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The church never held any position other than that the world was round. In the early centuries there was simply no official opinion about it. Later after ancient Greek literature became available in Europe (ironically because of the Crusades) Aristotle’s metaphysics involving a round Earth lying...

Looks more like he is saying, Stop choking me!

A wandering mind makes strange connections. Your comment made me think of an NCIS episode where Tony has to not talk because of his raw throat. Tony is a film buff frequently referencing movies. Ducky the doctor, knowing that Tony cannot respond, references Top Gun in saying "I hope you don't...

The 2060 date is based on adding 1260 to 800, the date when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor. Although (anti-papist Anglican) Newton refers to this as papal supremacy, the coronation was required in exchange for Charlemagne supporting Leo who had been forced out of Rome. Intervention by...

The previously linked article assigned a large number of alleged attributes to Ishtar, most of which turn out to be nonsensical as I have discussed earlier. Other than Freya (commonest spelling) also being the goddess of love and war (among other things) there is no connection between Ishtar and...

Another astonishing 10 year old. She comes on stage as this happy giggling little girl who loves ice cream and her little unicorn friend is watching from the wings. Then the music starts and ...

My point was that identifying Freya with Astarte is not at all justifiable. According to the linked article discussed above, Astarte is Ishtar under another name. The characteristics of Ishtar and Freya are rather different and the stories told about them are very different. Also, a key element...

Opus sometimes makes a lot of sense.

The old Roman calendar, traditionally ascribed to Numa Pompilius, originally had the year start on the Winter Solstice. This calendar had Leap Years but not the century rule, which skipped a leap year three centuries out of four, a better approximation of the actual length of a solar year. When...

Loved that Christmas Star! I recall the Jupiter/Saturn triple conjunction of 1981 with the middle of the three being right next to a Full Moon. It was a chilly night in February but very clear, making for a memorable sight for an astronomy buff like me.

OMD! :D BTW in the second video the sound of the growls and the body/tail language showed that they were mock fighting not just playing happily. Huskies do that. The wolf instinct to fight for feeding order dominance is still there if subdued.

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

The notion of the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven appears as early as the 3rd century. It appears in formal church writings as early as the 6th century. It was a common belief in Christianity until the Reformation when some of the new Protestant schools of thought rejected it. It is still...

BTW did you notice on what phrase Linus drops his blanket?

She had just turned 10. Amira had shortly before this won Holland's Got Talent when she was still 9. In her first audition, she was puzzled when asked who her singing teacher was. She did not have one. She learned to sing from listening to opera on YouTube.

Happy Christmas, Christians

Amira at 15 Merry Christmas! I promise to find someone else to obsess with after this.

That does better explain why the word is used in this video. I am not German but grew up in a mostly German speaking neighborhood of NYC. There were delis where you got better service if you ordered in correctly pronounced German, like the subtle distinction between the ä in jägerwurst and...

By 14, Amira Willighagen had come out of the shadow of Maria Callas and found her own lyric soprano voice.