RUTHFULLY YOURS

The single most important benchmark underpinning this week’s talks in Paris on climate change—two degrees Celsius—has guided climate-treaty discussions for decades, but scientists are at odds on the relevance of that target.

Many researchers have argued that a rise in the planet’s average global air temperature of two degrees or more above preindustrial levels would usher in catastrophic climate change. But many others, while convinced the planet is warming, say two degrees is a somewhat arbitrary threshold based on tenuous research, and therefore an impractical spur to policy action.

“It emerged from a political agenda, not a scientific analysis,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London. “It’s not a sensible, rational target because the models give you a range of possibilities, not a single answer.”
Policy makers tend to assume the two-degree target expresses a solid scientific view, but it doesn’t. The exhaustive reports published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are considered to be the most comprehensive analysis of the science of global warming. Yet the two-degree limit isn’t mentioned in a single IPCC report.

A new Brandeis University study shows that over half of all Birthright candidates do not know how to answer even ‎the most basic questions about the Jewish state, making them functionally illiterate concerning Israel. The ‎study seeks to understand and assess Israel literacy and is a continuing project with participation of ‎researchers from the university’s Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and Cohen Center for ‎Modern Jewish Studies. ‎

The study found that regardless of the students’ background — for example, whether they had attended Jewish ‎day school or not — and the ranking of their university, relatively few Jewish students were Israel literate. ‎This is among students who are interested enough in Israel to apply to go on a Birthright trip; results would most likely be even more depressing among those who were not ‎Birthright candidates.‎

The results are truly disconcerting at a time when anti-Israel motions and boycott, divestment, and sanctions activity are rampant on U.S. college ‎campuses and Jewish students are met by an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism. As the authors of ‎the study say, Israel literacy is “the requisite knowledge to participate in productive conversations about ‎Israel.” Without knowledge, it is going to be near impossible to participate in any kind of meaningful ‎conversation about Israel. The authors go on to say that “we were surprised that Jewish graduate ‎students, including some who were training to become Jewish professional leaders, lacked some of the ‎foundational knowledge that would equip them to engage in Israel-related activity and education.”‎

This was an interesting briefing by the Endowment for Middle East Truth.

“There is something wrong with Islam as a faith itself,” stated human rights activist Reverend Majed El Shafie at a videoed November 16 Washington, DC, Endowment for Middle East Truth presentation on Capitol Hill. Addressing over 25 people, mostly congressional and think tank staff, the Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity Shafie provided personal insight into the Middle East’s various Islamic threats.

Shafie began his presentation by describing his Christian conversion as an 18-year old in a prominent Egyptian Muslim family and subsequent life-changing persecution. Imprisoned in Egypt for his Christian profession, he endured torture that resulted in recurrent nightmares and an abiding aversion to lemons, once rubbed along with salt by jailors into his wounds. After his dramatic escape from Egypt to Israel and asylum in Canada, he became a religious freedom advocate by founding One Free World International (OFWI) in his newfound home. “I decided I would not be a victim and I would be a victor,” Shafie stated. “I decided that I would fight, not fighting back by machine guns or weapons, but fight back with the truth, fight back with forgiveness and love and helping others who used to be in the same position as myself.”

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2015/11/18/college-professors-remarkable-speech-in-view-of-the-spoiled-brats-tantrums-on-campus-it-is-worth-reading/
“This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love! In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.

I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic! Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims! Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience! An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad! It is supposed to make you feel guilty! The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization!