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“Roots of Barrenness

In agrarian societies during the biblical period (1200-600 BCE), bearing children was highly valued and women’s primary role was that of mother. Birthing and raising children, however, were fraught, given the high rate of maternal death in childbirth and of infant mortality; only half of all children born survived to the age of five. In the biblical stories of barren women, maternity is further complicated in order to heighten the drama of the arrival of the promised son, emphasizing the divine role in conception and birth. In the case of the patriarchal stories in Genesis, the matriarchs’ barrenness emphasizes that it is God who disrupts continuity, in the transition from one generation to the next, and then selects the true heir to the covenant.

In the Bible and until quite recently, the problem of infertility was attributed physiologically to women, though ultimately it was God who was seen as holding the keys to opening and closing the womb (Mishnah Taanit 3:8). Only female figures are identified by the descriptor “barren [‘aqarah]” (Genesis 11:30, 25:21, 29:31; Judges 13:2, 3; 1 Samuel 2:5; Psalms 113:9; Job 24:21), derived from the Hebrew root ‘qr, meaning “to uproot or pluck up,” the opposite of “to plant” [nt‘] (Ecclesiastes 3:2). A woman’s infertility might also be marked by the phrase “she had no progeny” (as in Genesis 11:30, Judges 13:2, 2 Kings 4:14). Often these biblical women suffered deep shame as a consequence, their barrenness attributed to some hidden wrong, sin, or flaw. Sarai confronts Abram, when she is slighted in Hagar’s eyes: “May the wrong done to me be on you!” (Genesis 16:5). When Rachel pleads with Jacob, “Give me children or else I die” (30:1), her husband answers: “Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (v. 2); when the matriarch finally conceives, she names her son Joseph [Yosef], “for God has taken away my reproach” (v. 23). Peninah, mother of Elkanah’s children, made Hannah miserable, taunting her because “God had closed her womb” (1 Samuel 1:6).” -Jewish Women’s Archive

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In fact, all of these fourteen possibilities are actual realities of fun for me. “Here are 14 possibilities. Some are based on research; others are just my best guesses that still need to be put to the empirical test. And the criteria apply equally to women and men.

1. You like your single life.

2. Well, that’s not quite true. Actually, if the rest of the world did not think it was oh-so-odd to say so, you’d put it this way: You love your single life.

3. Loneliness isn’t a big issue for you. Time alone isn’t something you fear; it’s something you savor.

4. You are not going to let your idea of a social life be dictated to you. Maybe your friends matter more to you than anyone else. Maybe your relatives do. Maybe you don’t want Saturday night to be date night. Maybe you like going out in big groups. Maybe you like more intimate get-togethers, in which “intimate” is not just a polite word for sexual, but can mean something bigger and deeper. Maybe you want your time with other people to be plentiful, or maybe you want it to be scarce. You are a confirmed bachelor if you are living the social life that best fits who you really are, and that social life is not just the standard-issue “find someone and get married.”

5. You enjoy handling many tasks and challenges on your own. That doesn’t mean you will always want to do everything on your own, but you do enjoy your self-sufficiency.

6. You have a sense of mastery — a belief that you have the skills or knowledge to do what you need, or that you can develop them and would probably enjoy doing so. 7. When you need to make decisions (including small ones about your day-to-day life or big ones about major life choices), you don’t think it's tragic if there is no one person who always makes those decisions with you. You may or may not want input from others, but ultimately, you are happy to have the final say.

8. If you never had to date again, you would be very happy, and not because you already found “the one." Do you disagree with this one, but still think of yourself as a confirmed bachelor? Okay, I have a loophole for you: There are confirmed bachelors who enjoy dating and romance; they just don’t want that to turn into married life. 9. If you were in a serious romantic relationship, and it ended, maybe you will feel sad or hurt; but you may also feel relieved, because now you get to go back to the life that feels right to you.

10. You are on top of your life, or you would be if only you would buck the matrimaniacal masses and admit to yourself that you really do want to be single. 12. When people you care about marry, and you think that it is a good life choice for them, you feel happy for them. Their marriage is not a painful experience for you, because it is not the choice you want for yourself. You’re not envious; you have the life that you want. (If the newlyweds subsequently ditch you, because now they are in the Married Couples Club and won’t socialize with single people anymore, you can be miffed about that and still be a confirmed bachelor.) 13. When someone asks you if you are married, and you are beyond the age at which they think you should be married, you know what they are wondering: What’s wrong with you? What they don’t know is what you’re wondering: What’s wrong with YOU that makes you think that everyone wants to marry, and if they don’t, there’s something wrong with them? 14. You are living the life that is the best, most authentic, most fulfilling, and most meaningful life for you. If you are a confirmed bachelor, that life is single life. You are living your best life, even though other people can’t quite get their heads around that. Congratulations! You are awesome. Does a lot of this sound familiar? It should. I am describing people who are single at heart.” I am single at heart and I am proud of it! Not having enough availability for my family would be strenuous, hurtful, and unbearable (which makes 💯 complete sense for me to never be a family man.)

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“Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with. The terms child abuse and child maltreatment are often used interchangeably, although some researchers make a distinction between them, treating child maltreatment as an umbrella term to cover neglect, exploitation, and trafficking.

Different jurisdictions have different requirements for mandatory reporting and have developed different definitions of what constitutes child abuse, and therefore have different criteria to remove children from their families or to prosecute a criminal charge.” By the way, I am single at heart because “You pursue your passions, whatever it is that you find engaging, exciting, or meaningful — travel, sports, helping others, intellectual pursuits, artistic endeavors, civic participation, learning new things, developing new skills, etc. — you make it a part of your life. You get to do that joyfully and guiltlessly.

Your place is not a mess — unless you want it to be (as, for example, when spending time cleaning is just not that high on your list).

Maybe you are into food and cooking and entertaining, and maybe you’re not; either way, it's a choice you have made about how you want to live.” “Staying a bachelor means that you won't be restricted in any way. Nobody will restrict you from doing things that you want to. Be it late night parties, or wearing your choice of outfits, your trips and so on. You can be a free bird, people might call it selfish, but we think it is fine.” I enjoy being a confirmed bachelor at heart.

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“A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points (passaggi).[1] Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, though it, and the terms it utilizes, are used in other styles of music as well.

A singer will choose a repertoire that suits their voice. Some singers such as Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, Ewa Podleś, and Plácido Domingo have voices that allow them to sing roles from a wide variety of types; some singers such as Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry change type and even voice part over their careers; and some singers such as Leonie Rysanek have voices that lower with age, causing them to cycle through types over their careers. Some roles are hard to classify, having very unusual vocal requirements; Mozart wrote many of his roles for specific singers who often had remarkable voices, and some of Verdi's early works make extreme demands on their singers.[2]”

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“Here’s chapter and verse on a more-or-less comprehensive list of things banned in the Leviticus book of the bible. A decent number of them are punishable by death.

Unless you’ve never done any of them (and 54 to 56 are particularly tricky), perhaps it’s time to lay off quoting 18:22 for a while?

1. Burning any yeast or honey in offerings to God (2:11)

2. Failing to include salt in offerings to God (2:13)

3. Eating fat (3:17)

4. Eating blood (3:17)

5. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve witnessed (5:1)

6. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve been told about (5:1)

7. Touching an unclean animal (5:2)

8. Carelessly making an oath (5:4)

9. Deceiving a neighbor about something trusted to them (6:2)

10. Finding lost property and lying about it (6:3)

11. Bringing unauthorized fire before God (10:1)

12. Letting your hair become unkempt (10:6)

13. Tearing your clothes (10:6)

14. Drinking alcohol in holy places (bit of a problem for Catholics, this ‘un) (10:9)

15. Eating an animal which doesn’t both chew cud and has a divided hoof (cf: camel, rabbit, pig) (11:4-7)

16. Touching the carcass of any of the above (problems here for rugby) (11:8)

17. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any seafood without fins or scales (11:10-12)

18. Eating – or touching the carcass of – eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. (11:13-19)

19. Eating – or touching the carcass of – flying insects with four legs, unless those legs are jointed (11:20-22)

20. Eating any animal which walks on all four and has paws (good news for cats) (11:27)

21. Eating – or touching the carcass of – the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon (11:29)

22. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any creature which crawls on many legs, or its belly (11:41-42)

23. Going to church within 33 days after giving birth to a boy (12:4)

24. Going to church within 66 days after giving birth to a girl (12:5)

25. Having sex with your mother (18:7)

26. Having sex with your father’s wife (18:8)

27. Having sex with your sister (18:9)

28. Having sex with your granddaughter (18:10)

29. Having sex with your half-sister (18:11)

30. Having sex with your biological aunt (18:12-13)

31. Having sex with your uncle’s wife (18:14)

32. Having sex with your daughter-in-law (18:15)

33. Having sex with your sister-in-law (18:16)

34. Having sex with a woman and also having sex with her daughter or granddaughter (bad news for Alan Clark) (18:17).”

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“Over a hundred Black clergy are joining forces to protest the racially insensitive environment at The Word Network, a Christian T.V. station that sells itself as the world’s largest African-Ameican Religious Network that reaches 93 million homes in the U.S.

The network is owned by a white man named Kevin Adell, and pastors claim he has a history of outright racist actions. His biggest move came on September 19, 2019 when he sent a text message with a photo of himself dressed like a pimp surrounded by Black clergymen he deemed his “hoes.” This incident ignited a boycott against the Word Network kicked off on Change.org. Preachers around the country have signed up to support the boycott, included Bishop George Bloomer, who is one of the preachers featured most prominently in Adell’s pimp photo. All the clergy are planning protests in Michigan and other targeted locations throughout the country. Archbishop E. Bernard Jordan, Zoe Ministries, Pastor Debra Jordan, Zoe Ministries, Pastor Larry Reid, Larry Reid Live, Vickie Yohe, Christian Recording Artist, Paul Crouch, Jr. Impact Network, Lisa Sharon Harper, Freedom Roads, and Rev. Anita Faye-Wilson ae just a few of the 100 preachers joining in the boycott.

Adell claims he didn’t create the racist pimp image, however, he also didn’t protest its circulation. In fact, he texted it to various staff, many of whom are Black, including Bishop Bloomer.

In the Change.org petition, it’s layed out that Bishop Bloomer tried to tell Adell, “This is not funny. This is not good. That pimp talk and hoe talk has racist connotations for Black people.” However, Adell texted Bishop Bloomer, witing “it’s funny and you should get over it.”

At one point, Adell went even further by photoshopping a picture of Bishop Bloomer in a white tuxedo and below the photo, he typed the text, “The show last night was good, Tattoo (the dwarf from the 1977 show “Fantasy Island” who went around calling Mr. Roarke “Boss”). In other words, Adell was calling Bishop Bloomer his Tattoo, while he was the “Boss.”

The last straw came when Bishop Bloomer texted Adell again saying, “This is not good. I don’t know what you are doing but stop playing.” Adell responded, “Oh, you’re too sensitive.” Bishop Bloomer tried to explain that what Adell was doing was similar to a white man wearing blackface. Bishop Bloomer told Adell once again, “Get rid of this. Stop playing with this.” Adell then texted Bishop Bloomer a picture of himself in a white tuxedo standing next to a friend of his also wearing a white tuxedo. Supposedly using a sharpie, he blacked out the face of the friend, thus producing blackface. Bishop Bloomer ended up leaving The Word Network after this and now, he and the other clergy are demanding Adell publically apologize to Bishop Bloomer and the Black community and they also demand that cable companies drop The Word Network from their packages.

You can check out more of their demands at the Change.org petition here, which has since received over 3000 signatures.”

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“Televangelism (likely a back-formation from televangelist, itself a portmanteau of "television" and "evangelist"), also sometimes called teleministry, is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to preach religion, and most prominently Christianity, though televangelist traditions exist in other religions, and notably Islam.

Televangelists are either official or self-proclaimed ministers who devote a large portion of their ministry to television broadcasting. Some televangelists are also regular pastors or ministers in their own places of worship (often a megachurch), but the majority of their followers come from TV and radio audiences. Others do not have a conventional congregation, and work primarily through television. The term is also used derisively by critics as an insinuation of aggrandizement by such ministers.

Televangelism began as a uniquely American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it, combined with a large Christian population that is able to provide the necessary funding. It became especially popular among Evangelical Protestant audiences, whether independent or organized around Christian denominations. However, the increasing globalisation of broadcasting has enabled some American televangelists to reach a wider audience through international broadcast networks, including some that are specifically Christian in nature.

Some countries have a more regulated media with either general restrictions on access or specific rules regarding religious broadcasting. In such countries, religious programming is typically produced by TV companies (sometimes as a regulatory or public service requirement) rather than private interest groups.”

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“Why does rape culture exist?

As a proudly feminist organisation, we believe that rape culture exists because our society sees women and girls as less important than men and boys. In other words, as less deserving of respect and power (over both their own lives and within society).

Sometimes, we also talk about women and girls being 'objectified' or 'hyper-sexualised' from a young age. By this, we mean they are viewed as objects that exist to entertain, serve or pleasure men – instead of equal human beings.

But why is this? Well, we believe it's because we live in a society where men hold the most power – what is sometimes known as 'patriarchy'.

It’s not a coincidence that the majority of victims and survivors of sexual violence are women and girls. Or that most perpetrators are men.

Because, when society views women and girls as less deserving of respect and power than men and boys, it treats them that way too.” By the way, I see verbal backflips, and literary backflips in The Bible.

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“Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus or Paul say he is rejecting Judaism and starting a new religion. In fact, the term "Christian" doesn't appear at all in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), which chronicle Jesus' spiritual mission; and only later, three times in the rest of the New Testament. The first utterance of the word "Christian" occurred when Paul was preaching in Antioch more than a decade after the crucifixion. The evidence in the New Testament persuasively suggests that both Jesus and Paul viewed their teachings as Jewish revisionism---not a rejection of Judaism or the proposal for a new religion. If this is true, as it seems to be according to the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles (book 5 of the New Testament), then we must ask: Who launched Christianity? While the question presumes that someone had to fill that role, the answer may be that no one officially founded Christianity.”

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“Decriminalization is the most supported solution by sex workers themselves.[14] The decriminalization of sex work is the only legal solution that offers no criminalization of any party involved in the sex work industry and additionally has no restrictions on who can legally participate in sex work. The decriminalization of sex work would not remove any legal penalties condemning human trafficking. There is no reliable evidence to suggest that decriminalization of sex work would encourage human trafficking.[4] New Zealand was the first country to decriminalize sex work in 2003, with the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act.[15] This is the most advocated for by sex workers because it allows them the most negotiating power with their clients. With full protection under the law, they have the ability to determine their wages, method of protection, and protect themselves from violent offenders. Sex work is one of the oldest professions in existence and even though sex work is criminalized in most places in order to regulate it, the profession has hardly changed at all over time. Those who work in sex trade are more likely to be exploited, trafficked, and victims of assault when sex work is criminalized.[16] Starting in August 2015, Amnesty International, a global movement free of political, religious, or economic interests to protect people from abuse, introduced a policy that requested that all countries decriminalized sex work.[17][18] Amnesty International stated in this policy that decriminalizing sex work would decrease human trafficking through promotion of the health and safety of sex workers by allowing them to be autonomous with protection of the government.[18] This policy gained a large amount of support worldwide from the WHO, UNAIDS, GAATW, and several others, but has not been adopted universally yet.[19][20][21][4][13][22]”

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