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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

What Will Matter?







Ready or not, some day,
it will all come to an end.
There will be no more surprises;
no minutes, hours, or days.
All the things you collected,
whether treasured or forgotten,
will pass on to someone else.
Your wealth, fame, and temporal power
will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned
or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations,
and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses, that once seemed
so important, will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful
or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
*****************

So, what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

****************
What will matter is not what you bought,
but what you built;
not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success,
but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned,
but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,
empowered, or encouraged others
to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence,
but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many people will feel a lasting loss
when you're gone.
What will matter is not your memories,
but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long
you will be remembered,
by whom, and for what.
Living a life that matters
doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.
***
author unknown





















THANK YOU CAKE CITY (WHO OBTAINED THIS FROM HER FRIEND SALLY)

Refuting Fallacious Debate and History Revisionism

I can't link to IT from here until the question closes, but If you're reading this here now, it is likely you arrived via my "EDIT" link asking you to read my response to the playground taunts that I have nothing I could say to refute them.

This post is made to address ad hominem, and other fallacious debate techniques used to try to circumvent objective evidence that I gave in an answer to a baiting question on an online question and answer forum.

I realize I might just be giving a bigot the jollies with this by a page devoted to address one notorious Jew hating disrupter. However, he is one who joins others that long ago hijacked a section of the internet to promote war mongering and hate propagandizing. My values do not permit me to remain silent to that. I also hope this will help at least a few people understand a complex situation a little better once they can clearly see common methods of propagandizing and abuse being employed by those who want to hijack efforts to peace in the Middle East and in the World at large.

While I am addressing the words of only one known Jew hater’s comments, note the techniques he uses aren’t unique to him and this isn’t the only topic his methods of propagandizing are used to support. He makes false allegations, twists what someone else said then demands his perversion be justified by the person falsely accused, project bigoted ideation and canards, make unsubstantiated claims and then demand proof for everything the other person said while either providing no evidence to substantiate his claims or giving references that if actually read, discredit his own claim. He is certainly not going to like this post today. Those methods are becoming increasingly commonplace online. Another thing that such people depend upon is to only appeal to others with a similar irrational bias. These methods always fail to convince objective thinkers. His methods are not focused on that sort of person, anyway. They focus on people who are ignorant on a topic and do not have the time or inclination to investigate for themselves.
They may or may not refer to a claimed source, to support some of their claims, but upon investigation, the objective reader discovers that *is* their Achilles' Heel. The easiest way to discover how duplicitous they are is to go to their claimed sources and read what is actually written in context. This is another reason why you might see the most detailed answers I give on controversial issues such as bigotry to Jews and the efforts to eliminate Israel, and *especially* if they are well referenced with scholarly sources, with the most thumbs down. They want to hide the fact that their own words led to the discovery of just how egregious they lie.

I have not even begun to address this particular question and one user’s attacks upon my answer yet. In addition, since I first wrote down an address to all his attacks and asked people to email me for them at the q..He added another attempt to deflect with escalated deceptiveness by perverting another user’s answer, too.

With that particular user, the correct answers that he’s most likely to try to discredit by method I call..baffle with bullshit..are either answers that max out the space allotted or are very long. He chooses those specifically because he knows that the person he is attacking must remove some of the information that he did not want seen in the first place to address his false charges. It is a form of moving the goalpost. Then he will give a list of nonsensical misrepresentations or false claims as charges against the correct answer and claim the person *cannot* refute them. It is only SPACE that doesn't permit refutation in those instances as he certainly knows.

To the answer that called me out..I copy paste (his misspellings and all) and then address them… I don’t claim to be a good writer myself, so excuse my grammar boo boos. His comments are in quotes followed by my response after a <
You may note that I’ve written most of this as if addressing HIM since I first typed most of this rather stream of consciousness when he first made the charges in case he actually writes to me. I won’t hold my breath waiting because I know he knows I can refute lies with evidence.
I also emailed much of this to the asker, unsolicited. Prior to my posting this and a link at the q, only two readers wrote to me to see what I had to say to his charges. I emailed them draft versions of this. The response was as expected. :)

Now to eviscerate the fallacious debate techniques that were there to try to discredit my answer:
“Does that mean there is no sch thing as Metis? Cajuns? Celts?" < Strawman…easily knocked over.. The people who comprise “Palestinian” identity in history are many different ethnicities, nations and peoples. If he wants to talk about who was historically called Palestinian, he’s going to have to admit that it didn’t refer to Arab Muslims in any exclusive manner and in almost all instances of historical reference, it was speaking exclusively of the indigenous Jews. He’s even given historical evidence throughout his claimed refutation that the Jews are the indigenous people referred to as Palestinian, as I wrote, and as the Mark Twain reference HE gave a little further on to support that mark Twain referred to the Palestinians…he omits that Mark Twain was talking about Jews when he said it! . Also a little farther on, the Jew hater’s comments also gave evidence to support continual Jewish presence by referencing the “Palestinian Talmud. “ A term used in English that was coined as a later reference for the texts titled “תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשָׁלְמִי‎, Talmud Yerushalmi, often Yerushalmi for short. HIS claim is to insinuate that “Palestinian Talmud” is the title, when that certainly isn’t the case. Objective evidence proves that beyond doubt.
In addition, the Palestinian Orchestra was a completely Jewish orchestra that existed prior to the formation of the State of Israel. I could keep going on and on, but why? Palestinian wasn’t the identity of any ONE people, although the world at large always equated it with Jew..and that’s another reason why for centuries, the non-Jews who were also living in the region didn’t like it.
"If they really wanted peace they would give up their farms and homes and leave" (paraphrasing) What kind of logic is that? So if Arabs occupy Israel, when did this happen? < He certainly is not paraphrasing me or any answer I could find there. He has pulled that one completely out of his tuches. He’s right, that’s not logical and it is only his illogical claim. Next..he says, “if Arabs occupy Israel”. Arab refers to an ethnicity now, and while Arabs most certainly “occupied“ and conquered many lands in the Middle East, this ethnicity and language has now permeated the region for a long time among many different peoples. There are more than a million and a half Arab Jews in Israel whose families were expelled from Arab lands and were taken in as citizens, not kept as political pawns and permanent refugees.
“Can you point to a period in time when the entire population was removed and Arab introduced?” < Can YOU point to anyone’s claim that the entire population was removed? Your desperation to obfuscate is glaring like a spotlight here. http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Arabs.htm No one said the entire population was removed…another straw man and other fallacies …this link will help the uninformed learn of the ancient history and expansion of the Arab empire. Different peoples living in the ancient Levant have come and gone and largely due to the conquest of various empires and either extermination, expulsion or assimilation. This doesn't obfuscate that the homeland of the Jews is Israel or remove the archaeological evidence and continual Jewish presence however meager at times, despite ALL efforts to remove Jews completely.

“Why is the Cohanim genetic marker MORE prevalent in Palestinians then any Jewish group?”< “Palestinians” as I’ve shown, historically WERE Jews, Cohenim genetic markers are not found in any non-Jewish group more than in any Jewish group. Many Jews that it is found in are Palestinian..you’re using fallacious debate technique. I don’t care to pull out all the genetic studies, but will note that your claim even notes that there is ancient genetic evidence of the Cohenim..tHe Jewish people present in the region. Thanks.
“For your claim to be correct you must have an answer to these.@mama pajama Mark Twain's book "Innocents Abroad" was written in the nineteenth century- it refers to Palestinians- the indigenous inhabitants.” < Yes, it most certainly does, and thanks you for noting that he recognized the Jews as the indigenous peoples. Many sites reference his writing about the Holy Land and how few people inhabited it http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html
He mentions some places as entirely devoid of people, which some modern Palestinians claim their families had large communities and had owned at the time, too. So, who is right Mark Twain or the claims of the “refugees”?
"Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by TE Lawrence speaks of the Palestinians. < Of course, a British citizen would use the British term to refer to all inhabitants of British Mandate Palestine. Doesn't TE "Lawrence of Arabia" also refer to some of the individual peoples by their nation names?
“Khayr al-Din al-Ramli was a Muslim scholar who lived in Ramla in the seventeenth century; he wrote of "Palestine" and "Palestinians". < NOT QUITE.. This cleric famous for his fatwas briefly referenced the Roman province of Palaestina Prima, or as it was known in the early Islamic period, Jund Filastin, one of several sub-provinces of the Unmayad and Abbasid Caliphate province of Syria , organized soon after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the seventh century. I searched Islamic sites for several hours and could find no quote claiming he called himself Palestinian in this writing. That was one of your claims attacking the OTHER person’s answer.

Misleading using Muslim references is just as disrespectful to Islam as your lies about Jews.

“ In fact could you provide an example of a Palestinian humiliated because the British called them "Palestinian"? in fact I just bet you won't.” < The claim I made was that they continually charged that the term was created to humiliate them. They did this for a very long time. Here is only one of the quotes that aren’t difficult to find at all if you bother to look. Here you go..a complaint to the British rejecting the very term Palestine.
"There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palestine' is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it". - Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937
I’ve got more..and some even delivered at the UN..so..it is very clear that you lost your bet.
What did I “win”? I am not clear what you wagered. I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to admit it.

“Even being referred to a "Palestinian" was so humiliating, then why would a JEWISH writer (Philo) refer to the "Jews of Palestine" in FORTY CE (BEFORE the fall of Jerusalem and Bar Kokhba revolt under Hadrian.” < Philo was a Hellenized (Greek) Jew. When you quote that he said “Jews of Palestine” he notes that Jews were OF the region! You’ve shot your own lie in the foot. Therefore, you admit that Jews were of the larger region the Greeks called Palestine. There goes the lie that Jews are foreign to the region.
Then you twist both my words and history. Philo didn’t live during the British Mandate and wasn’t issued the ID card that the different Arab nations complained was so humiliating and humiliating because they didn't want to be mistaken for the Jews who had historically been referred to for so long as Palestinian, some of them ( as I gave evidence already) falsely even claimed Jews created the term!
The term 'Palestine' is derived from the Philistines. In the fifth century BCE the Greek historian Herodotus used the term Palaistine Syria (= Philistine Syria) to refer to the whole region between Phoenicia and the Lebanon mountains in the north and Egypt in the south. (While the exact meaning intended by Herodotus is debated, later *Greek* writers certainly used 'Philistine Syria' in this very broad sense.) The Greeks felt a great kinship to their ancient kin, the Philistines. Greece was the HOMELAND of the Philistines and they even shared the same religious practices as archaeological evidence exists to support!
Palestine wasn’t the name of a country or an indigenous people to the region, it was the name referred to a region by Greek and Roman conquerors.
Until the early part of the twentieth century, the word Palestinian simply referred to the inhabitants of the region, whether they were Arab, Muslim, Jew, Samaritan, Christian or Druze. Moreover, even they did not use the term widely. Only since 1948 has the term come increasingly into use to refer to all the non-Jewish inhabitants.
Just as the modern term “ARAB WORLD” was only coined in the 20th century by the 21 members of the “ARAB LEAGUE” to designate their member countries and to promote a political goal and strategy for the conquest of a form of empire, so too, was the term “Palaistine Syria” applied to a REGION that comprised many countries/kingdoms/ and peoples who all had their OWN names for their own lands and countries.
 
“Why would they refer to the "PALESTINIAN" Talmudh if it were so insulting? A good refutation to Thomas McCall's claim can be found here http://www.churchhistory101.com/century1-palestine.php
< I can’t also help but notice that you ignored the objective physical evidence of the Arch of Titus in Rome and the coins they designated as capturing JUDEA. The massive amounts of objective archaeological evidence in museums in Israel and around the world stand as testimony revealing who is “manufacturing” history to try to HIDE the evidence of history. Actually if you read that link, the claim that Thomas McCall is wrong isn’t refuted at all there. They simply refer to the earlier use of “Palaistine Syria “by the *Greeks* who refer to their term of conquest. The term didn’t refer to native peoples, but was a name given to the region by conquerors. This is clearly noted at his OWN website reference if you read. He also ignores that no archaeological evidence exists to support that people IN the region used the term at that time, but that other names WERE used in archaeological evidence.

Thankfully, the objective reader sees these things.

“But I know none of this means anything to "Mama pajama" who will just ignore the facts and refuse to acknowledge or refute.” < Easy taunt to make when my Answer already maxed out the space permitted. It is the FACTS that you are so obviously desperate to obfuscate. Did you forget that that not everyone is desperate to project hate, or too lazy to look for themselves?
“My purpose is to show the facts and pose this question "If the Zionist position is so strong, why must they manufacture history to belittle an entire people?" < This is perhaps the most topsy turvy claim made…and one that anyone reading can now see crystal clear that your accusations and question are obviously the fallacies...as the objective physical evidence has proven once AGAIN. The only people who are being “belittled” under that question are your unfounded, irrational charges and insults to the Jews, and by those who are in utter denial of overwhelming objective physical evidence. It is those who wish to negate the existence of another people and their entire history who “manufacture” a collective Arab identity as “Palestinian” existing thousands of years for peoples who rejected such a thing until the Arab nationalistic movement of the 1960s. You must assume that all readers will be too lazy to read references.
Next time you think that by posing so many fallacious claims as taunting charges and then assert because they weren’t addressed in the q, they .prove the person you’ve trolled can’t address them..Don‘t forget that there will always be at least a FEW people who are interested in actually discovering the truth. Truth will out.
That’s *always* going to be your Achilles’ Heel…and honest answers always your enemy. Seek help for your obsessive desire to project the behaviors you openly display without hint of conscience, onto others. Professionals can help if you seek it.
Here is much more of the evidence you claimed I couldn’t “produce”
http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Arabs.htm
See my references here:
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110521103725AA1LFrV
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100303171017AADaIdW
Note that in Roman usage the name Judea applied to the whole country, to all of Israel. In fact, the Province of Judea and the earlier Kingdom of Judea ruled by Herod, a client king of Rome, included Samaria, Galilee, the Golan Heights, and the east bank of the Jordan River. Sometimes, as in several verses of the Christian New Testament, Judea is used in a narrow sense together with Samaria as separate regions. Nevertheless, this was a reflection of Jewish usage, not Roman. Jews sometimes used Judea to translate Judah [Yehudah], the ancient southern kingdom of the Israelites after the split of the monarchy.
 
PalestineThis place name, connected with the Philistine population, is first found in the classical [Greek] sources in Herodotos [5th century BCE]. It was introduced as the official name for the region by the Romans after the events of 132-5 [CE], deliberately counterposing it to the official name Iudaea, traditionally used up to that time, in the setting of a series of repressive actions. As such it is often rejected in Jewish circles who prefer "Land of Israel." Yet another ACTUAL Historian in addition to Thomas McCall, Elsa Laurenzi < also not Jewish btw
The BCE sources were affirmation of the Hellenist connection to the origin of the Philistines…that Aegean seafaring people who occupied five coastal city-states and vanished as a people, long before Christianity began.
The Province of Judea and the earlier Kingdom of Judea ruled by Herod, a client king of Rome, included Samaria, Galilee, the Golan Heights, and the east bank of the Jordan River. Sometimes, as in several verses of the Christian New Testament, Judea is used in a narrow sense together with Samaria as separate regions. But this was a reflection of Jewish usage, not Roman. Jews sometimes used Judea to translate Judah [Yehudah], the ancient southern kingdom of the Israelites after the split of the monarchy.
Here is more to refute the lies with objective evidence:
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_name_origin.php
I have *much* more, but I think I have already made the points.
And because this is already so long, for those of you who want to see those medieval and antique maps he claims doesn’t exist….use the search terms “antique maps of the holy land”, map of Judea and Samaria in the middle ages, “antique map of Judea” “antique map of Samaria”. There are even links where you can purchase maps from the 15th -19th centuries clearly showing those terms he said didn’t exist on maps…but being so old they are a bit pricey..$450 and up. I don’t link them because I’m not trying to sell what they offer…I just told you how you can go find for yourself with a few clicks of a mouse, what he said doesn’t exist.
For him to rationalize his hate, I am sure none of the overwhelming mountains of objective evidence exists.
I pity such overwhelming hate that blinds people to evidence.
Last admonition to the Jew hater: Seek help for your hate. You may then desire to seek peace.
Shalom y’all.