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February 5

Proof that proto indo europeans lived in eastern europe.

What archaeological and genetic proof is there that indo europeans were originally from eastern europe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.235.201 (talk) 02:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European is a hypothetical language which gives identity to a hypothetical group of speakers who didn't leave any written documentary evidence to link them to the term. So, to my knowledge, we don't have any archaeological evidence for such a group, but someone better read on the subject than I am could probably tell you what archaeological evidence has been found there. I think it's in the region of the Ukraine you're thinking, right? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 02:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

What about genetic proof? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.235.201 (talk) 02:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Also a tricky one. I mean one thing you could do is to find certain genetic similarities in various groups of people that are most prevalent in people from that specific area, but that's about all I remember from those types of studies. Someone with a far better understanding than I have would have to comment on this. Again though, this is a language-based identity and without written examples you can't do the best thing which would be to tie material evidence to human remains. Then you have a shot at having found a 'Proto-IE' person, but even then you'd need more than one example to get anything concrete. I think it's more an archaeological question than a genetic one and the material evidence likely isn't there (Though absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 03:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia article is Kurgan hypothesis... AnonMoos (talk) 09:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David Anthony, listed in the "further reading" section of the article AnonMoos linked to above, provides detailed archeological evidence for the Pontic-Caspian origin of the Proto-Indo-European language. The author also claims tha its speakers were responsible for horse domestication and the invention of spoked wheels and chariots. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• See Luca Cavalli-Sforza's genetic analyses from the 90's. He analyzed a large number of genetic foci among Europeans (and various other populations) and noted that certain genetic traits tended to vary in a correlated way. He then seperated out these components, and mapped them.

His first component map of Europe shows a trend out of the Middle East, which may have to do with the expansion of farming, or simple population pressure at the end of the last ice age.

His second map (accounting for the second largest trend in European genetics) is quite striking, showing an expansion out of the lower Dnieper river vally, that fits very well with the Kurgan Hypothesis.

μηδείς (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

They must have lived in Eastern Europe at some time or another, in order to get into Western Europe. Hittites were in the Middle East, and Celtic and Germanic tribes we all over Europe (and even in Western China - plus, don't forget the Tocharians) at the time of the estimated date of Proto-Indo European (3,000BC). The Indian subcontinent had already been inhabited by Indo-Europeans. The 'proof' that was given to me, that Indo-Europeans 'originated' in the Caucasus regions (or at least, somewhere north of Turkey), is that the words for beech tree (*bagos) and salmon (*laks) are prevelant in most ancient P-IE languages, and the only place where both co-exist is in that region. Bear in mind, that language change is a continuous and ongoing process, and dialects will spring up, split off into separate languages, and borrow from each other as trade increases with more discoveries and technology. The idea that a language existed at a certain time in a certain region and then spontaneously exploded into lots of other languages is not exactly how to view it. There was no standardization in those days, as there was no writing system for P-IE. It was borrowing from neighbours who either spoke P-IE or didn't, and also lending them words, too. Language exchange is an important part of language change. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is an ideological issue in India. For religious reasons some Hindus finds it "offensive" that Sanskrit may not have originated in India. This overlaps with post-colonial attitudes which see the notion of invading "Aryans" in terms of White supremecism and as a kind of emblem of British rule. Hence the notion that the British made up the trheory to (a) justify their rule and (b) undermine Hinduism. The need for 'proof' that 'that indo europeans were originally from eastern europe' arises from this preoccupation. Of course there is no 'proof' as such, and it's unlikely that there could ever be. There is just a lot of evidence. Paul B (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It has become over-politicised, not least by the Nazis and the subsequent lack of adequate academic denazification. Mallory in In Search of the Indo-Europeans gives various contradictory quotes about where the PIE homeland "must" have been, and devotes a chapter to the question. It seems most likely that the homeland was somewhere around the Caspian. To the West is Europe, to the East, Asia. Not so many kilometres but a huge ideological distance. The Indians are right that the British did posit Aryan invasions as a racist trope, to vindicate their idea that lighter skinned northern Indians were "martial races" and also particularly suited for their Civil Service. The Hindutvas are, however, quite wrong in assuming that the introduction of Indo-European languages equates to invasions of people. The whole Aryan invasion thesis predated the discovery of the Indus Valley civilisations. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

To a significant extent it only really became identified as an "invasion" after the discovery of the IVC, as the advent of I-E languages seemed to coincide with the fall of the Civilisation. Ironically, this actually changed the portrayal of the Aryans. They come to be seen more as Vandal-like barbarians overthrowing a peacful high culture than as a superior race taking over from primitive Australoid aboriginals, which was the common view beforehand. Paul B (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Itsmejudith -- Regardless of the semantics of the word "invasion", early Hindu religious writings are actually very compatible with the hypothesis of an origin of Indo-European languages outside India, since the earliest writings (Rig-Veda etc) refer to a culture of animal herders and charioteers roaming the Punjab, while later classical Hinduism is mainly based on settled agriculturalists along the Ganges valley... AnonMoos (talk) 09:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• Ignoring the Indian nationalist claims, which contradict all evidence, Gimbutas, Mallory and Cavalli-Sforza, in three different disciplines, come up with the same Pontic-Caspian homeland. The only other serious contenders are Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, who chose an Armenian homeland based solely on typological factors, and Renfrew, who arbitraily identifies the Indo-Europeans with the first agriculturalists, which is off by thousands of years based on all actual evidence. Pastoralism in the area is known to postdate the beginning of agriculture by millennia. And typological arguments simply ignore the fact that languages, related, say, to the North-West Caucasian languages (see Colarusso's Proto-Pontic) had all the typological characteristics necessary to explain how a horse-domesticating civilization speaking an Uralo-Siberian language could have assimilated a more densely popualted Caucasian language, with a reanalysis of the former tongue under the influence of the latter producing PIE. In any case, no set of data agrees in the way Gibutas's archaeological evidence, Mallory's linguistic evidence, and Cavalli-Sforza's genetic evidence does. μηδείς (talk) 01:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm a lighthouse. Your call.

Does anyone know of any land-based lighthouses that have been destroyed by a ship colliding into them? I was able to find some lighthouses destroyed by collisions, such as the Elbow of Cross Ledge Light and the Savannah Light, but all of them were stuck in the middle of the water, in places that would otherwise be shipping lanes. Basically, I'm imagining a lighthouse destroyed when a ship goes aground in an egregious fashion, e.g. if a ship takes out the Fairport Harbor breakwater and destroys the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Light, or if a ship hits the cliff underneath the Split Rock Lighthouse and causes its collapse. Nyttend (talk) 04:43, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

No, but I just read a story about a train that went speeding off the track and into a baggage facility, killing no one.

I imagine lighthouse disasters are equally bloodless and more remote, probably why I don't remember them. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:44, February 5, 2015 (UTC)

The Bell Rock Lighthouse was smoked by a helicopter in 1955. Not destroyed, but not pretty. The Argyll almost hit it in 1915, but the reef got between them. No casualties there, either, of 655 aboard. Also took a whooping from machine guns. But no ship-on-house violence. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:52, February 5, 2015 (UTC)

The question title refers, of course, to the lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend. But if you look at the "See also" section of that article, you will find three actual examples of collisions with lighthouses:

• Elbow of Cross Ledge Light, a New Jersey lighthouse that was hit by a ship in 1953
• Moreton Bay Pile Light, an Australian lighthouse twice hit by ships

A Google search on the obvious keywords produces two Google Books hits: Ship Collision Analysis: Proceedings of the international symposium on advances in ship collision analysis, Copenhagen, Denmark, 10-13 May 1998 edited by Henrik Gluver and Dan Olsen; and Ship Collision with Bridges: The Interaction Between Vessel Traffic and Bridge Structures (1993) by Ole Damgaard Larsen (a name surprisingly similar to "Dan Olsen"!). There seems to be a technical glitch keeping Google Books from showing me any pages of the first book, but on page 66 the second one refers to an actual collision of "a 10,600 DWT vessel" against "the Drogden lighthouse in Copenhagen", so there's a fourth example. By adding "Drogden" to the search, I then found this PDF document which on page 5 gives the position of the lighthouse (apparently in degrees and decimal minutes, equivalent to 55.54°N 12.71°E / 55.54; 12.71) and tells some of the story (in bad English) but does not give the date or the name of the ship. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 07:12, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Please read my question again. I'm asking about ships hitting lighthouses on land, not lighthouses on water that sit in shipping lanes; I even linked the Elbow of Cross Ledge Light in my original question. Nyttend (talk) 13:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a bit like asking something ridiculous like "has anyone ever tripped over a tree branch thirty feet in the air". Lighthouses on land are unlikely to have been destroyed by ships beaching themselves. Any ship large enough to do significant damage to a light house would have grounded itself well before reaching the beach. --Jayron32 21:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Why? What would prevent an unguided, misguided, or maliciously guided ship from crashing into a lighthouse at the end of a mole, or hitting a cliff and damaging/destroying the lighthouse at the top? Nyttend (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

What does the title of this section mean? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

As I said above: it refers to the lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Cute. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:11, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Not quite a lighthouse, but the very stupidly conceived and placed Port of Genoa control tower was felled by a ship in recent years, with seven dead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9g4RyWs5MA --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm amazed that that we don't have an article on that 7 May, 2013 collision between the Linea Messina cargo ship Jolly Nero Genoa Port Control Tower, as it was unusual, deadly, and destructive. Our Port of Genoa article doesn't even mention the incident. I've been unable to find any information on the result of the investigation, with the most informative article I could locate being this one published only two days after the accident when rescuers were still searching the rubble for missing personnel. The only later information I've located is this mention of plans for a replacement tower. The Italian Wikipedia page it:Jolly Nero does discuss the incident, and mentions finding the body of the 9th victum ten days after the collision, but has no discussion of root cause and investigation. -- ToE 13:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Whenever anyone mentions an "inland lighthouse", the Lighthouse Methodist Church always springs to mind; it's in Walthamstow in London, about 5 miles from the nearest navigable water. Alansplodge (talk) 10:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

From the nearest easily navigable water, but only a 200 metre hop from the Dagenham Brook. A jetski with fins might stand a chance at crashing it, if the wind's just so. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:48, February 9, 2015 (UTC)

industrial revolution

Why didn't China, India, the middle east, nor ancient rome go through an industrial revolution?They were certainly quite advanced civilizations.Roger adams49 (talk) 07:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed by various historians etc. Slavery was widely practiced in ancient Mediterranean civilizations, and political and educated elites often disdained craftsmen who performed actual physical labor (see Banausos). In China, trade was disdained by official Confucian ideology (see Four Occupations), and industrial/commercial wealth could be subject to arbitrary governmental expropriation, so that merchants often hastened to set themselves up as landowners and join the gentry-officialdom class... AnonMoos (talk) 09:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

A BBC documentary called Why did the Industrial Revolution happen here? is worth a watch. I probably shouldn't tell you that you can find a copy of it on YouTube. Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Guns, Germs, and Steel proposes a solution to this question; the author believes that a core reason for European industrial superiority was basically environmental. Nyttend (talk) 14:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

It's also worth pointing you towards Industrial Revolution#Causes. The only adequate way to summarise that discussion is that it's all very complicated. --Antiquary (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Not trying to be obtuse here, but I feel the need to point out that these places did go through industrial revolutions. Just later. Well I guess "ancient Rome" didn't but later Rome did. There's a ton of speculation about what might have happened if a steam engine were ever mass produced in Rome, and many people agree that they were rather "close" in some sense. For our coverage, see Hero_of_Alexandria, Roman technology and History of the steam engine. If you want more speculative stuff, you'll have to google for it, perhaps like this [1] SemanticMantis (talk) 18:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. One thing to point out is that, while traditional Chinese historiography treats "China" as a cohesive single nation state with a single language, history, and culture stretching back to time immemorial, in reality Chinese history is no less complex and complicated, with periods of tribalism, empire, petty states, empire again, etc. etc. than was European History. So when one says "Ancient Rome", one cannot compare it to "China" without saying "China when" Technologically, China during the same time period as the Roman Empire was at least on par with Europe, if not a bit ahead, and during the early middle ages, it absolutely was ahead of it. China began to lag behind for various internal political reasons. IIRC Niall Ferguson in one of his books, maybe "Civilization", posits that European disunity actually generated the sort of competition that allowed it to outpace China, which at that time was a unified Empire. Contrawise, when China was the most innovative was during periods of political disunity, for example during much of the time when Europe was undergoing the demographic collapse of the Middle Ages, China wasn't really all that unified under a single Emperor: Sixteen Kingdoms, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was when China was "ahead" of Europe, innovating all sorts of cool stuff like gunpowder and paper and things like that. When China became at once unified and isolationist, it began to lag behind. Furthermore, "India" as a place under a single state is a modern invention as well. It has only been since the Political integration of India in the middle 20th century that India has existed as a state, rather than simply a peninsula off the south side of Asia. India is likewise as diverse and complex, historically, as Europe has been. --Jayron32 20:40, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." MChesterMC (talk) 09:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Link: The Third Man#"Swiss cuckoo clock" speech. -- ToE 13:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

SemanticMantis -- Hero of Alexandra was probably the most prolific inventor and engineering writer of Classical antiquity, but he concentrated on military technology and "temple wonders" (i.e. gadgets to impress rustics and uneducated people attending temples in Alexandria). His version of the steam engine (the "Aeolipile") was not intended for practical horsepower-generating work, and there's no evidence that anyone tried to adapt it for that purpose. I really don't think that Greco-Roman civilization was just one small missing link away from an industrial revolution; rather there were a lot of attitudes and institutions that would have had to change... AnonMoos (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, yes, absolutely. My understanding is that the lack was more in terms of the cultural goals and "attitudes and institutions" as you say. But in terms of scientific and engineering concepts, I think it's fair to say they were quite close. If they had seen it as a potential military technology... well, that's why people like to speculate and write "alternate history" about ancient Roman steam engines :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The economic upheaval caused by the Black Death led to the end of the feudal system and "free" labour, giving rise to increased prominence of the "merchant class" and a reduction in the power of the nobility. Then came the acquisition of a vast empire by the British, which increased the flow of goods into and from Britain and consequent rise in demand for industrial processing. The cost of labour caused innovative ways to increase productivity per worker, thus the Industrial Revolution. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Our article Great Divergence contains a lot of ideas about "why not China". Itsmejudith (talk) 20:11, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I've now begun to answer this question, it is a really useful and involved answer that is taking me days to write, but should be enormously useful feedback, one of the best things you'll have ever gotten. (I'll replace this text with the complete long answer.) However in this case for a specific reason which I'll mention, I'll include additional specific requests simply due to the huge amount of time involved in my answer - be prepared that these will be relatively large requests, and you will have to meet them to get such huge amounts of my time again. I won't post anything for a few days now as this is going to take me huge amounts of time just now. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 11:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what are you saying about requests? I apologize if I misunderstand you comment, but it seems rather strange to me. It's fine let us know that you're working on a long answer; I'm sure many of us will appreciate it. But who are these unknown parties that must meet some "relatively large requests"? All action here is voluntary. If you don't want to participate, then don't. If you do want to participate that's great too. But this reads to me like you are (or are planning on) making some sort of demands, and I don't think this is the place for that. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The Romans were actually very good, industrially speaking. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Interracial adoption: what about interracial couples?

Hi! The relevant Wikipedia articles and reference desk entries and every paper I've been to find on Google Scholar on interracial adoption seem to assume that both adoptive parents are of the same race. But I see no reason why that has to be the case. I've only found one legal case, Campos v. McKeithen, in which one of the one of the would-be adoptive parents was of the same race as the child and the other wasn't, but that fact was only mentioned in passing because the outcome of the case would have been exactly the same anyway had both parents been white. So, is it not considered an interracial adoption in the US in that case? Intuitively, it would seem to me that it has to be one, because the child can't belong to the same race as both of his/her parents... Thanks for your replies :)JaneStillman (talk) 19:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

There may not be any "official" term for it, since the law doesn't care. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about the USA but in the UK mixed-race couples are actively sought out as potential adopters. They would sometimes take on a child who was black, not mixed-race, but if possible a family will be found who share a background with the child. There are various considerations. Will the child be stared at in the street, as obviously not the natural child of the accompanying adults? Will the parents be able to sympathise if the child experiences racism? Will the parents be able to provide help with such basic things as how to keep hair tidy and attractive? Itsmejudith (talk) 19:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The OP seems to be asking for a strict definition of "interracial adoption". What, if anything, do the Brits call the scenario you describe? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

There's no official definition. This article [2] points out some of the nuances. Most attention has been on children who are either mixed race or both natural parents black being placed with couples who are both white. I remember very well from my teenage years in the distant past how isolated black children could be when adopted into an all-white community. Then the pendulum swung to a situation an exact match was required "the child is Nigerian-English, and these prospective parents are Jamaican-Scottish, obviously no good". Now it's swung back a bit. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Why are Catholic churches not considered "megachurches"?

A single Catholic parish may have thousands of members on a Sunday, with each liturgy performed at different times of the day. Members are usually people within a geographical parish. So, why are they not considered "megachurches"? Why is the term used exclusively to refer to Protestant churches? 140.254.136.149 (talk) 20:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Megachurches are defined by more than just the number of members or the size of the worship church. The Megachurch movement is a distinct movement within American Evangelicalism of which having a massively large congregation is an important defining characteristic, but it is quite important to note that Megachurches should be seen as specifically an outgrowth of American Evangelicalism and not merely defined by any Christian congregation whose membership reaches some arbitrary plateau. Don't fall into the trap of the etymological fallacy: that a word's meaning is only defined by it's etymology. That is clearly not the case here, nor is it really the case for any word. Instead, you need to understand how a word came to be in its historical and social context to understand what it means. In this case, the word "Megachurch" developed as part of American Protestant Evangelicalism, and is only to be properly understood in that context. Big Catholic Churches are just big Catholic Churches. --Jayron32 20:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

off-topic, then personal
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hey, that's just like the word homophobia. By etymology alone, it looks like it means fear of sameness, but by taking the social and historical contexts, it really means "aversion to or discrimination against homosexuals". 140.254.136.149 (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC) "Phobia" and "aversion to" are pretty much the same idea. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:48, 5 February 2015 (UTC) Disagree, Bugs. They can overlap, but are not synonyms. I am averse to liquorice (I hate the taste), but I'm certainly not afraid of it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 15:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC) An "aversion" is "a turning away from", which is what one general does with something one is fearful of. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC) You are famously averse to "fly-by" unregistered users. Are you saying you fear them? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC) Where did I say that? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC) Actions speak louder than words. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 18:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC) What actions? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC) Come, come, we don't need to revisit that. The quoted expression is of your invention, I believe. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 11:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC) What quoted expression? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC) "Fly-by". -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC) the subject was an aside, and doesn't need to be turned into a personal issue that belittles the effects of actual prejudice. μηδείς (talk) 22:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

As to the actual nature of the Catholic Church, it is both the individual parish churches (the buildings on your street or wherever) and the "Church" or "Catholic Church, meaning that the parish church is a bit like a franchise of the broader church. Megachurches often don't have such an affiliation and may be Non-denominational. Mingmingla (talk) 02:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

So we have these individual large-membership churches, i.e. "megachurches". Then we have the Catholic "mega" church. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Joel Osteen at Lakewood Megachurch, a former sports arena

"Mega" has no meaning in Catholicism, which basically has parish churches, episcopal cathedrals and national basilicas. Even in a large Catholic church you won't find the minister cavorting around, talking like a carnival barker, asking for emotional audience responses to his alternating ejaculations of salvation and fire and brimstone. Megachurches are much more like tent revivals and televangelist ministries. Not ceremony, majesty, and dignity; but enthusiasm, charisma, and ecstasy. μηδείς (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"Mega" need not be a term used by the Catholic church in order to be true. It simply means "big". And the word "Catholic" itself means "universal" and thus implies "big". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say the word was untrue (in fact words cannot be true or false, only propositions). I said it has no meaning as such in Catholicism. μηδείς (talk) 01:05, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

True. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Le Mans Cathedral

Hm, I missed the universal=big part. But electrons are universal, while not being big. I think Catholic is meant to imply worldwide, not architecturally upsized. (Kata holos means acrost all in Greek) I'll add an image or two.

μηδείς (talk) 00:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. The churches may or may not be big, but The Church is big. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Like the universe. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:23, February 8, 2015 (UTC)

What is the main purpose of serving food after a Protestant church service?

What is the main purpose of serving food after a Protestant church service (regardless of the time of day)? Is there any theological significance behind the practice? 140.254.136.149 (talk) 21:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Would you care to be more specific, which protestant denominations do that? I don't know of a single one that traditionally does that. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. 140.254.136.149 (talk) 21:40, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

It must be a custom they've developed over time - and perhaps an incentive for people to show up to the service. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

My church occasionally holds a potluck luncheon following the late morning service. The point is to practice fellowship, to strengthen the church community. We don't do it every Sabbath as it would be to demanding of the members, as they are the ones supplying the comestibles, and perhaps they have other Sabbath activities to tend to. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Originally it was coffee and maybe cookies after service while adults talked and children went of to Sunday school. Then more cookies and maybe tea and cocoa since not quite everyone drinks coffee - and since cookies are not so healthy add some fruit, then vegetables, etc. Rmhermen (talk) 22:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Because people are both hungry at that time of the day, and enjoy each other's company. --Jayron32 02:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

We have tea, toast and Marmite at my church. God only knows. Alansplodge (talk) 19:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Fellowship gatherings are not theological in nature, but social in nature. Many (most) Protestant churches have a "Fellowship hall" of some sort so that members can actually meet and socialize with each other after services. Many years ago, when people could take hours to reach the church, such an opportunity for a light meal before heading home was nearly essential. Collect (talk) 19:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

There is an old joke that coffee is an unofficial Sacrament in the Episcopal Church. Blueboar (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Some churches still have people travelling long distances; when I was in high school, our church had one family that drove 90 miles one-way to church, and another that went nearly an hour. The congregation's since gone to having a lunch every other week, due partly to the distances involved. Nyttend (talk) 04:00, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

There's no particular mystical significance, but Christianity has had a tradition of sharing among its followers for its entire existence. Early Christian gatherings were usually held in people's homes, and food would usually be brought by members. After all, according to Christianity's own scriptures, its founder said, "Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." This just makes things like the prosperity gospel and the modern U.S. right-wing worship of wealth and power hilarious and/or depressing to anyone who's actually read the Bible (I'm a U.S. citizen, so I claim the privilege of complaining about my fellow Americans). --71.104.75.148 (talk) 09:57, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

See also: Agape feast. Collect (talk) 14:09, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

February 6

HR/communication strategies

Hello! I am currently doing self-studies of communication, particularly human relations and business communication with the purpose of developing my own business and network of contacts. I would like to know if there are some books or other literature that could provide advice on these topics? Also, I remember having read about a theory/strategy, particularly effective in building trust and relationships that involves trying to adapt to the personality of the person you are communicating with, and over time, as your understanding and acquaintance with the person develops, you begin to subtly use "their" kind of humor, language, and other personality traits. I don't know the name of this kind of strategy, perhaps you could help me out with finding the name? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.92.248.18 (talk) 12:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean Human Resources when you say "human relations"?--Phil Holmes (talk) 12:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The "theory/strategy" described here brings to mind How to Win Friends and Influence People. ZMBrak (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Here are some oft-recommended books on networking and communication: The Best Books to Boost Your Career in 2013, Top 10 Networking Books for Your Career Success, Top 20 Best Books on Communication and Listening. The strategy sounds like Mirroring (psychology), though that is described as unconscious.184.147.116.102 (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Arearea - Paul Gauguin

Arearea by Paul Gauguin in 1891

Arearea reproduction print on wood

Back in the mid-1980s on a trip to Tahiti we bought a reproduction of a Gauguin painting from the Paul Gauguin Museum (Tahiti). It looks exactly like the original (pictured), down to "Arearea" in right lower corner. There is nothing in the way of any marking on the back of the wooded frame it is mounted onto. The painting is on wood, not canvas. The size is about 14 inches high and 18 inches wide. If one were to guess, would there be any significant value to the 30 year old reproduction (that looks exactly like this Commons picture)?--Doug Coldwell (talk)

As a start, these people are selling reproductions (on canvas, I think, not wood) for several hundred US dollars; the smallest (closest to your size) is listed at $225.184.147.116.102 (talk) 14:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

By "reproduction" do you mean a painted copy or a printed reproduction from a photograph of the original? Paul B (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It is NOT a painted copy, but more of a printed reproduction that is on wood.--17:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

You seemed to be so keen to point out that it "looks exactly like the original" I thought it may have been a painting, since there's nothing very surprising about a photograph looking exactly like the original! As for what it's worth, that depends on the quality of the reproduction and the durability of the materials. It might just fetch something comparable to the prints linked by the ip. Paul B (talk) 21:49, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Sounds right to me.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Bottom picture is my reproduction. It sure does look like a printed reproduction from a photograph of the original done on wood, however they printed the picture on wood. Must be a special printer.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Simplest current method is to print on transfer paper (even on an inkjet) then transfer to a smooth wood surface. Sort of like a t-shirt. Collect (talk) 14:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd say my questions got answered all the way around. Thanks all.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Since a Gauguin painting sold for record sum of almost $300 Million recently, perhaps I'll ask for a little more than $200 for my reproduction.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Monsters and demons

I just encountered the Utility monster concept for the first time. What's the difference between this monster and a demon, i.e. why isn't it a "utility demon"? Nyttend (talk) 14:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"Monster" generally implies unusually large size or other measurement, and/or unnatural appearance and so on, but not necessarily malevolence and not usually exceeding the laws of nature. "Demon" generally implies active evilness stemming from the Devil or similar supernatural concepts, and in the philosophical sense usually indicates something not thought to have the possibility of actually existing, and thus outside of the laws of nature. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Funny, my first thought regarding the good/evil of monster vs. demon was the exact opposite. See links below :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it just at the namer's prerogative? I don't think there's any mathematical,physical, or philosophical baggage here. Schrodinger's cat could have been Schrodinger's ox (or dog, etc). Maxwell's demon could have been an imp or a daeva, no? And the invisible pink unicorn could have been Russel's teapot. These aren't like the Brownian_ratchet, where the noun part helps clarify the thought experiment by means of analogy. This is all interesting and fun stuff, but I'll be surprised if anyone can find a good referenced answer that's anything other than "accident of history and personal choice". If you're interested in this sort of demon/monster, I recommend The_Cyberiad, that features a few different types. Also I'll be adding Darwinian_Demon to that list shortly. Really, I'll probably add "utility monster" too. These thought experiements don't invoke any demonic hierarchy or properties, just some mythical thing with agency. Recall also that demons are classically value neutral, e.g. (Agathodaemon, cacodemon, Eudaimonia, daemon, etc.), so perhaps "monster" was chosen to make it clear that the utility monster is bad (in the eyes of the creator), whereas Maxwell's demon is not really good or evil. (Now I want to start calling the invisible hand the "market demon" :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The utility monster is not bad. It just is monstrous. Indeed, from a strictly utilitarian perspective, the monster is good - a society that has it and feeds it has a much greater total utility than one that does not. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Right. I guess the monster itself is just neutral, but I thought the idea was that the thought experiment makes extreme/pure Utilitarianism look bad, because an extreme Utilitarian would then rationally kill everybody but the monster. That sounds bad to me... SemanticMantis (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Per SemanticMantis, there isn't any international governing board which has decided how the nomenclature of thought experiments and which adjudicates violations thereof. Someone gets an idea, and gives it a cute little name, and that's about it. The fact that some people chose "demon" or "monster" or "cat" or whatever for their little critter that does their little thought experiment is an accident of history, and not because there's some set of rules which decides what these things ought to be called. --Jayron32 15:42, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense. I just wondered if there might be some sort of conventional difference between "monster" and "demon" in this context. Nyttend (talk) 16:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I can think of examples of both good monsters and good demons. StuRat (talk) 16:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The utility monster was thought up in 1974. Sesame Street debuted in 1969. The utility-monster thought experiment (according to our article) alludes to the pleasure derived from eating a cookie. I'm sure that Nozick had Cookie Monster in mind when naming the U. M. Deor (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Utility monster?... Any relation to Utility infielder? Blueboar (talk) 01:24, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow. This 'utility monster' concept seems awfully specious. I mean, common sense is that any pleasurable activity creates far more pleasure at some times than at others. To eat food when hungry rather than when feeling nauseous, etc. It follows that those in the most desperate need are the 'utility monster' that deserve spare resources, and that beyond this point, the greatest utility is provided by allowing people the right to resources that they can take when they like, thereby making their own utility monster-balancing choices by selecting to use them when they feel the most desire for them. The effect should be largely though not entirely egalitarian, precisely the opposite of the suggestion given. The article makes it sound like it is an insoluble philosophical problem when it seems trivially obvious. What's up with that? Wnt (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

What's up with that is there's an awesome, rich, and wide open place where discussions like you are trying to start here can happen, and it's called the entire rest of the internet. This board is not an open discussion forum for people to debate, discuss, or defend the merits of anything. There's millions of people in the world who will feed your need to do this, and they hang out in many thousands of other places, just not here. --Jayron32 23:04, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

My Pet Monster got way more out of eating garbage than anyone else on his block. He'll even eat the can. They say Beastor was a monster, but I thought demon. Always travelling between worlds and stirring things up. That's where I draw the line. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:07, February 8, 2015 (UTC)

There sure aren't millions of people here. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:09, February 8, 2015 (UTC)

Château Gaillard

Richard the Lionheart, the man responsible for building Château Gaillard, constructed it apparently in 1196, 1197, and 1198. Is there anywhere a constructing starting date and finished date?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The French wikipedia article on Walter de Coutances fr:Gautier de Coutances, who owned Andelys, says construction started shortly after Walter's return to Rouen in July 1196. This is sourced to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. My instutition has a subscription so I looked; the actual sentences are:

In January 1196, as part of the treaty of Louviers, the two kings tried to curb Coutances's freedom of action by making his manor of Les Andelys, strategically located on the Seine above Rouen, neutral ground subject to neither ruler. They made Les Andelys collateral for the archbishop's good conduct, subject to forfeiture if he excommunicated them or their officials or placed interdicts on their territories. Coutances fled to Cambrai, and he did not return to Rouen until July. Another conflict with Richard I soon arose over Les Andelys, once the king began construction of Château Gaillard on the archbishop's manor. The archbishop placed Normandy under an interdict and left for Rome in November 1196. Pope Celestine III (r. 1191–8) issued a ruling on 20 April 1197 that since construction of the castle was essential for Normandy's security, Coutances should accept an exchange of land with the king. On 16 October, Richard and Coutances agreed to an exchange that gave the archbishop the port of Dieppe and other territories, producing an annual income of nearly 2000 angevin pounds.

Contradicting this, this book by Achille Deville suggests construction started before July, saying that it was already underway when Walter returned to Rouen and complained. (page 11) Deville says Walter wrote his friend Ralph de Diceto about it, and this letter is published in Ralph's Ymagines Historiarum. I do not have access to that book, but you could ask at Wikipedia:RX if anyone does (see [3]) and can get a date on the letter.

All I have for the end is that Deville says (page 39) construction took only a year.184.147.116.102 (talk) 23:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The Ymagines Historiarum is on archive.org and that letter is on pg 148. It's in Latin but it doesn't have any dates pertaining to the castle (only that Walter was going to Rome for November 7, 1196, so obviously the letter was written before that). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I never thought of archive.org, thanks!184.147.116.102 (talk) 16:07, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment to I.P. 184.147.116.102 ; Our article says; The castle was expensive to build, but the majority of the work was done in an unusually short time. It took just two years,... Our article later on also says, However, the work at Château Gaillard cost an estimated £15,000 to £20,000 between 1196 and 1198. = any more references on this?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

French wikipedia says it cost 45,000 livres, equivalent to the annual salary of 7,000 infantrymen. Unfortunately they don't use inline citations much, but I find the same figure in a French government document [4] and in this book [5].184.147.116.102 (talk) 15:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. That same government pdf also gives these dates: "The construction was resolved on in 1196, began in 1197 and completed in 1198."184.147.116.102 (talk) 15:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Now I am getting a better picture of the construction period = it looks like it was on and off over a 3 year period.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Additional comment to I.P. 184.147.116.102 ; The more I look into this, it appears from various sources that they do in fact say it was built in 1 year. Apparently as many as 10,000 men were used in the construction, as this source shows.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Adam, you come up with the neatest stuff. Looking at the Flickr pictures of the castle it shows the walls as curved sections, rather than a flat wall. Apparently this was as a defense as the enemy's arrows would just bounce off and be diverted because of the curve. The curved walls then had little eye holes in them to shoot through, correct?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It would probably have arrow loops, yeah. I don't see any in the Flickr pictures, but it is ruins...actually it looks kind of like an early concentric castle, maybe influenced by what Richard saw in the east. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see the article says the same thing, heh... Adam Bishop (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again Adam = you're a champ!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:02, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• Just one more question: So, would there be a market inside this castle where people bought and sold items, like say our today's farmer's market? Would chickens be one of the items sold?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:40, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, but I think if there was a market it would be in the town beside the castle, Les Andelys. There is a legal difference between a plain old town and a market town in the Middle Ages though. Les Andelys seems to have been a market town, but I don't know if it always ways or if it became one later. There should be a town charter out there somewhere that will tell us... Adam Bishop (talk) 12:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

And in this market town (that I believe you will find as so at the time the castle was constructed) they sold chickens, oui?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Would there have been haggling going on for the various products during all 12 months? Let me know if you stumble onto a source for this - thanks!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I would guess yes both for chickens and haggling, but I don't know if we can ever say for sure! Adam Bishop (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• It looks like that Matthew Paris would have known all about Château Gaillard according to these sources. Perhaps he knows more on this market town of Les Andelys. I didn't find anything more in Google Books.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I assume that this is where the 10,000 laborers lived that constructed the castle, on and off over a 3 year period. Apparently the main part of the construction of the castle was done in the first year.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I am especially interested in which work(s) that Matthew Paris would have talked about Château Gaillard.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not a holocaust denialist, nor a believer in conspiracy theory

But if it takes 2 hours to cremate a body, and there were millions and millions of victims to be cremated, how would this be logistically possible? Add to it that energy, in any form, gets scarce in an energy impoverished war zone. --Noopolo (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

What is the basis for your premises? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

He's not a holocaust denialist, nor a believer in conspiracy theories, he just plays one on the internet. μηδείς (talk) 00:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a question. How is it technically possible to cremate millions and millions of bodies? The 2 hours bit can be corroborated by many sources like funeral companies and howstuffwork web-site. Noopolo (talk) 21:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm certainly not in the mood to go to looking up reference to this, but in-part. The Nazis developed crematoria where the corpses themselves became fuel to combust the corpses that followed, hence they required very little addition fuel. Deutsche technik! Then they built lots of them, which then ran 24/7.--Aspro (talk) 21:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is a page that addresses the issue. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 21:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry, that's part 2 of 2. I should have linked to part 1, here, as well. And here's a higher-level page on the same site that addresses various claims by denialists. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

If it takes 2 hours to cremate one body, does it take 200 hours to cremate 100? No, it doesn't, unless you are silly and do things one at a time. Our article on the Holocaust is very long, contains over 400 citations, and a separate bibliography. The_Holocaust#New_methods_of_mass_murder might be a place to start. There's lots of information there on the logistics of genocide. Search for "bodies" to find the bits most relevant. Here's what I found at a quick skim: One of the facilities could cremate 10k per day. Not all of the victims were cremated, many were forced to dig their own graves. Sometimes extant mass graves were dug up, so that bodies could be cremated. This was done in an attempt to hide the evidence of the horrible deed.

Part of why the Holocaust is so chilling is that there were lots of very clever people whose will was bent on quickly and efficiently disposing of human beings. They got fairly efficient at it. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, an analysis of the gas vans' performance suggest that they would have been more efficient than the concentration camps were. One of the reasons that gas vans were not used more widely is that the drivers were not able to cope with the psychological stresses involved. Some years ago I performed an analysis on the relative efficiency of the Holocaust, and was surprised to discover that it could have been made much more efficient. My personal suspicion (for which I have only indirect, statistical evidence) is that although there certainly were a large number of Germans who fully accepted the tasks they performed there may also have been a great many other Germans who, though they by and large did not speak up against the Holocaust, found ways to impede it or avoid participation. RomanSpa (talk) 21:57, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

On the basic question of logistics raised above, the answer is that although the Holocaust was a large-scale operation it was performed over a period of several years. Consider a highly simplified process involving only tipper truck (dump truck) gas vans: using only 50 gas vans running twice a day for 1,000 days, and with 50 victims per trip, it is possible to kill 5,000,000 people. The logistics of running such a fleet are fairly straightforward: a team of (say) ten fully-armed men per van, to give a total staffing of 500, plus a couple of managers to arrange timetables and a couple of administrators to monitor locations of the mass graves. Each victim makes two trips: in the first, he is in a "work detail", digging a mass grave burial pit; then he is loaded back into the truck and told he is going to his next job; in fact, he is gassed and dumped into the next available grave. The total process has a death rate of 5,000 per day, and largely provides its own resources, since the main ongoing process task is grave-digging, which can be performed by the victims themselves. A competent junior minister could run and complete the entire process in 3 years with a total team of well below 600 full-time staff.

In fact, my assumptions above are conservative. In particular, vans with a capacity of 70-100 people were built and delivered, and it would have been relatively straightforward to build and run even larger capacity vehicles.

Further, note that this approach leaves few traces, is resource-efficient, and requires no diversion of infrastructure away from the war effort. The Holocaust, as performed, was inefficient in its use of resources and time.

For the Holocaust as implemented, the logistics were necessarily more complicated, but not intolerably so. The principal challenges are three-fold: the fuelling of the cremation operation, the construction of the sites, and the logistics of moving large numbers of people by train. The references above clearly show that the fuelling issue was solved. Site construction was of approximately the same level of complexity as the construction of an army camp, and thus would be only a small fraction of GDP compared to the total war effort, and the management of transport would be straightforward in a train system that was already handling large numbers of troop trains and was on a war footing. Because of the relative inefficiency of the system adopted, staffing requirements were larger than in the theoretical case I outlined above, but the total staffing requirement would still be low compared to that of the military. A central problem, which is documented in several places, is morale; I'm unable to comment on this. However, my general answer to the original question is this: Although it's legitimate to ask how the Holocaust was managed, is is certain that it did happen, and there is certainly no managerial or logistical reason to suppose that it didn't. RomanSpa (talk) 22:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, for whom or what were you performing an optimization analysis of the holocaust? Noopolo (talk) 22:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm wondering if Noopolo could come back on this. I'm thinking that he (in peace-time) finds difficult to get one's head around a war economy where 50% of the GNP is diverted to war. Resources for these atrocities are not a big segment of such pie-chart (compared to producing armaments and munition, uniforms, weapon R&D etc.) and so are easily accomplished, with a slave labor force – unfortunately.--Aspro (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That's not only the resource fuel to fire up an oven, but the time it takes. Anyway, this seems debunked as holocaust denial theory. Noopolo (talk) 22:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I remember reading that the Nazis were also big fans of quicklime, disposing of many corpses in trenches. Indeed, gas van suggests that these were usually used on the way to the grave site. But I don't see a top-level resource for identifying Holocaust mass graves on Wikipedia. An article like Popricani gives an impression there were just two, holding hundreds, in all of Romania. I'd really like to see someone fill in the gaps here. Wnt (talk) 23:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe that Lord Russell of Liverpool reported this in his book "Scourge of the Swastika". RomanSpa (talk) 00:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

In fact when the Germans revisited their early mass graves from 1943 onwards, and using Jewish forced labour, excavated the buried corpses and incinerated them in large pyres. [6] However, modern techniques have recently (2012) located mass graves at the Treblinka camp. [7] Alansplodge (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

About energy usage and cremation: It takes a lot of energy to cremate a single body quickly. This is because this energy is needed at the start, to boil the water out. After that, the body actually burns from it's own energy, by burning fat. However, a single body can be burned slowly, using very little energy. This is the cause of the so-called "spontaneous human combustion", which actually does require an ignition source, such as a lit cigarette. That, combined with the clothing, gets the fat burning in a small area, which provides just enough energy to slowly evaporate (not boil) off the water. After many hours most of the body is gone, except for the low fat areas (feet and maybe hands).

Now for burning many bodies efficiently. Here the large amount of energy released from burning the earlier bodies goes into driving off the water in the new bodies. In this way, much like the "spontaneous human combustion" example, very little energy is needed, just a bit to get the process started. StuRat (talk) 14:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

February 7

1883 VA House of Delegates

Can anybody help me confirm the name of the Virginia State Delegate who preceded John W. Lawson. It's currently (as of September 2013) listed at the John W. Lawson article (without a source) as "Irwin Duck". I wonder whether this is accurate or whether this is a joke reference to Irwin the Disco Duck. I don't know one way or the other so it could just be a coincidence. I did a little searching, but I didn't find much... I'll be busy for the next few hours but I didn't want to leave this fact unverified. Thanks in advance. -Thibbs (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

According to this it was Irvin W. Duck (note the spelling of his given name). Deor (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah excellent work, Deor! Thank you. I've amended the article and added the source. -Thibbs (talk) 01:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

What evidence is there that Christian monasticism was/wasn't borrowed from Buddhism?

It is generally recognised that, via Greco-Buddhism, the Silk Route and the Spice route, Buddhism has been present throughout asia minor, and in in places such as ancient greece, with established buddhist monasteries in Parthia and present the Pre-christian Roman World. Three decades ago, I was privileged to hear the musings of a well-known German Cistercian monk who had spent time talking with a Tibetan monk about monastic life, and they were both surprised at the similaritie - down to sharing many 'house rules' - even though their culture and religions were so distinct. Have there been any published works that suggest the possibility that Christians 'borrowed' Buddhist monasticism, or that have discussed it? It occurs to me that it was possible that some Christian monastics could have been converted Buddhists (20040302 (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC))

Just to provide a counter argument, ascetism was well known in the Jewish world during the formative years of Christianity, see Essenes. John the Baptist practiced an ascetic lifestyle, leading a life of poverty, hermitism, and ministry that formed aspects of later Christian monasticism. You should read Christian monasticism before 451 which covers some of the early history of Christian monasticism, traditionally tied to the life of Saint Anthony, and the Desert Fathers. It is true that there was contact between Christians and Eastern faiths (Buddhism and Hinduism, for example) especially in places where Christianity spread eastward (the Nestorians, the Saint Thomas Christians). However, these were not Christian groups that had a lot of contact with (or influence on) the sort of Monasticism that developed in the more Western strains of Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, and Roman Catholic traditions primarily). Your hypothesis is interesting, but given that a) Jewish sects living in the time and place of the formative years of Christianity and practices later mirrored by the first Christian monastic communities and b) The first recognized Christian monastic communities did not form in places known for significant Buddhist influence, the most straightforward explanation is that the practices of Christian monasticism came from the Jewish traditions that Christianity grew up near. --Jayron32 22:21, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

There is evidence, though I can't remember the source, that solitary worshippers of the Horned God existed in Celtic areas in pre-Christian times, effectively living as hermits (presumably because of the requirement to avoid all contact with females). This is also practised in the present day, though I imagine this is a revived, rather than a continuous, tradition. RomanSpa (talk) 23:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

But how old are these Jewish ascetic traditions themselves, in turn? You cannot simply assume by default that any Jewish tradition is native and old. That would be a serious fallacy. Shortly before the rise of Christianity, Jewish culture was heavily affected by Hellenistic culture, and monastic traditions could have been borrowed via Hellenistic culture and Judaism into Christianity. (Christianity was itself a kind of syncretism of Jewish religious traditions with a significant number of Hellenistic elements, after all, and Christian monasticism arose in a heavily Hellenised environment in the Near East, especially Egypt.) See Buddhist influences on Christianity, where Greco-Buddhist monasticism is pointed to. I agree, however, with the difficulty of excluding parallel development. Especially the close similarities implied would be stunning after all this time, space and cultural differences to be bridged. You'd expect that more differences would have arisen. So I can't help but wonder how many of those rules are so similar because they are simply sensible for a monastic community to have, because they are good solutions – pure parallel evolution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

To your first point, nothing is native. Human culture borrows and adapts from contact with other cultures. You're running into a chicken-and-egg issue. Ultimately, it depends on whether one is asking for the proximate influence (that is, what cultures directly influenced Christian culture in the development of monasticism) and ultimate influence (which is likely unknowable, ascetic traditions probably exist within all cultures, and as you note, may have developed in parallel and without influence in some cases.) --Jayron32 13:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

20040302 -- Clement of Alexandria once mentioned the name "Boutta" in passing, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat certainly came from a Buddhist source; and there has long been scholarly speculation that certain techniques and "styles" of asceticism in eastern Mediterranean cultures of classical antiquity were due to remote/indirect diffusion of originally Hindu and/or Buddhist practices. However, it may be stretching things too far to try to connect details of monastic discipline between Buddhism and Christianity. Organized monasticism in Christianity originated from a slow process of gathering originally solitary ascetics and hermits into groups. We have an article Buddhist influences on Christianity (which very oddly doesn't even mention "Barlaam and Josaphat" one of the most obvious influences). AnonMoos (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

February 8

What's the longest municipal bus route? Longest one under $3?

I know of a mundane municipal bus route that goes to a different metro area (still the same metro area in a loose sense). It's 60 road and 50 air miles one way and some trips are scheduled at 2:20 long (despite being an express). What can beat that? Is it at least a record for the price or miles per dollar? ($2.50, 24 miles per dollar). I know how longer municipal buses are often more like $5. 205.197.242.149 (talk) 02:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Are you by any chance in a twin city, like Minneapolis-St. Paul ? That would be the logical place for long bus routes, unless each twin has it's own system and they don't cooperate. Then I suppose there are cities that are just huge, like Los Angeles, New York City, and Toronto (I limited my list to the US and Canada, since you used dollars). StuRat (talk) 02:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Minneapolis and St. Paul are adjacent and are part of the same "Metro Area" (along with various suburbs). A more promising example could be Dallas and Fort Worth, two pretty large cities that are at least an hour away from each other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Google says they're 35 minutes. Google also says DC is only 40 miles from Baltimore, Houston to the sea is 51 miles, Chicago to Wisconsin is only 53 miles, the Golden Gate Bridge is only 56.3 miles from San Jose (the far end of the bay), and the enormous LA metro area is barely 60 miles from Downtown LA to the far end (all car miles). 205.197.242.149 (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Toronto isn't really that big...the extended metro area is, and there is separate transit system for that, but it's run by the province, not any one city. For Toronto itself, here is a list of the longest transit routes - the longest is about 54 km, round trip. I don't think you can cross the whole city on one bus though. You can ride the entire subway system for one fare (easy enough since there are only 2 main lines). TTC fare is currently $3. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That's still run by a government though, and doesn't leave the extended metro. But maybe you can't go 96-97 km around Toronto on one bus either. (or 193 km round trip). 205.197.242.149 (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Toronto, first, even after the amalgamation of 1998 the city is only about 25 miles (40 km) wide. The TTC's single $3 fare covers any distance within the city plus the airport just outside, but does not extend any further, and as Adam says, there aren't any single routes that long anyway. The "separate transit system run by the province", GO Transit, does not use a flat fare and primarily consists of buses that run express (via freeways) for part of their route, so it isn't the "mundane municipal buses" that the original poster asked about. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 07:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell us which one you're already familiar with so that we don't give you information you already have? Dismas|^(talk) 02:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The city with the Pro Football Hall of Fame has a bus that drives on I-77 for 60 miles. It goes to Cleveland. They also have a shorter one to Akron. If my city was as run down as Canton but had the PFHoF I might make it cheap for 3 million out-of-towners to go spend money there too. 205.197.242.149 (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• If length is determined by time on the bus, then places with terrible traffic would be high on the list. Before they installed dedicated bus lanes, most routes in Jakarta would take several hours to go from one end to the other. Even now it can be like that in Yogyakarta, where I live. And if you're looking into price... tickets for both cities' busses are less than 50 cents. I'd expect similar stories to be found in many developing nations. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It wouldn't surprise me if developing countries come out on top whether you count time or distance. $3 (I presume we're talking about USD) may seem a moderate or even low fare in a number of developed countries. $3 would often be less than the maximum fare possible in developing countries. So all you really need to do is find a route that is long enough and fits whatever other requirements the OP imposed. Nil Einne (talk) 10:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

205.197.242.149, bear in mind that some municipalities are vastly bigger than others, due to different approaches to municipal government from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some cities in China are huge on anybody's standards; Chongqing has an area of 31,816 square miles, the size of South Carolina. You also ought to consider the local government areas of Australia, which aren't exactly comparable to anything in the USA, although roughly analogous to the towns of New England. The Shire of East Pilbara is the size of Norway, and while it's a sparsely populated chunk of outback that probably wouldn't have long-distance bus routes from town to town, you'd need to check into other massive LGAs. Nyttend (talk) 15:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The question made me think of the Crimean Trolleybus and similar, but I have no idea whether it has characteristics more like a "mundane municipal bus" or is more like a long-distance bus that happens to use electric power. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 07:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

According to Google Maps, the 388 bus between Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro and Centro, Rio de Janeiro takes about four and a half hours and costs R$3 (it would be long, but I'm not 100% convinced on that duration).[8] Hack (talk) 14:18, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

At one point, the Southern California Rapid Transit District ran a local bus service from downtown L.A. to Riverside (60 miles by shortest road route, and I'm sure the actual bus route significantly longer), and if you were traveling Greyhound but didn't buy your ticket booked all the way through in advance, then due to arcane legal restrictions Greyhound was not allowed to sell you a ticket for an LA to Riverside journey, so you were shunted off to this bus. That happened to me once, and I vowed never again... AnonMoos (talk) 02:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Measurement of complete literary works

What official standard(s) exist(s) for measuring the complete literary works of a writer? (I am including both prose and poetry, as well as both non-fiction and fiction.) For example, is the number of typographical characters, or the number of words, or the number of lines important?
—Wavelength (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Number of words would be the usual measure of total output, though I haven't seen it used much. A word of poetry would normally be considered to be of much greater value than a word in a novel, since the best poets might have spent hours choosing it. Dbfirs 08:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Books published.
Sleigh (talk) 09:42, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Measurement of complete musical works

What official standard(s) exist(s) for measuring the complete musical works of a composer? For example, is the number of notes, or the number of musical measures (bars), or the number of pages important?
—Wavelength (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't this where Opus number comes in? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but opera vary in length. I don't think there is an accepted measure of musical output. Perhaps just hours, but this will vary with performance preferences. Dbfirs 08:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

See Catalogues of classical compositions#Opus numbers for some reasons why opus numbers will not do. Fwiw, I've never heard of any standard way of "measuring" the complete works of a composer. They're simply listed in various catalogues. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Are Christmas and Easter the two most important holidays in Christianity?

Are Christmas and Easter the two most important holidays in Christianity? Although I have heard people say that they celebrate Christmas and Easter with their families, I am not sure if they are the only holidays that are significant. Also, what does it really mean when one says that they only celebrate Christmas and Easter, and not Reformation Day or All Saints' Day or the day of your patron saint or Martin Luther's birthday? Are all those other holidays less worthy or significant? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 04:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Easter Sunday has to do with resurrection, which is a core belief of Christianity. Christmas is a way of honoring Jesus' birth. I couldn't even tell you when Martin Luther's birthday is, and I'm a Protestant who never heard of Reformation Day until now. All Saints' Day is the day after Halloween, and is no big deal. Anything to do with "saints" in general is going to be confined to denominations which regard sainthood as important. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Good Friday, Ascension Day and Pentecost are the other major theologically important holidays but are not celebrated as Easter and Christmas. Rmhermen (talk) 05:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

True, and of course all three are tied directly to the Resurrection. Good Friday is a day off in some companies, and not necessarily those that have any religious connection. And these all have directly to do with Jesus. Holidays to do with "saints" are relatively marginalized. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That depends on where you live. In Latin American countries, a patron saint's day is considered more important than one's own birthday. So, while Americans would celebrate their birthdays, a person from somewhere in Latin America would celebrate the patron saint's day. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 16:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

All Saints' Day is the day after Halloween, Bugs? I'd prefer to say that Halloween is the day before All Saints' Day. That is, after all, the origin of the name. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

That works too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Martin Luther King's birthday is, of course, approximately the same day as Martin Luther King Day, which you probably remember as that holiday a couple of weeks ago. (The actual day is January 15). All Saints' Day isn't a big deal in North American, but it is a holiday in France and presumably other parts of Europe. In France it also marks the end of a mid-term school holiday. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Martin Luther's birthday (Nov 10, 1483). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh! That guy. Yeah he's important too, I guess... Adam Bishop (talk) 12:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The term "C & E Christians" would suggest that they are the two most important. A C&E Christian is a term for people who only attend church services on Christmas and Easter but not at any other time of the year. Dismas|^(talk) 08:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

When I was a kid in 1950s southern England the only holidays my dad got (apart from two weeks' holiday and weekends) were Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Good Friday. Easter Day, being a Sunday, was not an extra but we did celebrate it at church and home. Easter Day was the most important religious festival. Thincat (talk) 12:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think your memory is a little faulty User:Thincat; the Bank Holidays Act 1871 gave us Easter Monday; Whit Monday; the first Monday in August and Boxing Day (Christmas Day and Good Friday were already customary holidays and not included). If your dad was required to work on any of those days, he would have been entitled to time off "in lieu". Alansplodge (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, well. I suppose it's my memory. That's the problem when you start forgetting your memory is faulty! Thincat (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Christmas's popularity as a holiday has waxed and waned. It's generally not quite as big a deal outside the Anglosphere; also notably the Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar for liturgical purposes, meaning they celebrate it on a different date. Its modern popularity is in large part due to its rise as a secular holiday. As our Christmas article states, the Puritans in both England and New England banned its celebration for some time, as they regarded it as a "Popish" holiday. Easter on the other hand has pretty much always been a significant Christian holiday, as it centers around the resurrection of Christ, which is a central Christian belief. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 13:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Many Protestants (but not Anglicans or Lutherans) rejected the idea of the traditional liturgical year in which the pattern of Christ's life is followed by a calender of liturgical feasts and fasts. Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and others therefore did not celebrate Christmas, and Easter and Pentecost were regarded as just normal Sundays. This view has softened during the 20th century, but my mother can remember when Christmas Day was a normal working day in Presbyterian dominated Scotland. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

What is the reason for the rejection of the liturgical year by Presbyterians? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:05, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

As a side note, I remember visiting a United Church of Christ church and talking with one of the members. I mentioned the word "Advent", and the guy had a confused expression on his face for a moment and replaced "Advent" with "Christmas". Well, Advent is not really Christmas, but it seems that congregationalists don't really do advent either.71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Deuteronomy 18:10. "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch." See also Christmas controversy and linked articles. Tevildo (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

How is Deuteronomy 18:10 related to the liturgical year? I mean, the liturgical year is very Christ-centered, so what does that have to do with "pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch." Can you list the denomination that uses Deut.18:10 as a criticism of the liturgical year? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 20:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

See Banned Christmas for a basic summary of the objections. Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget what 71.104.75.148 has said: many Protestants have objected to practices purely because they're advocated by the Catholic Church. Lots of stuff that's seemingly neutral (see Adiaphora#Puritanism) has been deemed significant by some churches, with certain uses rejected because the Catholics do it. This is how the clergyman's clothing becomes important, for example, as "clerical vestments" have been rejected: a dress code involving the cassock and other vestments has been seen as eeeeevil, but apparently a dress code requiring suit and tie is perfectly all right. Nyttend (talk) 22:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it was more carefully thought through than that. In Catholic theology, traditions can be justified on the grounds that they have been done that way since the days of the Early Church, a position that the Protestant Reformers rejected; for them, Scriptural authority was the only arbiter of right practice. On the issue of vestments, John Calvin in the Institutes of the Christian Religion was able to quote Biblical passages saying that plain dress was appropriate and flamboyant clothing was to be avoided (I can't find it now, but it's in there somewhere; Book IV I think). Alansplodge (talk) 11:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

So... to sum up the previous answers: Christmas and Easter are important holidays for many Christians, but not all Christians. Exactly how important they are depends on which denomination of Christianity you are talking about, as well as the cultural background of the individual Christian (or quasi-Christian) you are talking to. Blueboar (talk) 21:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

While there have been many Christians who did not celebrate Christmas, I would like to see a cite for the suggestion that there are or were mainstream Christian groups that did not celebrate Easter. John M Baker (talk) 00:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Never mind, I see the discussion in Easter. John M Baker (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Easter: Non-observing Christian groups has the details. Alansplodge (talk) 11:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Another economics question

No monsters or demons involved this time :-)

Opportunity benefit doesn't exist, but opportunity cost does. What I remember from high-school economics would suggest that they're closely related terms (and this seems to be corroborated by a quick Google search), that the opportunity benefit is the utility you gain by doing whatever has the opportunity cost. In other words, If we're talking about the opportunity cost of making 100 extra barrels of wine, I'm guessing that the opportunity benefit would include the additional money I make from selling 100 extra barrels of wine. Am I remembering rightly? And if so, would O benefit be a good redirect to O cost? Nyttend (talk) 15:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The phrase "opportunity benefit" does come up from time to time in this context, but seems to me to be much rarer than "opportunity cost". As you'll see from our article, the idea of opportunity cost generally arises in the context of making a choice from one of several mutually exclusive options, and the particular example you give isn't really a choice of this kind. In your example you have some grapes, and can make wine with them or not, so there's no element of choice between two mutually exclusive options - if you don't make the wine, you've still got the grapes. Suppose, however, that you are in the business of selling a range of grape products: you have some grapes, and you can choose either to make them into wine or into grape jelly. Here the choice that you make does incur an opportunity cost: if you make wine, you give up the benefits of making jelly, and vice versa. The opportunity cost is the benefit foregone from the choice not made. In the same way, you might say that the opportunity benefit is the benefit gained from the choice made. Within this framework, you'll notice that the opportunity cost is understood as arising from the path not chosen, which the opportunity benefit arises from the path actively chosen. In the example you mention you seem to want to attribute both opportunity cost and opportunity benefit as arising from the same path; this doesn't seem right to me.

For discussion of cases where there are more than two options to choose from, and for more details, please see our article on opportunity cost. Although it's a rare phrase, I don't see any harm in directing opportunity benefit to this article, so long as a suitable explanatory sentence is added. RomanSpa (talk) 18:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Dutch and German

How mutually understandable are Dutch and German? Is it like the difference between Spanish and Portuguese? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.235.189 (talk) 18:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Non-native speaker here. I have studied German for years, and I speak and understand it very well, to the point where native speakers have wondered how I speak German so well. But I don't speak or understand any spoken Dutch. The intonation is far too different - it has been claimed that Dutch sounds like "German with a hot potato in your mouth". I believe this, not to so much extent, but enough to make spoken Dutch unintelligible to me, even though I understand spoken German. Written Dutch is easier to understand through written German, although there are significant differences - Dutch seems a more vowel-oriented language than German. As my native Finnish is very vowel-oriented, you would think this wouldn't be a problem - but as both German and Dutch are foreign languages to me, I would have had to learn Dutch separately, and as I haven't, it is more difficult for me to understand.

The situation is the same with Swedish and Danish. The written languages are closely related, but while Swedish is spoken with an intonation very close to Finnish, Danish is again spoken "with a hot potato in your mouth".

Now can a native speaker of either German or Dutch answer this question? JIP | Talk 19:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Until that happens, I once overheard a German and a Flemish speaker (it's basically a Dutch dialect) in Antwerp having a conversation about how many words their languages had in common. However they were speaking to each other in English, which suggests that they aren't mutually intelligible; not easily at any rate. Alansplodge (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I concur with JIP: my reasonable skill in German lets me understand a fair bit of written Dutch, but the pronunciation is so different that I can scarcely make out a word of written Dutch. A friend from the Maastricht area tells me that he speaks a dialect of Dutch that is more or less mutually intelligible with the adjacent Low German, but his wife (from Groningen) speaks a more standard Dutch that is not. Neither my English nor my High German enables me to understand either of their dialects, nor did I have much luck with the Low German of Bremen. (I can understand, and be understood in, spoken German in Dortmund and Berlin, for example.) So my answer would be: there are some forms of German that are mutually intelligible with some forms of Dutch, but in general the two languages are quite distinct. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm a native Dutch speaker. I agree with the comments above that the pronunciation is very different which can make understanding our eastern neighbours difficult. However, with a little exposure, you get used to it, and because in terms of vocabulary and syntax Dutch and German are 90% the same, a Dutch speaker can learn to 'Germanize' his Dutch and be understood reasonably well by a German speaker. I find it quite easy to understand most spoken or written German, and I don't think it's due to the few German lessons I've had in secondary school. I think it's primarily a matter of getting used to the pronunciation; I find a number of Dutch dialects harder to understand than German. I can't really compare Dutch and German to Spanish and Portuguese, because I don't speak the latter two, but from the little I do know about them, I suspect that the differences between Dutch and German are larger. - Lindert (talk) 00:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I posted a request for assistance at the German reference desk. Here's what was said:

Extended content

Intonation is different indeed and if you have no training you will not understand it. However, if you see it written, there is a chance that you can guess/derive some meaning. Even Austrian or Swiss - if spoken rapidly - no/very little chance. GEEZER… nil nisi bene 00:09, 9. Feb. 2015 (CET) For most Germans I would say, if you haven't learnt it, Dutch is nearly not understandable. There are different German accents and a few of them are somewhat, only somewhat a bit close to Dutch, but most are not. Surely you can start "hearing into it" for example when you are in the Netherlands and maybe after some time you begin understanding more and more. However, after a holiday I made in NL, I could understand some bits and pieces, a few words, but not enough to understand whole sentences of every day language; also not after more than a week. I agree that the saying with the hot potato is rather fitting. To test reading, I just tried reading a Dutch news website and it is clearly better understandable than the spoken stuff, but it's still much guessing and parts still stay not-understandable for me.When I hear Dutch it somehow reminds me of Middle High German, e.g. as it is used in poems by Walther von der Vogelweide - and I don't really understand those either. ;-)It however seems to be different the other way around: I experienced several cases where the Dutch could understand and speak German rather well - at least way better than I "speak" Dutch. Once I showed that I really tried understanding them, they were able to speak German to a degree, which was well understandable. Maybe that's because German as a language is more important: Many Dutch learn it in school (while we usually don't learn Dutch). --88.130.127.250 00:23, 9. Feb. 2015 (CET) (BK) [Nyttend's comment — perhaps the same as our (ec), for edit conflict?] Not that easy to answer. "Not a language, but a throat disease", is a typical German attitude towards Dutch. But there is that "dialectal continuum", which means that dialect speakers near the Dutch border won't have such a hard time understanding Dutch. For non-dialect speakers, however, it's different. There is no immediate chance of communication between speakers of "Hochdeutsch" and Dutch, as is between Spanish and Portuguese, or even Italian and Spanish, for that matter. But then, there is also little chance that a speaker of Hochdeutsch will be able to follow a conversation in Low German, either. A German speaker can easily learn Dutch, obviously, and vice versa, but it takes a little effort. Written Dutch is easier. It helps if you know the basics of Dutch spelling conventions and have a working knowledge of French, which has had some considerable influence on Dutch. Dumbox (Diskussion) 00:24, 9. Feb. 2015 (CET) It also depends whether the German dialect speaker lives north or south of the Benrather Linie. Dialects spoken north of the en:Benrath line are closer to Dutch than those spoken south of it. One of my parents was born north of the Benrath line, so i learned a little en:Low German. So during my first visit to the Netherlands i was able to understand most of written Dutch, including a patient information leaflet of some OTC medicine. My travelmate knew only high German and Swabian dialect and was almost unable to understand written Dutch. --Rôtkæppchen₆₈ 01:19, 9. Feb. 2015 (CET)

Hopefully this is helpful. Nyttend (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

This question properly belongs on the language desk, but anyway: I am a native speaker of Bavarian and Standard German, and obviously a second-language speaker of English (however, spoken English is much harder than written English for me), and moreover, I'm well-versed in linguistics. I've never properly studied Dutch because it is so similar to German, and once you understand some basics and crucial differences, it looks very familiar, about as familiar as Low German, which is quite similar. (I've got hardly any experience with spoken Low German, though.) Figuring out written Dutch is fairly easy with some practice, especially when the subject is already familiar. I've read Beekes's introduction to Indo-European studies in both English and Dutch, and I read the English translation first, but when I could later only find the Dutch version, I ended up reading it again in the original. Under less ideal circumstances, however, I struggle more. When I visited the Netherlands, I found that following spoken Dutch is much, much harder, however, despite all my previous knowledge. It was very much dependent on circumstances (context and non-verbal cues helped a real lot); sometimes I could follow and then I lost the thread again. So the languages are definitely not mutually intelligible.

With my native Bavarian competence, and linguistic knowledge, Swiss German was considerably easier to get, but also uneven: "Standard" Swiss German (based on the dialect of Zurich and surroundings) on TV I could manage, but Berne dialect was too foreign, and even with Zurich dialect (or something close) rapid, fluent speech (Swiss people can talk quite rapidly!) proved impossible to follow. That's not what I call "mutually intelligible". Just yesterday I saw a video clip where Michelle Hunziker was interviewed in Swiss German, and she answered in something that sounded like Bernese with her native Italian accent, and I could half understand it, but not perfectly, only stretches and parts, just enough to get the gist of what was said. That is, intelligibility is still quite poor, despite my previous exposure.

To sum up, even Swiss German and Standard German are definitely not mutually intelligible, spontaneously, without considerable, extensive preparation (which is equivalent to studying the language, so doesn't count as "instant", as implied by the concept), and Dutch is even more different, so, absolutely not mutually intelligible with Standard German in any meaningful sense. I reject any claims to the contrary as bunk, and am confident well-designed experiments would show this instantly. See also Mutual intelligibility, where such claims are rightly heavily qualified ("partial" or even "limited" intelligibility, to my mind, isn't real intelligibility in the sense of what is required to support a claim that two idioms are not different languages). (Note that mutual intelligibility is heavily affected by divergent vocabulary: if two languages are identical or nearly identical in pronunciation and grammar but have radically different lexicon, they will end up completely mutually unintelligible.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Native German speaker here. Lindert states above that he as a native Dutch speaker can understand most spoken or written German. I as a native High German speaker without exposure to Dutch can understand only very little spoken Dutch, wheras written Dutch is mostly understandable on a basic level. The mutual intelligibility may be asymmetric. For spoken Dutch I would assume about 10% comprehensibility to a native German speaker from central Germany, far too low to understand it. It is - in my opinion - two steps away. Dutch and Low German are mutually intelligible at a say 50% level and so are Low German and High German at a 50% level. So a Low German speaker would be needed in a conversation as an interlocutor. A typical Dutch or German speaker is also competent in his local dialect. The local dialect spoken around Cleves (Germany) is closer to standard Dutch than half of the Dutch dialects itself, so in Cleves (Germany) the mutual intelligibility rises to 100%. Roughly spoken northwestern German dialects are closer to Dutch than standard German, wheras southeastern German dialects differ even more from Dutch than standard German does. Hence speakers of northwestern German dialects can profit from their dialect in understanding Dutch. There must be a line in northwestern Germany where the mutual intelligibility of the Dutch and German dialects increases to over 50%, say the line Cologne-Bremen or wherever. --91.50.21.59 (talk) 01:19, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

‘Sun’ and ‘Stars’ and ‘Planets’ mythology

Does anyone know any mythological stories for the entitled quoted words, and relative iconic figures? -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC))

Hundreds. Where to start? The Sun in culture. Category:Astronomical myths. List of lunar deities. The mythology section in most wikipedia articles about constellations. Pleiades in folklore and literature. 184.147.116.102 (talk) 22:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Well this is gonna be a big headache to read... I have to come back to this... I'll read the ones you stated... Thank you. -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC))

Apollo, Ra. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you guys know anything about the (a) 'pyramid' and the three 'suns' story? One at the right, one at the top and one at the left? Any mythology and or any story? -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC))

That doesn't appear to be a proper story so much as a Theosophical/New Age concept. The oldest I can find the concept appear in Manly Palmer Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages, based on his interpretation of some alchemical teachings, possibly influenced somewhat by the [[Pythagorean astronomical system|Pythagorean idea that the sun merely only reflects the light from some other light source that we can't see for some reason].

As for actual connection to the pyramids, I'm mostly seeing it in New age literature that appears to have just made it up, such as Voyages of the Pyramid Builders by Robert M. Schoch, which claims that Pyramids appear around the world not because it's the easiest way to stack a bunch of rocks without them falling over for a long time, but because some advanced culture taught all those (coincidentally mostly non-white) cultures how to build pyramids. Of course, then there's the question of who taught that advanced culture. All of this goes back to Ignatius Donelly.

I'm flipping through searched Wouter Hanegraaff's Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esoterism and J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology but haven't found anything yet. didn't find anything relevant.

It could maybe be a part of Mesoamerican mythology, but my initial search makes me doubt that. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: I've not found anything either. Have you seen Stargate (1996)? It shows three Moons in the movie. though they defined being in another another planet/galaxy, they created, what I said about the sun/moon, a symbolic icon, the last code for the gate to open... I have not found anything in Stargate_(device) either. I can't recall where I got the three suns from, it will definitely be a pseudoscience (mixed with planet nibiru (as I've seen images of three suns with it...) if no one can find out... Anyways thank you for your help -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC))

St. Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia

This month's edition of Helsingin Sanomat monthly supplement says that celebrating St. Valentine's Day is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia, and can lead to punishments of over a decade in prison and several hundred lashes of the whip. Does someone know if this is actually true? If so, what is the reasoning behind it? The article only says that a group of men celebrating St. Valentine's Day with a group of women were punished. Do women get a punishment too for this? JIP | Talk 19:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

"The Saudi Arabian Mutaween (Arabic: مطوعين), or Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (i.e., the religious police) prohibits the practice of any religion other than Islam" according to our Christianity in Saudi Arabia article. Although Valantine's Day may not be anything to do with religion in the West, the commemoration of "a widely recognized third-century Roman saint " might not go down too well. Also the strict rules about how men and women associate, as BBC News - Saudis clamp down on valentines points out. According to the Daily Mail, the heavy punishments meted out for an illegal Valentine's party in 2014 were for "charges of illicit seclusion with unrelated women, dancing and drinking" [9]. Alansplodge (talk) 21:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

And this we call an ally? Oy. So why are not Christians routinely arrested when they visit Saudi Arabia? Or maybe they are? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:52, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Prohibiting a practice is different from prohibiting practicioners. According to Christianity in Saudi Arabia, there are at least several hundred thousand Christians, including a million Roman Catholics. Zero churches, and the "small number" of Christians congregate online. Some sketchy counting, maybe. Also see Freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:01, February 8, 2015 (UTC)

Yes, quite bizarre on the counting...Nyttend (talk) 01:49, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

To answer Bugs' question a little more directly: Christians (or Westerners generally – I'm the latter but certainly not the former) are generally given advice before going to Saudi Arabia (by whoever's sending them, or by their Foreign Office) about how to behave and not behave in public. The Mutaween will not generally intrude into the private residences or premises of western infidels in search of transgressions, but will likely take action if any non-Islamic practices (like being drunk, visibly wearing a cross/crucifix, being too immodestly dressed if female, etc., etc.) are exhibited in public.

Ironically, a lot of these behaviours are practiced by well-off Saudi Arabians as well, in private. If you (a Westerner) visit the home or office of a prominent Saudi citizen/Prince/businessman/-woman, you may well be offered alcoholic drink and see women in "immodest" 'western' dress. Many Saudis of this class (i.e. Royalty and the other rich) are educated in Western schools/Universities and own property in the West, where they live (and shop) for significant portions of the year. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I can't see the relevance of St Valentine to the Saudis. Saints are out - Saudi Wahhabism rules out any saint's day, Christian or Muslim, as idolatry. Most Western residents live in compounds where they are safely segregated from the locals, and the religious police are more concerned with siddiqi (moonshine) than the romantic festivals of the foreigners. If this sort of thing leaked into the local community, I can imagine severe consequences, but I'd like to see concrete examples before I could believe it happened. This seems to be relevant, and tells a slightly different tale. The Huffpost has picked up on a normal over-reaction, but few European or American ex-pats are so badly briefed as to be affected. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 22:04, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I gather from the comments above that there is a major distinction between public and private behavior. Of course a family is likely to be less formal within the confines of their home. And it explains why women reporters are typically shown in a headscarf, which is simply "public decency" and not necessarily signifying Muslim. I expect the reason Valentine's Day would be publicly banned is for being associated with hedonism, as it's certainly not treated like a religious holiday at this point in western culture. I imagine they might ban St. Patrick's Day for the same general reason. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:34, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

'Guardian angel' and 'Watcher (angel)'

Peeps, what is the difference between the entitled quoted words? The words figurative meanings seem to be the same; they both seem to perform the same kind of work. But only the watcher angels went an extra length and some became the so called fallen angels, fathered Nephilim... The 'watcher angels', they still do exist like the 'guardian angels', right? Just the words are stated indifferently in religious denominations…? Am I correct? -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 19:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC))

A guardian angel is an angel assigned to watch after a particular person, though there's debate as to whether a person has multiple angels, or if one angel might be looking after the same person. "Watcher angel" (both words) could be used colloquially to refer to a guardian angel, while a type of angel known as a Watcher is a completely different type of figure. According to the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees (both only accepted by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), and some derived sources, these were the angels who fathered the Nephilim. The Book of Enoch describes the watchers as falling from grace because of their lust for mortal women (being immortal, they have no need to reproduce), and for teaching humanity secrets they were not meant to know (mostly magical, but also how to make weapons of war). Belief in one type of angel does not necessary entail belief in the other, and they are entirely different concepts. Many commentators, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant, would argue that the books of Enoch and Jubilees are just fiction meant to elaborate on a cryptic part of Genesis 6 while parodying other religions' stories of demigods. Some (more likely Protestant) do accept the Watchers interpretation of Genesis 6 (while still rejecting Enoch), believing that the angels ended up alongside Satan in Hell. A few Jewish sources (such as certain readings of Enoch and the derived 3 Enoch) seem to imply that only the worst offenders were permanently damned, while the rest resumed their old posts in heaven. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification Ian.thomson. Regards. -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 20:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC))

Resolved

This much we know: "The angels who guard you when you drive / Usually retire at 65." --Burma-Shave. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

February 9

Title for the article Sage (sophos)

I just encountered the article Sage (sophos). Wouldn't Sage (philosophy) be a more obvious title? The current title assumes too much background knowledge, I think. If you don't know what a "sophos" is supposed to be, it's rather mystifying. Article titles should be as self-explanatory as possible and not essentially require that you already know the subject the article is about. "Sage" is a more commonly known and used word, so it's like an obscurum per obscurius explanation. Is there any reason not to use an alternative title like the one I suggested? (Feel free to move the article on your own if you agree with me and can't see any drawback or possible objection. I just wanted to solicit other opinions in case I am overlooking some relevant point.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not a major problem. Anyone who knows the subject sufficiently would have no trouble finding it. Now that I think about it, even those in the know might have trouble guessing what to type. Ignoramuses (like me) would only stumble upon it in Sage (disambiguation), which has a clear enough description. However, I wouldn't object to a page move. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Note also Sophos, and Sophos_(disambiguation). I think the real problem here is that _(sophos) seems to only occur for that sage article. By analogy common suffixes such as _(medicine), _(video game) and _(computer science), etc. occur for dozens of articles each. (Is there a name for that parenthetical classification part of an article title?)

The candidate _(philosophy) also gets plenty of use. I'd outright support a move to Sage_(philosophy). I'd do it myself but I'm not quite sure how :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Moved it per arguments. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

That parenthetical classification part of an article title – I call it a disambiguator. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:24, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Can Catholics become re-baptized after showing a de-baptismal certificate?

If a Catholic becomes successful at removing himself from the parish register, and after 25 or years or so, can he choose to become re-baptized? 140.254.226.195 (talk) 17:18, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

According to this source, the Catholic Church feels that it is impossible to become "de-baptized". Also, after having grown up Catholic, I can't recall my parents ever putting their name in a register. There was a parish phone directory that you could submit your name/address/number to but that was entirely voluntary and not a requirement for attendance. Dismas|^(talk) 17:24, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

So, what's the point of a de-baptismal ceremony if the church actually doesn't keep track of attendants? 140.254.226.195 (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

There is no such thing as far as the Catholic Church is concerned. But that's a separate thing from attendance. If you're baptized in one Catholic church and then go on to attend another, you don't have to let either the old or the new church know. When you go up to receive the eucharist, they assume that you've had your baptism and first communion. I don't see why they'd need your name and address unless they send out flyers and donation requests for needy orphans or such. But that's a function of their charity, not strictly part of the religion. Dismas|^(talk) 17:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

De-Baptism is not a Catholic concept, it's a New Atheist concept that religiously rejects religion apparently without understanding the irony. It's kind of like asking if the Catholic church will issue a de-circumcision certificate for Jews who convert, and if Jews will issue re-circumcise those converts should they decide to return to Judaism. De-Baptism certificates are for people who want to claim to be atheists, but don't get that that means that ceremonies like De-Baptism are at least as worthless as baptism. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

You'd have to ask someone who thinks they do something. The Baptismal register is a legal document in some countries. It plays a role in religious affairs in a Catholic context purely because, if you want to receive other Sacraments, there needs to be a record that you've been Baptised, and when you receive other Sacraments it will be recorded next to your name on the Baptismal register of wherever you were Baptised, purely so a) you can prove you received these Sacraments and b) you can prove you haven't been previously married in a Catholic church if you want to get married. This sort of thing is also why it is a legal document in some countries.

So, the Baptismal register is in no way a membership list, nor is it used to levy fees or anything. Many parishes in many countries separately maintain lists of members of their parish, where people register themselves and can unregister themselves: these are useful administratively, and in some countries are used for tax purposes. These are unrelated to the Baptismal register.

From a Catholic point of view, Baptism is a one-time thing that leaves a permanent mark on your soul, and nobody has the power to reverse or undo it at all, ever. You can no more be debaptised than you can be deborn. Having your name removed from the register of births will not change the fact that you were born, nor can you choose to be born at a different hospital later on. Having a special ceremony will not change this. A de-baptismal ceremony, from a Catholic point of view, is as meaningless as a rebaptism ceremony: nothing is considered to happen. 86.175.86.97 (talk) 17:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

In addition to the points above, are you also getting confused with Formal act of defection from the Catholic Church (as also mentioned e.g. [10] [11])? Firstly, the process was apparently abolished in 2009. Secondly, this didn't debaptise you, and as several people have pointed out above, this simply isn't possibly according to the Catholic church view. Thirdly, your name wasn't removed from the register, instead a note was simply made on your baptismal record that you did it. All 3 are mentioned in the article if there remains any confusion. As has been pointed out above and also noted in the additional sources, a baptismal record in the parish register is effectively a record of something that happened (whether or not you think it has any spiritual significance) so the concept of removing a name from it doesn't really make much sense. (I guess perhaps in exceptional circumstances like where something was added to it which shouldn't have been, although even then I expect more likely it'll just be noted.) Nil Einne (talk) 18:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A quick Google search reveals that some atheists feel the need to undergo a "de-Baptism" ceremony to confirm that they renounce their former faith. One such American ceremony involves a hairdryer, which suggests that it's not entirely serious. Should you need such a thing, you can obtain a "DeBaptismal Certificate" from an organisation called the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Fear not though User:140, apparently the Catholic Church Says 'De-baptism' Is 'Impossible'. Some information about Catholic Parish Registers is here. Finally, you might like to look at the Parable of the Lost Sheep - I'm certain that they'll be pleased that you're back. Alansplodge (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems that history repeats itself. Anabaptists got their name from "being baptized again". Like baptists and modern new atheists, they reject their infant baptisms and feel the need to conduct a new ceremony in their adult lives. At least they share that in common. 140.254.226.195 (talk) 18:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Adult baptism is not the wholesale rejection of the very concept of baptism, though, but the rejection of any baptism done without one's consent and awareness. That's at least internally consistent. De-baptism is like denying vampires exist but hanging garlic to keep them away. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:24, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Exactly right. You can't become "un-baptised" by another church (or entity) to then be "re-baptised" by the Catholic Church. You can only be baptised once. A parish priest might hear your confession (in which you detail your attempt to turn away from the Lord) and thereafter allow you to reaffirm your faith or confirmation but I would think that would be an individual, holistic thing rather than anything canonical. Here are a couple of links (from my native Australia): [12] and [13]. St★lwart¹¹¹ 00:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

*****This has got to be the best RD thread in the last year. μηδείς (talk) 22:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC) *****

Baptism (especially as an adult) confirms one's belief in something. So "de-baptizing" would confirm one's non-belief in something. Reminds me of a long-ago Woody Allen line about his girlfriend being atheist and he being agnostic (or maybe vice-versa), and they broke up because they couldn't agree on what not to believe in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:54, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget confirmation which serves the specific purpose of confirming one's belief in something, especially given a child can be baptised without his or her knowledge or belief (see also: Limbo#Limbo_of_Infants). In essence (in the Catholic Church) baptism is designed to reveal a person to God and have them receive God's blessing. So being "un-baptised" would be an attempt to "hide" someone from God. The Church simply wouldn't acknowledge a person's ability to do that and so their original baptism stands. Whether they might go through a process of "re-confirmation" I imagine depends on the Priest in question and the parishioner. St★lwart¹¹¹ 06:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

As if God somehow wouldn't know they existed until they were baptized. But I see the distinction. Confirmation would be kind of like a Catholic version of Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah, i.e. it would be a decision to be made at age 12 or 13 or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Got it in one. St★lwart¹¹¹ 08:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the most important result of baptism in the Catholic Church is cleansing the baby's soul from their original sin. Once you're freed from your original sin, there's no way you can get it back. Of course, you can commit all sorts of new sins throughout your life, but that doesn't make you debaptized, it just makes you a sinner. What's more, the Catholic Church recognizes baptisms made in some other denominations as long as some basic criteria are met (see Validity considerations by some churches). So even if you were baptized in the Orthodox, Anglican or Lutheran Church, and wish to convert to Catholicism, you're not going to rebaptized, because your original baptism is considered valid by the Catholic Church. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:59, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually almost all good-faith baptisms are now accepted as valid. [14] The gist of it is, there's no need for re-baptism, being baptized by anyone in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is sufficient. Which most Protestant groups do. Collect (talk) 13:42, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Which is tantamount to the Catholic Church saying that virtually any recognised Christian church will do, to ensure the child has a sporting chance of getting to Heaven rather than being consigned to Limbo for eternity. Doesn't this sort of water down their claimed status from "the one and only true Church" to "just another sect of Christianity"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 16:58, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Not really, because the Catholic Church doesn't teach that Baptism guarantees Salvation (it believes you can turn away from God, and lose your Salvation). It just considers that Baptism is the minimum requirement to be a Christian, and is necessary to Salvation, and that it is therefore made easy for people to achieve. And I say this every time Confirmation comes up, but the Catholic view of Confirmation (sacrament) is in no way that it is about teenagers 'confirming' the decision made for them at Baptism: babies can be Confirmed, and adult converts are Confirmed even when they are being Baptised. The whole 'make the decision for yourself' angle is an Anglican thing, imported by some Catholics in Protestant-dominated countries. Confirmation is considered as permanent as Baptism, and so cannot be repeated. However, unlike Baptism, it is not consider by the Catholic Church to be possible for just anyone to Confirm: it takes a validly ordained minister. This means that adult converts who were Confirmed in a Church of England church, for example, will be Confirmed on entering the Catholic Church, because the Church won't consider that they actually have been Confirmed. 86.175.86.97 (talk) 18:40, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Lucy Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, had been baptized in the Episcopal church, but got herself rebaptized when she became Roman Catholic, causing outrage among some Episcopals, since the Epispocal baptism should have been considered valid under Catholic doctrine. Episcopal bishop James Pike said repetition of a sacrament was "totally devoid of any sacramental effect and thus sacrilegious." A Catholic priest said "A re-administration of the sacrament is to be done only when there is prudent doubt about the fact of a prior baptism or about its validity." The Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches, along with the Lutheran have similar views on baptism: It is an "indelible mark" despite any renunciation of the faith. Rebaptism is done by a church when they can't tell whether there was ever a baptism, such as for an anonymous foundling, or when do not view the initial baptism as valid, such as when it was done to an infant and a denomination practices only adult baptism, or when there is a difference between the two churches in acceptance of the Holy Trinity. See Rebaptism. Edison (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

In the early church, confirmation was not practiced as a distinct rite. It was practiced as a part of the baptism ceremony. But when the baptism of infants became universal and the Bishop was not present to do the last rite of the baptismal ceremony, confirmation became a distinct sacrament on its own. Therefore, 86.175.86.97 is correct about the whole teenager thing. (The A to Z of Lutheranism). 140.254.70.33 (talk) 21:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Growing up in the Ruthenian Catholic church I was confirmed when I was baptised, as was my sister. We had to go to the classes for confirmation, but only the Latins deserved punching. μηδείς (talk) 21:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Jean Terrasson

Hello,

I am needing your help. I was reading the article Jean Terrasson and Sethos too and because of my university study I need more info about. I please you so so much, let me know and write me: in which books or documents you found all the data (date of birth, about his life etc...). I am working on my graduate work with Jean Terrasson and i am searching for ANY sources I can find ANYTHING in. Please help me to find out, which sources I should see.

So every book, evry document where i can read about Terrasson, please let me know.

Thank you, Wishing all the best Markéta Medková — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.168.31.69 (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

You mean this Jean_Terrasson, right? Have you gotten the two books mentioned there (refs 2,3) from your library? You may need to use inter-library loan. Here's a few hits I found on google books [15] [16]. The second link gives a birth year and a brief bio. I have to tell you though, the best person to ask about this is your graduate adviser, so please talk to him/her and your local university library. You can probably even visit a real-life reference desk to get assistance from trained professionals who are paid to help you! SemanticMantis (talk) 19:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, i am trying to find any book, where i can read about Terrasson, everything i can use for my work. Really thank you for your help, i helped me as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.168.31.69 (talk) 20:11, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Are you familiar with WorldCat? It's an international library database, which shows libraries worldwide that own a particular book. It has records for all three books that are cited in the article. See [17], [18], and [19] for the first book (three different editions), [20] for the second, and [21] and [22] for the third. Nyttend (talk) 00:32, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, i never heard about it. Im just trying to understand the system, is that like I had to visit tady owner library or they would send me it online? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.168.31.69 (talk) 09:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

You can search for things in WorldCat online, but to actually get a copy of most books, you'll have to use your university library. As I said above, it might be best to go through an inter-library loan program. Sometimes you can get someone to scan a book chapter or short paper and send it to you via email, but that is not always possible. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

This paper, analyzing Séthos, may be useful to you. If you need more information on the book's influence, Not Out of Africa by Mary Lefkowitz and Napoleon's Sorcerers by Darius Alexander Spieth each spend several pages on it, judging by the Google Books previews. A. Parrot (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

February 10

Interstate housing

There are occasional buildings in the USA that, through incompetent surveying, intentional placement, or other misadventure, are constructed on state lines, so that one part of the building's in one state and the other's in another. Some of these buildings are even houses; see David Mathews House and Merestone for a couple of examples. If you live in such a building, how is it decided where you live, pay taxes, go for voting, etc.? Is there some federal law that addresses this situation (i.e. it's treated as a kind of interstate commerce), or do states typically work out such situations through congressionally approved interstate compacts? Bonus points if you know how other provisions such as building codes are handled. I can only once before remember encountering the multistate building concept: in the film Sergeant York, York goes to a bar that's half in Tennessee and half in Kentucky, and because one state is dry while the other wet, the owner draws the state line on his floor and will only sell liquour from one side of the building. Nyttend (talk) 00:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

It's an international border, so a bit different, but the towns of Derby Line, Vermont and Stanstead, Quebec is instructive. See, for example, Haskell Free Library and Opera House and search Google for oddities there. As far as state borders go, check out the history of the Pheasant Lane Mall in New Hampshire. The original plans had it crossing the state border with Massachusetts, it had to be redesigned to keep it all within one state, so as to avoid headaches associated with two different tax codes. Also see the Cal Neva Lodge & Casino, which is actually built across the border of California and Nevada. The laws of California apply on their side of the building, thus there's no gambling on that side. Here is a story of a building straddling the Netherlands-Germany international border, and the issues that causes. The article on the United States Post Office and Courthouse (Texarkana, Arkansas-Texas) may be an interesting read for you; besides Texarkana, there's also Bristol, Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee or Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, both of which are contiguous conurbations, and may likely have many buildings lying in both states. Just some avenues for your research. --Jayron32 01:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I started to write "Bristol's not likely to be relevant", because State Street goes down the line, but a quick Google Maps check shows that it turns south as you go east, and numerous subdivisions have houses on both sides. Nyttend (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Just as a further digression, when France surrendered in 1940, the Germans occupied the northern part of the country but left the southern part as a nominally independent country. Part of the boundary followed a river, but still divided a building because it extended across the river. --70.49.169.244 (talk) 08:11, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

In Baarle, where 23 little pieces of Belgium are surrounded by The Netherlands, some things – like where a household pays tax, iirc – depend on where the front door is. —Tamfang (talk) 09:07, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

List_of_enclaves_and_exclaves might be a place to look. In the USA, there's even a List_of_enclaves_in_Pennsylvania. Kentucky Bend probably deals with these issues too. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The PA enclaves is for things such as municipal enclaves, which aren't relevant because they're all governed by Pennsylvania law, unlike buildings on state lines, which might not be governable by just one state's laws. The Kentucky Bend isn't relevant: aside from an east-west line, where no houses are located, it's entirely surrounded by the river. Does anyone know what's done specifically with houses that lie on borders? Nyttend (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

anti-navigation treaty

In an article about the role of slavery in the early history of the United States ("The price of independence", University of Chicago Magazine, Sept–Oct 2010), I find this passage:

Northern states also accepted a sectional division of national territory through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and, in return, informally agreed to abandon their efforts to obtain a Spanish treaty that would have closed the Mississippi River to navigation for decades.

Why would they seek such a treaty? —Tamfang (talk) 09:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

How bizarre. Even here in western Pennsylvania, the Ohio River was critical to the local economy for regional purposes; go farther west, and it was even more important in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, while in Illinois it was likewise critical (even though they have just a small chunk of it; the state's largest city of the period is on the Ohio), and the Mississippi River was important in the 1770s. I wonder if the author's made a mistake? Nyttend (talk) 13:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I just found the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty article; I think this is the treaty in question. It looks like the author's misunderstood somewhat or placed emphasis on a side element of the treaty. Judging by our article, the treaty did lots of things, including giving commercial advantages to northern states; while it also had the effect of closing the Mississippi, that definitely wasn't the basic purpose of the treaty. This treaty ultimately failed, as Congress didn't ratify it; apparently the author means that the northern states decided to stop attempting ratification. Nyttend (talk) 13:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Yea, "would have closed the Mississippi River" is the wrong wording, as it was already closed. "Accepted the continued closure of the Mississippi for 25 more years" would be the correct way to say it. StuRat (talk) 22:45, 10 February 2015 (UTC)