A new use for computers

Greetings.

Jewish date: 11 Nisan 5769.

Today’s quasi-holidays: Go For Broke Day, National Workplace Napping Day, Stop the Clocks Day, Palm Sunday.

For all of you who celebrate Pesaḥ (Passover): Young Israel has published a flier asking us to consciously observes the commandments against improper speech during the Sedher towards the merit of freeing Jewish captives, such as Gil‘adh Shaliṭ and Jonathan Pollard.

Worthy cause of the day: “Urge the TX SBOE to Teach Real Science”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. Continued religious intolerance: “Religious police arrest famous actors, because men and women were performing together”, “Court hears Texas case over animal sacrifices”, “UZBEKISTAN: 'We just need to make sure what they teach in their homes'”, “Bahai homes attacked in Egypt after media commentary”, “AZERBAIJAN: 'We have long been after you and now we've caught you!'”, “TAJIKISTAN: Latest religious property eviction, Religion Law enters force”
2. “Israel's fight against Christian missionaries”: 1) “Messianic Jews” have no business demanding recognition as Jews from Jews. Who is and who is not Jewish is a matter of Jewish law. (Jews by definition have Jewish mothers or are valid converts.) People who do not qualify as Jewish under Jewish law are not Jewish, period, and no amount of complaining is going to change all Jewish legal precedence. 2) The same sort of logic applies to why “Messianic Judaism” is not Judaism. Slapping a superficial layer of Jewish rites on top of Christianity results in Jewish-rite Christianity, not anything which qualifies as Judaism in the historical sense of the term. 3) Everyone should get a good religious education, even if they are unbelievers and unobservant, so they do not fall into such easy confusion between religions as “Messianic Jews” promote.
   
3. “Minister tries to block S. Ind. church demolition”: Thus is it written:
   

   A minister has refused to leave his church in a city-owned building so it can be demolished for a street to be widened.
   
   The Rev. Charles T. Goodin says God wants him to stay.
   
   "I won't disobey God," Goodin told The Republic. "Whatever it comes to, I guess that's what I'll need to do."

   Certainly if God told Goodwin to stay and block the demolition, he is entirely justified in his behavior. However, why he believes God wants him to stay is never explained in the article; this sort of omission is very frustrating.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Do dogs really look like their owners?”
  
• “Polio resurgent in Nigeria”
  

Today’s weird thing is Information Age Prayer. This site promises you that if you are too busy to pray, you can pay them to have a computer pray for you. I am taking the liberty of assuming this is a joke. Frankly, if one really wanted to do this, it would not be too hard to rig up a combination of AppleScript and iCal to do this for free. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron