That depends on which bible you mean....there are many.

Really? Lost to history?! Hardly....lost to the ignorant and uneducated maybe, but even atheists like me know full well Jesus the man was a Jew, and definitely not a European or "white". Roman/Italian artists knew this, but worked for a Roman church so portrayed him in their image.

Genetic purity?! Lol. I guess that means no one has EVER become Jewish, you're either born one by two pure Jewish parents or not. Hardly reality, and would reject nearly every person in Israel (or elsewhere). Just because there is a long standing religious/cultural taboo against marriage outside the culture, it still happens, as does conversion. Racial/genetic purity is a fallacy debunked by genetic testing.

Prophecy is a leap. No prophecy has been correctly interpreted until AFTER the events supposedly prophesied occurred. It's ridiculous to go back after the fact and claim "see, now that I know exactly how to interpret the unclear prophecy I couldn't decipher before, it's a 100% perfect prediction" but never be able to predict the future. That's the same nonsensical logic mediums use.

The second temple was also the third, since the true second temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by a number of Jewish exile groups returning to the Levant from Babylon under the Achaemenid-appointed governor Zerubbabel. However, during the reign of Herod the Great, the Second Temple was completely refurbished, and the original structure was totally overhauled into the large and magnificent edifices and facades that are more recognizable. Logically, the third temple was the one destroyed by Romans, the second replaced by Herod but the new one was still called the second temple anyway. (To avoid contradicting prophecy? ;-) )

If the dome of the rock, the second most holy place in Islam, is destroyed, expect Jerusalem to follow soon after, as that will definitely start a religious war between nuclear powers.

Herodotus is credited with using the term Palestinian first, in the 5th century BCE as an ethnonym, making no distinction between Arabs, Jews, or other cultures inhabiting of the area. Romans adopted the term as the official administrative name for the region in the 2nd century CE, "Palestine" as a stand-alone term then came into widespread use, printed on coins, in inscriptions and even in rabbinic texts.

I think you are confused about the history, here's a primer...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

The area was populated by various people's including Jews until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE, during which the Romans expelled most of the Jews from the area (well, really they arguably left voluntarily because they refused to be second class citizens barred from practicing their religion freely) and replaced it with the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, the Arabs were already there, not invaders or immigrants. When Assyrians (Mesopotamians) invaded in circa 722 BCE, they ruled empirically, meaning only the Jewish ruling elite left, returning in 538 BCE under Cyrus the Great....so no, the Arabs didn't just settle after the Jews were dispersed.

It's patently ridiculous to say the Arab nations were unprovoked, Jewish illegal immigration led to a hostile takeover of the region by illegal immigrants with rapid expansion of their territories into their neighbors continuing through today. The Jews defeated the Arabs thanks to American backing and exponentially better hardware. It was only their right if might makes right, and the Arab nations are under no obligation to let them keep what they stole any more than the Jews were obligated to let the Arab nations retain control in the first place. If Iran, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or any combination can take it, by your logic they have every right to do so.

I do agree, in the end there will be more conflict until the area becomes uninhabitable....largely because every religion's prophecies end with them in control, and no one wants to admit it's all nonsensical iron age tribalism at work.

The bible was written almost exclusively by Jews, both the Old and New Testament. Jesus was a Jew and so were most of His apostles. The events of the majority of the books in the bible happened in Israel. Christianity is a Jewish religion. So, it shouldn't really surprise anyone that the bible has a lot to say about the Jews. Where they came from, how they got there, and what happens to them in the future.

Christian support for the Jews is a relatively new phenomenon. During the reign of the Catholic church, Jews were persecuted by Catholics and forced to convert to Christianity. The Jewishness of Jesus was lost to history; this is why you see much of the art during the middle ages depicting the Lord as a European man.

What changed is that the Jews returned to the land of Israel in 1948, something that many scholars of time past assumed was impossible. The general teaching was that God had broken His covenant with the Jewish people because they rejected Christ and that the church was now the new Israel. This is called replacement theology.

Yet, the Jews did return to their own land, a unique event in all of history. Never before had a people group been displaced from their own country, scattered all over the world for thousands of years, and then regathered to their original land with their cultural and genetic purity intact. This is a true miracle which anyone can plainly see is evidence of the hand of God working in the Earth on behalf of His chosen people.

The video makes it seem like the idea of Israel being integral to end times prophecy is some kind of leap, yet anyone who has studied the bible seriously knows that nearly everything predicted about the end times revolves around Israel, and particularly Jerusalem. There are numerous prophecies in the Old Testament stating plainly that God will scatter His people and gather them back to Israel in the last days.

The scripture predicts that the Jews will build a third temple. At this moment the Dome of the Rock, the golden domed building you see in photographs of Jerusalem, stands in the place where the third temple must be built. You could sum up the entire tension in the middle east in two words: "Temple Mount".

Not only are the Jews ready to rebuild their temple in a moments notice, they have created all of the implements of the temple and have been training priests to serve in the temple. The scripture declares that for end times prophecy to be fulfilled there must be a third temple. I can confidently predict that this will happen sometime in the future and the Dome of the Rock most likely be destroyed.

I also wanted to mention one other thing. The name "Palestine" was given to the area by the Romans. The Palestinians are not a people group, they are Arabs who settled in the area after the Jews were dispersed around the world. The video really does you a disservice by neglecting to mention the fact that it was the Arab nations that attacked Israel unprovoked on multiple occasions and the Jews against all odds defeated them. It was their right to take that territory and they are under no obligation to return it.

In the end, there will be much more conflict in the middle east, all revolving around the Jews and Jerusalem in some way. You may doubt the scripture but you will see this unfold with your very eyes. One day a charismatic man will come on the scene who will negotiate a peace in the middle east between the Jews and the nations of the world. He will seem at first to be someone who can solve all of our problems but eventually he will establish a one world order and rule the world with an iron fist. He will go into the Jewish temple and declare himself to be God. This is who the bible calls the Antichrist.

So, if you want to know where we are at in the end times, watch Israel and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is Gods prophetic time clock. When you see the Dome of the Rock being replaced by the temple, know the Lord is near, even at the doors.

True Trump did not directly create jobs.

Under his reign the Government did cut tax rates of business that create jobs And Government regulations that enabled business to to grow and create jobs easier.

It gets worse, that's the best part of the movies...

The Attack on Titan anime is one of the absolute best things I've seen, I can't recommend it strongly enough. These live action movies, are the worst movies I've seen, like Battlefield Earth bad. And that is before accounting for the quality of the source material that they brutalized...

These movies are something nobody can enjoy, no idea how they came out as awful as they did. Kevin Smith's story about a producer wanting a giant spider in his movie comes to mind, somebody like that was running the whole show here and nobody ever reigned them in .

Presidents have terms, dictators reign. Wanna reconsider your Freudian slip?
And it's pretty far from the beginning, likely closer to the end.

Compared to Trump, Obama was the epitome of honesty and strength. He opposed our enemies, he didn't offer to encourage their expansions (Russia) or hand them legitimacy and military victories (N. Korea) while getting nothing in return, or walking away from treaties after the other party has gotten what they wanted but we haven't (Iran).....oh...and there's also the fact that unlike Trump, Obama won the popular vote....twice, so at least he was a real POTUS. ;-)

Obama had 8 years With a few good quarters. Trump is in the beginning of his reign.

Obama was the lying fake weak POTUS.

Really? Explain why. It's in there, as clear and codified religious law.

I'll give you a synopsis:

God established the law because of sin:

Galatians 3:19

Why then was the Law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the seed to whom the promise referred. It was administered through angels by a mediator

The seed it is talking about is Jesus Christ, referred to by this prophecy in Genesis of the coming of the Messiah:

Genesis 3

14The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.

Sin came into the world through the transgression of Adam. Because of sin man was separated from God because God is holy and cannot dwell with sin. Because of sin God gave us the law as Paul referred to. Jesus, the new Adam, satisfied all of the moral requirements of the law by living a perfect life. He reestablished the relationship between God and man:

Romans 5

17For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive an abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! 18Therefore, just as one trespass brought condemnation for all men, so also one act of righteousness brought justification and life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous

This is what it means when it says He came to fulfill the law. He brought everything full circle back to the way it was before man first sinned. That is why the law is no longer necessary, because we are made right with God not by obeying the law, but through our faith in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus died on the cross He said "It is finished". It is translated from a greek word "tetelestai", which means paid in full. It something a merchant would stamp on a loan document that was paid up. He said that because He fulfilled the law and paid our sin debt on the cross.

This doesn't mean that there aren't any moral requirements for Christians, but they aren't the same as the ones given to the nation of Israel. We are under a New Covenant and the law of Christ:

Luke 22

19And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 20In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.

Galatians 6

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Christ gave us commands to obey, one of which you mentioned: love your neighbor as yourself. Also, love one another as I have loved you and many others. All of the 10 commandments were reiterated although there is a deeper meaning and interpretation to some of them now. Do not commit adultery now extends to lusting after a women in your heart. Jesus also said that hating someone is murdering them in your heart.

The civil and ceremonial laws of Israel no longer apply exactly because Jesus did fulfill the law.

Treating others like you would have them treat you, the golden rule....what Jesus told you is the most important rule.

When Jesus taught us to treat others as we would have them treat us, it has force because He is morally perfect. We are morally imperfect. We tell people to do things we don't do, and tell people not to do things we do do. Can you name a single human being on whose shoulders we could place objective morals? If you can't then you can see the problem, I hope

Btw, here is a great educational site which is completely free

https://vmcontenders.org/all-courses/

In a way Scahill is like a less educated\refined version of Noam Chomsky. He does good investigative work, and dedicates enormous energy into exposing and spotlighting the bad things that America does. That has a place, but without a similarly harsh and critical light being cast on America's targets/enemies it becomes propaganda.

Jeremy says he wouldn't work with Charles Manson to oppose trump, fair enough. What about kind of working with Stalin to defeat Hitler? Say, at least agreeing not to attack Stalin while you both deal with Hitler?

The world is incredibly complicated and the singular and lone focus on American mistakes paints a deceptive picture. Pointing out the problems with America's war in Iraq, like torture and Quantanamo and declaring these as so immoral we needn't even look at Saddam's past is propaganda. Saddam waged two campaigns of genocide against his own people. When America saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib, they shut it down and attempted to punish those responsible. When Saddam's brother used chemical weapons to exterminate Kurdish civilians Saddam commended him for it. Guantanamo is bad, but it doesn't mean we should fail to acknowledge the concentration camps that Saddam operated during his genocide of the Kurds. It doesn't mean it's unfair to observe that conditions in Saddam's prisons across the country were far more cruel during his entire reign.

There's a nuanced place here that Scahill and Chomsky and pundits like them just fail to acknowledge and encourages inaction at times were the lesser evil may well be for America to do something, even if aborting Gadafi's genocide doesn't make Libya a paradise after.

I can give you a description of the bit and my opinion.

A Tom Thumb bit is jointed in the middle and has shanks for leverage. So it has a dual action. When light pressure is used it works on the gums and corners of the mouth. When the reigns are pulled harder the jaw is squeezed while the shanks multiply the force and the center joint folds upward to apply pressure to the roof of the mouth. It's kind of like the volume going from 1 to 11.

Uses:
In theory it should act like a traditional Western bit with the added advantage of rotating the shanks independently...so you can make pressure changes on each side of the mouth independently. In actual practice, it pinches the horses lip in this situation and horses tend to react by tossing their head up or holding their head in an unnaturally high position. With a strong pull it becomes extremely severe. Using it requires a very light hand.

I have used a Tom Thumb successfully with a well trained horse that required no head control but had developed a bad habit of testing his rider by picking up his gate and then bolting. The bit allowed me to ride with no hand but when the horse stretched his neck to take control he ran into the bit. When he relaxed back to the correct position, the pressure was gone. Eventually he didn't want to cause his own discomfort and once he'd broken his bad habits the bit wasn't necessary.

In my opinion, the Tom Thumb appears to check a lot of boxes but in reality it does few of them well. It can work for the right horse, with the right rider, in the right circumstances.

Roy is clearly an inexperienced rider and his personality demands that he assert control, even when he's out of his depth. He's riding a gaited horse (I think it's a Tennessee Walker but my daughter disagrees) and he seems to be trying to make it move like a Quarter Horse. My guess is he's trying to ride in like a cowboy but the horse naturally moves like pretty princess horse. Chaos ensues.

I hope that makes sense. I tried to avoid horse-people terms. If something's unclear or if anyone feels I'm wrong, then I welcome comments.

The most ironic part of this, imo, is that this guy's beliefs are the same ones who drove lynchings in times past. The ONLY reason he and others like him are being so damn careful to do things by the book and emphasize how "peaceful" they are (when not running over counter-protesters with cars) is because they are vastly, vastly outnumbered and have zero social power to manipulate the courts like they did in decades past.

They are "peaceful" from pure cowardice, and when they taste the first glimmer of power, they will apologetically reign violence upon their scapegoats.

Ian Welsh reminds us of a quote by Mark Twain:

There were two ‘Reigns of Terror’, if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the horrors of the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror – that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

what a great wolverine... who will take up the reigns for the reboots to come?

The examples in this video (picture wise) are bad.

A big point in 'the prince' was that one needs to appear as a good person, regardless of whether or not you are or are not good.

Hence the best examples would be people who were perceived as virtuous, when they behind the scenes were sometimes not [when they needed to be not virtuous in order to achieve their goals].

Showing plenty of examples of people historically perceived as villains, is actually not the point. In fact, Machiavelli makes a point of how being perceived as bad runs a high risk of ending your reign.

One example in the book is of a ruler who assigns a man to ruthlessly crush disorder in a city. The man ruthlessly crushes disorder, and earns the hatred of the citizens. The ruler comes to the city, kills the man (cuts off his head and takes it out to show people), and claims to have liberated the people from this abusive man. In doing so, he both swiftly eliminates the disorder, demonstrates his authority, and ends up appearing as the good guy (one who cares for the suffering of the people and earns the people's appreciation).




The prince is a historical case study of different rulers throughout history, their circumstances, their intentions, their actions, and their success/failure, and what functional elements interconnected these factors. It's a game theory analysis for monarchs. Primarily technical (morality outside of its scope, morality being neither promoted nor admonished).

(The prince was not Machiavelli's personal opinion of how one should act - he personally preferred virtue and the republic. Personal preference was not the point of 'the prince'.)

-scheherazade

Welcome to the Bronze Age ulysses! Enjoy your reign

I think the issue here is that John Oliver overestimated the intelligence and compassion of Americans.

If he'd spent more time hanging around @bobknight33 perhaps he'd have seem Trump coming.

Still waiting on a response, btw, Bob, I'll rephrase so you don't have to dig through my other comments. You once said Obama would destroy the United States; What specific examples can you point to which support that claim? By what metric was the US worse off at the end of his presidency?

Likewise, you claim Trump will be great for the country. What metrics can you point to which you believe will improve under his reign? Let's get some numbers down now so we can track his progress.

Lastly, when (and I do mean when) Trump fails utterly, will you admit you were wrong about him? What exactly would have to happen for you to admit you were wrong about Obama or Trump?