Arquivo para October, 2023
Religious and historical origins of Israel and Palestine
17
Oct
Although Noah is not a recorded figure in
history, his sons Ham and Shem are recorded as they are the origin of the Hamite and Semitic peoples, the latter stand out for being Hebrews and Arabs and thus share both cultural and religious origins.
Abraham, who was a Chaldean, a people who lived south of the Euphrates River, was the son of, in the lineage of Shem, comes from his son Arphaxad, who fathered Shelah, who fathered Heber, who fathered Peleg, who fathered Reu, who fathered Serug , who fathered Nahor, who fathered Terah, father of Abram (only later will he be called Abraham due to his descendants).
Abram’s father and brother die in Chaldea, and his nephew Lot, who will travel to Canaan, meanwhile going up the Euphrates River and then down through the north of the Middle East, before separating, dividing the lands, leaving Lot with the most fertile to the west and Abram with the southern lands.
Lot’s descendants became people known as Ammonites, due to the god Amon, and who are children of Lot’s incest with his youngest daughter. Lot looks and turns into salt.
To the east to the Mediterranean lies Abraham, now called that by God, after having his Son Isaac (promised by God) with his wife Sarah, and Ishmael with Hagar, his slave.
While Isaac will be the “son of promise” and through him the twelve tribes of Israel will be born, the Quran can be read: “In the Quran; “God gave gifts to all Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah and Lot favor above the nations”, so Ishmael is not passed over.
From Isaac the twins Esau and Jacob were born, Esau is born first, but through a disguise, Jacob dresses in animal skins, helped by his mother Rebekah, as his brother was hairier and his father Isaac was almost blind, he notices the voice different, but blesses the son, in Hebrew tradition the eldest son, the firstborn, had priority in leading the family.
Jacob will fight with an angel to obtain divine blessing, before a confrontation with his brother, and in the biblical narrative it is there that he receives the name Israel, which means “he who fought with God” (every suffix el in Hebrew means God), Gabriel (God’s fortress) and Michael (no one like God) are two possible hypotheses of Jacob’s struggle, now Israel.
The children of Israel will form the 12 tribes: from Helena: from Joseph (who was sold to the Egyptians by his brothers) will be his grandchildren Benjamin and Manasseh, from Leah (first wife): Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Levi (who were priests and had no lands), from the slave Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali, and from the slave Zilpah: Gad and Asser.
In fact, there would be thirteen tribes,
but the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, formed one tribe.
Tension in the Middle East
16
Oct
Despite beginning a critical phase (winter),
the war between Ukraine and Russia is out of focus, with increasing tension between Israel and Palestine, which claims its own territory.
After a daring and cruel incursion into Israeli territory, the military group took several hostages and Israel responded by attacking areas of the Gaza strip and cutting off water and energy in Israeli territory as a way of pressuring the handover of the hostages.
The humanitarian situation caused several international organizations to appeal to Israel to allow humanitarian aid, while Israel gives the option of moving to the south where the water and energy supply would be restored, giving a very short deadline and an ultimatum.
There is a point to the south where a passage to Egypt is possible, which is the Rafah refugee camp, negotiations between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi indicate that this passage would be open for humanitarian aid.
Israel is preparing for a fight on three fronts, as in southern Lebanon there were attacks by another anti-Semitic group, Hezbollah and there are already tensions and the capture of combat points with Syria, also through Hezbollah.
The greatest tension is the possible involvement of Iran, which finances these groups against Israel and Hamas leaders have already gone to Iran to talk to the country’s authorities, however the US warns that Iran’s entry into the war would cause strong tension with the West, since the US sent aircraft carriers.
The involvement of the Arab world could make the crisis even greater, as there are already unilateral talks.
Russia is a traditional ally of Syria, and with a military approach to Iran it could create an axis of allies with common enemies, which paints a dangerous geopolitical picture.
Peace seems distant, and the elements for a war with tragic consequences are emerging, but there are still localized forces for peace.
Eclipses of the civilizing process
13
Oct
Harmony between peoples, acceptance and
tolerance of differences, dialogue and diplomacy on conflicting issues seem to be further away than ever, like an annular eclipse, it obscures the light and lets only a ring of fire pass through, and as they are There are several points of light sources, there are also regions of shadows that will be confused, looking like night.
Various research shows that this happens to birds when faced with an eclipse, they see that it is getting dark and they behave as they do at dusk, they reduce their activities, withdraw and almost go to sleep, as the eclipse is quick, then they return to normal activities.
These are civilizing processes, there are periods of darkness and it seems like it could be an endless night, but after this moment seeing the mistake of “sleep” during the twilight, they rediscover life and return to normal activities, in the human case with a new perspective of Peace and tolerance, of course, always leave terrible marks: innocent deaths, destruction and misery.
We could have prepared a party, a concert and harmony between peoples, there was no shortage of educators, prophets and futurists who tried to design this scenario, but men always have free will, in our case, we can choose between the eclipse and the twilight and the day.
Eclipse because whether by natural forces or by divine intervention, those who believe desire and wait for this day, even if millions of innocent people perish, the desire for the triumph of good, common sense and peace among men is always an irreversible path, even if they suffer.
There is a biblical parable that depicts this scenario well, a man was preparing a party and as the guests did not come (they chose other paths), he sent for men on the street, but among them there was also one with inappropriate attire (anti-party attitudes) and asked to be removed, says the reading (Matthew 22, 10-12):
“Then the servants went out into the paths and gathered together everyone they found, both bad and good. And the party room was full of guests. When the king entered to see his guests, he noticed a man who was not wearing a party attire and asked him: ‘Friend, how did you come in here without your party attire?’ “.
“Then the servants went out into the paths and gathered together everyone they found, both bad and good. And the party room was full of guests. When the king entered to see his guests, he noticed a man who was not wearing a party attire and asked him: ‘Friend, how did you come in here without your party attire?’ .
The civilizing process is like this, whoever will win a conflict situation, everyone will lose and in the end those who were on the margins of the conflict process will prepare a new path
Walter, Jennifer. Lunar eclipses have one weird effect on birds. Inverse. March 17, 2022, Available in: https://www.inverse.com/science/lunar-eclipse-bird-flight .
Eclipse, shadow and twilight
12
Oct
We have seen historical and mystical aspects of
the annular Eclipse, now let us focus only on the phenomenon.
The Eclipse is a natural phenomenon that occurs when a body is within a region of shadow caused by another body that has enough light to reduce the luminosity. In the case of a solar eclipse, the Sun is the luminous star and the Moon is positioned between the Sun and Earth, producing a shadow on Earth.
For the Moon to cast a shadow on the Earth, it must be in the New Moon phase, which is when it is between the Sun and the Earth and has a slight semi-arc on one of its edges.
To better understand how eclipses occur, we need to know the concepts of shadow and twilight.
A shadow is when from a point source of light (that is, its dimensions can be neglected as if it were a single point) it is projected onto a smaller intermediate object that will produce a shadow on the larger object, this shadow can also be called an umbra.
In the penumbra there is an extensive source of light, which must be taken into account when the light source is very large or is close to the object, in the case of the Sun it is large enough to produce, from the light on the Moon, a shadow and a penumbra over the Earth (figure).
Thus, the rays of light do not come from a single point, due to the size of the Sun, but from several points, so there will be a region in which it produces a shadow, but others with partial lighting that produce some shades of twilight.
In the figure, the shield disk is the Moon and the larger disk is the Earth. For educational purposes, only one region of shadow was produced, but they are diverse and weaken as they move away from the shadow region.
The phenomenon of the lunar eclipse next Saturday (10/14) is special because an arc around the Sun becomes visible and is therefore called an Annular Eclipse (in the form of a ring).
Eclipse, the Theory of Relativity and town Sobral
11
Oct
In addition to mystical and historical factors,
the eclipse helped the development of both physics and astronomy, there is a curious relationship between an eclipse, the Theory of Relativity and the Brazilian city in the State of Ceará: Sobral.
On May 29, 1919, the sky over the city of Sobral, a city in the interior of State Ceará, Brazil, dawned cloudy (photo taken by the National Observatory in 1919) and the effort of the delegation of astronomers who went there to observe the eclipse and prove their ideas Albert Einstein’s revolutionary ideas would be in vain.
Fortunately, at nine o’clock in the morning a space opened between the clouds and it was possible to make the desired observations.
Einstein’s ideas were that there would be a distortion in the space-time dimensions and that this would be linked to the proximity of massive bodies, stated as follows:
“The trajectory of light can be distorted if there is a massive body distorting space-time in its trajectory, so it appears that the source that emitted that light is in a different position.”
With sensitive equipment, it was possible to make this comparison in the positions during the eclipse and after it, which occurred in May 1919. In December, after months of studying the observations, it was announced that Einstein’s theory was correct, and this is a fact which made the theory of absolute space and time obsolete.
The observation took place thanks to intense collaboration between Brazil and England, including the famous English astronomer Arthur Eddington, from the Royal Astronomical Society and the Brazilian Henrique Morize, then director of the National Observatory (ON), and Sobral was chosen because it had better visibility. of the eclipse.
One hundred years after the event, in 2019 the Brazil-United Kingdom partnership in Science and Innovation was celebrated, Brazilian physicist Anelise Pacheco, director of MAST (Brazilian Astronomical and Sciences Related Museum) declared at the time: “Without cooperation, there is no science”, this also applies to the days of today.
Annular eclipse: historical and mystical data
10
Oct
On October 14th, an annular eclipse should
take place, one in which the moon leaves a small ring with southern light and settles in the center of the king star, and which has curious historical and mystical data.
The first historically narrated eclipse, by Herodotus, describes the battle of the Medes and Lydians (590-585 BC) which ended with an agreement after they realized that the day turned into night and in their understanding the darkness should cease for peace, Herodotus describes it like this:
“In the sixth year of the war, a battle took place, and when the fighting had begun, suddenly the day turned into night. (…) The Lydians and the Medes, when they saw that the night had replaced the day, ceased their fight, anxious for peace to be established between them.” Herodotus (1.74).
Before calculating the date of the eclipse, it was believed that the battle would have been fought on September 30, 610 BC (according to William Smith’s Dictionary of the Greeks and Romans), but modern astronomical calculations have established the date as May 28 from 585 BC
The second data was established with the help of the biblical reading of the battles in Israel of Ajailon and Gibeon, which helped, according to the BBC, to reveal the date of an even earlier eclipse, at the time of the retaking of Israel by the Jews returning from Egyptian exile. , the reading that helped reveal this date, also known as Joshua’s prayer, is this (Joshua 10:12-14): “Sun, stand over Gibeon, and you, Moon, over the Valley of Aijalon”.
The BBC report, physicist Colin Humphreys, director of research at the University of Cambridge in England, and astrophysicist Graeme Waddington using this passage calculated the date of the annular eclipse and found October 30, 1207 BC.
The report also mentions that the first person to suggest such a date was the linguist Robert Wilson (1918) and that he even suggests a re-reading of the biblical text:
‘Eclipse, O Sun, in Gibeon,
And the Moon in the Valley of Aijalom´.
Since today we know that there will be a band where the eclipse is total (image) and bands next to it where the eclipse gives a partial shadow.
Heródoto, Histórias, Livro I, Clio, 74.
New war front and dangerous week
09
Oct
Since Israel had developed a strong anti-aircraft
battery scheme called the Iron Dome, missile attacks in the region had decreased, but at the end of the week a new attack by the Hamas group took place and more than 700 people were killed, showing that there are weaknesses in this system.
Israel’s military was caught by surprise on Saturday (10/07) and despite decades of the country becoming a technological powerhouse with the world’s most impressive military and a world-class intelligence agency, all of this simply hasn’t worked and This creates a new front of war in geopolitics already with delicate problems and Israel responded with missiles into Palestinian territory.
Hamas has Iran as a strong ally, which has supplied drones to Russia, and although it has denied that this continues to happen, Iran wants to be part of the BRICS and on the side of another invisible war, according to the words of Medvedev, the vice-president of the Russia’s Security Council and former president of the country, this war is taking place.
He was referring to Russia’s good harvest of wheat grains, which it intends to become a bargaining chip with allied countries, even providing supplies to allied countries in Africa that do not have the resources to purchase grains.
The week is delicate in Ukraine and Russia, because on both sides a new surprise attack is expected, such as that of Hamas in Israel, on the Ukrainian side long-range missiles, and on the Russian side the destruction of energy sources in Ukraine which would make the coming winter cruel to the population and weaken the Ukrainian military army, which already has difficulties with ammunition for conflict regions.
Something new is expected in terms of peace, there is no shortage of nods from Russia, but without negotiating the territories already conquered, while the Ukrainian side wants possession back, including the controversial Crimea, one of the main targets in the counteroffensive.
All people of good will and who know the dangers of war want some relief.
True commitment to the common good
06
Oct
Bad managers and dictators also promise to
work for the excluded and the common good, what happens is that their true personal interests remain hidden.
No one openly says they are going to do evil, except declared psychopaths who are already at a level of mental illness that can no longer disguise their desires.
Political and social analyzes hide interests of violence, hatred and war against opponents, there is no shortage of justifications, but any initiative of exclusion is already an indication that no common good will be well managed by these managers.
They begin with small actions that initially confuse people with good faith and who actually want the common good for all, a peaceful and balanced life for everyone, but little by little the true personal desires for personal possession of goods are revealed.
Corruption also starts like this, small unrestrained thefts lead to large ones when there is no impunity, parents who correct and educate without children know this, it is necessary to always be attentive to actions and what each small gesture leads to, educators also know this.
As a biblical reading says, an owner of a vineyard rented it and traveled, after a certain time he ordered the employees to collect the rent (Mt 21:33) they beat him and sent him back, he sent others and they also caught him and returned with nothing and finally sent his son, so the tenants thought let’s kill him and keep the vineyard, and Jesus remembers himself at the end of the parable: the stone that the masons rejected became the cornerstone.
This is how good is established, with those that the evil people rejected, oppressed and after much suffering it is possible to establish peace and the common good.
Resilience and the development of good is greater than great evil, although avoiding them also means avoiding injustice, social imbalances and mainly innocent deaths.
Because evil grows
05
Oct
Common sense is to say that evil grows because
good is omitted, in part this is true, as evil is the absence of good, but this absence can be due to aporia (lack of knowledge), due to bad education that forms unenlightened minds and due to end out of pure pride and power.
Power is a way of legitimizing both good and evil, this is only possible through violence, and generalized violence is war, so this is the clearest and most unequivocal form of evil, in it intolerance, contempt for what is different, the imposition of ideas and injustices is facilitated.
Thus, at different times in our history, it was through violence that empires and dictators imposed their wills and ideologies, not without the consent of a large part of the population, which is why we remember bad education, whether through propaganda campaigns or through schooling itself. impoverished and malformed, the two issues are linked.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to management at all levels, from our homes, neighborhoods and condominiums to power structures, small illegitimate actions, education for empathy, coexistence, cleaning and even leisure must be observed and guided by managers and public bodies in order to preserve common space and public goods.
The zeal for honesty, transparency, respectful dialogue between opinions that are not necessarily opposite, but different even if in completely divergent directions should not be a reason for hatred and violence, dialogue is always possible.
Evil needs polarization, radicalization (in the bad sense, there is the good sense of going to the root of a problem), pure disagreement as a way to justify and propagate violence.
Just like the seeds of a good tree, weeds and poisonous plants also have roots, they grew in a healthy plantation and the fact that they must grow together can be a mistake because they can suffocate the good seeds, pests and diseases in plants.
Care must also be taken to cure these pests, in agriculture several pesticides have already been condemned, and even disease-resistant plants can be questioned, genetic mutation can cause greater harm than expected, there is a lot of ethical dialogue about this.
Therefore, three precautions must be considered: the ethical education of valuing what is good, the zeal so that error and evil do not spread and finally the correction methods must be careful not to cause even greater harm.
Religions and evil
04
Oct
One of the biggest mistakes, already developed
in some of the posts, is the Manichaean duality of evil x good, without understanding that evil is precisely the absence of good, great Christian thinker, Augustine of Hippo converted precisely by abandoning Manichaeism.
Religious concepts that have long been forgotten, or that are submerged in mistaken preaching, impede what would be the “natural flow of humanity towards the enlightenment of the soul”, evil has deep-rooted sources in the form of old thoughts and emotional burdens from the past and, despite obsolete, still persist, hindering the progress of souls.
The remedy would be very simple, the closer the soul is to enlightenment, the less evil is present, and the more enlightened souls make the world more empathetic, harmonious and free from injustice.
The ethics and morals that derive from the need for civilizing progress do not find space if there are not souls and people in prominent positions with clear and convincing illumination, that is why evil has become a social, theological or ideological issue, and the both times.
It’s not just Christian thinkers who say this, Hannah Arendt talks about the Banality of Evil, Nietzsche about the “death of God” (or how we “kill” Him, of course impossible), Paul Ricoeur and Lévinas about the Other and Byung Chul Han about the “ Society of Fatigue” speaks of the vita contemplativa as a complement to the vita activa (which Hanna Arendt also spoke of), even remembering Christian thinkers.
The return of threats of war, the social crisis of moral values (everything is permitted!), before a true civilizational crisis occurs, a new enlightenment of souls is necessary (in Picture st. Francis expelling devils from Arezzo, by Benozzo Gozzoli).
The lack of understanding of subjectivity and human imagination, or its submission to unenlightened values, the absence of compassion towards others, the misunderstanding of progress as having fundamental positive aspects, even to save the civilizing process, leads society to exhaustion , disbelief or the fatality of wars and hatred.
It is not difficult to find positions in newspapers and social media in favor of the process of excluding people with a certain opinion, religion or even simple disagreement with dubious moral values (see the case of abortion in Brazil at the moment), the debates are sterile and instead of arguments the reactions are sarcasm and irony.
They are seeds of the broader process of civilizational crisis in progress and detected by great thinkers since the last century, crediting them to new media, to the resurgence of nationalism and authoritarian currents is to look only at the consequence, the root is the absence of enlightened souls who help humanity to contemplate its future with greater grandeur.
*When Francisco was in Arezzo, there was a great scandal and a war almost throughout the city, day and night, because of two factions that had long hated each other.
