Despite the fact that many in the culture drink, smoke and eat fatty foods; experts are now hoping to crack the code. In New York, Cornell scientists will study the stem cells of almost a dozen Ashkenazi Jews who came from a heavily persecuted group with origins from Russia.

Experts believe that years of intermarriage – and the sharing of genetic traits – might have helped the group live for so long.

Usually intermarriage has the stereotype for less “attractive” traits. In general, human beings became better looking after we started travelling far and inter-mingling. Usually, the rich mated with the rich. Then said rich person would get a portrait painted, being apart of a family who can afford it. We look at the features of people from old paintings and they are different from the typical ideals of today. I’m not even talking about weight; more like the roundness of faces, distance between eyes, etc. Microevolution is noticeable from these easy to understand tidbits. How anyone could deny micro- or macroevolution by natural selection is beyond me! (It’s so blatant; one must really not want to know the truth.)

But I digress. Getting back to the genes of Ashkenazi Jews, take Lilly Port for example.

Lilly Port, who turned 98 last week, is one of the Ashkenazi Jews who will be taking part in the study, claims that she has never been ill.

‘I always had good genes,’ she said.

And even though she doesn’t smoke, she does eat bratwurst and chocolate daily and drinks white wine ‘when I want to relax’.

She told the New York Post: ‘I limit my food intake, because I want to be able to fit into my clothes, but I’m in perfect health.’

It will be some time before the results have been carefully dissected and conclusions drawn, but this survey should go some way to unlocking the code to a long life. [Read more.]

Boy, do I envy a woman who says she’s never been ill! Moreover, I wonder what the study will reveal.

They do it on purpose. Religious teachers, they purposely mash up historical fact with religious stories, so you stick them together. I was never a true believer, but I did think this was part of history for some time. I accidentally confused actual history lessons with Sunday school lessons. There are many bits and nuggets of information that we take as truths because we are never informed they aren’t.

I have a feeling that at least a large portion of religion teachers purposely meld all these facts together, creating an amalgam of well-accepted truths with mythological stories. Making it nearly impossible for a child – or even an intelligent adult – to tell them apart.

We need to teach children what’s real and what’s is typically taken on faith as separate entities, not throw it all into a pot and see what happens. We have to educate our future generations with all kinds of knowledge. That may include religious studies, but as something that some people take of faith and faith alone. Whether creationism or any other bible story, we can include these lessons to our kids, but not as facts. As stories that, if you are to believe, they are taken on 100% blind faith. You may choose this route, and it can be perfectly acceptable but it is not a truth. It holds no real answers, just stories that one prefers.

While I do not understand someone believing any religious material on blind faith, it happens every day. I cannot conceive why someone would want to live in that bubble, it doesn’t seem blissful to me at all. But, apparently, it is to some. Aside from that, there is a larger point here. We must differentiate between historical facts and religious myths. Does anyone think that the death of Pyramus and Thisbe is the reason that mulberries have become dark reddish-purple? At least not the white ones…

We clearly recognize some stories as obvious myths but others we refuse to separate from reality. This may not be wholly our fault. Teachers are so afraid to teach real facts for the fear of parents railing against them for bogus reasons. And some teachers believe the amalgam of truth and fiction. It’s hard to take note of where it began. But it needs to end.

Image via Reddit

If any question remains about the religious and political motivations of certain members of the Texas Board of Education, one need only read the words of their social studies curriculum experts.

Rev. Peter Marshall, for example, one of their appointed academic experts, wants to restore America, according to the website of his Massachusetts-based ministry, “to its Bible-based foundations through preaching, teaching, and writing on America’s Christian heritage and on Christian discipleship and revival.” He also believes that Hurricane Katrina, Watergate and the Vietnam War are the result of divine wrath.

And I could just as easily say that the events of the Holocaust displays there is no god. Hmm…

Marshall, along with his fellow reviewer David Barton, did not believe that students in the public education system should learn about Hutchinson:

Anne Hutchinson does not belong in the company of these eminent gentlemen. She was certainly not a significant colonial leader, and didn’t accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble.” (emphasis added)

One of the original Puritans, Hutchinson disagreed with some of the scriptural teachings of the religious leaders and began hosting her own Bible study classes in her home. For this crime, Hutchinson was placed on trial and banished from her community. Later, she and her exiled family were killed in a Siwanoy attack.

This is indeed quite disturbing.

Go check it out, since it does not seem to be embeddable.

The list includes things such as:

A pile of sand, Pi, and Their Own Children.

***

UPDATE: The site had moved.