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By Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg

WHAT IS ADAM MADE OF?
The word אָדָם (pronounced: adam) is connected with the two other Hebrew words דַּם (dam) “blood” and אֲדָמָה (adamah) “earth/ground”. These words show us that the basic meaning of Adam was associated with both “blood” and “ground”. We can understand the simplicity of the meaning here only if we read the text in Hebrew. It ma tches almost perfectly with the statement that the “Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7) and the prohibition to eat any meat with blood still in it, because the soul of any living being is in its blood. (Genesis 9:4).

THE UNBREAKABLE BOND
Mankind (Adam) and ground (Adama) were bonded together at the time of creation. The role given to Adam by God is clear; he is to rule God’s creation, by working the ground (Adamah). The word for work and worship is exactly the same in Hebrew (Avoda). Adam was to serve God as his royal appointee to lovingly take care of God’s magnificent work of creation. Before the fall of humanity there was work. In fact, the work was the worship, and the worship was the work.    
 

On February 7, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Bernie English said:

Here is the gofundme page for our sister ... https://www.gofundme.com/benita-son

Thank you Bernie!

Thank you Anke and Nicole for keeping us up to date! ;-)

I had better work on getting a better night's sleep soon! 

The former Soviet Republic of Georgia is planning a new bill that will legally punish irreverence toward religion. However, concerns have been raised the 'blasphemy bill' could be used against any organization who does not follow the church's principles.

The bill has been approved by committee, and according to The Guardian, is headed for the parliamentary floor. If passed, the bill will impose a fine of 100 lari, equivalent to $120 USD, for insults to religious feeling. The penalty will then be doubled if the offense is committed a second time. 

Religious minorities fear the bill may be used to guard the interests of the influential Georgian Orthodox Church. While these minorities agree that all religions should be protected by the law, they are concerned the 'blasphemy bill' will become a tool for discrimination against them.

Baptist Bishop, Rusudan Gotsiridze, said that the law would not protect anyone; at least, not the minorities, and will be a powerful tool against freedom of speech.

Georgian ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili also criticized the law saying that "the current wording proposes the 'insult to religious feelings' as the sole criterion for limiting freedom of expression, which... subjects one individual to another's will and places the believers in a privileged position."

The draft is most likely to be passed in a parliamentary election year. On February 2, the ruling Georgian Dream Coalition endorsed the document at a human rights committee hearing which was snubbed by the minority.

The blasphemy bill has caused division both within and outside the ruling coalition. Tamar Kordzaia, a member of the Georgian Dream coalition has spoken against the bill, saying that it comes short of international human rights standards and would upset the existing balance of civil liberties.

The Georgian Orthodox Church is associated with a pro-Russian and nationalist agenda, giving them much ruling power. Members of the said church have been associated with demonstrations, sometimes violent, against religious minorities such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Pentecostals, and Muslims. Back in September 2014, local Orthodox Christians slaughtered a pig and nailed its head to the front door of a Muslim boarding school to protest its opening.

http://www.christiantimes.com/article/georgia.proposes.blasphemy.bill.to.punish.religious.irreverence/53518.htm

Large-scale military drills across south-west Russia intended to test the troops' readiness amid continuing tensions with the West

A paranoid schizophrenic has been detained under a Hospital Order for attacking a Jehovah’s Witness with a broken bottle in Mirfield.

Leeds Crown Court heard Shaun Dawson, who had a longstanding history of mental illness, had begun attending the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Newgate around November 2014.

But as time passed the congregation noticed he was becoming disruptive and he was asked not to attend again.

Michael Smith prosecuting told the court that prior to the attack on February 12 last year Dawson admitted he had begun to have delusional thoughts that people were going to his home and stealing things, including his food.

On the day concerned he turned up at the hall carrying two bottles and when someone tried to stop him entering he smashed one of the bottles against a wall and stabbed it into the face of Alex Rees.

He then smashed the second bottle over the head of Mr Rees before some members of the congregation managed to restrain him until the police arrived while others helped the injured man.

The court was told Dawson was not fit to be interviewed immediately because of his mental condition but later did admit responsibility. Mr Rees, 35, is now left with a permanent scar down his left cheek as a result of the attack.

 

Leeds Crown Court

 

Stephen Wood representing Dawson said psychiatrists had diagnosed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia which required treatment in hospital and a bed was available for him at the Bretton Centre in Wakefield.

Dawson, 37, admitted wounding Mr Rees with intent and was ordered to be detained under section 37 of the Mental Health Act and for the detention to be without limit of time under Section 41.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said the psychiatric evidence indicated he suffered from a mental disorder, paranoid schizophrenia which was of such a degree it was necessary to detain him for treatment in hospital.

He said having regard to the nature of the offence, Dawson’s long-standing illness which had involved previous admission to hospital and his lack of co-operation on occasions it was necessary to have a restriction order.

He added: “However serious the case is it is a case for treatment rather than punishment.”

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/hospital-order-shaun-dawson-after-10864046

A man has been charged following an incident at a church in Beenleigh this morning.

Around 8.20am, it will be alleged a man used his vehicle to ram through the front security gates of the Jireh Street building.

It will further be alleged the man then proceeded to set fire to the floor of the church.

Witnesses at the scene assisted police with identifying the man who officers located at Logan River Parkland a short time later.

A 29-year-old Bethania man has been charged with wilful damage, break and enter and attempted arson.

He is scheduled to appear before the Beenleigh Magistrates Court tomorrow.

Anyone with information which could assist with this matter should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au 24hrs a day.

http://mypolice.qld.gov.au/blog/2016/02/09/break-enter-arson-beenleigh/

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kingdom+Hall+of+Jehovah's+Witnesses/@-27.7070899,153.2022375,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x97799a9c520da3ff

Last November the Mormon church issued new rules about homosexuality labelling those in same-sex relationships as apostates who can be excommunicated. Children of gay couples are now required to leave home and repudiate their parent's relationship before they can be part of the church.

At least 32 gay Mormon youths have killed themselves since the announcement of the new policy, and there’s been an alarming increase of suicidal teens and twenty-somethings in the church....

This is footage shot by a Russian camera crew in Homs in 2016. It shows the true devastation caused by explosive weapons in populated areas. Please share this footage - when the world stands up in outrage that such things can happen to a city and the people that live there, then perhaps the world can stop such things happening to a city and the people that live there.

 

Wow!

I see the crux ansata in their hands... interesting.

English / Francais / Italiano / Portugues

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Texto del Año 2016- Hebreos 13:1 

Examinando las Escrituras Diariamente 2016

Anuario de los Testigos de Jehová 2016

Calendario de los Testigos de Jehová 2016

La Atalaya de 2016 - Edición de Estudio

Ene / Feb /  Mar / Abr /  May / Jun / Jul / Ago / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dic

La Atalaya de 2016 - Edición para el Público

Ene / Mar/ May/ Jul/ Sep/ Nov 

Despertad de 2016 

Ene / Mar / Abr / May / Jun / Jul / Ago / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dic

Nuestra Vida y Ministerio Cristianos  (Este reemplaza a Nuestro Ministerio del Reino) 

Ene / Feb / Mar / Abr / May / Jun / Jul / Ago / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dic

Formas 2016

Informe del Servicio del Campo **Nuevo Formato**

Asignaciones para la Reunión de Nuestra Vida y Ministerio Cristianos.

Nuevas Publicaciones de las Asambleas Regionales 2016 

Asambleas Especiales 2016 (un nuevo nombre para las antiguas asambleas internacionales)

Logos de las Asambleas Especiales 2016

Nuevas publicaciones oficiales de JW.ORG 

Ene / Feb / Mar / Abr / May / Jun / Jul / Ago / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dic

DVD Watchtower Library 2016 (Al momento no hay enlaces para esta nueva versión) 

Noticias y Comunicados de JW.ORG

Expertos se manifiestan en contra de la prohibición de jw.org en Rusia.

Tribunal de Taganrog anunciará su fallo en el caso contra 16 Testigos 

Una comisión de la ONU presentará un informe sobre la violación de derechos humanos en Eritrea

Los Testigos de Ghana se movilizan rápidamente tras las inundaciones

Un grupo de trabajo de la ONU pide que Azerbaiyán libere a I. Zakharchenko y V. Jabrayilova 

 

Jehovah's Witnesses > WTBTS of Pennsylvania  > Archive of Publications > 2016 C.E.

Paul Root Wolpe and his team think through the tough questions brought about by medical advances 

Illustration by Dan Page

The surgeon didn’t know what to do. He was scheduled to perform a risky operation on a 17-year-old patient who was also a Jehovah’s Witness, a religion that forbids blood infusions. Prior to the surgery, the young man’s parents had signed a document refusing blood during the course of the procedure—no matter what might happen. In their presence, the son had verbally agreed.

However, in the days leading up to the operation, with his mom and dad out of the room, the young patient had made a quick, cryptic comment to the surgeon: It is against my religion to receive blood, he had reminded the doctor. But I want you to know that my religion states that if you were to give me blood without my knowledge, it would not imperil my eternal soul.

Was the boy saying that he wanted the doctor to act against the family’s written wishes? The surgeon felt a moral obligation to preserve his patient’s life, having taken a Hippocratic oath to “do no harm.” But should he accept the boy’s seemingly tacit permission?

The surgeon turned to a psychiatrist, who referred him to Paul Root Wolpe.

Paul Root Wolpe speaks at the BEINGS conference, hosted by the Center for Ethics

Photograph courtesy of Emory University

Wolpe is a bioethicist and the head of Emory University’s Center for Ethics. He studies the complex and often controversial ethical issues brought about by advances in medicine, in fields such as stem cell research, genetic testing, or organ transplants. As the stuff of science fiction becomes a reality, “there are all kinds of questions that are coming up,” Wolpe says. Bioethicists are here to “think through those questions in an informed, logical way.” He stresses that, like a therapist, he’s not there to impose his personal beliefs, but to guide others toward conclusions that fit in with their own ethics and values.

“I don’t actually feel like I have any particularly better purchase from which to make ethical decisions than anyone else has,” Wolpe said last year in a conversation hosted by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. In making bioethics his life’s study, “I just know a lot more about it.”Part of the job is stumping for more conversations and consensus around ethical standards in medicine. He has even lent his expertise to NASA, helping set their biological research guidelines in increasingly politically charged fields like genetic engineering.

On a more micro level, Wolpe offers counsel to doctors, hospital administrators, patients, and their families: A woman debating whether to end medical care for her father, who remains on a respirator indefinitely. A diabetic man considering a foot amputation, which would dramatically decrease his pain while increasing his family’s caregiving load. A formerly Catholic hospital now grappling with providing contraception or abortion following its takeover by a larger hospital system.

In the case of the Jehovah’s Witness, Wolpe explained to the surgeon that the parents’ written consent legally obligated him to withhold blood. But given the boy’s declaration, Wolpe helped the doctor determine that if the operation took a turn for worse, his own moral imperative to save a life would take precedence.

“Often the problem is that a person’s values are in conflict,” Wolpe says. “I can help them clarify those conflicts so that the answer becomes clear to them.”

The term “bioethics” first appeared in 1970, but in some ways Wolpe was introduced to the field before it even existed. He grew up in Philadelphia, where his father, a rabbi, taught a class at the Hahnemann Medical College about the spiritual and emotional aspects of dying. His father also sat on a state commission that prioritized which patients received access to the limited number of kidney dialysis machines available at the time.

Then in 1986, while Wolpe was completing a Ph.D. in the sociology of medicine at Yale, his mother suffered a stroke. His father was left to look after her, and Wolpe saw the ethical burden of responsibility placed on caregivers when it comes to answering questions about quality of life. “She couldn’t communicate what she wanted,” says Wolpe. “She lost the use of her dominant arm.” His father had to dress her, cut her meat, figure out how to pay for medical care that their insurance wouldn’t cover. There was a constant stream of decisions to be made on his mother’s behalf.

Soon after, Wolpe entered the then little-known field of bioethics, taking a position at the University of Pennsylvania. In the early days, when Wolpe told other people what he did, few knew what it meant. That began to change in the late 1990s, when technological leaps meant that patients could be kept alive longer than ever—and in varied states of consciousness. As a result, more and more families and physicians were confronting the same kinds of questions that Wolpe and his father had faced.

“For the first time, people were making life-and-death decisions about their loved ones: ‘Should we withdraw life support from Grandma?’” says Wolpe. “And for the first time, they were having to make tough ethical decisions about their own treatment,” like whether they were willing to live with significant disabilities.

In the 2000s, with the emergence of cloning and stem cell technology, the debate broadened. It also became more politicized. As legislators frantically try to keep the law on pace with medical progress, partisan politics are increasingly steering much of the public discourse not just on cloning and stem cells, but on issues like end-of-life care, vaccinations, in-vitro fertilization, and decisions about who receives medical treatment—and who pays for it. Nearly 50 years after Wolpe’s father sat on the commission that governed dialysis care, medical rationing became a source of intense political tumult in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, which prompted panic over so-called “death panels.” The debates have dragged bioethicists like Wolpe into the middle of the political culture wars.

“We get involved in those political debates; when the Affordable Care Act was being put together, bioethicists chimed in,” Wolpe says. Still, he maintains the feverish tenor of the discussions often masks people’s real concerns. “People aren’t actually worried about stem cells,” he says. “They’re worried about whether the scientists who work with stem cells are ethical.”

Attendees at last spring’s BEINGS conference

Photograph courtesy of Emory University

After years of fielding calls from hospital directors, physicians, and lawmakers, in 2008, Wolpe got a different sort of phone call from Emory. When James Wagner, who would eventually serve as vice chair on Barack Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics Issues, became president of the university in 2003, he made ethical engagement a primary focus. Five years later, after a two-year search, he wanted Wolpe to help elevate the campus’s relatively small Center for Ethics into a global beacon for ethics research across a spectrum of fields, from medicine to art.

“He was already very influential, but in the end, it was Wolpe’s creativity that set him apart,” says Wagner. “You could be a powerful ethicist just reacting to problems. Wolpe has the ability to address issues that exist, but also to search out ethical opportunities and challenges.”

For example, more and more amputees now use robotics-powered prostheses. Should we curb the use of technology that could lead to a human-mechanical hybrid? What about brain imaging technology that could be used to read people’s thoughts? Or genetic advances that would allow scientists to re-create extinct animals in the lab? These are the types of forward-looking, no-easy-answer questions that Wolpe and his team consider.

In the nearly eight years since Wolpe arrived at Emory, the Center for Ethics—which will celebrate its 25th anniversary later this year—has grown exponentially. In 2008 the institute had just four faculty and five staff members. Today there are nine in-house core faculty—scholars who specialize in philosophy, theology, and the ethics of various fields—plus a network of 39 active fellows working from positions in separate schools within Emory. These fellows collaborate with the center on research and outreach, and a few have enrolled in the ethics master’s program.

Located in a stately five-story building on the west side of campus, the center is unique among its national counterparts in that it is not housed within a specific academic department, such as the medical school. This independence enables Wolpe and his staff to work across the university’s departments, studying ethical issues in law, business, agriculture, and more.

Still, the center remains primarily focused on bioethics. The staff helps train future doctors at Emory School of Medicine, and one of the core faculty members sits on Emory Hospital System’s institutional review board, which helps to create rules and standards. Faculty are also involved in large-scale public health initiatives—for example, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where one member recently provided input on the agency’s pandemic flu plan. Drue Barrett, who leads the CDC’s public health ethics unit, says she’s grateful not only for the center’s expertise but also for its advocacy of ethics within public health. “We need scientists to take more responsibility for thinking about the ethics of what they do,” says Wolpe.

It’s a discussion that Emory is driving worldwide. Last May the center hosted 200 scientists, bioethicists, philosophers, and policymakers from 30 countries in a two-day global summit dubbed the BEINGS conference, held at the Tabernacle. The conference featured panel discussions on the ethics surrounding egg donations, bioterrorism, and genetic engineering.

“We didn’t reach a consensus, but that wasn’t the point,” says Arthur Caplan, a panelist at the conference and head of the division of medical ethics at New York University. “It’s about putting these issues out in the public consciousness.” Caplan says the conference was also something of a coming-out party for Emory’s center. “It’s now world-renowned among the big programs,” he says.

Wolpe, too, has stepped out on the world stage, representing Emory as editor in chief of the American Journal of Bioethics and as a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. In 2009 he became the first senior bioethicist for NASA, pondering the implications of biological research in outer space and the possibility of a one-way manned mission to Mars.

But even while dealing with complex issues that can veer into the abstract hypothetical, Wolpe remains focused on the person affected, whether it’s an astronaut facing a years-long space flight, a husband caring for an incapacitated wife, or a surgeon wrestling with the constraints of a patient’s religion. “Ethics is rarely about what’s right and wrong,” says Wolpe. “It’s often about two rights in conflict.”

This article originally appeared in our January 2016 issue.

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/health/emorys-center-for-ethics-faces-some-of-the-most-complex-and-controversial-issues-in-modern-medicine/

That does look huge. ;-)

Gracias por compartir!

Ha de tener cerca de 16 años ahora este hijo. 

 

Let me know if you need me to add other categories.

 

Gracias Antonio!

Gracias por compartirlo aqui tambien.