Rocket worm! Pzzew! 
When I was a kid, we used to get advice to watch a maximum of 15 minutes of TV per day (well, maybe a bit more).
I can’t say I’ve always wondered about this but I wonder how they came to that recommendation.
They wanted to make sure that you always missed either the beginning or the end of the episode, sadistic buggers.
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At what point is it appropriate to refer to teachers/professors on a first name basis?
When they offer (it’s the older and/ or higher ranking person’s privilege to set the tone).
Not part of the question, just unnecessary trivia:
In German it’s even more complicated because while in English you always address someone with ‘you’, there is a ‘formal you’ (Sie/ Ihnen) and an ‘informal you’ (Du/ Dir), so even when you are on a first name basis you can in theory still keep the ‘formal you’.
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Can you expand on this or post a link any resource pls? Any simple resource that facilitates further googling of my own will do if you don’t have the time. Thanks.
Agreed on this point.
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Different kind of machine than what I was referring to haha. Though I’m sure similarities exist.
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Who cares if they’re wrong - you’re only looking for the answer that they want to hear (source: personal experience)
What’s that your model only explains 60% of the variation but we can present the results as if they’ll save us 1% on margin? GOLD!!
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I’ve seen this a thousand times with chain saws. I fill them, get them warmed up and ready for the day, everything just peachy.
Give one to the guy who wanted to stay in bed, generally doesn’t want to be there, and it won’t start. Nothin, nada, not even a burp.
I touch it, pull the start like an inch, and Zing! There we go!
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Every object (so each proton and neutron and electron) that was created by G-d contains a divine spark which gives life and existence to that object. This spark is known as the “soul.”
It’s such a fundamental principle, I’m not sure where to start. Probably Psalm 148, which relates hills and valleys, Sun and Moon, men and animals – all of Creation – praising G-d. They can’t “praise” anything, if they had no “being” with which to praise Him, could they?
Or Joshua who stated (paraphrasing) “This stone has heard everything G-d said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to G-d.” (How could a stone do that if it was “alive” in its way?)
Or Habakkuk 2:11 – For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.
Etc.
The Tanya is probably the most basic Jewish text on the topic:
http://www.chabad.org/library/archive/LibraryArchive2.asp?AID=7987.
I’ve personally had houses that I swear had defined personalities and were happy when filled with people. As a younger man, I dismissed this as silly anthropomorphizing.
As I get older, not so much.
Could explain what people call ghosts, too.
Or if you prefer the secular, Aristotle came to the almost the same conclusion (with three categories, instead of four in Judaism) by logic:
“Aristotle analyzed the soul and found it to have three parts: the Nutritive Soul (plants, animals and humans), the Perceptive Soul (animals and humans) and the Rational Soul (humans only).”
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Makes me wonder where christianity lost this concept. Many of the churches I have been too interpret the Bible (including the references you mention) to say that only humans have a soul.
I, like you, don’t believe this. As a hunter/fisherman, I have watched as an animal gave its life for me to have sustenance. The feeling of a distinct spirit leaving that creature is palpable (especially for larger/more intelligent creatures. i.e. - seems more distinct for a deer than a small fish).
This theme also permeates across cultures. Check out the Native American feeling on spirits or even the Japanese concepts of Kami in Shinto.
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Thanks! Much appreciated.
Damn, seriously, I’ve felt the same way and dismissed it in a similar manner when I was younger but I am coming to a similar conclusion now but I don’t know how to put in words.
Gonna check out the link. Thanks again!
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This all aligns with my sense of the world around me.
Not that anybody necessarily cares, of course, but there it is!
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Of course it does; you were chosen to be a Jewess.
As such, you bear the additional burden of being required to bring G-dliness into this materialistic world, so your mazal (the perceptive part of your soul) cries out and recognizes the G-dly in all things, no matter how mundane.
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That’s a good question. Probably when faith in Jesus became separated from Judaism, right around when Constantine formed the Catholic religion.
As for rocks having a soul/agency in some fashion, Jesus said stones would shout praises to God if the people didn’t -
"When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
"I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:37-40)
In Ecclesiastes/Kohelet 3:21, animals are described as having spirits:
“Who knows that the spirit of the children of men is that which ascends on high and the spirit of the beast is that which descends below to the earth?”
And Genesis/Bereishit 9:5 even says God judges animals for the (human?) blood they shed. This implies animals have wills and actively make choices instead of being mere slaves to their instincts:
“But your blood, of your souls, I will demand [an account]; from the hand of every beast I will demand it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of each man, his brother, I will demand the soul of man.”
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In non-Western Buddhism/Taoism, everything has either a spirit(malevolent or neutral) or god. The earth(ground) has a god. The kitchen has a god. The sea has a god. Inanimate objects have spirits but I can’t remember what they’re called. Bigass fish are spirits. Trees have spirits. Foxes are evil spirits whom are normally female because of the patriarchy. An adultness is literally called a “fox spirit” as a derogatory term nowadays.
There was a story that took place in my old secondary school. There was an ancient tree that was there that people would warn us not to get too close to. What allegedly happened was this tree was transplanted from the old location of the school, which was just a couple of blocks away. The first time they moved the tree, they found it back at the same spot in it’s original location the next day. This happened a couple of times. Allegedly. Then they got some taoist priest to do some kind of ritual after transplanting the tree for the last time and it stayed there. If it moved again, they would have allegedly have had to burn it while conducting a ritual cos they really pissed the spirit off and disaster would befall everyone involved.
There’s even a “banana spirit” that’s supposed to show up at night in the form of Anna Kendrick and fuck you to death if you tie a red string to your big toe and tie the other end to the tree trunk. I’m not kidding except for the Anna Kendrick part. I’ve actually tried it along with a couple of other idiots and it didn’t work.
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Oh. Well. That feels like a lot of responsibility. Although in all honesty, I do tend to narrate the world as happy or sad, satisfied or in need of love, particularly to children. However, I don’t see the G-dly in rats, concerning which I’m phobic, or earwigs, who were invading my house recently until we barricaded ourselves with poison.
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I am sensing a theme here…
Also, great post. I took a class on Buddhism in college and it covered everything from origins, to shinto/Zen, Chinese Buddhism, and more. Definitely intriguing.
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