#mara yamauchi

[pillarsalt]

[ethiack]

Did Mara Yamauchi's questions scare Imane Khelif off?

Khelif is finding it hard to cash in on a gold medal that was arranged as part of an IOC-driven fraud.

[capricorn-season]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Andrew Doyle on Mermaids: 'Regressive, reactionary, and a danger to those they purport to help'

The rise of gender identity ideology is one of the most significant cultural shifts we've experienced in recent years.

It isn't just about accepting people for how they want to dress, what they want to call themselves, or how they want to live their lives - none of which anyone has a problem with - but rather that we should reorganize society around the concept of "gender" rather than sex.

And this has major implications for women's rights, because single sex spaces such as domestic violence refuge centers, hospitals and prisons depend first and foremost on biology. It also has major implications for gay rights which were secured through a recognition that will always be a minority of people who are attracted to members of their own sex. When you disregard biology, in other words, you disregard gay rights.

Now I've said all this before, but why does it bear repeating?

Well I'll tell you. It's because GB News is the only news channel that does so. And this isn't meant to sound triumphalist, it's just a fact and so I feel it's important to return to this issue on a regular basis. Because that media near silence most definitely needs to be broken.

There have been serious consequences to this negligence in the media. If you ask the average person what they think about the prospect of male rapists identifying as women, and then being transferred to female prisons, they mostly won't know what you're talking about. They probably won't believe it has ever happened. But it has, and in a few cases those prisoners have gone on to commit further sexual assaults.

And consider the implications for the sporting world. For a long time a small group of courageous athletes, people such as Martina Navratilova, Mara Yamauchi and Sharon Davis, have been trying to draw attention to the problem of biological males in women's sports. And they were ignored by the media, and called bigots by activists.

Kathleen stock wrote a brilliant book about how women's rights depend upon a recognition of biological sex differences, but it was only when activists hounded her out of her job at the University of Sussex that it made the news. Helen Joyce wrote a best-selling book about this issue and when I interviewed her on this program at the time of its publication, she said to me that no other news channel had invited her on to speak.

Why not? Well the truth is that most media outlets have been captured by the new quasi-religion of gender identity, and they have been unwilling to platform voices who might question this belief system. It's like the world of news media has suddenly been taken over by fanatical priests and all of a sudden we don't hear from the atheists anymore.

And this is largely down to the influence of Stonewall, a charity that used to support gay people rather than demonize them as sexual racists, as its CEO now does, and Stonewall has a policy of "no debate." Well they may as well call it "no heresy," and so it's hardly surprising that we should get radio silence from those media outlets that are under its thumb.

And although GB news is a relatively new channel, a small fish in a big pond, I can at least say that we've done our utmost to draw attention to these issues and offer a platform for those people who are speaking out.

And this week we are seeing that this silence, this journalistic negligence, this failure to enable a public discussion, has had some serious repercussions.

The trans youth charity, Mermaids, has finally come under a degree of media scrutiny this week. Better late than never, I suppose. You'll remember that Mermaids is a group that recently took LGB Alliance to court in an attempt to have it stripped of its charity status. And why? Because Mermaids takes the view that a charity that defends the interests of gay people is somehow transphobic. This isn't true of course, but gay people and feminists too have become accustomed to these kinds of slurs.

Many years ago mermaids used to offer sensible advice to the parents of children who were struggling with their gender. It would suggest a more hands-off approach, and pointed out in its literature that in most cases these feelings of gender dysphoria in childhood would be resolved naturally through puberty.

But in recent years, it has adopted the gender affirmative approach which has resulted in children being fast-tracked onto harmful medication. The majority of these children will have other issues that account for the dysphoria, as I pointed out on the show many times. The studies are absolutely clear that there is a strong correlation between gender non-conformity in youth and homosexuality in later life. So mermaids has been complicit in an ideology that seeks to fix gender non-conforming children according to heterosexual norms.

It is claimed that puberty blockers are harmless and reversible, even though evidence is clear that this is not the case. A recent investigation by The Telegraph revealed that Mermaids had encouraged breast binding for young girls without parental consent. This is a harmful practice that can lead to all sorts of medical problems, including breathing difficulties and broken ribs.

Well, the Charity Commission is now investigating Mermaids and all hell is breaking loose. This charity has been supported by major corporations. Starbucks and Wagamama have previously run campaigns in association with Mermaids, and celebrities have been falling over themselves to declare their approval.

But now tweets are being deleted, evidence erased, because it's becoming increasingly clear that Mermaids, for all that it has been perceived as being progressive, inclusive and "on the right side of history," is in fact regressive, reactionary and a danger to the very people it purports to help.

And it doesn't stop there. Over the past few days it has been revealed that one of Mermaids' trustees is an academic with a long history of writing in support of pedophilic desire. Now even the most ardent free speech absolutist must surely concede that these kind of writings should disqualify him from being a trustee of a children's charity. It's clear that Mermaids wasn't undertaking due diligence, but diligence was never the priority here. It was all about the ideology.

In the court hearing with LGB Alliance, a representative for Mermaids admitted to having not read the Cass Review. Now this was the report into The Tavistock, this is the gender pediatric clinic run by the NHS, which was found to be unsafe for vulnerable children and was shut down.

And the chair of Mermaids said in court that the Cass Review was, quote "not Mermaids' field." Not mermaid's field? The Cass Review is one of the most significant reports on the healthcare of children with gender dysphoria that has ever been produced. If this isn't Mermaids' field then perhaps they should stop sending breastbinders to kids.

Of course, many of those who supported Mermaids in the past have been conspicuously silent this week. Others have doubled down and declared that Mermaids is being targeted by anti-trans activists. But this isn't true. I've spoken to numerous critics of Mermaids and gender identity ideology more broadly, and not one of them is anti-trans.

But of course there's a lot at stake here. People eventually are going to have to admit that they supported the sterilization of children, many of whom were simply autistic or were likely to grow up gay. Many decent people have been hoodwinked into supporting this dangerous ideology and so of course they're going to find this difficult to come to terms with.

But sooner or later they're going to have to face up to reality. Too many people know about it now and the truth is getting out there. This is what JK Rowling wrote in August 2020:

"An ethical and medical scandal is brewing. I believe the time is coming when those organisations and individuals who have uncritically embraced fashionable dogma, and demonised those urging caution will have to answer for the harm they've enabled."

Just like the myth of Cassandra, these words were powerfully expressed but largely unheeded. Rowling in fact was monstered and smeared as a bigot for pointing this out, and now, two years later, people are starting to see that she was exactly right.

After the events of this week it feels like the tide is turning, but this really isn't a time for complacency. Activists aren't going to give this one up without a fight. They're too invested in their fantasies. They have convinced themselves that they have been doing good, even though the evidence now shows that they've been doing harm. They've convinced themselves that they are fighting armies of transphobic hate groups, even though these are mostly just specters of their imagination.

Their actual critics are just women, gay people and their supporters who are concerned about the erosion of their rights and the safeguarding of children. So yes, at the risk of repetition, I'm going to keep talking about this subject, because too many in the media are still silent on this issue. And believe me, this is far from over.

==

As will I.

[ukrfeminism]

theguardian com slash commentisfree slash 2022 slash jun slash 29 slash ministers dash fairness dash females dash sport dash swimming dash policy

Thank you anon! Full text below.

Why does the female category in sport exist? It exists so that those born female – women and girls – can participate, compete and excel in sport that is fair and safe. Without the female category, women and girls would be nowhere in sport because of the massive physical advantages that those born male enjoy.

The scale of these advantages is poorly understood, but was well illustrated by the UK sports councils’ hypothetical example of Sir Mo Farah being lapped twice in a 10,000m race if he were up against someone 10% faster than him – 10% being the gap between males and females in my own sport, running.

The fact of you reading this article right now is due to the female category existing. Without it, I would be a complete nobody. When I set my personal best, 2:23:12 in 2009, I was ranked second in the world in women’s road running. But 2:23:12 is, being frank, nothing special by male standards. In 2009, at least 1,300 men ran faster. If I had been told to suffer unfair competition against male-born athletes, I would never have become the UK’s joint most successful female marathon runner in the Olympics ever, and a Commonwealth Games medallist. I would have been excluded from things of value such as places on teams, prize money and podium places. That is if I’d persevered in sport at all – probably, I would have quit sport altogether. Why would anyone want to compete in an event that is unfair?

The whole point of the female category is it excludes the advantage male bodies have. Logically, this must be enforced, or it ceases to be the female category and instead becomes a mixed category. I therefore welcome Fina’s recently announced new policy to exclude male-born people from elite female competitions if they have experienced any part of male puberty, for two main reasons: it has focused, laser-like, on the source of male advantage – androgenisation, which is mostly acquired during male puberty (there are small differences evident in childhood). Second, Fina has made very clear its belief, which I share, that trans people must be welcome and included in sport, by committing to developing an open category. The details of this are to be decided, but this solution ensures fairness and inclusion for everyone, including for females. I hope other federations will follow Fina’s lead.

The debate about trans inclusion in sport has focused mostly on the elite level. But the crisis facing women’s sport is just as serious at grassroots level. Male-born people are competing in women’s sport all over the UK. Officials and event organisers, many of them volunteers, are powerless to turn away requests from people born male to compete in the female category. I know, because I hear about examples of this happening frequently. I am in touch with a group of women in the UK who have been deliberately avoiding events in which a male-born person is competing, and are considering quitting altogether. I can’t say which sport, to protect their anonymity. But why should any woman be put in this invidious position?

Last September, the UK sports councils made clear that fairness and safety for females on the one hand, and inclusion of male-born people in the female category on the other, cannot coexist, even with testosterone suppression. Fairness and inclusion cannot be balanced: sports face a choice. But since then, national governing bodies or NGBs have equivocated, and all the while there is evidence that females are being excluded from things of value in their own category, or are self-excluding. 

The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has said she would instruct the national governing bodies to protect the female category. This is long overdue, and I hope she did exactly that in her meeting with them on Tuesday. It need not have come to this if the national governing bodies had protected the female category. But they haven’t, and although I am no fan of this government, I am glad to see leadership coming from the top. This issue affects 51% of the population; it is a public health matter, and millions of tax-payers’ money is spent on sport annually. I am glad to see what I hope will be the beginning of the end of this ideological assault on fair and safe sport for women and girls.

One feature of this debate that I find very frustrating is the lack of basic understanding of sport by many who favour inclusion of male-born people in the female category. For example, conflating the differences between the sexes (which are massive), with differences in bodies – for example big feet, or being left-handed – which occur in both males and females (and are, by comparison, minuscule). Otherwise known as the Phelps gambit – named after swimmer Michael Phelps and based on the idea that his physique gave him an unfair competitive edge over his closest competitors – this argument has been demolished by scientists numerous times, yet still it gets wheeled out.

Another misunderstanding is the asymmetry of what trans inclusion offers to the two sexes. Males can enjoy competition in the female category with retained male advantages, therefore enhancing their careers, opportunities and bank balances. By contrast, females suffer exclusion in their own category and have zero chance of being competitive in the male category, even on testosterone, which is banned anyway. The Tokyo 2021 qualifying standard in the men’s marathon was 2:11:30; the women’s world record is 2:14:0.

Inclusion’s supporters tout this as a social justice and human rights issue. If only they would include females in their crusade.

Mara Yamauchi is a former elite marathon runner and two-time Olympian

[coochiequeens]

OnJune 21, New Zealand announced that Gavin Hubbard, who calls himself Laurel now, qualified in the women’s weightlifting category for the New Zealand team at Tokyo Olympics 2021, sparking a wave of support for fairness in women’s sports among athletes.

Celebrity athletes like swimmer Sharron Davies and decathlon champion Daley Thompson are among some of the many athletes who have spoken out openly on social media and for media outlets about the announcement by Reuters, even though that is not the first time some of them have addressed the issue.

On the same day Hubbard’s qualification made the news, Davies wrote on Twitter that there are men and women’s separate competition for “a big reason.” She added that “biology in sport matters,” and categories separated by sex give females “equal opportunities of sporting success.” In response to one of her tweets about women’s rights, Daley Thompson enquired “How did we sleep walk into this?” and stated that he believes in biological sex.

Davies and Thompson are joined in their concerns by several other sportspeople who have been speaking on this matter for months, such as Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes, former marathon runner Paula Radcliffe, tennis player Martina Navratilova, former Samoa rugby player Daniel Leo, Olympian medalist Inga Thompson, and former paralympian Tanni Grey Thompson.

According to the Daily Mail, in May 2019, Davies, Dame Kelly Holmes, Paula Radcliffe and “60 other top-class athletes” wrote to Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) expressing their concerns about the inclusion of male-born athletes in women’s competitions, but they never received a response until the present moment.

After the announcement of Hubbard’s qualification, other athletes who had not spoken before on males’ participation in women’s sports challenged the rulings, including Andy Turner, James Guy, Tessa Sanderson, Kyle Langford, Chris Tomlinson, Brett Frave, Ellie Baker, Lorraine Moller, Anna Van Bellinghen, Nigel Bakewell, Kate Allenby, Tracey Lambrechs and Mara Yamauchi.

Long-distance track and road running athlete Yamauchi thanked Davies for her efforts and admitted that until now she kept silent out of fear of “abuse, vitriol and immediate accusations of transphobia thrown at women who speak out”. She added that the ruling in Maya Forstaster's case, which recently gave gender critical feminists the right to not be discriminated against when talking about biological matters, gave her hope.

When thanked by a Twitter user for speaking out, gold medalist Tessa Sanderson responded: “I was born a woman, loved being a woman, competed fairly on the world stage as a woman. Women have now exploded and are moving ahead with success as 100% women so why do others want to change that unique window women have built?”, she asked. Others, like Leo, Guy, Thomlison, Turner and Langford all stated that Hubbard’s qualification was unfair to female athletes or called sports bodies to “common sense.”

For MSN sports, football player Brett Favre called the ruling and Hubbard’s subsequent qualification unfair. Favre has been open about his opinion of the inclusion of males in women’s categories since 2020, after he discussed head trauma in a sport’s podcast. Since then he has been speaking up on his own podcast, “Bolling With Favre,” about other male athletes who have been allowed to compete with women.

New Zealand sportspeople are some of the most outspoken ones about Hubbard’s qualification. On June 7, about two weeks before Hubbard’s qualification was widely reported by the media, former Olympic athletes announced a challenge to New Zealand’s government guidelines which allow males to qualify for Tokyo 2021 in women’s categories.  Some of the most successful sportspeople in the country wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Sport Grant Robertson. The letter, signed by 43 athletes, including Barbara Kendall, Dean Kent, Alison Roe, All Blacks, Jeff Wilson and Alison Sydor, raised concerns around “fairness and safety” and urged the government to become aware of the rights of female athletes.

Retired professional cross country mountain cyclist, Alison Sydor, was challenged by a Twitter user about her qualifications to speak about males in women's categories. Her response went viral when she retorted that her qualifications were irrelevant, but since she has competed in four Olympic Games, has an Olympic Medal and a 20 years career as a professional athlete, she will keep “speaking up on this issue that affects all the female athletes coming up after her.”

Elite athletes have also been speaking out on social media about Kuinini ���Nini’ Manumua, the 21 year old weightlifter of Tongan descent who was left out of what would have been her first Olympic competition because of Hubbard.

Sydor said that “Sport’s a zero sum game - #KuininiManumua was excluded,” while middle distance runner Kyle Langford tweeted that he felt bad for the 21 year old “whose dreams have been snatched away.” Tessa Sanderson wrote that it’s “sinful that this lady who's worked her real socks off to be kicked out of her 1st olympics,” and Andy Turner echoed the sentiment, writing that Manumua “had her dreams literally stolen from her.”

Belgian weightlifter Anna Van Bellinghen, who will be competing with Hubbard, said to Inside The Games that “dealing with transgender issues in sport is ‘impossible’ but the presence of Laurel Hubbard in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games is ‘like a bad joke’ to women athletes.” And former New Zealand olympic weightlifter Tracey Lambrechs told Fox News on June 23 that the “inclusion of transgender athletes could ruin women's sports.”

How did Kuinini Manumua lose her chance at her first Olympic Games to Hubbard?

According to information posted on social media by developmental biologist Emma Hilton, Kuinini Manumua ended up not qualifying for the Olympics this year because only the top eight athletes straightforwardly qualify. She showed a chart with world qualifications, explaining that after outright qualification there were “continental places up for grabs for those ranked nine or lower.” Hubbard comes in the 7th position on the chart. Charisma Tarrant Amoe comes 9th, but her performance makes her eligible to qualify for Oceania. The next qualifying athlete from Oceania is Manumua, but with Hubbard’s qualification, she is “bumped out” from Oceania qualification for coming 14th.

So far, there is no news of Manumua’s reaction to not qualifying for Tokyo 2021. According to Hilton’s post, Kuinini Manumua is an American of Tongan descent. She competed for the USA team as a junior, and now represents Tonga as a senior.

[christsbride]

Evidence for the Crusifixtion of Jesus

How do we know Jesus died on the cross?  We must look at the historical evidences recorded for us in ancient history.  What evidences is there? Outside of the Biblical witnesses (the synoptic gospels) we first look to the closest culture associated with Jesus and his death; Judaism. JEWISH HISTORY  Two researchers, Edwin Yamauchi and John P. Meier, have constructed a copy of the "Testimonium" of Flavius Josephus (37-101AD; wrote ~45 years after Jesus) with the probable later Christian insertions removed. In parentheses are what is found in the Arabic manuscript.  The following paragraph is Yamauchi's:

“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man (And his conduct was good and he was known to be virtiucous) For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. (They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive). And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

Here Josephus the Jewish historian records that Jesus was condemned by crucifixion.   Josephus does not have to be believe in Jesus in a religious sense to admit and record a historical event regarding what happened to Jesus.  Being a anti-christian source, he records this event as an actual historic occurrence.   Given his time of writing and area of association, he would have known witnesses of this event. Later in Jewish records we see in The Babylonian Talmud, a commentary on Jewish laws composed between A.D. 500-600 (Neusner/Green, 69), contains a text about Jesus’ death. The Tractate Sanhedrin (43a) states:

Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had cried, “He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it.” As nothing was brought forward in his defense, he was hanged on Passover Eve.

SYRIAN HISTORY Secondly we can look at Mara Bar-Serapion who wrote around 70AD (~35 years after Jesus); He was a Syrian philosopher and a non-christian.  When giving historical examples of innocent people being killed, he gives this example:

"...Or the Jews by murdering their wise king?…After that their kingdom was abolished. God rightly avenged these men…The wise king…Lived on in the teachings he enacted.”

The Jews never murdered their kings of the past.  Jesus however was mockingly called "king of the Jews" on the cross.  It was an argument that even Jewish leadership used to get Rome to approve his crucifixion.  35 years after Jesus was murdered, Rome destroyed Jerusalem.  But "the wise King lived on in the teachings he enacted".  Thus Serapion was indirectly stating that Jesus was a real person of history that was killed. ROMAN HISTORY Third, we see as recorded by Cornelius Tacitus (56-120AD); a very trusted Roman historian, senator, proconsul of Asia, and defiantly a non-christian who wrote around 116AD (~80 years after Jesus) an interesting statement:

“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”

Tacitus records that Jesus "suffered THE extreme penalty" by Rome, which was crucifixion. Then Lucian of Samosata (120-180AD; ~115 years after Jesus) was a satirist and Roman comedian who very negative and sarcastically critical of Christians. He wrote several books and in a negative since, unintentionally affirms Jesus' death:

"The Christians. . . worship a man to this day - the distinguished personage who introduced this new cult, and was crucified on that account. . . . You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt for death and self devotion . . . their lawgiver [taught] they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take on faith"

Lucian also affirms the historic event of Jesus' crucifixion. The image above is roughly 1st to the late 3rd century dating which depicts a person crucified with a donkey head being worshiped by a person to the left.   The words engraved at the bottom translate "Alexamenos worships [his] God,"  This was mocking a person named "Alexamenos" for worshiping "[his] God" who was on the cross.   Origen reports in his treatise Contra Celsum that the pagan philosopher Celsus made the same claim against Christians and Jews:

“For the sake of such a monstrous delusion, and in support of those wonderful advisers, and those wonderful words which you address to the lion, to the amphibious creature, to the creature in the form of an ass, and to others, for the sake of those divine doorkeepers.."

Tertullian, writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd century, reports that Christians, along with Jews, were accused of worshiping such a deity. He also mentions an apostate Jew who carried around Carthage a caricature of a Christian with ass's ears and hooves, labeled Deus Christianorum Onocoetes ("the God of the Christians begotten of an ass"). Thus, through this insulting graffiti in ancient Roman culture, we see that Christians were worshiping someone who was crucified.  The donkey head is the derogatory depiction of Jesus, as it was taught that Jesus, the king, entered Jerusalem on a donkey also the donkey itself depicted how Roman society felt about Jesus himself.  None the less showed the culture making fun of someone who was crucified. What we know about Roman crucifixion is that it was extremely successful.  Even if Jesus was to had survived after being brought down from the cross, just unconscious, the burial ritual of the Jewish culture would have suffocated him regardless.  Given what we know now medically, the wounds he would have suffered, the lack of nutrition, dehydration, wound infection, and burial suffocation; he could still not have survived.  ISLAMIC RECORD About 630 years after Jesus, Ibn Ishaq (d. 761 CE/130 AH) reports of a brief accounting of events leading up to the crucifixion.  But about 200 years after Ibn Ishaq, the idea of Jesus' crucifixion changed to the idea that he only appeared to be crucified or that he did die for only a few hours before being raised to heaven.   Al-Tabari (d. 923 CE/310 AH) records an interpretation attributed to Ibn 'Abbas, who used the literal "I will cause you to die" (mumayyitu-ka) in place of the metaphorical mutawaffi-ka "Jesus died", while Wahb ibn Munabbih, an early Jewish convert, is reported to have said "God caused Jesus, son of Mary, to die for three hours during the day, then took him up to himself." Tabari further transmits from Ibn Ishaq: "God caused Jesus to die for seven hours", while at another place reported that a person called Sergius was crucified in place of Jesus. Ibn-al-Athir forwarded the report that it was Judas, the betrayer, while also mentioning the possibility it was a man named Natlianus. Al-Masudi (d. 956 CE/343 AH) reported the death of Christ under Tiberius.  But then, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373 CE/760 AH) suggested that a crucifixion did occur, but not with Jesus and that ‘The servant and messenger of God, Jesus, remained with us as long as God willed until God raised him to Himself.’  It seems that the Islamic idea of Jesus' pseudo-death follows the early traditions of Gnostic teachings in that Jesus himself did not die but was replaced at the cross by someone one else who appeared to look like Jesus on the cross.  Yet other Islamic teachers such as Ja’far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (d. 347 AH/958 CE), Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi (d. 322 AH/935 CE), Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani (d. 358 AH/971 CE), Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi (d. 470 AH/1078 CE ) and the group Ikhwan al-Safa affirm that Jesus did die by Crucifixion, and not substituted by another man.  It is important to note two things:  (1) The Islamic reports of Jesus not dying by crucifixion are at least 900 years after Jesus!  (2) They affirm Gnostic teachings which have been proven to be unreliable historically and philosophically.  The inconsistent accounts within Islam make it impossible to validate Islamic sources as historically reliable. CHRISTIAN RECORD It is easy to write off The Bible as a bias source of the historical event of Jesus' crucifixion but the same can be said for all the non-christian sources that deny it.   The fact that there exists non-christian sources that affirm Jesus' crucifixion is compelling in and of itself.  But is the biblical record of Jesus' death unreliable?  According to non-christian secular scholars and historians such as E. P. Sanders and Maurice Casey, who are bold enough to admit, that, The Bible is reliable enough to know that he did in fact die.  The Rylands Library Papyrus P52 is a biblical manuscript dated 90AD to 150 AD records a small portion of the story of Jesus' crucifixion.  Which the fragment can be possibly dated to only 60 or so years after Jesus.  Clement of Rome who wrote around 90AD and affirms the death of Jesus in Chapter 16 of 1 Clement.  Ignatius (born around 35 AD and died around 108AD) affirms Jesus' crucifixion in his letter to the Smyrnaeans.  Polycarp of Smyrna (born around 69AD and died around 155AD) affirms Jesus' crucifixion in his letter to the church in Phillipi. THE PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE   Ancient Jewish history records Jesus' death on the cross.  Syrian philosopher affirms his death as an historic event.  Ancient Roman historians and writers affirm Jesus' death as an historic event.  Early church teachers affirm Jesus' death.  Later some Islamic writers even affirm Jesus' death.  Currently, well respected secular scholars affirm that the Bible's record of Jesus' death is reliable.  We can in fact conclude given the preponderance of evidence that Jesus did in fact die by crucifixion. If you have any questions or comments about this article please contact us or join our discussion forms

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2zwuFiK

[biofunmy]

Norman Myers Dies at 85; Sounded Early Alarm on Environment

The British conservationist Norman Myers drew public attention to mass extinction, disappearing habitats and environmental refugees long before they became common topics in the news and causes of widespread concern.

Dr. Myers, an ecological consultant who died on Oct. 20 at 85, lobbied politicians, companies and organizations and wrote or helped write nearly 20 books and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and newspapers that posited groundbreaking ideas, many of which were later supported by further research.

Many of his books and articles were based on examinations of published work rather than on field work of his own. This perspective allowed him to ask questions and make inferences that other researchers might have missed. But it also opened him to criticism that his conclusions were based on insufficient evidence.

Dr. Myers responded to his critics by arguing that the potential for ecological catastrophe made it all the more important that he publicize troubling discoveries. In an essay in The Guardian in 1992, he inveighed against “the established approach,” which “has required scientists not to publish or otherwise present their findings until they have a high degree of certainty.”

“This approach, productive as it has long been, is less appropriate in a world subject to severe environmental injury,” he continued. “If we wait until we achieve certainty about the greenhouse effect, for instance, it will be too late to do much about the problem.”

Image

Credit…–

In his book “The Sinking Ark” (1979), Dr. Myers raised the possibility that biologists were gravely underestimating the number of species that go extinct each year by overlooking insects and other invertebrates. Official estimates at the time put the number of extinctions at one per year; Dr. Myers thought it was closer to one per day.

Many scientists now agree that the rate of extinction is far higher than it has historically been. “The Sinking Ark” presaged later works like Elizabeth Kolbert’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” (2014).

Dr. Myers and his colleagues proposed that biological “hot spots” — relatively small habitats often threatened by human encroachment — hold much of the earth’s biodiversity, and that government subsidies for industries like energy and agriculture can harm the economy and the environment.

He was one of the earliest researchers to tie the disappearance of the rainforest to the world’s growing demand for beef and the consequent need for more grazing land for cattle. He was also one of the first to note the displacement of large numbers of refugees because of environmental concerns. Scientists like Edward O. Wilson and Paul R. Ehrlich embraced some of Dr. Myers’s theories.

Dr. Myers proposed pragmatic solutions to ecological problems — ideas that could be counterintuitive and that sometimes outraged environmental activists. He once suggested that one way to protect the habitat of grazing animals in Africa would be to promote their harvesting as a food source so that local populations would become less reliant on farming and ranching, which destroy habitats.

“Disquieting as it may sound to foreigners, wildlife in Africa should be commercialized in many places — exploited for every last nickel of income,” Dr. Myers wrote in an article cited in The New York Times Magazine in 1982.

He also argued that many scientists should drop their pretense of objectivity and become active proponents for their work. He reached out to politicians like Al Gore and Margaret Thatcher. He worked as an adviser to the World Bank, the United Nations and other international agencies, and to the United States government.

“If scientists exercise ‘professional propriety’ about environmental problems by remaining silent about them because they lack conclusive evidence, their silence will often be misconstrued by political leaders: absence of evidence about a problem can be taken to mean evidence of absence of a problem,” Dr. Myers wrote in 1992. “When politicians decide to do nothing, they decide to do a great deal in a world that is not standing still. To practice undue caution can be reckless.”

Norman Myers was born on Aug. 24, 1934, on a farm in Whitewell, Lancashire, England. His father, John, was a farmer, and his mother, Gladys, was a teacher. The family moved to the nearby town of Clitheroe after his father became ill.

He attended Oxford University, where he studied German and French. In 1958, after graduating, he went to Kenya, where he became a colonial administrator and worked closely with Maasai tribesmen.

An avid long-distance runner, he sometimes accompanied the Maasai on daily jaunts of dozens of miles, and for a short time he held the record for the swiftest ascent and descent of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Dr. Myers became a teacher before Kenya declared independence from England in 1963, and in time he became a wildlife photographer. He spent long hours staking out wild animals, waiting for dramatic moments like lions pouncing on zebras at a watering hole. During the waits he devoured material about the species he was observing, and about biology and ecology in general.

“During five years I put myself through an undergraduate course in biology without realizing what I was doing,” Dr. Myers said in 1999 to an interviewer from the University of California, Berkeley.

He entered graduate school at Berkeley and in 1973 completed an interdisciplinary doctorate, studying topics like wildlife management, demography, political science and international law.

He married Dorothy Halliman in 1965, and they separated in 1993 and divorced in 2012.

Dr. Myers died at a care facility in Oxford, England. His daughter Malindi Myers said the cause was Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease. In addition to her, he is survived by another daughter, Mara Yamauchi; a brother, John; and two grandchildren.

Dr. Myers’s other books include “Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy,” with Jennifer Kent, and “Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions,” with Russell A. Mittermeier, Patricio R. Gil and Christina G. Mittermeier. In 2007, Time magazine named him a “hero of the environment.”

Dr. Myers remained optimistic that humankind could address the ecological perils faced by humanity, and the other species on Earth.

“These are problems which have never arisen before,” he said in the Berkeley interview. “But we still have it in our hands, we still have time to do a great deal to turn those appalling problems into magnificent opportunities.”

Jack Begg contributed research.

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Mara Yamauchi inspires girls in the lead up to International Women’'s day in South London

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[thisdaynews]

Nike Vaporfly shoes are not banned but Eliud Kipchoge's are

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Nike Vaporfly shoes are not banned but Eliud Kipchoge's are

Media playback is not supported on this device

BBC sports editor Dan Roan looks into the science of high-tech running shoes

Nike’s controversial Vaporfly range will not be banned but there will be tighter regulations around high-tech running shoes, World Athletics says.

Any new shoe technology developed after 30 April will have to be available on the open market for four months before an athlete can use it in competition.

World Athletics has also introduced an immediate indefinite ban on any shoes that have a sole thicker than 40mm.

The body will also investigate any shoes that “may not be compliant”.

An immediate indefinite ban has also been introduced on any shoe that contains more than one “rigid embedded plate or blade”.

For shoes with spikes, an additional plate or blade is allowed for the purpose of attaching the spikes, but the sole must be no thicker than 30mm.

The ‘Alphafly’ prototype shoes worn by Eliud Kipchoge when he became the first athlete to run a marathon in under two hours in October 2019 will be banned.

‘It feels like running on trampolines’

Kipchoge breaks two-hour marathon mark

The shoe worn by Eliud Kipchoge when he became the first athlete to run a marathon in under two hours will be banned indefinitely

A group of experts were asked to consider whether Nike’s Vaporfly shoes give their wearers an unfair advantage.

Athletes wearing the new footwear including Nike’s latest Vaporfly have taken 31 of 36 top-three finishes in major marathons last year.

Kipchoge’s Kenyan compatriot Brigid Kosgei wore a Vaporfly prototype when she broke Paula Radcliffe’s long-standing women’s marathon world record in October 2019.

World Athletics president Lord Coe said: “It is not our job to regulate the entire sports shoe market but it is our duty to preserve the integrity of elite competition by ensuring the shoes worn by elite athletes in competition do not offer any unfair assistance or advantage.

“As we enter the Olympic year, we don’t believe we can rule out shoes that have been generally available for a considerable period of time, but we can draw a line by prohibiting the use of shoes that go further than what is currently on the market while we investigate further.

“I believe these new rules strike the right balance by offering certainty to athletes and manufacturers as they prepare for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, while addressing the concerns that have been raised about shoe technology.

“If further evidence becomes available that indicates we need to tighten up these rules, we reserve the right to do that to protect our sport.”

World Athletics will now establish an “expert working group” to “guide future research” into shoe technology as well as assessing any new shoes that enter the market.

Why are the shoes controversial?

The shoes have been criticised for “distorting the record books”, with some arguing they prevent fair competition with athletes not sponsored by Nike.

Vaporflys claim to improve an athlete’s performance by 4%, and the five fastest marathons of all time have been run in the past 16 months by athletes wearing varying forms of the technology.

Former British Olympic marathon runner Mara Yamauchi previously told BBC Sport that “we no longer truly have fair competition”.

“It’s up to World Athletics to provide a level playing field for all… to be brutally honest, it’s hard to see how anybody not wearing Vaporflys at Tokyo is going to win medals,” she said.

“Athletics has had several years of doping stories coming out in the press and the single most important thing is to restore trust and bring in more fans and sponsors.

“But if we see every medal winner wearing the Vaporflys and other athletes not getting a look in, I’m not sure that people watching can really say I believe that performance 100%.”

Nike said in a previous statement they “respect the spirit of the rules and we do not create any running shoes that return more energy than the runner expends”.

Analysis

BBC sports editor Dan Roan

Amid mounting confusion that running was becoming distorted, World Athletics has tried to provide some clarity before the Tokyo Olympics and halt what some see as an ‘arms race’ in shoe technology.

Although more research will now be conducted and the rules could still develop, it seems significant the governing body admits “concerns that the integrity of the sport might be threatened”.

The news will come as a relief for Nike and the athletes it sponsors.

The prototype ‘AlphaFly’ that Eliud Kipchoge used to go sub-two hours last year exceeds the new restrictions and is now banned for elite runners.

But as expected, the Vaporfly range that has revolutionised distance running is cleared, including the ‘Vaporfly Next%’ that Brigid Kosgei wore when smashing the women’s world record last year.

That will lead to fears that the new restrictions have been conceived with that shoe’s specific dimensions in mind, are too little too late, and mean athletes sponsored by other manufacturers are at a disadvantage.

The changes also put pressure on rival companies to quickly develop any new prototype shoes.

They have three months to do so. After that they will need to have been widely available to buy for four months before being allowed in elite competition, ruling out their use at the Olympics.

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Tweeted

How totally awesome is @jopavey ?! Go Jo, your journey so inspiring! BBC Sport - Jo Pavey, 45, targets record sixth Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020 https://t.co/L4efReSFkI

— Mara Yamauchi (@mara_yamauchi) January 17, 2019

[athletics24]

Georgie Bruinvels returns to race ASICS Greater Manchester Marathon Events by Athletics Weekly<!--0 comments -->March 31, 2017 Ron Hill and Mara Yamauchi are official starters of this year’s event…

[spikes-mag]

Super Mara land

The Tokyo Marathon was accepted as part of the World Marathon Majors earlier this month and joins Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York as part of the elite series.

There's no-one better placed to judge its suitability than former resident and Team GB marathoner Mara Yamauchi. We ask Mara three burning questions...

Why is Tokyo a good edition to the World Marathon Majors?  The Tokyo Marathon is one of the newest mass-participation marathons, but has quickly established itself as one of the best marathon races in the world, with huge demand for places, a fast course and top quality competition. As the first and, so far, only race in Asia to join the World Marathon Majors series, Tokyo has extended the reach of this series beyond Europe and America, and therefore helped it to become more global. Japan is a power-house of marathon running so any foreign athletes lining up in Tokyo can be sure of fierce domestic competition to push them to great performances.    

How would you describe the Tokyo Marathon course? The winning times so far show that the Tokyo course is fast. It has long, straight, flat stretches which enable fast times. But is also has tough bits – especially the final run into the finish which has several inclines over bridges, and some parts of the course can be exposed if it’s a windy day. The course is well-designed for supporters, and the crowds cheering on the runners have always been fantastic.   Why does Japan have such a special relationship with the marathon? Japan has a long and illustrious history in the marathon and in Ekiden road relays. It has a lot of good role models (such as Naoko Takahashi, the 2000 Olympic women’s marathon champion and the 1986 London Marathon winner Toshihiko Seko) who provide inspiration for recreational and elite runners alike. Its domestic events, from major marathons such as Fukuoka and Tokyo, to the Hakone Ekiden, provide brilliant competition for developing runners, and exciting action for people to watch and support. Also the running season (Autumn to Spring) is often blessed with mild, sunny weather which is great for training and racing. The corporate team structure also provides a comprehensive support base for athletes wanting to train hard and be the best they can be. This provides a successful way to develop new talent and produce future champions.

Just over 100 days to go, the 2013 Tokyo Marathon takes place on Sunday 24th February.

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Mara Yamauchi delivers S&C workshop to endurance coaches and athletes

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Mara Yamauchi Marathon Workshop in Wiltshire a great success

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Mara Yamauchi, Dr Charlie Pedlar and Bud Baldaro confirmed for Marathon Development sessions

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