3 ’Av

Greetings.

Jewish date:  3 ’Av 5769.

Today’s holiday:  The Nine Days.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Cousin’s Day, Pioneer Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Protect Hawaiian Sea Turtles”, “Obama Finally Admits That Only Single Payer Health Care Will Work”, and “Demand Strong Climate and Energy Legislation Now!”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Naked girls plough fields in India for rain”:  I cannot make something like this up.  I also suspect that some critical information is left out of this article because it is not obvious why naked girls plowing fields would be embarrassing to the Hindu weather gods—embarrassing to the girls would be more obvious—or why an embarrassed god would respond with rain rather than, say, a lightning bolt.
   
2. “Adventist Origins of Young Earth Creationism”:  There is a critical distinction between a popular belief and a historically authentic belief.  Creationism is currently a popular belief among Fundamentalist Christians, but this essay argues that early Fundamentalism did not reject evolution or the Earth being billions of years old and that modern creationism actually got started in Seventh-Day Adventism.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Why False Positive Results Are So Common In Medicine”
  
• “Expulsion of Jews (1992)”
  
• “He Hath Spoken”
  

Weird things will resume after the Nine Days.  Shabbath shalom.

Aaron