Augustine, and C. Marriott, De Catechizandibus Rudibus. De Symbolo ad Catechumenos. De Fide Rerus Quae Non Videntur. De Utilitate Credendi, Nabu Press 2010 Amazon Product Description 'This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.' 
Amazon   back

Braudel, Ferband, and Richard Mayne (translator), A History of Civilizations, Penguin 1995 Editorial review From Booklist 'A leader of the Annales school, which reacted against the prominence of politics and personalities in historiography, Braudel wrote based on la longue duree, emphasizing the material basis of daily life -- the routine workings of commerce as it changes over the long term. This outlook has gradually permeated the profession, and, as so often happens when a good idea proves unstoppable, its proponent takes a turn at textbook writing. This is the late Braudel's 1962 lesson for French university students on the origin of European, Islamic, Indian, Asian, and New World civilizations. As a text it wasn't widely adopted, perhaps because France was then in a political uproar, pitting its colonialists--heirs to the civilizing mission of the nineteenth century--against decolonizers. And the book bears that sign of its time: The colonial motif pops up everywhere, presented as a timeless feature of ways of life in collision. So it was at the Battle of Tours in 732, which stopped the Muslim juggernaut; and so it is now in the anti-Western sentiments in the Arab world. Whether the conflict split religion and religion, town and country, or liberty and right, the colonial view benefits from Braudel's phenomenal depth of knowledge and synthesizing agility, and his palpable curiosity enlivens the sometimes deadly textbook form. For serious history collections.' Gilbert Taylor  
Amazon   back

Christie, Agatha, Cards on the Table , Berkley 2005 Amazon Product Description 'A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players! Mr Shaitana was famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he was a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana's private collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether!' 
Amazon   back

De Vaux, Roland, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, Darton, Longman and Todd 1961, 1997 'Considered by many to be a modern classic, Ancient Israel offers a fascinating, full-scale reconstruction of the social and religious life of Israel in Old Testament times. Drawing principally on the text of the Old Testament itself, as well as from archaeological evidence and information gathered from the historical study of Israel's neighbors, de Vaux first provides an extensive introduction to the nomadic nature of life in ancient Israel and then traces in detail the developments of Israel's most important institutions --family, civil, military, and religious --and their influence on the nation's life and history.' 
Amazon   back

Debray, Regis, God, An Itinerary, Verso 2004 Amazon Product Description 'God, who has changed the lives—and deaths—of men and women, has in turn changed His face and His meaning several times over since His birth three thousand years ago. He may have kept the same name throughout, but God has been addressed in many different ways and cannot be said to have the same characteristics in the year 500 BC as in AD 400 or in the twenty-first century, nor is He the same entity in Jerusalem or Constantinople as in Rome or New York. The omnipotent and punitive God of the Hebrews is not the consoling and intimate God of the Christians, and is certainly not identical with the impersonal cosmic Energy of the New Agers.

Régis Debray's purpose in this major new book is to trace the episodes of the genesis of God, His itinerary and the costs of His survival. Debray shifts the spotlight away from the theological foreground and moves it backstage to the machinery of divine production by going back, from the Law, to the Tablets themselves and by scrutinizing Heaven at its most down-to-earth. Throughout this beautifully illustrated book, he is able to focus his attention not just on what was written, but on how it was written: with what tools, on what surface, for what social purpose and in what physical environment. Debray contends that, in order to discover how God's fire was transferred from the desert to the prairie, we ought first to bracket the philosophical questions and focus on empirical information. However, he claims that this does not lessen its significance, but rather gives new life to spiritual issues. God: An Itinerary uses the histories of the Eternal and of the West to illuminate one another and to throw light on contemporary civilization itself. 50 b/w illustrations.'  
Amazon   back

Evans-Pritchard, Edward E., Theories of Primitive Religion, Oxford University Press 1968 Edward E. Evans Pritchard was a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford 
Amazon   back

Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia, University Of Chicago Press 1971 'Mr. Geertz begins his argument by outlining the problem conceptually and providing an overview of the two countries. He then traces the evolution of their classical religious styles which, with disparate settings and unique histories, produced strikingly different spiritual climates. So in Morocco, the Islamic conception of life came to mean activism, moralism, and intense individuality, while in Indonesia the same concept emphasized aestheticism, inwardness, and the radical dissolution of personality. In order to assess the significance of these interesting developments, Mr. Geertz sets forth a series of theoretical observations concerning the social role of religion.' 
Amazon   back

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Faith and Knowledge, State University of New York Press (March 4, 1988) Language: English ISBN-10: 088706826X ISBN-13: 978-0887068263 1988 Jacket: 'An English translation of G W F Hegel's Glauben und Wissen prepard and edited by Walter Cerf and H S Harris.' 
Amazon   back

Jung, Carl G , Archetypes and the Collective Unconsious (2nd ed) (translated by R F C Hull) Collected works (Bollingen Series) vol 9 part 1 Princeton UP, 1980 back

Klir, Jiri, and Miroslav Valach, Cybernetic Modelling, Iliffe, SNTL 1965, 1967 Preface: 'The principal purpose of this book is to show the part played by cybernetic modelling in the solution of problems common to the animate and inanimate world. The system, its behaviour and structure, are used here as fundamental concepts forming the basis of a wide approach that utilizes the model as a methodological instrument. . . .' J Klir and M Valach, Prague, 1965 back

Paz, Octavio, and Helen Lane (translator), One Earth, Four or Five Worlds: Reflections on Contemporary History, Mariner Books 1986 Jacket: 'Written with a poet's sensibility and a diplomat's sense of history, these essays view a contemporary world poised between the upheavals of the 1960s and the uncertainties of the 1980s with vision, frankness and depth. Whether focussing on the prosperity without grandeur of contemporary Europe, the inconsistencies of American "imperial democracy", the "paralyzed mammoth" of the Soviet totalitarian empire, or the ominous lessons of Iran and the pains and dangers of modernization, Paz's views of a dividing yet increasingly interdependent world are as clear as they are original. His closing plea for a Latin American style of democracy rooted in native traditions as an alternative to solutions tainted by violence provides an eloquent coda to this sensitive and visionary collection of essays.' 
Amazon   back

Reynolds (1995), Vernon, and Ralph Tanner, The Social Ecology of Religion, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'No society exists in which religion does not play a significant part in the lives of ordinary people. Yet the functions of the world's diverse religions have never been fully described and analyzed, nor has the impact of adherence to those religions on the health and survival of the populations that practice them. . . . this extraordinary text reveals how religions in all parts of the world meet the needs of ordinary people and frequently play an important part in helping them to manage their affairs.' 
Amazon   back

Robinson, Marilynne , Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of Self (The Terry Lecture Series), Yale University Press 2010 Introduction: 'These essays examine one side in the venerable controversy called the conflict between science and religion, in order to question the legitimacy of the claim its exponents make to speak with the authority of science and in order to raise questions about the quality of thought that lies behind it. . . . ' 
Amazon   back

Veltman (2003), Martinus, Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics, World Scientific 2003 'Introduction: The twentieth century has seen an enormous progress in physics. The fundamental physics of the first half of the century was dominated by the theory of relativity, Einstein's theory of gravitation and the theory of quantum mechanics. The second half of the century saw the rise of elementary particle physics. . . . Through this development there has been a subtle change in point of view. In Einstein's theory space and time play an overwhelming dominant role. . . . The view that we would like to defend can perhaps best be explaned by an analogy. To us, space-time and the laws of quantum mechanics are like the decor, the setting of a play. The elementary articles are the actors, and physics is what they do. . . . Thus in this book the elementary particles are the central objects.' 
Amazon   back

Waugh, Evelyn, The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and Protonotary Apostolic to His Holiness Pope Pius XII, Chapman & Hall 1959 Preface: 'This book, I surmise, will prove to be the forerunner of many weightier studies of [Ronald Knox]. Its primary puspose is to tell the story of his exterior life, not to give a conspectus of his thought; still less to measure his spiritual achievements. His published works provide abundant material for research and criticism by specialists in many subjects. Here I have attempted to give the essential biolgraphical facts that they will need.' 
Amazon   back

Wilson, Edward Osborne, Sociobiology: The new synthesis, Harvard UP 1975 Chapter 1: '... the central theoretical problem of sociobiology: how can altruism, which by definition reduces personal fitness, possibly evolve by natural selection? The answer is kinship. ... Sociobiology is defined as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour. ... It may not be too much to say that sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the last branches of biology waiting to be included in the Modern Synthesis.'  
Amazon   back

Luis, A, L L Sanchez-Soto, "Randomization of quantum relative phaze in welcher weg measurements", Journal of Optics B, , 1, 1999, page 668-677. 'Abstract. Welcher Weg (which-path) detectors where complementarity is enforced without altering the interfering beams are analysed in terms of the quantum relative phase. In such a case, the measurement disturbs the interference via random classical phase shifts. This applies when the interfering particles are atoms or photons. In the case of photons, the quantum relative phase coincides with the field phase difference.'. back

Albert Einstein (1905c), On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, ' The wave theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, has proved itself splendidly in describing purely optical phenomena and will probably never be replaced by another theory. One should keep in mind, however, that optical observations apply to time averages and not to momentary values, and it is conceivable that despite the complete confirmation of the theories of diffraction, reflection, refraction, dispersion, etc., by experiment, the theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, may lead to contradictions with experience when it is applied to the phenomena of production and transformation of light. Indeed, it seems to me that the observations regarding "black-body" light, and other groups of phenomena associated with the production or conversion of light can be understood better if one assumes that the energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space.' back

Albert Einstein (1905c), On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, There exists a profound formal difference between the theoretical conceptions physicists have formed about gases and other ponderable bodies, and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic processes in so-called empty space. While we conceive of the state of a body as being completely determined by the positions and velocities of a very large but nevertheless finite number of atoms and electrons, we use continuous spatial functions to determine the electromagnetic state of a space, so that a finite number of quantities cannot be considered as sufficient for the complete description of the electromagnetic state of a space. . . . The usual conception, that the energy of light is continuously distributed over the space through which it travels, meets with especially great difficulties when one attempts to explain the photoelectric phenomena; these difficulties are presented in a pioneering work by Mr. Lenard. . . . back

Albert Einstein (1905c), On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, ' In particular, black body radiation, photoluminescence, generation of cathode rays from ultraviolet light and other phenomena associated with the generation and transformation of light seem better modeled by assuming that the energy of light is distributed discontinuously in space. According to this picture, the energy of a light wave emitted from a point source is not spread continuously over ever larger volumes, but consists of a finite number of energy quanta that are spatially localized at points of space, move without dividing and are absorbed or generated only as a whole. Subsequently, I wish to explain the reasoning and supporting evidence that led me to this picture of light, in the hope that some researchers may find it useful for their experiments.' back

Alex Lo, We never understood what ‘China’ meant, ' Everything we think we know about “China”, its history and culture is probably not quite right. That, at least, has been my own experience of personal study over the years. By and large, my own teachers from decades ago didn’t serve me well; in fact, rather badly. But I don’t blame them. Most teachers are not there to enlighten, but to indoctrinate. They did what they were paid for with me and my schoolmates – from a so-called elite school in Hong Kong no less.' back

Alfred Loisy - Wikipedia, Alfred Loisy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Alfred Firmin Loisy (28 February 1857 – 1 June 1940) [1] was a French Roman Catholic priest, professor and theologian[1] who became the intellectual standard bearer for Biblical Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. He was a critic of traditional views of the biblical creation myth, and argued that biblical criticism could be applied to interpreting scripture. His theological positions brought him into conflict with the leading Catholics of his era, including Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X. In 1893, he was dismissed as a professor from the Institut Catholique de Paris. His books were condemned by the Vatican, and in 1908 he was excommunicated. Loisy's most famous observation was that "Jesus came preaching the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church" ("Jésus annonçait le Royaume et c'est l'Église qui est venue": Loisy 1902), and he is often taken to have said that with a note of regret (Loisy 1976: 166). But for all his clashes with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Loisy did think that Jesus intended to form some sort of society or community. It was the aping of civil government ("comme celle d'un gouvernement établi"; Loisy 1902: 152) that he doubted Jesus intended.' back

Algorithmic information theory - Wikipedia, Algorithmic information theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Algorithmic information theory is a subfield of information theory and computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information. According to Gregory Chaitin, it is "the result of putting Shannon's information theory and Turing's computability theory into a cocktail shaker and shaking vigorously".' back

Anaxagoras - Wikipedia, Anaxagoras - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Anaxagoras ( 500 – c.  428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. According to Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch, in later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus; the charges may have been political, owing to his association with Pericles, if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers. . . . Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; . . . He introduced the concept of Nous (Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated out the original mixture, which was homogeneous, or nearly so.' back

Aquinas, Summa I, 25, 3, Is God omnipotent?, '. . . God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey.' back

Auguste Comte - Wikipedia, Auguste Comte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Auguste Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. . . .

Comte attempted to introduce a cohesive "religion of humanity" which, though largely unsuccessful, was influential in the development of various Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century. He also created and defined the term "altruism".' back

Black-body radiation - Wikipedia, Black-body radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Black-body radiation is the type of electromagnetic radiation within or surrounding a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, or emitted by a black body (an opaque and non-reflective body) held at constant, uniform temperature. The radiation has a specific spectrum and intensity that depends only on the temperature of the body.' back

Decretum Gratiani - Wikipedia, Decretum Gratiani - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Decretum Gratiani or Concordia discordantium canonum (in some manuscripts Concordantia discordantium canonum) is a collection of Canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It retained legal force in the Roman Catholic Church until Pentecost 1918, when a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) promulgated by Pope Benedict XV on 27 May 1917 obtained the Force of Law.' back

Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia, Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Edict of Thessalonica, also known as Cunctos populos, was delivered on 27 February 380 by Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II in order that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria. This made Nicene Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. . . .The edict was issued under the influence of Acholius, and thus of Pope Damasus I, who had appointed him. It re-affirmed a single expression of the Apostolic Faith as legitimate in the Roman Empire, "catholic" (that is, universal) and "orthodox" (that is, correct in teaching). After the edict, Theodosius spent a great deal of energy suppressing all non-Nicene forms of Christianity, especially Arianism, and in establishing Nicene orthodoxy throughout his realm.' back

Exodus 32, The Lord orders Moses to slaughter the worshippers of the Golden Calf, '27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour'.” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day”.' back

Fast Fourier transform - Wikipedia, Fast Fourier transform - Wikipedia, 'A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an efficient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and its inverse. There are many distinct FFT algorithms involving a wide range of mathematics, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory; this article gives an overview of the available techniques and some of their general properties, while the specific algorithms are described in subsidiary articles linked below.' back

Fourier transform - Wikipedia, Fourier transform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Fourier transform (FT) decomposes a function of time (a signal) into the frequencies that make it up, in a way similar to how a musical chord can be expressed as the frequencies (or pitches) of its constituent notes.' back

Gideon Levy & Alex Levac, Raed Lit a Cigarette. That's When Israeli Troops Shot Him and Left Him to Die on the Side of the Road , ' The soldiers had shot Raed Jidallah as they would shoot a rabid dog – and then also treated him they way they would have treated the dog’s carcass. Afterward they claimed that Raed had tried to light a fire. The only thing Raed lit that evening was a Marlboro; he was a heavy smoker. But for the Kfir soldiers that was enough to start shooting from a distance in the dark. And it was also enough that their victim was presumed to be a Palestinian for them not to bother checking the results of their action.' back

Gregory Moore, The daily dance of flowers tracking the sun is more fascinating than most of us realise, ' Flowers are really in the advertising game and will do anything they can to attract a suitable pollinator, as effectively and as efficiently as they can. There are several possible reasons why tracking the sun might have evolved to achieve more successful pollination. By tracking the sun, flowers absorb more solar radiation and so remain warmer. The warmer temperature suits or even rewards insect pollinators that are more active when they have a higher body temperature. Optimum flower warmth may also boost pollen development and germination, leading to a higher fertilisation rate and more seeds.' back

Jeffrey Nicholls (2019a), Entropy and Metaethics, ' If we reject divine revelation as the foundation for morality we must find our grounds within the universe, which is tantamount to the naturalization of morality. So the question becomes 'how does nature embrace spirit as the sovereign ground for moral value?' . . . I propose an answer in terms of what Einstein considered to be the most fundamental and irrefutable law of nature, the second law of thermodynamics, which expresses the fact that entropy almost never decreases. In a more morally relevant frame, this law expresses the fact that the universe is inherently creative. Human spirituality, whatever it may be, has emerged from the natural world.' back

JJJ, Family Week Is Here | Hack | tripleJ, 'Keep it in the Family with Hack. Love them or hate them, you're stuck with FAMILY for life.

Hack wants to hear from you if you're bring primed for the family business. Is it something you want to do? Or do you feel like you're being pressured into it? We also want to speak with same sex families and people who are mad sibling rivals. We'll be talking close-knit families, family expectations, family breakdown and more.

Get involved - we'd love to hear about your family. Are you in a close-knit family? re you in a crazy battle for sibling supremacy? or is there something straining your family bond?' back

John Lennon, Imagine, back

John von Neumann (2014), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, ' Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann translated from the German by Robert T. Beyer (New Edition) edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler. Princeton UP Princeton & Oxford. Preface: ' This book is the realization of my long-held intention to someday use the resources of TEX to produce a more easily read version of Robert T. Beyer’s authorized English translation (Princeton University Press, 1955) of John von Neumann’s classic Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (Springer, 1932).'This content downloaded from 129.127.145.240 on Sat, 30 May 2020 22:38:31 UTC back

Justine Nolan, Australia’s ‘A’ rating on human rights is under threat with a handpicked, politically engineered commissioner, ' The Morrison government’s handpicked appointment of a new human rights commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, threatens to undermine the independence and legitimacy of the Australian Human Rights Commission itself. . . . The first independent human rights bodies were established in the late 1970s and early 1980s in New Zealand, Canada and Australia. By the early 1990s, there were about 20 of them around the world claiming to be independent. The United Nations sponsored the first gathering of these institutions in Paris in October 1991. They drafted and adopted what became known as the Paris Principles, which set minimum standards for national human rights institutions. The principles require these bodies to be independent from government. They also highlight the importance of a clear, transparent and participatory process for appointments, which allows for representation from broader society.' back

Lie Group - Wikipedia, Lie Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a Lie group . . . is a group that is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the smooth structure. Lie groups are named after Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie, who laid the foundations of the theory of continuous transformation groups. Lie groups represent the best-developed theory of continuous symmetry of mathematical objects and structures, which makes them indispensable tools for many parts of contemporary mathematics, as well as for modern theoretical physics. . . . One of the key ideas in the theory of Lie groups is to replace the global object, the group, with its local or linearized version, which Lie himself called its "infinitesimal group" and which has since become known as its Lie algebra.' back

Massimo Faggioli, The Limits of ‘Traditionis Custodes’, ' Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s July motu proprio on the pre-conciliar Mass, caught many observers and liturgical experts by surprise. Not because of what it says about Francis’s theological thinking (he has always been adamant in defending the validity of Vatican II’s liturgical reform), but because of the document’s unequivocal rejection of Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, and because of the timing of its release—that is, while Benedict is still alive. back

Meiosis - Wikipedia, Meiosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Meiosis . . . is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms used to produce the gametes, such as sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately result in four cells with only one copy of each chromosome (haploid). Additionally, prior to the division, genetic material from the paternal and maternal copies of each chromosome is crossed over, creating new combinations of code on each chromosome. Later on, during fertilisation, the haploid cells produced by meiosis from a male and female will fuse to create a cell with two copies of each chromosome again, the zygote.' back

Monadology - Wikipedia, Monadology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Monadology (La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz’s best known works representing his later philosophy. It is a short text which sketches in some 90 paragraphs a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads.' back

Original sin - Wikipedia, Original sin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Original sin, sometimes called ancestral sin, is, according to a doctrine proposed in Christian theology, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a "sin nature," to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt by all humans through collective guilt. Those who uphold this doctrine look to the teaching of Paul the Apostle in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 for its scriptural base, and see it as perhaps implied in an Old Testament passage Psalm 51:5.' back

Original sin - Wikipedia, Original sin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Original sin, sometimes called ancestral sin, is, according to a doctrine proposed in Christian theology, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a "sin nature," to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt by all humans through collective guilt. Those who uphold this doctrine look to the teaching of Paul the Apostle in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 for its scriptural base, and see it as perhaps implied in an Old Testament passage Psalm 51:5.' back

P. A. M. Dirac (1933), The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics, ' . . . there is an alternative formulation [to the Hamiltonian] in classical dynamics, provided by the Lagrangian. This requires one to work in terms of coordinates and velocities instead of coordinates and momenta. The two formulation are closely related but there are reasons for believing that the Lagrangian one is more fundamental. . . . Secondly the lagrangian method can easily be expressed relativistically, on account of the action function being a relativistic invariant; . . .. ' [This article was first published in Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion, Band 3, Heft 1 (1933), pp. 64–72.] back

Patricia Curd (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Anaxagoras, ' Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (a major Greek city of Ionian Asia Minor), a Greek philosopher of the 5th century B.C.E. (born ca. 500–480), was the first of the Presocratic philosophers to live in Athens. He propounded a physical theory of “everything-in-everything,” and claimed that nous (intellect or mind) was the motive cause of the cosmos. He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.' back

Peter Beaumont, US airstrikes killed at least 22,000 civilians since 9/11, analysis finds, ' US drone and airstrikes have killed at least 22,000 civilians – and perhaps as many as 48,000 – since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, according to new analysis published by the civilian harm monitoring group Airwars. The analysis, based on the US military’s own assertion that it has conducted almost 100,000 airstrikes since 2001, represents an attempt to estimate the number of civilian deaths across the multiple conflicts that have comprised aspects of the “war on terror”. . . . The death toll from US airstrikes – which the group admits is imprecise – compares with an estimated 387,000 civilians who are believed to have been killed by all parties during the war on terror, according to work done by Brown University’s Costs of War Programme.' back

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake: Australian Ballet: Graeme Murphy, ' Graeme Murphy’s modern-day classic is a Swan Lake for the 21st century, charged with sensuality and heartbreak. The Australian Ballet’s most performed and most successful work has swept the world before it, reaping standing ovations and storms of tears in London, Paris, Tokyo and New York. The romance of Princess Odette and Prince Siegfried is updated (and complicated) to a contemporary love triangle with the addition of the Baroness von Rothbart, a slinky mistress who has no intention of releasing her freshly married lover. Murphy’s breathtaking pas de deux and massed swans are framed by legendary designer Kristian Fredrikson’s darkly sparkling lake, contrasted with the glittering magnificence of regal weddings and ballrooms. This is Swan Lake as you’ve never seen it before. back

Randa Abdel Fattah, ‘I’m not afraid of terrorism. I’m afraid of being accused of being a terrorist’: growing up Muslim after 9/11, ' Most of the students from suburbs and schools who came under media and political scrutiny as “problematic” had felt targeted and isolated. One student withdrew from his Muslim peers, abandoned his prayers at school, took different routes to school to avoid being hassled by the media, and “shut down” in class. I got dragged into an argument with other kids in class about me following the same religion as these terrorists […] but my tone […] I came off very aggressive […] then I was scared, because that’s what people think of as radical extremists […] I felt like I’d be taken straight to the principal and you would have to deal with that. So I shut up.' back

Ross Gittins, Smaller Government turns out to be penny wise, pound foolish, ' There’s little reason to believe we’ve seen much improvement in the efficiency with which government services have been delivered. Rather, there are numerous examples of reductions in the quality of services and a decline in the policy capability of public service – evident in the need to bring in military generals and the small fortune being spent on management consultants from the big four accounting firms. This failure isn’t surprising when you remember the Smaller Government project is based on prejudice rather than evidence – the public sector is always inefficient; the private sector is always efficient – and on using the crudest measures to achieve greater efficiency.' back

Ruth Michaelson, Egypt accused of widespread state-sanctioned killings of dissidents, ' Egyptian security forces engaged in an extended campaign of extrajudicial killings of detainees, routinely masked as shootouts with alleged terrorists, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. The report details what it alleges are a pattern of extrajudicial assassinations between 2015 and last year, a period in which the Egyptian interior ministry said publicly that 755 people were killed in alleged exchanges of fire with security forces, while naming just 141. . . . Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has overseen what HRW describes as “one of the worst prolonged human rights crises in the country’s recent history”, targeting all forms of political opposition, journalists and even benign dissent from citizens posting critical comments on social media.' back

Sotah - Wikipedia, Sotah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Sotah deals with the ritual of Sotah - the woman suspected of adultery as described and prescribed in the Book of Numbers in Numbers 5:. Part of the Biblical ritual to determine if a wife suspected and accused of adultery, but not proven to have done so based on any reliable witnesses that obviates this ritual, is the so-called "ordeal of bitter water" to be applied in certain cases of suspected adultery.' back

Well temperament - Wikipedia, Well temperament - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Well temperament (also good temperament, circular or circulating temperament) is a type of tempered tuning described in 20th-century music theory. The term is modeled on the German word wohltemperiert. This word also appears in the title of J.S. Bach's famous composition "Das wohltemperierte Klavier", The Well-Tempered Clavier. . . As used in the 17th century, the term "well tempered" meant that the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard were tuned in such a way that it was possible to play music in all major or minor keys that were commonly in use, without sounding perceptibly out of tune.' back

White noise - Wikipedia, White noise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopeia, ' In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, including physics, acoustical engineering, telecommunications, and statistical forecasting. White noise refers to a statistical model for signals and signal sources, rather than to any specific signal. White noise draws its name from white light, although light that appears white generally does not have a flat power spectral density over the visible band.' back

Yu Tao, Friday Essay: an introduction to Confucius, his ideas and their lasting relevance, ' . . .But this frustrated scholar’s ideas have profoundly shaped politics and ethics in and beyond China ever since his death in 479 BCE. The greatest and the most influential Chinese thinker, his concept of filial piety, remains highly valued among young people in China, despite rapid changes in the country’s demography. . . . In the ideas of Confucius, the most important moral principle is ren 仁, a concept that can hardly be translated into English without losing some of its meaning. . . . As summarised by China historian Daniel Gardner, Confucius defined ren as: to love others, to subdue the self and return to ritual propriety, to be respectful, tolerant, trustworthy, diligent, and kind, to be possessed of courage, to be free from worry, or to be resolute and firm. Instead of searching for an explicit definition of ren, it is perhaps wise to view the concept as an ideal type of the highest and ultimate virtue Confucius believed good people should pursue.' back