Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Carl Sagan's [second] last interview, with Charlie Rose (Full Interview)

Carl Sagan's [second] last interview, with Charlie Rose on May 27, 1996.

Carl gave one other television interview before his death. It was aired on ABC's Nightline on December 4th 1996. A short clip from that interview can be seen below. Please ask ABC to make the entire interview available.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JX_-jaJOrU#t=79s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8HEwO-2L4w [with comments] [also, in 3 parts respectively, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jod7v-m573k (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDKSZO-aACk (with comments), and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxeN6Wf7mbU (with comments)]


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An urgent message from Santa

Published on Nov 30, 2013 by GreenpeaceUK

Could this be Santa's final broadcast? To help, go to http://www.savesantashome.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr2LCTdIzd4 [with comments]

*

The Right-Wing Santa Fantasy

Fox News: White Santa's Home Isn't Melting
December 12, 2013


http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/12/the-right-wing-santa-fantasy/197245 [with the Greenpeace ad just above and two Fox clips embedded, and comments]


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A Christmas gift for atheists -- five reasons why God exists


The Vatican Christmas tree is lit up after a ceremony in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican December 14, 2012.
(Reuters)

By William Lane Craig
Published December 13, 2013
FoxNews.com

For atheists, Christmas is a religious sham. For if God does not exist, then obviously Jesus’ birth cannot represent the incarnation of God in human history, which Christians celebrate at this time of year.

However, most atheists, in my experience, have no good reasons for their disbelief. Rather they’ve learned to simply repeat the slogan, “There’s no good evidence for God’s existence!”

In the case of a Christian who has no good reasons for what he believes, this slogan serves as an effective conversation-stopper. But if we have good reasons for our beliefs, then this slogan serves rather as a conversation-starter.

The atheist who merely repeats this slogan after having been presented with arguments for God’s existence makes an empty assertion.

So what reasons might be given in defense of Christian theism? In my publications and oral debates with some of the world’s most notable atheists, I’ve defended the following five reasons why God exists:

1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe. Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning. Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause, there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence. This entity must therefore be enormously powerful. Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jClyinERY [with {over 5,000} comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_a6RjR_AHY [with {over 32,000} comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEE2L2l3PAo [with comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life. That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range. There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible, given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMYIl5b-paY [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6AdEDm2mLQ [with comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness, and His commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjhFlI6-ZBI [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwiU7thK54 [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP0bLdOplyk [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-zi25GgVE [with {over 9,000} comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgZqnsytJI [with {over 8,000} comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

4. God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Historians have reached something of consensus that the historical Jesus thought that in himself God’s Kingdom had broken into human history, and he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as evidence of that fact. Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary. I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one the original disciples gave: God raised Jesus from the dead.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdxeqEoDXco [with {over 8,000} comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wyt8gCIZHA [with comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

5. God can be personally known and experienced. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Down through history Christians have found through Jesus a personal acquaintance with God that has transformed their lives.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYkxWO4Op6c [with {over 5,000} comments])

The good thing is that atheists tend to be very passionate people and want to believe in something. If they would only put aside the slogans for a moment and reexamine their worldview in light of the best philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence we have today, then they, too, would find Christmas worth celebrating!

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNtBkOXItqw [with {over 6,000} comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

Related Video

How can I be sure God exists?

William Lane Craig explains his mission to defend Christianity from skeptics and nonbelievers
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2893567384001/how-can-be-sure-god-exists

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODetOE6cbbc [with {over 19,000} comments] [{linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94631972 and preceding and following])

William Lane Craig is a philosopher, author, and founder of ReasonableFaith.org [ http://www.reasonablefaith.org/ ], a web-based ministry whose purpose is to provide an intelligent and articulate perspective about the existence of God in the public arena.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFOTnBz-PCk [with comments])

©2013 FOX News Network, LLC (emphasis in original)

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/13/christmas-gift-for-atheists-five-reasons-why-god-exists/ [with comments]


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Was Noah's Ark round? Scholar says 3,700-year-old clay tablet reveals boat was a coracle made out of reeds and bitumen

New revelation: According to an ancient Babylonian tablet, Noah's Ark was a 220-ft wide coracle - the equivalent of six London buses - with walls 20-ft high

Dr Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, translated the cuneiform script on the tablet

Noah's Ark is typically portrayed at a traditional ship, such as in this Italian mid-16th century painting
Dr Irving Finkel has translated cuneiform text on an 3,700-old clay tablet
The ancient script details the Mesopotamian story of Noah's Ark
The text also contains instructions on how to build an ark to escape a flood
But its describes the craft as being a round 220-ft diameter coracle
The design is very different to the popular imagining of a traditional ship
15 December 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524056/Noahs-Ark-coracle-reeds-bitumen-reveals-Babylonian-text.html [with comments]


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Reza Aslan On The Birth Of Jesus: 'Zealot' Author Relates Historical Nativity Narrative



Posted: 12/14/2013 9:02 am EST | Updated: 12/14/2013 1:03 pm EST

Reza Aslan, a Biblical scholar and author of "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth [ http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X ]," spoke to The Huffington Post to give a historical perspective on the birth of Jesus, an event which the Gospels recount in different ways.

"The stories themselves are not and were never meant to be read as a literal historical account of Jesus' birth," Aslan explained. "They are, instead, a theological argument about who Jesus was."

Though the historical facts surrounding the birth of Jesus are very thin, by examining the cultural and religious practices of time it's possible to make some assumptions about what the nativity would probably have been like.

Aslan told The Huffington Post, "If the Gospels are correct that he was from a village called Nazareth, and that he came from a family of tekton (woodworkers or builders), what that means is that he was the poorest of the poor. The word tekton was actually a term of abuse among the Romans, who used it as slang for an uncouth or illiterate peasant."

Ancient Nazareth was a small village of perhaps one hundred Jewish families or less, located on a hilltop in lower Galilee. Aslan described it as a tiny hamlet of mud and brick homes, "a place so small and inconsequential that it appears on no maps prior to the 1st century."

Despite the Nativity narrative of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, Aslan explained that it's far more likely that he was actually born in Nazareth. Though the Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer different explanations for why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Aslan argues that their goal was to express truths about the identity of The Christ, rather than to be historically accurate. Furthermore, those Gospels were written at least 60 years after Jesus' death.

So what would his birth in Nazareth have been like?

"He would have been born at home, with extended family around him" Aslan said to The Huffington Post. That family included at least four brothers [ http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-26/opinions/42421357_1_nazareth-david-s-jesus-s ] and an unknown number of sisters. "Probably, members of the village would have helped with the birthing process."

"He would have been circumcised on the 8th day, but not at the Temple, which was a 3 day walk away. Galileans did not frequently make the journey to the Temple in Judea because it was a long and extensive trip, which would have been out of the question for a newborn."

Aslan said that the circumcision ceremony was also when his family would have named him. "They would have called him Yesu, the diminutive form of Yeshua, an incredibly common name."

With regards to the magi that come to give gifts to the newborn king in the traditional Nativity narrative, Aslan explained that magi were Persian or Zoroastrian priests. Some Greeks believed that Zoroastrians were astrologers, which is why the magi would have noticed the appearance of a new star in the east. Aslan said, "Most scholars would say that the appearance of the magi was an attempt to connect the Jesus movement with eastern spiritual movements."

After his birth, his life would have resembled that of any other resident of Nazareth. "He was the child of a poor, illiterate, pious, uneducated peasant family from the backwoods of Galilee," Aslan said. "That's the childhood that Jesus would have had."

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/14/reza-aslan-birth-of-jesus_n_4441762.html [with comments]


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Det Cord Christmas Tree

Published on Dec 16, 2013 by RatedRR

Det Cord Christmas Tree

This is where I giveaway brass from shoots and other cool random perks:
http://fullmag.com

Big Special Thanks to Tripwire Operations Group for donating the explosives for this video: https://www.facebook.com/TripwireOperationsGroup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8CBXHzLssc [with comments]


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The 12 Days of Conservative Movement Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvVkJ_KSqgw [with comments] [(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81169932 and preceding and following]


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this post completes the piece-by-piece repost of http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=95081519