The Lord's Prayer and the Holy Name

In Matthews 6:9 we read:

Ἁγιασθήτω ὄνομά σου

Hagiasthētō onoma sou

hallowed be name of You

They are simple Greek words but how should we translate them? How to translate "Hagiasthētō"? It is a form of the normal Greek word for "holy". "Hallowed" is not a bad translation but it is an old-fashioned form of English. "Reverenced" or "revered" would be better. Perhaps "treated as Holy" would be best.

And what is the name being referred to? God the father is normally referred to in the Greek NT as "theos". But pagan gods are referred to in Greek as "theos" too. So the prayer is not referring to that. It is clearly referring to the distinctive name for the Hebrew god, as used thousands of times in the OT: "Yahveh", or "Jehovah" in English.

So Jesus was explicitly telling his disciples to not to follow the priestly practice of substituting other words for "Yahveh". It seems a pity that Christians have chanted those words so often while not heeding them. Most Christians follow the practice of the Pharisees despite Christ telling his followers not to. Rather amazing.

I am not here arguing for the rightness of the Jehovah's Witness denomination but they have clearly got one thing right. They are one of the very few who obey the instructions in the Lord's Prayer

JR

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Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Fund State Department’s DEI Pseudoscience

The federal government increasingly looks like an Ivy League classroom, combining therapy for fragile souls with indoctrination into specious ideology.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at the State Department, where employees are encouraged to take courses in the name of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or DEIA, that stress their differences, trauma, and status on the victim-oppressor continuum.

As reported by The Daily Wire, the State Department spent a whopping $77 million on DEIA programs last year for its staffing shop, the Bureau of Global Talent Management.

Just this past month, the State Department offered a training session called “Unveiling the Hidden Wounds: Exploring Racial Trauma and Minority Stress.” It promised a “space for empathy” where “voices are heard, wounds are acknowledged, and action is taken towards justice and equity.”

Then there was “A Conversation on Racial Equity and Social Justice” with Bryan Stevenson, who pulled in $55,000 in donations per minute for a single TED Talk.

Employees could also take the half-day course “Intersectional Gender Analysis Training,” which “explores how gender and systems of power shape an individual’s lived experience.” Alternatively, they could attend a seminar called “Embrace Equity and Inspire Change” or a series of female empowerment sessions such as “Elevating Women in Technology and Beyond.”

Anticipating resistance, the State Department offered the course “Understanding Backlash to DEIA and How to Address It,” in which psychologist Kimberly Rios claimed to “highlight evidence demonstrating that DEIA initiatives can challenge the power, values, status, belonging, and cultural identity of dominant group members, particularly White Americans whose racial identity is important to their sense of self.” Rios will do this, the announcement said with unwitting irony, “to promote intergroup harmony.”

Government employees are required to take a variety of training courses to advance in their careers. Even five years ago, most of these were about doing your job better—courses on leadership, management, and other skills. But in the “woke” era, employees are also subjected to ideological sessions such as those mentioned above.

Given what all these courses and speakers cost taxpayers to provide, is there any evidence that they are based on sound information or that they improve the workforce?

Let’s examine one offering more closely.

The State Department runs a “DEIA Distinguished Scholar Speaker Series” that “highlights cutting-edge scientific research,” under which the agency recently brought in Yale professor John Dovidio to give a talk titled “Racism Among the Well-Intentioned—Challenges and Solutions.”

In a 2013 speech, Dovidio said: “About 80% of white Americans will say they are not sexist or they’re not racist … but work with the IAT will show that 60% to 75% of the population are both racist and sexist at an implicit level.”

So, what is this “IAT” that Dovidio cites?

Harvard’s Implicit Association Test is a favorite tool of social scientists who want to prove that people are inherently racist and sexist. This is a necessary premise for critical race theory, which posits that nebulous concepts such as “structural bias” and “systems of oppression” can explain all variances in performance between racial groups rather than individual factors such as education, industry, and behavior. The Implicit Association Test offers the evidence the Left needs to support this theory.

But the Implicit Association Test isn’t an accepted measure of bias. One of its own inventors said, “I and my colleagues and collaborators do not call the IAT results a measure of implicit prejudice [or] implicit racism.”

And in a 2015 review, Hart Blanton of Texas A&M wrote that “all of the meta-analyses converge on the conclusion that … IAT scores are not good predictors of ethnic or racial discrimination and explain, at most, small fractions of the variance in discriminatory behavior in controlled laboratory setting.”

In a 2021 academic paper, Ulrich Schimmack came to the same conclusion, writing that “IATs are widely used without psychometric evidence of construct or predictive validity.”

As far back as 2008, in an article for the American Psychological Association, Beth Azar wrote that a person’s scores on the Implicit Association Test “often change from one test to another.” German Lopez, writing for Vox, took the test two days apart and found that in the first, he “had a slight automatic preference for white people,” and in the second, “a slight automatic preference … in favor of black people.”

Summing up, Greg Mitchell of the University of Virginia said, “The IAT is not yet ready for prime time.”

That’s hardly a firm foundation for using taxpayers’ money to train federal staff in a worldview that will affect their careers and lives. And of course, all of the hours employees spend auto-flagellating with critical race theory is paid time they are not working on matters of national interest.

One can’t put too much blame on race merchants such as Dovidio, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Nikole Hannah-Jones for simply trying to sell their product. But the question is: Why is the government buying it with our money?

Taxpayer-funded institutions shouldn’t pay for courses and speakers whose premises are contentious and whose efforts won’t measurably improve the workforce.

Federal employees are free to explore social theory on their own time. On our dime, they should get on with their real job.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/15/taxpayers-shouldnt-funding-state-departments-dei-pseudoscience/

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Antiwar Activists Chant ‘Death to America’ at Event Featuring Chicago Alderman

If they don't like America, they should be given a ticket to somewhere else

Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a member of the mayor’s leadership team, headlined an event Saturday at which some participants chanted “Death to America” and plotted ways to disrupt this summer’s Democratic National Convention in the city.

Sigcho-Lopez made headlines last month for appearing at another anti-convention protest, where he spoke next to a burned American flag. His appearance at the March 22 event prompted a nearly two-hour discussion before the City Council and an effort to remove him as chairman of its housing committee. The measure failed in a 29-16 vote.

After his most recent appearance at Saturday’s event, Sigcho-Lopez is facing a fresh wave of attention, given his role on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s leadership team.

The event, which drew about 300 antiwar activists to the Teamsters union headquarters in Chicago, took place as Iran was launching an attack on Israel. Olivia Reingold, a reporter for The Free Press, embedded with the activists and documented what transpired:

Earlier that day, before news of the attack broke, at a “breakout session” on “the antiwar movement,” Shabbir Rizvi, an organizer with Anti-War Committee Chicago, taught participants how to chant “death to Israel” and “death to America” in Farsi.

“Marg bar Israel,” he chanted, leading a group of about 80 attendees along with him. A man draped in a Soviet flag bearing a gold hammer and sickle clapped his hands.

A man in a full black denim outfit shouted out from behind his N95—“Can we get a ‘marg bar America’?”

“We can get a ‘marg bar America,’” Rizvi replied.

Then Rizvi raised his hand in the air, leading the crowd like a conductor. “Marg bar America,” they cheered.

The Free Press reported that attendees donned black N95 face masks while plotting ways to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in August.

“It’s really inspiring to see that people are just as enthusiastic, and maybe even more enthusiastic, to march on the DNC as they are to march on the RNC,” said Omar Flores, a Milwaukee-based activist, according to The Free Press. “We can thank Genocide Joe [Biden] and our movement for that.”

Sigcho-Lopez’s appearance at the pro-Palestinian event on March 22 sparked a raucous debate at the City Council’s April 1 meeting. The alderman said he was unaware that a military veteran burned an American flag near where he spoke.

“I make no apologies for standing for First Amendment rights. I think some of my colleagues need to have, maybe, a lesson of what First Amendment rights mean,” Sigcho-Lopez said at the meeting. “If any way, shape, or form, my actions have offended anyone—especially the veterans—I take full accountability, but not once, by no means, I’m going to condemn a veteran for using his First Amendment right.”

Sigcho-Lopez is a member of the Democratic Socialist Caucus of the Chicago City Council. He was first elected in 2019 to represent the 25th Ward.

A fellow member of the Democratic Socialist Caucus, Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, made headlines of her own last week. Taylor accused the Chicago Fire Department of making race-based decisions when administering tests to firefighters and distributing equipment.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/15/antiwar-activists-chant-death-america-event-featuring-chicago-alderman/

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So-called security guards

Most security personnel in Australia aren't armed and industry experts say current rules mean they "don't stand a chance" against attackers with dangerous weapons.

What's next? Security guards say they should be allowed to be armed, but some worry that would mean "going down a pretty dangerous road".

The horrific stabbing deaths of six people at a busy shopping centre in Sydney on the weekend has sent shockwaves across the nation.

Two victims — including one of the deceased, Faraz Tahir — were security guards.

It comes two months after the fatal stabbing of a 70-year-old grandmother at a shopping centre in Ipswich, Queensland.

In February, a 30-year-old security guard died after allegedly being punched in the head outside a pub in Sydney's south.

Now, there's debate about whether security guards have enough protection and powers to keep themselves, and the public, safe across the country.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Scentre Group, the company that operates Westfield shopping centres, have both flagged reviewing the measures in place around security personnel.

But for some security guards, it's too little too late — and they say lives could have been saved on the weekend if policy settings were different.

They're the people we expect to keep us safe in public spaces, but most security personnel in Australia aren't armed.

The award rate for security officers in Australia is about $25 an hour, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

And while they may look like law enforcement in some ways, security consultant Scott Taylor said they were not given the same tools to protect themselves and others in the face of danger.

"We have the same powers of arrest and use of force guidelines as any general citizen," the founder of Praesidium Risk and Resilience said.

Essentially, unarmed security guards can prevent you from entering certain places, remove you from a premises, make a citizen's arrest and use force if reasonable and necessary.

"[The general public] don't think of them as ... first responders to incidents, offering first aid, jumping in and going towards situations while others go the opposite way," Mr Taylor said.

Mr Taylor said he had long been advocating for security guards to be armed with capsicum sprays, stab-proof vests, batons and handcuffs.

"They're often going around with a small first aid kit, a torch and a radio," he said.

"For unarmed security personnel to be dealing with someone with an edged weapon like that ... sadly they had nothing else at their disposal — they don't stand a chance."

Samuel*, a security manager with more than 17 years experience in the industry, said people didn't understand the limitations placed on security guards.

He said Mr Tahir's death could have been prevented if he had proper protective gear.

"[He] did not have to lose his life ... no-one should have had to lose their lives over that."

Another security guard, Felix*, said greater access to stab-proof vests would better protect security guards against stabbings.

He said some employers didn't like security guards wearing extra protective equipment because it made them look unfriendly.

"A lot of clients want security to appear more as a friendly concierge. They get their panties in a twist that we look too intimidating or tactical. They believe it leaves their patrons with an uneasy feeling."

'A dangerous road'

Though it would require additional regulation, training, and likely, pay, Mr Taylor said it was time to give security guards better access to things like batons, protective equipment and capsicum sprays.

He said going so far as to arm security guards with guns, like they do in the United States, was not the solution.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-16/bondi-junction-stabbing-sydney-security-guard-protections/103708702

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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