Archive for the ‘bible’ Tag
- When Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, she was condemned for two crimes: witchcraft and wearing men’s clothing.
- Two dozen American states considered impotence legal grounds for divorce.
- At any time, .7 percent of the world’s population is drunk.
- The King of Diamonds in a standard card deck was designed after Julius Caesar. King of Spades for King David, King of Clubs for Alexander the Great, and King of Hearts for Charlemagne.
- A flink is a group of 12 or more cows.
- In a single day, one cow discharges enough methane to fill 400 one-liter bottles.
- A standard pencil could draw a 35-mile-long line before it runs out of lead (graphite).
- The average life span of a goldfish living in the wild is 25 years.
- Approximately 500 pounds of Silly Putty are produced every day.
- The Guinness World Records book is considered the most commonly stolen volume from libraries around the world. In the United States the Bible is the most shoplifted book.
And here is my quote of the day:
“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.”
Bridgette Bardot
Have you ever had the pleasure of talking with someone who has mastered the art of speaking in clichés? ? I’ve met one or two over the years and it’s actually pretty funny. We all use clichés everyday but almost no one knows how they originated and what their original meaning was. Here are just a few examples . . .
BAKER’S DOZEN
This phrase dates back to medieval England. Henry III (1216-1272) instituted a law, The Assize of Bread and Ale, that called for severe punishment for any baker caught shortchanging customers. English bakers developed the habit of including an extra loaf of bread when asked for a dozen to ensure that if one were stolen, dropped, or lost, they wouldn’t be accused of shortchanging their customers.
BY THE SKIN OF ONE’AS TEETH
By the narrowest of margins. By a hairs breath. There are several metaphors emphasizing the physical danger of a given situation from which one might just have escaped. “By the skin of one’s teeth” specifically is a slightly misquoted biblical phrase that means to have suffered a “close shave”.
“My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” Job 19:20
COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE THE BALLS OFF A BRASS MONKEY
This means that the weather is extremely cold, and although the expression sounds delightfully vulgar, it was not originally a reference to a monkey’s testicles. A brass monkey is a type of rack in which cannonballs were stored. Being brass, the “monkey” contracted in cold weather, resulting in the cannonballs being ejected. The expression has also mutated into a shortened form, again commenting on the temperature, as “brass monkey weather”.
EVERY DOG HAS IT’S DAY
This is a commonly used phrase that seems to have appeared in an English writing of R. Tavener in 1539 and subsequently by Shakespeare:
“Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and the dog will have his day.” Hamlet (1600;5:1)
Well, there you have it. These three clichés have been used by millions of people and now you’re one of the few that knows the actual story behind them.
Are you left-handed? I’ve been reading up on left-handedness and right-handedness after watching my two grandsons play in a Little League baseball game. I began wondering why we become one or the other. I was apparently born left-handed, but my father changed all that. When I was about 11 years old, he decided that in order for him to have a lifelong golfing partner he had to teach me how to play golf. Unfortunately, we weren’t a wealthy family, and I was taught to golf using right-handed clubs. After a time, I made the adjustment and moved on with my life. Later in my Little League years I was a pitcher. In one game I actually pitched half of the game right-handed and the second half left-handed. I’ve been ambidextrous ever since.
I decided to look a little further into the history of left-handedness and here’s the result . . .
- In ancient Egypt artwork and hieroglyphics, it appears that most Egyptians were right-handed. They portrayed their enemies as left-handed, which can be seen as derogatory.
- The ancient Greeks never crossed their left leg over their right, because they believed a person’s sex was determined by their position in the womb with the female, or “lesser sex”, sitting on the left side of the womb.
- The Romans also had a bias against left-handedness. Roman customs required that when entering a friend’s home, it should be done placing the right foot forward. Also, Romans should always turn their head to the right when sneezing. The Latin word for left was sinister (meaning evil or ominous), the word for right was dexter (meaning skillful or adroit). Even the word ambidextrous literally means “right-handed with both hands”.
- The Anglo-Saxon root for left is lyft, which means “weak”, “broken,” or “worthless”. Riht is for right and means “straight”, “just”, or “erect”.
- The Bible is totally biased in favor of right-handed people. Both the Old and New Testaments always refer to “the right hand of God”. There is also a distinction made even in religious art. Jesus and God are nearly always drawn giving blessings with their right hand, and the devil is usually portrayed doing evil with his left.
I feel a bit slighted by all of those old-time religious fanatics and the Bible as well. It seems to me that the Greeks, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and damn near anyone else had been brainwashed with the idea that left-handedness is evil. Even the Muslims require that you only eat food with the right hand. Just one more reason for me to take anything said by any organized religion as utter and complete nonsense.
LEFTIES ARISE AND PROCLAIM YOUR LEFTINESS TO THE WORLD
Let’s start the new year off with a short rant about religion. Last month I finally purchased a copy of the Torah and as I read, I wondered what I could actually find in the Bible since most of the older religious documents of almost all religions are pretty blood thirsty.
Anyone who claims to admire and worship the biblical God has either abandoned all sense of moral judgment or has never actually read the Old Testament. Since most believers are good people, I prefer to assume the latter. I think the world would be a much better place if people would actually read the book. A.A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, said: “The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.” Here are a few more of the Old Testament tidbits that will have you rushing off to church.
- Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the [holy man] who represents God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged.
- I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.
- I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams will be filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you will know that I am God.
- Fight them until there is no more [disbelief or worshipping of other gods] and worship is for God alone.
- Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
- Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.
- Make ready to slaughter [the infidel’s] sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and possess the earth and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.
- [God’s messenger] . . . was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The [holy man] replied, “They [women and children] are from them [unbelievers].”
- Then I heard God say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.”
- “See, the day of the Lord is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger. . .. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty. . .. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted, and their wives violated.”
- Keep [my holiday], for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die.
- The punishment of those who wage war against God and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified, or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter, they shall have a grievous chastisement.
- “O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”
- “And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”
- “You shall acknowledge no God but me. . .. You are destroyed, Israel. . .. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”
I for one am grateful that I was born after most of that craziness had run its course. There still are a few fanatics out there from all religions but they are thankfully very few in number.
AND PEOPLE SAY THE MUSLIMS ARE BLOODTHIRSTY
Well, how do you think you’ve scored? I found that I remembered the individual stories well enough but wasn’t too sharp with the small details. When I was a youngster my mother purchased a series of paperback pamphlets from the Catholic church (Who else?). Each pamphlet offered up a story from the Bible written specifically for young adults and kids. It’s nice to see that I finally found a use for all that knowledge all these years later. Here are the promised answers to the quiz.
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1. The book of Esther.
2. According to Genesis 5:27, you would be 969 years old.
3. Pitch, or natural asphalt. This way
4. Darius the Mede (Book of Daniel, Chapter 6)
5. War (Book of Revelations)
6. To, Ruth and Esther.
7. Ahab, King of Israel (I Kings 16:28-31)
8. Joshua. The passages in Joshua 10:12-13.
9. The Dead Sea – which is known for it’s high salt content. The Arabs call it the sea of Lot; the Israelis, the Salt Sea.
10. The Babylonian king Belshazzar (Daniel5:1-5)
11. Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior.
12. Three days and three nights.
13. Aramaic – an ancient language in use on the North Arabian Peninsula at the time of Christ. A modern version of the languages spoken today in Syria and among Assyrians in Azerbaijan.
14. Seven according to the Bible (Judges 16:19).
15. On the third day (Genesis 1:9).
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There you have it. I’ve already started work on a Food Trivia Challenge which will be posted within the next week or so.
Since I went into something of a religious kick yesterday I thought I’d continue along in the same vein today. I find it odd that so many people who claim to be religious also continuously complain about their religion. Not one particular religion but pretty much every religion collects its fair amount of criticism from its own practitioners as well as critics from other religions and of course the always ever present atheists.
This posting today is another one of my trivia challenges based fully and solely on the Bible. Believe me when I tell you I’m not an expert on the Bible. I’ve read virtually all of it at one time or another but I wasn’t seeking solace for help in maintaining my religious faith, I was just curious about what all the hoopla was about. So for those of you out there who feel that you’re a true person of faith with a fair amount of knowledge about the Bible, I’m here to challenge you today.
I’m going to increase the number of questions in this trivia challenge and instead of my regular 10 there will be 15. Let’s see how closely you’ve read and remember the information in your Bible.
1. The name of God is not mentioned in only one book of the Bible. Which one?
2. If you lived as long as Methuselah, what age would you live to?
3. According to the Bible, what substance was used to caulk Noah’s Ark and to seal the basket in which the infant Moses was set adrift on the Nile?
4. What biblical Babylonian king cast Daniel into the lions den for praying to God in defiance of a Royal decree?
5. In the Bible, which of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse rides a red horse?
6. How many books of the Bible are named for women?
7. In the Old Testament, who was Jezebel’s husband?
8. In the Bible, who did the sun and moon stand before?
9. Along what body of water is there a low-salt mountain some believe is the pillar of salt that Lot’s wife was turned into after the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?
10. In the Bible, who saw the handwriting on the wall?
11. What were the names of the three wise men?
12. How much time did Jonah spend in the belly of the whale?
13. What language is Jesus believed to have spoke?
14. How many locks of hair did Delilah have cut from the mighty Samson’s head to render him powerless?
15. According to the Bible, on what day did God divide land and water?
I’m really proud of myself after scoring 10/15 on this trivia challenge. I guess some of the things I was taught during my misspent youth I actually retained. Tomorrow I’ll publish the answers with as much detail as I can give you to verify where in the Bible you can find them. Have fun.
I think of myself on most days as a fair and honest thinking person. It’s the way I like to be treated therefore it’s how I try to treat people I meet. With that in mind I thought I would make one more try to understand our Islamic brothers and sisters without painting them all with the “Terrorist Brush”. I didn’t say it would be easy but I’m willing to make the attempt one more time.
I’m a patriotic American and the anger than I hold inside myself is in response to terrorism in general and 9/11 in particular. It’s now been a dozen years since the 9/11 attacks and that anger hasn’t abated in the least. Let me go back to that time and explain.
I had just become unemployed when the company I worked for went bankrupt. I was sitting on my coach watching the entire attack from start to finish, unable to move or take my eyes from the screen. I wasn’t alone. there were millions of others doing the same damn thing.
A week of so later I decided to learn as much as I could about our new Islamic enemies and the alleged reasons for their actions. The first thing I did was to read the Koran from cover to cover. It’s much like the Bible and the Talmud where it’s intentionally written in such a way as to allow a lot of room for interpretation. I visited certain Islamic web-sites and read ream after ream of supposed religious quotations designed to entice non-thinking individuals into idiotic actions. I was confused almost immediately because almost none of what I was reading was found in the Koran as they claimed. As with some Christian sects, words from ancient texts were intentionally misquoted and corrupted and made to fit the extremist views of the writer.
Looking at history the Islamic culture at one time was the leader in almost everything including but not limited to the scientific, education, astronomy, and hundreds of others areas. They ruled most of the civilized world for centuries and did a pretty decent job of it. They were murderous and ruthless but so was everyone else including the Christians at that time.
Jump ahead to the present day and things have changed dramatically. They are no longer the “Big Dog” and anyone not with them must convert or die. It’s truly a moronic approach but it’s what the extremists have chosen. It should be stated clearly that worldwide they kill more of their own people than anyone else which I can’t even begin to understand.
The following quotations are Islamic proverbs which would be perfectly acceptable to almost anyone of any religion. Ninety percent of the Islamic people are hard working and only interested in leading a good life and raising their families, just like everyone else. These proverbs prove that for me. Read them for yourselves and decide.
“It is wise to bring some water, when one goes out to look for water.’
“Habit is the 6th sense that overrules the other.”
”Paradise can be found on the back of horses, in books and between the breasts of women.”
‘If you have much, give of your wealth; If you have little, give of your heart.”
“Marriage is like a fort, those who are in want out, those who are out want in.”
“A fat woman is a blanket for winter.”
“A woman can hide her love for 40 years, but her disgust and anger not for one day”.
“Even a one eyed guy will wink at a beautiful woman.”
“Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time.”
“When you shoot an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.”
“Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man”
“Anything that happens once does not necessarily happen again, everything that happens twice is likely to happen for the third time as well.”
“On the day of victory no one is tired.”
“Fear can make a donkey attack a lion.”
“God can see a black ant walk on a black stone in a black night.”
“Fear those who are afraid of you.”
“We learn little from our successes, but a lot from our failures”
Now that I’ve given them credit where it is due I must in good faith throw a huge and important criticism in their collective faces. Until the ninety percent of reasonable Muslim’s decide to stand up and denounce that extremist ten percent there can be no peace. I want to see the Islamic population of every little mosque on the planet take a stand against the murder of innocents for political gain. They continue to stay quiet because of their fear of retaliation from the extremists and at the same time insist on whining and crying about the bad treatment they receive from non-Muslims. You can’t have it both ways. Period. End of story.
As I’ve mentioned previously my better-half’s daughter is a Math teacher in one of our local Middle Schools. I love listening to her war stories when we get together because I envy her at times. Nothing is more important than education and the interaction with the students is what I consider a major perk. Unfortunately some students take a little longer to get their act together as you will see in the following short essays. All errors in spelling and grammar remain as they were written. They will make you smile.
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The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
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The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinnesss, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother’s son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother’s birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
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Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
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Without the Greeks we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable. Achilles appears in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
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Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
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In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
They made me laugh a little and took me to a whole new level of respect for teachers. Molding these youngsters into intelligent and thoughtful human beings is quite the challenge and I’m just glad there are people out there who’ve been called to the teaching profession. Just amazing.
And last but not least I’d like to acknowledge and thank my newest followers. I encourage you to visit their sites and to enjoy their efforts as I do. Thanks again.
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Tanner Hawryluk
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I thought today I’d live up to this blogs name by providing a few items of really useless information which you could no doubt live without. I need to have a fun posting day for a change that will provide absolutely no useful content to any discussion about anything at all. How’s that for a total and complete disclaimer.
I’ve always been a huge trivia fan and anytime I find a few tidbits that are new to me I immediately send them along to you. So sit back in your nice soft chair with your refreshment of choice and read on.
1. Potatoes have more chromosomes than humans do – 48 versus 46.
2. The steam rising from a cup of hot coffee contains the same amount of antioxidants as three oranges.
3. Cleavage has nothing to do with breast size or shape. Women with concave ribcages exhibit cleavage, while those with convex ribcages don’t.
4. There are roughly 144,000 mosquitos for every person on earth.
5. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after his editor challenged him to produce a book using fewer than 50 words.
6. William McKinley was the first president to ride in an electric car – the ambulance that took him to the hospital after he was shot by an assassin.
7. In 2004, the glossy Ikea catalogue overtook the Bible as the world’s most distributed publication.
8. The Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world.
9. The actress Liz Sheridan, best known for her portrayal of Jerry Seinfeld’s TV mother, was briefly engaged to James Dean.
10. One of every five meals in America are eaten in cars.
11. The largest human cell is the female ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.
12. You can tell the temperature by listening to a cricket chirp. For the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 37.
13. In the summer of 1967, Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for the Monkees seven times.
14. A falling object travels slower at the equator than it does at the North and South poles.
15. Winston Churchill had a heart attack in the White House while straining to open a window.
So there you have it. Fifteen more golden nuggets of useless information to use up what space you have left in your memory banks. The month of March is sure to be long and boring and to make it complete I’ll send a few more tidbits your way in a few weeks. I just know your thrilled.
everyuselessthing.com 