The Off Topic Topic

[CountDeMoney]

An iinch and a half of snow, and all that horsepower in a ditch at the first bend.

[Admiral Yi]

An iinch and a half of snow, and all that horsepower in a ditch at the first bend.

In Nevada?

[CountDeMoney]

They have ditches and bends in Nevada.

[Tonitrus]

And while a desert, the mean elevation is about 5500 feet.  So I doubt snow is uncommon in the north of the state.

[MadImmortalMan]

We got snow today.   

[Tonitrus]

We got a good late season dump yesterday too.

[Duque de Bragança]

The airport on Madeira has been renamed Cristiano Ronaldo Airport. They've also "honored" him with a bust showing his ... likeness?

Already posted in the football thread. 

[HVC]

It's an imagining of how he would look like if he was a venture bros. character

[Admiral Yi]

Or if the left side of his head were being sucked into a black hole.

[grumbler]

We got a good late season dump yesterday too.

Thanks for sharing, Ed.

[CountDeMoney]

It's an imagining of how he would look like if he was a venture bros. character

first thing I thought of was John Carpenter's The Thing.

[Malthus]

The retarded part of Judaism is the chosen people part.  If there is a God, why the hell would he think these guys rock and everyone else sucks?

Well, that and the little head cubes.

"Chosen" simply doesn't mean what you think it means.

In fact, in Judaism, it is officially part of the religion that non-Jews who follow some pretty basic rules of morality are exactly as "righteous" as the most observant religious Jew (look up "Noahide laws").

What being "chosen" means is that, for whatever reason, God "chose" one tribe out of many to follow innumerable piffling rules and regulations, because they are supposed to be a "holy people" and a "light unto the nations". It emphatically does not mean Jews "rock and everyone else sucks". In fact, God has allegedly created one sort of covenant with Jews, but according to Judaism, he created other covenants of equal worth with other people:

Sometimes this choice is seen as charging the Jewish people with a specific mission — to be a light unto the nations, and to exemplify the covenant with God as described in the Torah. This view, however, did not preclude a belief that God has a relationship with other peoples — rather, Judaism held that God had entered into a covenant with all humankind, and that Jews and non-Jews alike have a relationship with God. Biblical references as well as rabbinic literature support this view: Moses refers to the "God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numbers 27:16), and the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) also identifies prophets outside the community of Israel. Based on these statements, some rabbis theorized that, in the words of Nethanel ibn Fayyumi, a Yemenite Jewish theologian of the 12th century, "God permitted to every people something he forbade to others...[and] God sends a prophet to every people according to their own language."(Levine, 1907/1966) The Mishnah states that "Humanity was produced from one man, Adam, to show God's greatness. When a man mints a coin in a press, each coin is identical. But when the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, creates people in the form of Adam not one is similar to any other." (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5) The Mishnah continues, and states that anyone who kills or saves a single human, not Jewish, life, has done the same (save or kill) to an entire world. The Tosefta, a collection of important post-Talmudic discourses, also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a).

The idea of chosenness has traditionally been interpreted by Jews in two ways: one way is that God chose the Israelites, while the other is that the Israelites chose God. Although collectively this choice was made freely, religious Jews believe that it created individual obligation for the descendants of the Israelites. Another opinion is that the choice was free in a limited context, thus: although the Jews chose to follow precepts ordained by God, the Kabbalah and Tanya teach that even prior to creation, the "Jewish soul" was already chosen.

Crucial to the Jewish notion of chosenness is that it creates obligations exclusive to Jews, while non-Jews receive from God other covenants and other responsibilities. Generally, it does not entail exclusive rewards for Jews. Classical rabbinic literature in the Mishnah Avot 3:14 has this teaching:


Rabbi Akiva used to say, "Beloved is man, for he was created in God's image; and the fact that God made it known that man was created in His image is indicative of an even greater love. As the verse states [Genesis 9:6], 'In the image of God, man was created.'" The mishna goes on to say, "Beloved are the people Israel, for they are called children of God; it is even a greater love that it was made known to them that they are called children of God, as it said, 'You are the children of the Lord, your God. Beloved are the people Israel, for a precious article [the Torah] was given to them ...

Most Jewish texts do not state that "God chose the Jews" by itself. Rather, this is usually linked with a mission or purpose, such as proclaiming God's message among all the nations, even though Jews cannot become "unchosen" if they shirk their mission. This implies a special duty, which evolves from the belief that Jews have been pledged by the covenant which God concluded with the biblical patriarch Abraham, their ancestor, and again with the entire Jewish nation at Mount Sinai. In this view, Jews are charged with living a holy life as God's priest-people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people

Traditionally, this has been seen essentially as a burden.

Contrast with Christianity, which in many (but not all) sects has promoted the belief that only those who happen to believe in their peculiar religion will gain salvation. Judaism says nothing of the sort.

[Admiral Yi]

What covenant did he create with the residents of Jericho?

[Malthus]

What covenant did he create with the residents of Jericho?

I have no idea?

[The Brain]

A giant one.