
Pi has been calculated to 2,260,321,363 digits.
The billionth digit in Pi is 9.
The first 100 numbers of Pi are:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884...
58209749445923078164062862089986280348...
Click HERE for 99,999 digits of pi!
A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long.
An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
Emus can't walk backwards.
A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of owls is called a parliament.
A group of ravens is called a murder.
A group of bears is called a sleuth.
12 or more cows is called a flink.
A baby oyster is called a spat.
Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.
In the October 22, 1945 edition of Life magazine there was a picture of a chicken with its head cut off. It was alive too!
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
Pinocchio was made of pine.
The largest pumpkin weighed 377 lbs.
A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes.
Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.
There are 22 stars in the Paramount logo.
The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime.
A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
The pound sign # is called anoctothorpe.
Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
There was once a town in West Virginia called "6".
Singapore only has one train station.
The parking meter was invented in North Dakota.
Napolean made his battle plans in a sandbox.
Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator.
The green stuff on the occasional freak potatoe chip is chlorophyll.
If you ate too many carrots you would turn orange.
Pluto's orbit crosses Neptune's making Pluto the eighth planet from the sun. It has been that way since 1979 and will remain that way until 1999.
The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The force of 1 billion people jumping at the same time is equal to 500 tons of TNT.
Popeye was 5'6".
Howdy Doody had 48 freckles.
The first word spoken on the moon was "Okay".
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving the bottle is 25 miles per year.
Hilary Clinton once said We are the President.
The percent of women who wash their hands after leaving a restroom is 80%.
The percent of men who wash their hands after using a restroom is 55%.
There are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll.
The Eifel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it.
"Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish.
On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
The average American eats 2 donuts a day.
The longest word in the Old Testament is Malhershalahashbaz.
The longest time a person has been in a coma is 37 years.
Every minute in the U.S 6 people turn 17.
It takes the Where's Waldo artist one month to complete a drawing.
2500 lefties die each year using products designed for righties.
A baby is born every 7 seconds.
10 tons of space dust fall on the Earth everyday.
On average, a 4 year old child asks 437 questions a day.
Blue and white are the most common school colors.
Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year.
The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: What hath God wrought?.
The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: Watson, please come here. I want you.
The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: Mary had a little lamb
The three words in the English language with the letters uu are: vacuum, residuum and continuum.
A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestd... His middle name is George James.
It is illegal to ride a street car on Sunday if have been eating garlic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In a normal life time an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat.
A new book is published every 13 minutes in America.
America's best selling ice-cream flavour is vanilla.
American's eat 18 billion hot dogs a year.
American's eat 134 pounds of sugar a year.
Every year the sun loses 360 million tons.
Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.
You can tell if a skunk is about if you smell only .000 000 000 000 071 ounce of its spray.
Animal breeders in Russia once claimed to have bred sheep with blue wool.
Penguins are the only bird that can leap into the air like porpoises.
India has 50 million monkeys.
By some unknown means, an iguana can end its own life.
Americans spend around $3 billion for cat and dog food a year.
Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed.
You breathe about 10 million times a year.
The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.
The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse.
Lee Harvey Oswald was booked with mugshot number 54018.
The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour.
The bullseye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground.
The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.
The most common time for a wake up call is 7am.
The doorbell was invented in 1831.
The are 255 squares on a Scrabble board.
The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928.
There are 500 sheets of paper in a ream.
The monkey wrench was invented by Charles Moncke.
Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs.
There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty's crown.
There are approx. 550 hairs in the eyebrow.
The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay.
The shell constitutes 12 percent of an egg's weight.
A squid has 10 tentacles.
A snail's reproductive organs are in its head.
A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose.
The word "AND" appears 46,277 times in the Bible.
The first word played in the Scrabble rules demonstration game is "horn".
The telephone's U.S. patent number is 174,465.
The typical person goes to the bathroom 6 times a day.
There are 17 steps leading up to Sherlock Holme's apartment.
When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from it's eyes.
Napoleon was terrified of cats.
The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint.
The typical American eats 263 eggs a year.
The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by Laszlo and Georg Biro.
The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.
The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935.
In 1961, an IBM 7090 computer calculated Pi to 100 265 digits.
The human body weighs forty times more than the brain.
After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp.
A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner.
The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia.
The letter N ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.
France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese.
The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone.
4000 people are injured by teapots each year.
The typical American consumes 27 pounds of cheese each year.
The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is feedback.
The ostrich has a 46 foot long small intestine.
The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states.
The most sensitive finger on the human hand is the index finger.
George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
The typical hen lays 19 dozen eggs a year.
Stainless stell was invented by Harry Brearley in 1913.
A scallop has 35 blue eyes.
The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one.
The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow.
Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935.
The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.
The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey.
Russia has the most movie theaters in the world.
Albert Blake Dick invented the mimeograph machine.
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.
The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday.
An Oscar weighs seven pounds.
It takes the typical person seven minutes to fall asleep.
Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer.
The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.
The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
You blink about 84,000,000 times a year.
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States.
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used.
Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right of left handed... or is that pawed?
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.
Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lighting than women.
Of all the words in the English language, the word set has the most definitions.
Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow.
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings.
Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight.
After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again!
When someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Hong Kong has the most Rolls Royce's per capita.
Alaska is the state with highest percent of people who walk to work.
28 percent of Africa is wilderness.
38 percent of America is wilderness.
A duck's quack does not echo and no one knows why.
It costs $6400 to raise a medium size dog to age of 11.
Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour: 61,000.
70 percent of Americans who visited Disneyland/World.
Intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet and was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only "mobile" National Monuments.
The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter "uncopyrightable."
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and learned how to walk up standard staircases.
When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because, when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of unwanted people (without killing them) used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know his voice was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-star Game.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
A cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Coca Cola was originally green.
The Ten Commandments contain 297 words.
The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words.
A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
There are more collect calls made on Father's Day than on any other day.
Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910.
Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
The youngest Pope was 11 years old.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the bubonic plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").
The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
American car horns beep in the tone of F.
No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times.
1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."
The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
|
| • Did you know...? |
|
For every human being on earth, there are about 200 million insects.
The harmonica is the world's most popular instrument.
By the time they are 65 years old, most Americans have watched more than nine years worth of television.
The puck in ice hockey can travel at up to 118 mph (190 km/h).
If you stretched all the nerves in the body from end to end, they would be about 47 miles long.
Humans have more than 600 muscles in their bodies.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
There are 293 ways to make changea for a dollar.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
The largest cabbage weighed 144 lbs.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" - and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A."
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Tigers have striped skin, not just stripped fur.
In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!)
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
Many hamsters blink one eye at a time.
The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.
The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites.
Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.
Whitby, Ontario has more donut stores per capita than any other place in the world.
Starfish have no brain.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter "E".
Bulls are color blind.
A can of SPAM is opened every 4 seconds.
"Babe" was played by over 48 pigs.
Mosquitoes have 47 teeth.
Lip stick contains fish scales.
The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2200 people.
The largest known kidney stone weighed 1.36 kilograms.
Kidney stones come in any color from yellow to brown.
Women blink twice as many times as men do.
The McDonalds at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario is the only one in the world that sells hot dogs.
A bowling pin only has to tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
The first episode of Leave It To Beaver aired on October 4, 1957.
Beaver Cleaver's locker number is 9.
The first flushing toilet seen on TV was on Leave It To Beaver.
Jerry Seinfeld's apartment number (on the show) is 5A. In the old episodes it was 3A.
The life span of a taste bud is ten days.
Pi has been calculated to 2,260,321,363 digits.
The billionth digit in Pi is 9.
The first 100 numbers of Pi are:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884...
58209749445923078164062862089986280348...
Click HERE for 99,999 digits of pi!
A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long.
An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
Emus can't walk backwards.
A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of owls is called a parliament.
A group of ravens is called a murder.
A group of bears is called a sleuth.
12 or more cows is called a flink.
A baby oyster is called a spat.
Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.
In the October 22, 1945 edition of Life magazine there was a picture of a chicken with its head cut off. It was alive too!
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
Pinocchio was made of pine.
The largest pumpkin weighed 377 lbs.
A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes.
Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.
There are 22 stars in the Paramount logo.
The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime.
A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
The pound sign # is called anoctothorpe.
Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
There was once a town in West Virginia called "6".
Singapore only has one train station.
The parking meter was invented in North Dakota.
Napolean made his battle plans in a sandbox.
Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator.
The green stuff on the occasional freak potatoe chip is chlorophyll.
If you ate too many carrots you would turn orange.
Pluto's orbit crosses Neptune's making Pluto the eighth planet from the sun. It has been that way since 1979 and will remain that way until 1999.
The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The force of 1 billion people jumping at the same time is equal to 500 tons of TNT.
Popeye was 5'6".
Howdy Doody had 48 freckles.
The first word spoken on the moon was "Okay".
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving the bottle is 25 miles per year.
Hilary Clinton once said We are the President.
The percent of women who wash their hands after leaving a restroom is 80%.
The percent of men who wash their hands after using a restroom is 55%.
There are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll.
The Eifel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it.
"Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish.
On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
The average American eats 2 donuts a day.
The longest word in the Old Testament is Malhershalahashbaz.
The longest time a person has been in a coma is 37 years.
Every minute in the U.S 6 people turn 17.
It takes the Where's Waldo artist one month to complete a drawing.
2500 lefties die each year using products designed for righties.
A baby is born every 7 seconds.
10 tons of space dust fall on the Earth everyday.
On average, a 4 year old child asks 437 questions a day.
Blue and white are the most common school colors.
Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year.
The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: What hath God wrought?.
The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: Watson, please come here. I want you.
The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: Mary had a little lamb
The three words in the English language with the letters uu are: vacuum, residuum and continuum.
A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestd... His middle name is George James.
It is illegal to ride a street car on Sunday if have been eating garlic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In a normal life time an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat.
A new book is published every 13 minutes in America.
America's best selling ice-cream flavour is vanilla.
American's eat 18 billion hot dogs a year.
American's eat 134 pounds of sugar a year.
Every year the sun loses 360 million tons.
Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.
You can tell if a skunk is about if you smell only .000 000 000 000 071 ounce of its spray.
Animal breeders in Russia once claimed to have bred sheep with blue wool.
Penguins are the only bird that can leap into the air like porpoises.
India has 50 million monkeys.
By some unknown means, an iguana can end its own life.
Americans spend around $3 billion for cat and dog food a year.
Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed.
You breathe about 10 million times a year.
The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.
The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse.
Lee Harvey Oswald was booked with mugshot number 54018.
The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour.
The bullseye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground.
The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.
The most common time for a wake up call is 7am.
The doorbell was invented in 1831.
The are 255 squares on a Scrabble board.
The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928.
There are 500 sheets of paper in a ream.
The monkey wrench was invented by Charles Moncke.
Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs.
There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty's crown.
There are approx. 550 hairs in the eyebrow.
The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay.
The shell constitutes 12 percent of an egg's weight.
A squid has 10 tentacles.
A snail's reproductive organs are in its head.
A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose.
The word "AND" appears 46,277 times in the Bible.
The first word played in the Scrabble rules demonstration game is "horn".
The telephone's U.S. patent number is 174,465.
The typical person goes to the bathroom 6 times a day.
There are 17 steps leading up to Sherlock Holme's apartment.
When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from it's eyes.
Napoleon was terrified of cats.
The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint.
The typical American eats 263 eggs a year.
The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by Laszlo and Georg Biro.
The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.
The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935.
In 1961, an IBM 7090 computer calculated Pi to 100 265 digits.
The human body weighs forty times more than the brain.
After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp.
A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner.
The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia.
The letter N ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.
France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese.
The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone.
4000 people are injured by teapots each year.
The typical American consumes 27 pounds of cheese each year.
The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is feedback.
The ostrich has a 46 foot long small intestine.
The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states.
The most sensitive finger on the human hand is the index finger.
George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
The typical hen lays 19 dozen eggs a year.
Stainless stell was invented by Harry Brearley in 1913.
A scallop has 35 blue eyes.
The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one.
The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow.
Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935.
The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.
The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey.
Russia has the most movie theaters in the world.
Albert Blake Dick invented the mimeograph machine.
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.
The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday.
An Oscar weighs seven pounds.
It takes the typical person seven minutes to fall asleep.
Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer.
The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.
The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
You blink about 84,000,000 times a year.
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States.
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used.
Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right of left handed... or is that pawed?
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.
Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lighting than women.
Of all the words in the English language, the word set has the most definitions.
Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow.
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings.
Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight.
After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again!
When someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Hong Kong has the most Rolls Royce's per capita.
Alaska is the state with highest percent of people who walk to work.
28 percent of Africa is wilderness.
38 percent of America is wilderness.
A duck's quack does not echo and no one knows why.
It costs $6400 to raise a medium size dog to age of 11.
Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour: 61,000.
70 percent of Americans who visited Disneyland/World.
Intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet and was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only "mobile" National Monuments.
The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter "uncopyrightable."
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and learned how to walk up standard staircases.
When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because, when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of unwanted people (without killing them) used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know his voice was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-star Game.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
A cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Coca Cola was originally green.
The Ten Commandments contain 297 words.
The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words.
A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
There are more collect calls made on Father's Day than on any other day.
Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910.
Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
The youngest Pope was 11 years old.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the bubonic plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").
The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
American car horns beep in the tone of F.
No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times.
1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."
The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words
Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes
The continents names all end with the same letter with which they start
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles
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Christianity Wasn't Influenced by Pagan Religions!
Summary
Many Christian college students have encountered criticisms of Christianity based on claims that early Christianity and the New Testament borrowed important beliefs and practices from a number of pagan mystery religions. Since these claims undermine such central Christian doctrines as Christ's death and resurrection, the charges are serious. But the evidence for such claims, when it even exists, often lies in sources several centuries older than the New Testament. Moreover, the alleged parallels often result from liberal scholars uncritically describing pagan beliefs and practices in Christian language and then marveling at the striking parallels they think they've discovered.
During the first half of the twentieth century, a number of liberal authors and professors claimed that the New Testament teaching about Jesus' death and resurrection, the New Birth, and the Christian practices of baptism and the Lord's Supper were derived from the pagan mystery religions. Of major concern in all this is the charge that the New Testament doctrine of salvation parallels themes commonly found in the mystery religions: a savior-god dies violently for those he will eventually deliver, after which that god is restored to life.
Was the New Testament influenced by the pagan religions of the first century A.D.? Even though I surveyed this matter in a 1992 book,[1] the issues are so important -- especially for Christian college students who often do not know where to look for answers -- that there is considerable merit in addressing this question in a popular, nontechnical format.
WHAT WERE THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS?
Other than Judaism and Christianity, the mystery religions were the most influential religions in the early centuries after Christ. The reason these cults were called "mystery religions" is that they involved secret ceremonies known only to those initiated into the cult. The major benefit of these practices was thought to be some kind of salvation.
The mystery religions were not, of course, the only manifestations of the religious spirit in the eastern Roman Empire. One could also find public cults not requiring an initiation ceremony into secret beliefs and practices. The Greek Olympian religion and its Roman counterpart are examples of this type of religion.
Each Mediterranean region produced its own mystery religion. Out of Greece came the cults of Demeter and Dionysus, as well as the Eleusinian and Orphic mystery religions, which developed later.[2] Asia Minor gave birth to the cult of Cybele, the Great Mother, and her beloved, a shepherd named Attis. The cult of Isis and Osiris (later changed to Serapis) originated in Egypt, while Syria and Palestine saw the rise of the cult of Adonis. Finally, Persia (Iran) was a leading early locale for the cult of Mithras, which -- due to its frequent use of the imagery of war -- held a special appeal to Roman soldiers. The earlier Greek mystery religions were state religions in the sense that they attained the status of a public or civil cult and served a national or public function. The later non-Greek mysteries were personal, private, and individualistic.
Basic Traits
One must avoid any suggestion that there was one common mystery religion. While a tendency toward eclecticism or synthesis developed after A.D. 300, each of the mystery cults was a separate and distinct religion during the century that saw the birth of the Christian church. Moreover, each mystery cult assumed different forms in different cultural settings and underwent significant changes, especially after A.D. 100. Nevertheless, the mystery religions exhibited five common traits.
(1) Central to each mystery was its use of an annual vegetation cycle in which life is renewed each spring and dies each fall. Followers of the mystery cults found deep symbolic significance in the natural processes of growth, death, decay, and rebirth.
(2) As noted above, each cult made important use of secret ceremonies or mysteries, often in connection with an initiation rite. Each mystery religion also passed on a "secret" to the initiate that included information about the life of the cult's god or goddess and how humans might achieve unity with that deity. This "knowledge" was always a secret or esoteric knowledge, unattainable by any outside the circle of the cult.
(3) Each mystery also centered around a myth in which the deity either returned to life after death or else triumphed over his enemies. Implicit in the myth was the theme of redemption from everything earthly and temporal. The secret meaning of the cult and its accompanying myth was expressed in a "sacramental drama" that appealed largely to the feelings and emotions of the initiates. This religious ecstasy was supposed to lead them to think they were experiencing the beginning of a new life.
(4) The mysteries had little or no use for doctrine and correct belief. They were primarily concerned with the emotional life of their followers. The cults used many different means to affect the emotions and imaginations of initiates and hence bring about "union with the god": processions, fasting, a play, acts of purification, blazing lights, and esoteric liturgies. This lack of any emphasis on correct belief marked an important difference between the mysteries and Christianity. The Christian faith was exclusivistic in the sense that it recognized only one legitimate path to God and salvation, Jesus Christ. The mysteries were inclusivistic in the sense that nothing prevented a believer in one cult from following other mysteries.
(5) The immediate goal of the initiates was a mystical experience that led them to feel they had achieved union with their god. Beyond this quest for mystical union were two more ultimate goals: some kind of redemption or salvation, and immortality.
Evolution
Before A.D. 100, the mystery religions were still largely confined to specific localities and were still a relatively novel phenomenon. After A.D. 100, they gradually began to attain a widespread popular influence throughout the Roman Empire. But they also underwent significant changes that often resulted from the various cults absorbing elements from each other. As devotees of the mysteries became increasingly eclectic in their beliefs and practices, new and odd combinations of the older mysteries began to emerge. And as the cults continued to tone down the more objectionable features of their older practices, they began to attract greater numbers of followers.
RECONSTRUCTING THE MYSTERIES
It is not until we come to the third century A.D. that we find sufficient source material (i.e., information about the mystery religions from the writings of the time) to permit a relatively complete reconstruction of their content. Far too many writers use this late source material (after A.D. 200) to form reconstructions of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of the cults. This practice is exceptionally bad scholarship and should not be allowed to stand without challenge. Information about a cult that comes several hundred years after the close of the New Testament canon must not be read back into what is presumed to be the status of the cult during the first century A.D. The crucial question is not what possible influence the mysteries may have had on segments of Christendom after A.D. 400, but what effect the emerging mysteries may have had on the New Testament in the first century.
The Cult of Isis and Osiris
The cult of Isis originated in Egypt and went through two major stages. In its older Egyptian version, which was not a mystery religion, Isis was regarded as the goddess of heaven, earth, the sea, and the unseen world below. In this earlier stage, Isis had a husband named Osiris. The cult of Isis became a mystery religion only after Ptolemy the First introduced major changes, sometime after 300 B.C. In the later stage, a new god named Serapis became Isis's consort. Ptolemy introduced these changes in order to synthesize Egyptian and Greek concerns in his kingdom, thus hastening the Hellenization of Egypt.
From Egypt, the cult of Isis gradually made its way to Rome. While Rome was at first repelled by the cult, the religion finally entered the city during the reign of Caligula (A.D. 37-41). Its influence spread gradually during the next two centuries, and in some locales it became a major rival of Christianity. The cult's success in the Roman Empire seems to have resulted from its impressive ritual and the hope of immortality offered to its followers.
The basic myth of the Isis cult concerned Osiris, her husband during the earlier Egyptian and nonmystery stage of the religion. According to the most common version of the myth, Osiris was murdered by his brother who then sank the coffin containing Osiris's body into the Nile river. Isis discovered the body and returned it to Egypt. But her brother-in-law once again gained access to the body, this time dismembering it into fourteen pieces which he scattered widely. Following a long search, Isis recovered each part of the body. It is at this point that the language used to describe what followed is crucial. Sometimes those telling the story are satisfied to say that Osiris came back to life, even though such language claims far more than the myth allows. Some writers go even further and refer to the alleged "resurrection" of Osiris. One liberal scholar illustrates how biased some writers are when they describe the pagan myth in Christian language: "The dead body of Osiris floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a baptism in the waters of the Nile."[3]
This biased and sloppy use of language suggests three misleading analogies between Osiris and Christ: (1) a savior god dies and (2) then experiences a resurrection accompanied by (3) water baptism. But the alleged similarities, as well as the language used to describe them, turn out to be fabrications of the modern scholar and are not part of the original myth. Comparisons between the resurrection of Jesus and the resuscitation of Osiris are greatly exaggerated.[4] Not every version of the myth has Osiris returning to life; in some he simply becomes king of the underworld. Equally far-fetched are attempts to find an analogue of Christian baptism in the Osiris myth.[5] The fate of Osiris's coffin in the Nile is as relevant to baptism as the sinking of Atlantis.
As previously noted, during its later mystery stage, the male deity of the Isis cult is no longer the dying Osiris but Serapis. Serapis is often portrayed as a sun god, and it is clear that he was not a dying god. Obviously then, neither could he be a rising god. Thus, it is worth remembering that the post-Ptolemaic mystery version of the Isis cult that was in circulation from about 300 B.C. through the early centuries of the Christian era had absolutely nothing that could resemble a dying and rising savior-god.
The Cult of Cybele and Attis
Cybele, also known as the Great Mother, was worshiped through much of the Hellenistic world. She undoubtedly began as a goddess of nature. Her early worship included orgiastic ceremonies in which her frenzied male worshipers were led to castrate themselves, following which they became "Galli" or eunuch-priests of the goddess. Cybele eventually came to be viewed as the Mother of all gods and the mistress of all life.
Most of our information about the cult describes its practices during its later Roman period. But the details are slim and almost all the source material is relatively late, certainly datable long after the close of the New Testament canon.
According to myth, Cybele loved a shepherd named Attis. Because Attis was unfaithful, she drove him insane. Overcome by madness, Attis castrated himself and died. This drove Cybele into great mourning, and it introduced death into the natural world. But then Cybele restored Attis to life, an event that also brought the world of nature back to life.
The presuppositions of the interpreter tend to determine the language used to describe what followed Attis's death. Many writers refer carelessly to the "resurrection of Attis." But surely this is an exaggeration. There is no mention of anything resembling a resurrection in the myth, which suggests that Cybele could only preserve Attis's dead body. Beyond this, there is mention of the body's hair continuing to grow, along with some movement of his little finger. In some versions of the myth, Attis's return to life took the form of his being changed into an evergreen tree. Since the basic idea underlying the myth was the annual vegetation cycle, any resemblance to the bodily resurrection of Christ is greatly exaggerated.
Eventually a public rehearsal of the Attis myth became an annual event in which worshipers shared in Attis's "immortality." Each spring the followers of Cybele would mourn for the dead Attis in acts of fasting and flagellation.
It was only during the later Roman celebrations (after A.D. 300) of the spring festival that anything remotely connected with a "resurrection" appears. The pine tree symbolizing Attis was cut down and then carried corpse-like into the sanctuary. Later in the prolonged festival, the tree was buried while the initiates worked themselves into a frenzy that included gashing themselves with knives. The next night, the "grave" of the tree was opened and the "resurrection of Attis" was celebrated. But the language of these late sources is highly ambiguous. In truth, no clear-cut, unambiguous reference to the supposed "resurrection" of Attis appears, even in the very late literature from the fourth century after Christ.
The Taurobolium
The best-known rite of the cult of the Great Mother was the taurobolium. It is important to note, however, that this ritual was not part of the cult in its earlier stages. It entered the religion sometime after the middle of the second century A.D.
During the ceremony, initiates stood or reclined in a pit as a bull was slaughtered on a platform above them.[6] The initiate would then be bathed in the warm blood of the dying animal. It has been alleged that the taurobolium was a source for Christian language about being washed in the blood of the lamb (Rev. 7:14) or sprinkled with the blood of Jesus (1 Pet. 1:2). It has also been cited as the source for Paul's teaching in Romans 6:1-4, where he relates Christian baptism to the Christian's identification with Christ's death and resurrection.
No notion of death and resurrection was ever part of the taurobolium, however. The best available evidence requires us to date the ritual about one hundred years after Paul wrote Romans 6:1-4. Not one existing text supports the claim that the taurobolium memorialized the death and "resurrection" of Attis. The pagan rite could not possibly have been the source for Paul's teaching in Romans 6. Only near the end of the fourth century A.D. did the ritual add the notion of rebirth. Several important scholars see a Christian influence at work in this later development.[7] It is clear, then, that the chronological development of the rite makes it impossible for it to have influenced first-century Christianity. The New Testament teaching about the shedding of blood should be viewed in the context of its Old Testament background -- the Passover and the temple sacrifice.
Mithraism
Attempts to reconstruct the beliefs and practices of Mithraism face enormous challenges because of the scanty information that has survived. Proponents of the cult explained the world in terms of two ultimate and opposing principles, one good (depicted as light) and the other evil (darkness). Human beings must choose which side they will fight for; they are trapped in the conflict between light and darkness. Mithra came to be regarded as the most powerful mediator who could help humans ward off attacks from demonic forces.[8]
The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century Christianity is possible is the timing: it's all wrong! The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament.[9] Moreover, no monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an influence.
STRIKING PARALLELS?
Enough has been said thus far to permit comment on one of the major faults of the above-mentioned liberal scholars. I refer to the frequency with which their writings evidence a careless, even sloppy use of language. One frequently encounters scholars who first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and practices, and then marvel at the striking parallels they think they have discovered. One can go a long way toward "proving" early Christian dependence on the mysteries by describing some mystery belief or practice in Christian terminology. J. Godwin does this in his book, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, which describes the criobolium (see footnote 6) as a "blood baptism" in which the initiate is "washed in the blood of the lamb."[10] While uninformed readers might be stunned by this remarkable similarity to Christianity (see Rev. 7:14), knowledgeable readers will see such a claim as the reflection of a strong, negative bias against Christianity.
Exaggerations and oversimplifications abound in this kind of literature. One encounters overblown claims about alleged likenesses between baptism and the Lord's Supper and similar "sacraments" in certain mystery cults. Attempts to find analogies between the resurrection of Christ and the alleged "resurrections" of the mystery deities involve massive amounts of oversimplification and inattention to detail.
Pagan Rituals and the Christian Sacraments
The mere fact that Christianity has a sacred meal and a washing of the body is supposed to prove that it borrowed these ceremonies from similar meals and washings in the pagan cults. By themselves, of course, such outward similarities prove nothing. After all, religious ceremonies can assume only a limited number of forms, and they will naturally relate to important or common aspects of human life. The more important question is the meaning of the pagan practices. Ceremonial washings that antedate the New Testament have a different meaning from New Testament baptism, while pagan washings after A.D. 100 come too late to influence the New Testament and, indeed, might themselves have been influenced by Christianity.[11] Sacred meals in the pre-Christian Greek mysteries fail to prove anything since the chronology is all wrong. The Greek ceremonies that are supposed to have influenced first-century Christians had long since disappeared by the time we get to Jesus and Paul. Sacred meals in such post-Christian mysteries as Mithraism come too late.
Unlike the initiation rites of the mystery cults, Christian baptism looks back to what a real, historical person -- Jesus Christ -- did in history. Advocates of the mystery cults believed their "sacraments" had the power to give the individual the benefits of immortality in a mechanical or magical way, without his or her undergoing any moral or spiritual transformation. This certainly was not Paul's view, either of salvation or of the operation of the Christian sacraments. In contrast with pagan initiation ceremonies, Christian baptism is not a mechanical or magical ceremony. It is clear that the sources of Christian baptism are not to be found either in the taurobolium (which is post first-century anyway) or in the washings of the pagan mysteries. Its sources lie rather in the washings of purification found in the Old Testament and in the Jewish practice of baptizing proselytes, the latter being the most likely source for the baptistic practices of John the Baptist.
Of all the mystery cults, only Mithraism had anything that resembled the Lord's Supper. A piece of bread and a cup of water were placed before initiates while the priest of Mithra spoke some ceremonial words. But the late introduction of this ritual precludes its having any influence upon first-century Christianity.
Claims that the Lord's Supper was derived from pagan sacred meals are grounded in exaggerations and oversimplifications. The supposed parallels and analogies break down completely.[12] Any quest for the historical antecedents of the Lord's Supper is more likely to succeed if it stays closer to the Jewish foundations of the Christian faith than if it wanders off into the practices of the pagan cults. The Lord's Supper looked back to a real, historical person and to something He did in history. The occasion for Jesus' introduction of the Christian Lord's Supper was the Jewish Passover feast. Attempts to find pagan sources for baptism and the Lord's Supper must be judged to fail.
The Death of the Mystery Gods and the Death of Jesus
The best way to evaluate the alleged dependence of early Christian beliefs about Christ's death and resurrection on the pagan myths of a dying and rising savior-god is to examine carefully the supposed parallels. The death of Jesus differs from the deaths of the pagan gods in at least six ways:
(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity.[13]
(2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Gunter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods "has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.)."[14]
(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature.
(4) Jesus' death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus' death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, nonhistorical stories of the pagan cults.[15]
(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries.
(6) And finally, Jesus' death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus' death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testament's mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods.[16]
The Risen Christ and the "Rising Savior-Gods"
Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis. Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger. One can speak of a "resurrection" in the stories of Osiris, Attis, and Adonis only in the most extended of senses.[17] For example, after Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris's dismembered body, Osiris became "Lord of the Underworld." This is a poor substitute for a resurrection like that of Jesus Christ. And, no claim can be made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. The tide of scholarly opinion has turned dramatically against attempts to make early Christianity dependent on the so-called dying and rising gods of Hellenistic paganism.[18] Any unbiased examination of the evidence shows that such claims must be rejected.
Christian Rebirth and Cultic Initiation Rites
Liberal writings on the subject are full of sweeping generalizations to the effect that early Christianity borrowed its notion of rebirth from the pagan mysteries.[19] But the evidence makes it clear that there was no pre-Christian doctrine of rebirth for the Christians to borrow. There are actually very few references to the notion of rebirth in the evidence that has survived, and even these are either very late or very ambiguous. They provide no help in settling the question of the source of the New Testament use of the concept. The claim that pre-Christian mysteries regarded their initiation rites as a kind of rebirth is unsupported by any evidence contemporary with such alleged practices. Instead, a view found in much later texts is read back into earlier rites, which are then interpreted quite speculatively as dramatic portrayals of the initiate's "new birth." The belief that pre-Christian mysteries used "rebirth" as a technical term lacks support from even one single text.
Most contemporary scholars maintain that the mystery use of the concept of rebirth (testified to only in evidence dated after A.D. 300) differs so significantly from its New Testament usage that any possibility of a close link is ruled out. The most that such scholars are willing to concede is the possibility that some Christians borrowed the metaphor or imagery from the common speech of the time and recast it to fit their distinctive theological beliefs. So even if the metaphor of rebirth was Hellenistic, its content within Christianity was unique.[20]
SEVEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHRISTIAN DEPENDENCE ON THE MYSTERIES
I conclude by noting seven points that undermine liberal efforts to show that first-century Christianity borrowed essential beliefs and practices from the pagan mystery religions.
(1) Arguments offered to "prove" a Christian dependence on the mysteries illustrate the logical fallacy of false cause. This fallacy is committed whenever someone reasons that just because two things exist side by side, one of them must have caused the other. As we all should know, mere coincidence does not prove causal connection. Nor does similarity prove dependence.
(2) Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in language they borrow from Christianity. The careless use of language could lead one to speak of a "Last Supper" in Mithraism or a "baptism" in the cult of Isis. It is inexcusable nonsense to take the word "savior" with all of its New Testament connotations and apply it to Osiris or Attis as though they were savior-gods in any similar sense.
(3) The chronology is all wrong. Almost all of our sources of information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers quoting from documents written 300 years later than Paul in efforts to produce ideas that allegedly influenced Paul. We must reject the assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it therefore had the same belief or practice in the first century.
(4) Paul would never have consciously borrowed from the pagan religions. All of our information about him makes it highly unlikely that he was in any sense influenced by pagan sources. He placed great emphasis on his early training in a strict form of Judaism (Phil. 3:5). He warned the Colossians against the very sort of influence that advocates of Christian syncretism have attributed to him, namely, letting their minds be captured by alien speculations (Col. 2:8).
(5) Early Christianity was an exclusivistic faith. As J. Machen explains, the mystery cults were nonexclusive. "A man could become initiated into the mysteries of Isis or Mithras without at all giving up his former beliefs; but if he were to be received into the Church, according to the preaching of Paul, he must forsake all other Saviors for the Lord Jesus Christ....Amid the prevailing syncretism of the Greco-Roman world, the religion of Paul, with the religion of Israel, stands absolutely alone."[21] This Christian exclusivism should be a starting point for all reflection about the possible relations between Christianity and its pagan competitors. Any hint of syncretism in the New Testament would have caused immediate controversy.
(6) Unlike the mysteries, the religion of Paul was grounded on events that actually happened in history. The mysticism of the mystery cults was essentially nonhistorical. Their myths were dramas, or pictures, of what the initiate went through, not real historical events, as Paul regarded Christ's death and resurrection to be. The Christian affirmation that the death and resurrection of Christ happened to a historical person at a particular time and place has absolutely no parallel in any pagan mystery religion.
(7) What few parallels may still remain may reflect a Christian influence on the pagan systems. As Bruce Metzger has argued, "It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction."[22] It should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the Roman emperor from A.D. 361 to 363.
A FINAL WORD
Liberal efforts to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian revelation via claims of a pagan religious influence collapse quickly once a full account of the information is available. It is clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad scholarship. Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous. According to one writer, a more accurate account of these bad arguments would describe them as "prejudiced irresponsibility."[23] But in order to become completely informed on these matters, wise readers will work through material cited in the brief bibliography.
NOTES
1 See Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (Richardson, TX: Probe Books, 1992). The book was originally published in 1984 under the title, Christianity and the Hellenist World.
2 I must pass over these Greek versions of the mystery cults. See Nash, 131-36.
3 Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 104.
4 See Edwin Yamauchi, "Easter -- Myth, Hallucination, or History?" Christianity Today, 29 March 1974, 660-63.
5 See Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 260ff.
6 When the ceremony used a lamb, it was the criobolium. Since lambs cost far less than bulls, this modification was rather common.
7 See Nash, chapter 9.
8 For more detail, see Nash, 143-48.
9 See Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), 87ff.
10 Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 111.
11 See Nash, chapter 9.
12 See Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 24.
13 See Martin Hengel, The Son of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 26.
14 Wagner, 284.
15 See W. K. C. Guthrie, Ortheus and Greek Religion, 2d ed. (London: Methuen, 1952), 268.
16 See A. D. Nock, "Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background," in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, ed. A. E. J. Rawlinson (London: Longmans, Green, 1928), 106.
17 See J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul's Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1925), 234-35.
18 See Nash, 161-99.
19 See Nash, 173-78.
20 See W. F. Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism (London: SPCK, 1948), 76-81.
21 Machen, 9.
22 Bruce M. Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 11. The possible parallels in view here would naturally be dated late, after A.D. 200 for the most part.
23 Gordon H. Clark, Thales to Dewey (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), 195.
Suggested Reading
- Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982).
- J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul's Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1925).
- Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (Richardson, TX: Probe Books, 1992).
- Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967).
By Ronald Nash, Copyright 1994 by the Christian Research Institute
those our not all from christian sources, he studied the history of it to if you read them completely, you have to read the history to compare.
Yah one thing you all don't understand is that the old testament prophecizes of a messiah to save the people from their sins, the new testament or christianity is the fulfillment of Gods promise of a long awaited messiah. In Genesis ch3 verse 15 and isaiah ch. 7 our all prophecies of the virgin birth and that was before any of those pagan myths. Those pagan myths and fables have not lasted because that is all they were. Jesus Christ is still changing people to this day and i guess that could be one of the biggests proofs of christianity, that people who have placed their faith in Christ have been changed. The old testament and the new testament go together, Christianity has nothing to do with the pagan myths. Christianity is the fulfillment of the old testament prophecies, it has nothing to do with stealing ideas. You all hate christianity and you all get real offensive about it more than you thinking it not being the truth, but because of some other reasons that you don't tell.
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| • trojan/malware- unable to install any antivirus or spyware remover? |
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If I run IE (to check my yahoo mail b.c. I have beta), I get pop ups. If I run Mozilla Firefox, the trojan/virus/malware kicks me off the net and closes the browser. I am unable to install superAntiSpyare or Ad Aware 2008. I have windows xp with service pack 2.
Also, I tried to use system restore and tried to create my own restore point. I did it twice and when I hit undo, I can no longer get my desktop back up in regular mode. I have to boot in safe mode. I tried to use system restore to go back to the last known good configuration and still no results. How do I fix?
Here's a copy of the error message I'm getting when I try to install something:
Windows ® Installer. V 3.01.4000.1823
msiexec /Option [Optional Parameter]
Install Options
Installs or configures a product
/a
Administrative install - Installs a product on the network
/j [/t ] [/g ]
Advertises a product - m to all users, u to current user
Uninstalls the product
Display Options
/quiet
Quiet mode, no user interaction
/passive
Unattended mode - progress bar only
/q[n|b|r|f]
Sets user interface level
n - No UI
b - Basic UI
r - Reduced UI
f - Full UI (default)
/help
Help information
Restart Options
/norestart
Do not restart after the installation is complete
/promptrestart
Prompts the user for restart if necessary
/forcerestart
Always restart the computer after installation
Logging Options
/l[i|w|e|a|r|u|c|m|o|p|v|x|+|!|*]
i - Status messages
w - Nonfatal warnings
e - All error messages
a - Start up of actions
r - Action-specific records
u - User requests
c - Initial UI parameters
m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
o - Out-of-disk-space messages
p - Terminal properties
v - Verbose output
x - Extra debugging information
+ - Append to existing log file
! - Flush each line to the log
* - Log all information, except for v and x options
/log
Equivalent of /l*
Update Options
/update [;Update2.msp]
Applies update(s)
/uninstall [;Update2.msp] /package
Remove update(s) for a product
Repair Options
/f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v]
Repairs a product
p - only if file is missing
o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
a - forces all files to be reinstalled
u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
s - all existing shortcuts (default)
v - runs from source and recaches local package
Setting Public Properties
[PROPERTY=PropertyValue]
Consult the Windows ® Installer SDK for additional documentation on the
command line syntax.
Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
I tried to do a system restore to the time before I had the virus and it wouldn't allow me to choose a date other than yesterday's date; I had the virus yesterday so that wouldn't work. I would prefer not to pay someone to fix if I don't have to. Thanks.
Is there any way to fix without reformatting my system. I've got so many files and progs, that having to reinstall all that again would be a nightmare. If I restore to factory settings, do I still lose all my progs and files? Thanks.
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| • Abortion.. What are your views? |
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Trapped... Time Has Run Out For Over 49 Million Americans.
By Another's Choice..
Who is trapped by the "choice" of abortion? Both the mother and the pre-born child. Abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy in the United States. The infamous Roe v. Wade case legalized abortion throughout the United States. The lesser-known companion case, Doe v. Bolton, defined the "health" exception. This case solidified Roe in allowing abortion through all nine months if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother. The vague word used here is "health." What does "health" mean to you? Doe v. Bolton defined health to include, "physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the wellbeing of the patient." Essentially, Doe v. Bolton opened the door for "health" to mean anything a doctor or woman wanted it to mean. Some states have laws regulating late term abortions, and some states simply have no willing providers. However, women are free to go to other states to obtain one. Late-term abortions may be less common, but they are still legal.
Didn't the Partial Birth Abortion Ban outlaw late-term abortions? No. In the 2007 decision, Gonzales v. Carhart, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was upheld. The "Ban" merely regulates one specific method used in late-term abortions (D&X). Other late-term abortion methods, such as Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) and a modified version of partial birth abortion, may still legally be used to kill a child up to the moment of birth.
A woman is often trapped by the decision to abort. You probably know someone who has aborted her child. Why did she "choose" abortion? Did she want an abortion or was she coerced or "strongly encouraged" by her boyfriend, husband, or parents? Let's face it; there are many reasons why women abort. One study found that 64% of women surveyed said they "felt pressured by others" to abort. Also, 54% said they were "not sure about the decision at the time." Does this sound like a "woman's right to choose?" More than 49 million children have been legally trapped by "choice" in the United States since 1973. Time is running out for millions more. With more than 3,500 surgical abortions performed in the United States every day, you most likely have been, or will be, involved with someone considering abortion.
You owe it to yourself and those around you to make an educated decision about abortion.
Unlocking The Language Trap...
My Body, My Choice!
The term "pro-choice' avoids talking about what you are choosing. Most people agree that we can be "pro-choice" about many things without offending anyone (i.e. chocolate or vanilla, paper or plastic). The term "choice" is value-neutral and meaningless unless we have some kind of idea what we are choosing. Society generally limits people's choices when it comes to behaviors that are harmful or potentially harmful to other people. We, as a society, are "anti-choice" when it comes to theft, arson, murder, and a whole host of other actions.
A Woman's "Right"/Freedom to Choose
It sounds almost patriotic. Our great American freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, etc. Individual rights are important, but you will not find "a right to abortion" anywhere in the Constitution. We have come too far to reduce a woman's "right" to mean the "right to kill her own children".
It's Just Tissue
Consider the following facts: Simple tissue down not have a beating heart, brain waves, fingerprints, and unique DNA. A woman can carry a baby with a different blood type from her own. After the moment of fertilization, nothing new is added to the baby except oxygen, nutrition, and time. The only differences between a newborn and a pre-born baby are size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. All of these facts confirm the reality that you are a person worthy of protection from the moment of fertilization.
A "Wanted" Child
Does your value depend on the degree that someone wants you? Let's be honest- a child is a child. How could any baby be called unwanted when there are over one million couples waiting, hoping, and praying for a chance to adopt a child?
"Safe" Abortion
Many young women believed this lie until it was too late. The book, Lime 5, documents over 200 cases of women injured or killed by illegal, so-called "safe" abortions. The end result of an abortion is a dead baby, and the potential for cervical cancer, breast cancer, infertility, and psychological pain. Where's the "safe" part?
"Back-Alley" Abortions
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 39 maternal deaths occurred due to illegal abortions in 1972 (the year prior to the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally). Any loss of life is tragic, but this is nowhere near the alleged "thousands of deaths by back-alley abortions."
"I'm Personally Opposed, But I Can't Tell Others What To Do"
What if U.S. citizens had been willing to accept this justification for tolerating slavery? Our forefathers took away the "rights" of slave owners in order to give freedom and respect to African American people. Our youngest and most vulnerable are still slaves to the life and death decisions of others.
Rape and Incest
As traumatic as rape is, abortion does not "un-rape" the mother. The baby doesn't deserve to die for the crime of his or her f | |