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Is there a true religion?
By Dallas M. Roark, Ph.D.
If the discussion of a true religion is to be meaningful, it must have an objective starting point. In a sense it must parallel the scientific method. We cannot start with a given factor. The starting point must be one that all people can have and assume. It cannot be from the standpoint of a particular holy book. It is useless for the Christian to quote the Bible to a Muslim, or a Buddhist when one or both reject the Bible as authoritative. If we are to deal with the question of a true religion we have to begin before the books are used. We cannot start with the presupposition that one religion is better than another. Ravi Zacharias has said that it is more probable that all religions are false than that all religions are true. There are too many contradictions between religious systems. In the age of political correctness it seems the polite things to say that are religions are very similar and all have the same goal in mind. Only people who don't know what it is all about are inclined to say this.
Blaise Pascal, the French scientific and religious genius of the seventeenth century proposed a beginning point for discussing the issue of a true religion that may be common to all people.
Pascal attempted to put forth certain propositions, based in part on observation and in part on reason, which would help one to discover the true religion if it existed. Although Pascal never finished his proposed work, his fragmented thoughts (Pensées) have become one of the classics of world literature. Pascal's approach has a feature common to all men: each man may look, observe, and draw conclusions from where he is. It is really an inductive method.1 Pascal maintains that for a religion to be true, it must give an adequate and satisfactory answer to the following criteria.
1. The true religion teaches the hiddenness of God: It is quite evident that if God is, he is not perceived by sensory perception. God is not an object that has been analyzed in the laboratory. If God exists, he exists in some hidden state or form; for we cannot see him. Concerning this, Pascal wrote, "God being thus hidden every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true and every religion which does not give the reason of it, is not instructive."2 The hiddenness of God, or to use the Latin phrase, Deus absconditus, is a basic beginning point for dialogue among religious traditions.
This is a common truth that all can agree on. The Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jew, and whoever else, cannot see God. We can turn to the applications.
In applying this principle, one may begin with pantheistic religious systems. A popular definition of pantheism is that "all things or beings are modes, attributes, or appearances of one single reality of Being; hence nature and God are believed to be identical."3
Man as the observer cannot conclude from his examination of reality that nature and God are identical. To be a pantheist, one must bring something with his observation; namely, the faith that God and Nature are one. He will not get this out of nature alone. Pantheism applied to man's existence means that man is part of the divine essence. Man is a spark of divinity. But again, this is not something we know by observation, by sight, touch, or self-knowledge. It may be the grossest perversion of self-knowledge. All that the senses will approve are two alternatives: God is hidden, or God is not!4
Pantheisms are dangerous because man is led to have an overly optimistic view concerning his own nature. Pantheism is caught up in trying to explain evil away or as an illusion, or false thinking, otherwise it is logically blamed on God because God is everything and evil would be part of his nature. Kraemer charges that the result of pantheism as in parts of Hinduism, is "that God or the divine never really exists."5 The only thing that one really experiences is human consciousness which is regarded as a mirage at best. But paradoxically, those religions which identify man with God in some pantheistic form are those that stand in abhorrence of a true incarnation, in which God assumes human flesh.6
In a different way, this principle of Pascal is seen in the classical teachings of Buddha and Confucius as we know them. Neither of these founders was interested in discussing the existence of God. For all practical purposes, Gautama and Confucius were non-theists. In due time, not only were the founders apotheosized or elevated to godhood, but other gods were added. Gautama cannot be said to have received a "divine revelation." What happened was that he came to see a basic truth about the nature of suffering, the reason for it, and the possibility of escaping from it. It is an insight about the way to happiness if one views happiness as the escape from desire. However, it has been observed that even the desire to rid oneself of desire is desire.
Confucius taught nothing more than an ancient form of humanism. He declared that "absorption in the study of the supernatural is most harmful."7 In true humanist style, Confucius "explained evil as human selfishness, delusion and incapability. When a pupil asked him about death and service of the spirits, he replied, "Till you have learnt to serve men, how can you serve the ghosts? ... Till you know about the living, how are you to know about the dead?"8
The irony is that both Gautama and Confucius, who had little to say about whether God exists or not, were declared to be gods by their later followers.
In the case of Islam, the deity is hidden but there is no explanation as to why he is hidden, which relates to the second part of Pascal's proposition. The Qur'an does not know of the holy God who has hidden himself because of man's sinfulness. Islam is a moralistic, rationalistic form of religion emphasizing the works of righteousness as a means of acceptability before God. Kraemer says that it is a "legalistic religion in which everything hangs upon the efforts of the believer and on whether he fulfills the requirements of the Divine Law. Thus it is, so to say, a religion permeated by a form — a somewhat inflected form — of self-deliverance, self-justification and self-sanctification with, in the end, no firm and settled basis for it."9
The hiddenness of God demands that a radically new concept of God be in evidence as the explanation. The concept of God must not be a construction of human thought, for man cannot ferret out that which is hidden as the hidden relates to God. If we are to know the reason that God is hidden it cannot be found out from the human mind. The answer must come from the hidden God. This can only be possible with the idea of revelation. Since Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism do not claim revelation there is no word from the hidden God. In the case of Buddhism and Hinduism there is meditation, not revelation.
There is a place where the reason for God's hiddenness is revealed. Leviticus 11:45 "For I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that I could be your God. You must be holy for I am holy." Holiness required separation from the sins of the pagans and idolaters around them. It required personal moral purity in life and when the people of Israel continued to rebel against God, he withdrew from them and brought them to judgement for their sins. Jeremiah wrote, "Your own evil will punish you, and your turning from me will condemn you. You will learn how bitter and wrong it is to abandon me, the Lord your God." (2:19) "Your sins have kept these good things from you." (5:25) The summation of this is described in the book of Romans where God gave them up to go their own way to their own self-destruction.
The concept of Deus absconditus (or the hidden God) is closely related with the reason for its hiddenness. For Pascal the explanation of God's hiddenness is in man's sin. Where sin is not taken seriously, identification of man with the divine comes easy. Where sin is a grave, serious act against the divine, an ethical act and an ethical deviation, then it is not possible to identify man with God. The qualitative difference between God and man must be stressed. For the most part, the religious traditions of the world fail to take seriously the concept of sin10. Brunner declares, "The counterpart of unhistorical religion, religion without a mediator, is the failure to recognize the radical character of the guilt of sin. It is an attempt to create a relationship with God which takes no account of the fact of guilt."11
In the concept of the hidden God, one cannot conclude from observation that God is holy or that he is love. This is a message that has to come from God to man; it has not originated with man.
"The message that God is Love is something wholly new in the world. We perceive this if we try to apply the statement to the divinities of the various religions of the world: Wotan is Love, Zeus, Jupiter, Brahma, Ahura Mazda, Vishnu, Allah, is Love. All these combinations are wholly impossible. Even the God of Plato, who is the principle of all Good, is not Love. Plato would have met the statement 'God is Love' with a bewildered shake of the head."12
Brunner continues to say that it is possible to find a "gracious" God in some of the religions of the world, "but the fact that God is Love, and thus that love is the very essence of the Nature of God, is never explicitly said anywhere, and still less is it revealed in divine self-surrender. The God of the Bhakti religion, which is often regarded as parallel to the Christian Faith, is 'essentially — in his relation to the World — wholly uninterested.'"13
In conclusion to this section, we must affirm the hiddenness of God. If God is thus hidden, we must know the reason for it. This means that if we are to know of God and what he is like, this knowledge will not be found in any other way than for God to speak. Because God is hidden, we must reject those approaches to religious life that equate man with God. If God is hidden, the reason for his hiddenness will be given by God and will not be discoverable by man alone. A crucial question that enters here is: Has God spoken in a clear way concerning these things? This will be answered later.
2. The true religion must explain the misery of man: Pascal wrote, "That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. It ought to know its greatness and littleness, and the reason of both." (Pensées 433) In Pensées 493, he wrote, "The true religion teaches our duties; our weaknesses, our pride, and lust; and the remedies, humility, and mortification." Pascal's insight into the nature of man is one that can naturally grow out of an inductive observation. He wrote of man, "What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!" (Pensées 434, p. 143)
The history of man gives plenty of evidence that there is something wrong with man. Why the wars, murders, intrigues, plotting, hating, exploiting, and the greed of man? What explanation can we give for the wrongs that people do to one another? Why is there infighting in families, communities, tribes and nations? Why are past evils passed on to new generations as though they had happened to them? Someone has said that if the doctrine of original sin had not been known it would have to be invented. There is something radically wrong with mankind.
What best accounts for the misery of man? Pascal's answer is found in the meaningful little word "sin." We have said that sin as a concept is lacking in much of the religious thought of the world. Misunderstanding can arise here if we are not careful. In many religions, depending upon their orientation, sin is not understood in ethical terms. Sin is a nonethical impediment, or an erroneous way of thinking that keeps one from achieving union with the world soul. In the thought of Hindus, for example, sin would be the continuing erroneous thought about the actual existence of individuality. This sin is not ethical but a matter of wrong knowledge. In this sense, sin may be defined as maya, or illusion. A similar situation prevails in Christian Science in America. Sin is erroneous thinking.
With reference to sin, as seen in certain forms of Hindu bhakti, Kraemer declares, "Sin in these religions is not the result of self-centered and misdirected human will that opposes the will of the God of holiness and righteousness, but an impediment for the realization of that fellowship of the soul with Ishvara, in which salvation consists."14
As one probes more deeply into the real nature of religious expression, one sees that sin is generally regarded as really insignificant and many religions are really means of "self-redemption, self-justification, and self-sanctification"15 — concepts that basically ignore sin.
Following the clue of Pascal, one may conclude that there is only one adequate concept to explain the misery of man as one can observe man's problems, and that is sin as a willful rebellion against a holy God. The sinfulness of man has caused man to pervert his religious worship. He has turned from the Creator to the creatures and reveres a cow or other animals, while his children starve from protein deficiency. He has taken food from his starving babies to give to an idol that does not consume it. His famine is not due to his ignorance of modern technology alone; his religion, with its inadequate definition of and emphasis on sin, can explain much of his misery. There is a lot of bad religion in the world as well as good.
In concluding this section, we must say that these two propositions go together. A serious definition of sin is the explanation of why God is hidden. He is hidden in his relationship to men for two reasons: first, he is holy, and his nature is against the whole fabric of sin; second, his hiddenness is for man's protection. If the holiness of God were revealed against man in his sin, he could not survive. His grace and love toward man provides the reason for his withdrawing himself from man's presence. Because he is hidden we can only know about sin against Him by his revealing that to mankind.
3. The true religion must teach how man can know God who is hidden, or give the remedy for his alienation and misery: Pascal declared, "The true religion, then, must teach us to worship Him only, and to love Him only. But we find ourselves unable to worship what we know not, and to love any other object but ourselves, the religion which instructs us in these duties must instruct us also of this inability, and teach us also the remedies for it." (Pensées 489)
In Pensées 546, [Pascal] said, "We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion with God is taken away: through Jesus Christ we know God. ... In Him then, and through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary mediator promised, and come, we cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. ... Jesus Christ is then the true God of man. But we know at the same time our wretchedness; for this God is none other than the Saviour of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities."
In Pensées 555, he wrote, "All who seek God without Jesus Christ, and who rest in nature, either find no light to satisfy them, or come to form for themselves a means of knowing God and serving Him without a mediator."
The basic idea involved here is the necessity of a mediator. Men in their religious traditions often either ignore the existence of God, or make religion a way of life and human achievement to "buy" God off, or assume that one can enter into communion with God by some mystical experience that ignores God's holiness. In all of these attempts to enter into a relationship with God, the first two propositions are ignored. God does not need man's proud religious activities, nor will he be united in mystical experience with presumptuous, sinful men. The god who accepts such is not a holy god.
However, if God is truly hidden as is true to observation and experience, then it is impossible for men to find him by searching. God must come to man but God has no basic reason for the Incarnation. Man in his wretchedness and sin cannot enter into the presence of a holy God.
The necessity of a mediator is pointed out by Soren Kierkegaard in his little book Philosophical Fragments. He told the story of a king who fell in love with a humble maiden. He was a mighty king; every nation feared his wrath. But the king was anxious, like all men, when it came to getting the right girl to be his wife. The thought that entered his kingly mind was this: Would she be able to summon confidence enough never to remember what the king wished, only to forget that he was a king and that she was a humble maiden? The king was anxious lest she reflect upon this and let it rob her of happiness. If the marriage was unequal, the beauty of their love would be lost.
A number of alternatives could be suggested to the king. First, he could elevate the maiden to his side and forget the inequality. But there was always the possible thought coming into the maiden's heart that after all she was a commoner and he was a king. Such a marriage could be consummated, but love would never be maintained on a basis of equality.
Second, as an alternative, should someone suggest that the king could reveal himself to her in all his majesty, pomp, and glory and she would fall down and worship him and be humbled by the fact that so great a favor was being bestowed upon her. To this the king would undoubtedly demand the execution of the person suggesting this as high treason against his beloved. The king could not enter into a relationship such as this. Such was the kingly dilemma. (There are so many religious cultures today in which people are forced into submission. Such forced worship is an insult to the being that is worshiped.)
The solution comes in the third alternative. The king should descend and thereby give up his throne to become a commoner for the purpose of loving the maiden as an equal.
Kierkegaard applies this story to the relation of God with man. God could have elevated man into his presence and transfigured him to fill his life with joy for eternity. But the king, knowing the human heart, would not stand for this, for it would end only in self-deception. To this Soren Kierkegaard says, "No one is so terribly deceived as he who does not suspect it."16 On the other hand, God could have brought about worship from man, "causing him to forget himself over divine apparition."17 Such a procedure would not have pleased man, nor would it have pleased the king, "who desired not his own glorification but the maiden's." This is an impossible alternative because of God's holiness.
Regarding this, Soren Kierkegaard said, "There once lived a people who had a profound understanding of the divine. This people thought that no man could see God and live — Who grasps this contradiction of sorrow: not to reveal oneself is the death of love, to reveal oneself is the death of the beloved!"18 The holiness of God revealed to sinful man would have meant his destruction. It is for this reason that God is hidden.
The third alternative for bringing reconciliation or union between God and man is the same as for the king. "Since we have found that the union could not be brought about by the elevation it must be attempted by a descent. ... In order that the union may be brought about, God must therefore become the equal of such a one and so he will appear in the lives of the humblest but the humblest is one who must serve others and God will therefore appear in the form of a servant."19
In Jesus we have the God-man walking the shores of Galilee, healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God, and ultimately rising Himself from death.
Both Kierkegaard and Pascal support the idea that only Christianity offers a mediator. Gautama, Confucius, Muhammad,20 and others made no claim to being anything more than men with religious insight.
Before concluding this section, a reference should be made to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism is to be regarded as a "true religion" only as far as it goes, or is true to itself. The last of the Old Testament prophets appeared in John the Baptist calling Israel to a decision. With John the Baptist, the Old Testament sees itself coming to fulfillment. The Old Testament speaks of a coming Messiah, with many references beginning in Genesis, Deuteronomy, and the many references in the prophetic books. Isaiah gives very graphic pictures of the future king. A virgin shall give birth and the child shall be called Immanuel. (7:14) Isaiah 9:6-7 describes "A child has been born for us. We have been given a son who will be our ruler. His names will be Wonderful Advisor and Mighty God, Eternal Father and Prince of Peace. His power will never end; peace will last forever. He will rule David's kingdom and make it grow strong. He will always rule with honesty and justice. The LORD All-Powerful will make certain that all of this is done."
Isaiah 11 gives a promising future to David's kingdom like a branch sprouting from a stump. "The Spirit of the LORD will be with him to give him understanding, wisdom, and insight. He will be powerful, and he will know and honor the LORD." Micah 5:2 gives the birth home of the coming ruler of Israel, Bethlehem. Jeremiah enlarges on the hope especially when the kingdom was falling in his day. He declared God's promise: "The Spirit of the LORD will be with him to give him understanding, wisdom, and insight. He will be powerful, and he will know and honor the LORD." (23:5) Later God says I will break the yokes that keep you in slavery and "I will choose a king for you from the family of David." (30:9)
Ezekiel promises a future after their present judgment in which God says, "I will give you a shepherd from the family of my servant King David." (34:23) In a different motif there are a number of passages in Isaiah focusing on the servant of Yahweh. Most prominent is Isaiah 52:13-53:12 concerning the suffering servant.
There are many other passages in the background of Israel in the days of Jesus in which hopes were evident for a messiah. The Messiah did not appear out of thin air without any basis. The early disciples of Jesus saw in him the fulfillment of these promises.
The prophet John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies. It is questionable whether Judaism can be regarded as a continuation of the Old Testament religion, especially since the authoritative influence of the Talmud has shaped post-biblical religious life. The Talmud embodies the way of thinking which Jesus criticized that the oral tradition had superceded the written Torah.
Islam poses a particular problem with reference to Christianity and the matter of being the final successor to Judaism and Christianity. Islam claims that it stands in the line of the prophets and the biblical revelation of Judaism and Christianity. But is this so? Can we equate Allah with Yahweh of the Old Testament? The Muslims make this claim. But consider the following.
First, who is Allah? When Mohammed preached to the Meccans he did not introduce a new god, but proclaimed that one of their many gods, Allah, was the greatest and only god. The Meccans did not accuse Mohammed of preaching a different god than they knew. He demanded that they believe in one god, not many as were accepted before. It is yet an unsettled controversy in that there are thinkers who speak of Allah as the moon-god as represented by the symbol of the crescent, the symbol of Islam. The crescent moon is on mosques and minarets, is found on the flags of Islamic nations and the month of Ramadan begins and ends the fast with the appearance of the crescent moon. Only time will tell how this controversy will play out.
Second, Muslims claim that the Old and New Testament have been corrupted by Jews and Christians to thwart the claim of Muslims that he was prophesied in the Bible. This is unbelievable! There are many manuscripts that pre-date Mohammed's time. The Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and others date before the birth of Mohammed. There are other versions that existed before the rise of Islam, ie., Syriac, Old Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, The Peshitta, and the Vulgate in the Latin. It is a crock that Muslims would argue that the Scriptures have been corrupted by the Jews and Christians.21
It is interesting that Mohammed regarded the Scriptures as reliable contrary to later Muslim writers. Mohammed asked the Jews to check the Old Testament to see if his name was mentioned there. The Qur'an says, about Jesus, "God shall teach him the scripture, and wisdom, and the law and the gospel..."22 If the Qur'an and Mohammed regarded the Bible as reliable, then the Muslims have a problem. If the Qur'an is right on this point, then the Bible is right also. If the Bible is correct, the Muslim ideology cannot be in harmony with the Bible.
Third, the character of Mohammed is unlike any prophet in the Bible. Many of his claims to revelation are self-serving. Mohammed's claim that Muslims could have only four wives while he can have any woman he wanted is self-serving. Mohammed could not stand ridicule and that is why he put to death a Meccan woman who wrote satirical poetry against him. The commands to kill the infidels, those who rejected him, makes Mohammed a man of war, not peace, Mohammed led his forces in about 18 battles and planned about 38 others. The history of Islam beginning with Mohammed is a history of war, conquest, greed, and tyranny. Islam does not allow freedom of religious expression. It does not understand, or acknowledge that forced worship, coercive worship is not real worship at all. Forced worship would only please the Devil, not Yahweh.
We cannot conclude that the god of Islam is the same as Yahweh of the Old Testament who becomes Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth to redeem mankind. This finality in Christ eliminates any other coming prophet such as Muhammad. The epistle of Hebrews speaks with finality about God's last word, his highest word, coming in his Son. Islam cannot therefore be regarded as an extension, culmination, or completion of the Judeo-Christian tradition. While there are prophets mentioned in the New Testament they were in agreement with the Christian Gospel and did not seek to supersede the New Testament revelation or claim a different revelation. (Mt. 23:34; Acts 11:27-29; 13:2-3; 15:32;21:9-11; 1 Cor. 12:28-29; Eph. 2:20; 3:5;4:11, for example)
The Uniqueness of Christ
Pursuing the line of Pascal's argument, one may conclude that Christianity alone gives the best answer to the three questions: Why is God hidden? Why is man in misery? How can man know God? If we can say that Jesus Christ is the mediator, then there are some things about his person that are important. In these he was unique as a founder, as opposed to other founders.23
The Incarnation is a necessity for the act of redemption. Human experience has shown, when viewed honestly, that man is incapable of redeeming himself. Anything less than God as Redeemer is to make a mockery of the idea. P. T. Forsyth once said, in stressing the place of the Incarnation, "A half-god cannot redeem what it took a whole God to make." Nowhere in the other living religions of the world is there a claim on the part of a founder that he was the Son of God in the unique sense of the word. This claim remains alone to Jesus Christ.
It is sometimes argued that the Christian faith is unique in relation to the sublime sayings of Jesus. This proves nothing. It has been shown by Claude Montefiore, the Jewish scholar, that Jesus said little that was new and different from the thought of Judaism but he spoke with authority unlike the rabbis who quoted the traditions. The only thing that he found that was quite distinctive was the picture of the Divine Shepherd going out into the wilderness to seek a lost sheep. This is only a fragment of the truth of the uniqueness of Christian faith. The uniqueness of Jesus is not in what he said but in who he was, what he did, and where he went. The founders of the world religions proposed ways of self-deliverance, self-sanctification, and self-realization. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, did for man something man could not do for himself. It is for this reason that there is a gospel, a good news, and it is the news of something that happened in Jerusalem at a given point in history. The event that took place was redemption of man in the person of Jesus Christ. His life, death, and resurrection are the redemptive events. He alone gave his life as an atonement for alienated mankind. No other founder of a religion gave his life for mankind, you and me.
There is only one statement that has to be made concerning all the founders of the living religions: they died and were buried! The stories of their lives end there. The word concerning Christ is different. He came forth from the grave, was raised up, and ascended to the Father. Without the resurrection, one could only conclude that Jesus was a great teacher, perhaps a second Moses, but with the resurrection he is declared to be the Son of God. On this Barth says:
"The knowledge which the Apostles acquired on the basis of Christ's Resurrection, the conclusion of which is the Ascension of Christ, is essentially this basic knowledge that the reconciliation which took place in Jesus Christ is not some casual story, but that in this work of God's grace we have to do with the word of God's omnipotence, that here an ultimate and supreme thing comes into action, behind which there is no other reality."24
While it is evident that one cannot become a Christian on a purely reasonable basis, Christian faith alone gives adequate answers to the questions of the mind concerning the facts of observation and existence. The founder of the Christian faith possesses a uniqueness that cannot be duplicated or rivaled in the founders of other religions. We conclude with Pascal that "the knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in Him we find both God and (the answers to) our misery." (Pensées 526)
Pascal's line of thought points out the importance of the original insight of the founder of the religion. Talmudic Judaism is so legalistic that one can hardly recognize its relation to the Torah. Buddhism is fragmented into two great divisions with lots of sub-divisions and Mahayana Buddhism has little relation to the simplicity of Gautama's insight. In the Christian tradition the concept of development in the Catholic tradition seems far removed from the early church as described in the New Testament. Where individuals and movements have deviated from the pattern as set forth in the Scriptures they stand under the criticism of the Founder, Jesus Christ. There is no justification for development away from the person of Jesus Christ.
The Exclusiveness of the Gospel
Pascal's propositions can lead to the conclusion that Christian faith alone gives the best answers to the observable experience of man. At the same time, the New Testament is written on the assumption that the final revelation of God has taken place. In contrast to Judaism and the Old Testament, the revelation of God in his Son is declared to be the greatest expression of Himself to man (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus Christ is said to be a better mediator of the covenant than Moses (Heb. 9:15), a better high priest than Melchizedek (Heb. 7:1-28), and a better sacrifice than that offered by the Levitical priesthood (Heb. 8-9). These references imply the completion or fulfillment of Judaism.
In the preaching of Paul to the townspeople of Athens, he declared the Creator who has been the unknown God among heathen people. All other representations in gold, silver, and stone are due to man's corrupt way of thinking (Acts 17:29). The preaching of Peter in Jerusalem was to the intent that "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) The New Testament viewpoint is identical in exclusiveness with that of Isaiah (45:21-22): "There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."
Not only is there an exclusive viewpoint expressed in the New Testament, but other religions are "forms" denying the power of godliness. (2 Tim. 3:5) Originators of new religions or religious concepts apart from the apostolic gospel are compared to gangrene eating away the true flesh (2 Tim. 2:17). The followers of such "strange new religions" are foretold in1 Timothy 4:1-2. Anything contrary to Christ is anathema. (Col. 2:8; Gal. 1:8)
It is very obvious that Christianity does make exclusive claims to being the only right way of knowing God. One may not like it or agree with it, but the claim is there. A man of Christian faith may not like it, but he is not at liberty to change it for the sake of sentimentality. We may not like the law of gravity on occasions, but there are certain facts that we cannot change by nature of the universe.
With an exclusive attitude on the one hand and different religious viewpoints on the other, what is one to say to it all? Can we conclude with Schleiermacher that there is an "essence of religion" which is common to all religions and which manifests itself in different forms? Or is Brunner correct in saying, "It is impossible to be a Christian — in the New Testament sense — and at the same time to accept the view that there is a universal 'essence of religion' of which Christianity has a predominant share. The Christian revelation and these 'relative' theories of religion are mutually exclusive."25


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Scientists at MDI Biological Laboratory identify new genetic regulators of regeneration
BAR HARBOR, MAINE — Scientists at the MDI Biological Laboratory and the University of Maine have discovered that genetic material in the cell that was previously thought to be "junk" because of its apparent lack of function likely plays a part in regulating genetic circuits responsible for regeneration in highly regenerative animals.
Viravuth P. Yin, Ph.D., of the MDI Biological Laboratory and Benjamin L. King, Ph.D., of the University of Maine identified these "long noncoding RNAs" by studying genomic data from highly regenerative animals included in a RegenDbase (Comparative Models of Regeneration Database) developed by the MDI Biological Laboratory.
The discovery of these novel long noncoding RNAs and their role in regulating regeneration may lead to an answer to the paramount question that is being examined by scientists at the MDI Biological Laboratory: If highly regenerative animals such as zebrafish and salamanders can regenerate tissues and organs, why we can't we?
The answer could one day lead to the development of drugs to trigger humans' dormant pathways for regeneration. Like most other mammals, the capacity for regeneration in adult humans is limited.
The paper describing the scientists' findings was published in a recent issue of npj Regenerative Medicine.
"Many chronic and degenerative diseases are characterized by a limited capacity to repair and regenerate damaged tissues," said Yin. "By advancing our understanding of the genetic regulation of regeneration in highly regenerative animals, we may one day be able to trigger regeneration in humans with drugs that manipulate these pathways."
The role of noncoding RNAs
In particular, the scientists looked at the role of noncoding RNAs, or RNAs that were formerly considered "junk" because they do not make proteins, in the early stages of heart regeneration in the zebrafish, a common aquarium fish that is one of nature's champions of regeneration.
RNA, or ribonucleic acid, typically acts as a messenger that transports instructions from the DNA, the carrier of genetic information, to the machinery in the cell that manufactures proteins involved in biological functions.
"One of the secrets to decoding why zebrafish can regenerate their hearts while adult humans cannot may lie with these noncoding RNAs," said King, the paper's lead author. "The protein-coding genes in zebrafish and humans are more or less the same — what's different is how they are regulated during regeneration by noncoding RNAs."
The discoveries of Yin and King — as well as other recent advances in the field of regenerative biology — have been enabled by the introduction of sophisticated genomic tools that scientists can use to identify the networks of genes responsible for orchestrating the complex process of regeneration in highly regenerative animals.
Applying these tools, the authors defined a comprehensive regeneration gene expression atlas for zebrafish heart regeneration and anchored the data as a point of reference for comparison with other models. Using computational analysis, they identified shared and unique patterns of gene expression in genomic data from various species.
"The biological role of more than 90 percent of the genetic material in the cell is unknown, which raises the question: Why is it there?" said Hermann Haller, M.D., president of the MDI Biological Laboratory. "This extraordinary discovery demonstrates the power of computational biology to map this uncharted genetic landscape."
Yin and King studied the roles of two types of noncoding RNAs — microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs — in zebrafish heart regeneration.
In addition to further elucidating the role of microRNAs, which are known to play a regulatory role in heart regeneration, the scientists also characterized the role of known and previously unknown long noncoding RNAs and the genes they potentially regulate through genetic proximity searches that King called "guilt by association."
The next step is to conduct studies of a select group of long noncoding RNAs in vertebrates with varying capacities for regeneration to validate the functions of the target gene networks that the scientists have identified and to test the extent to which these long noncoding RNAs are responsible for regulating these networks.
The RegenDbase: a 'Rosetta Stone' for regeneration
The paper also introduced the RegenDbase, a new database that allows scientists to compare and contrast gene regulatory pathways within and across tissues and research models, with a focus on noncoding RNAs.
The database was created using a new dataset for heart regeneration in zebrafish created at the MDI Biological Laboratory, as well as existing data on multiple types of injured tissues from various species. The utility of the database, which is available to the public, is expected to grow as more data is added, including from human tissues.
Yin compares the database to the Rosetta Stone, which in 1799 allowed linguists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs because the information inscribed on it was also presented in ancient Greek, a known language. Similarly, the new database is helping scientists translate the genetic code for regeneration from one species to another.
"Everything in biology comes with an instruction manual," said Yin, explaining the analogy. "If the manual for regeneration is in ancient Egyptian for zebrafish and in Greek for mammals, we can use the database to translate the codes into the same language so we can identify the components that are lacking in mammals."
The RegenDbase was created by the MDI Biological Laboratory under its Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program grant award. The institution was designated as a center of excellence in research on the comparative biology of tissue repair, regeneration and aging in 2013, a designation that was recently renewed.
The research was supported by COBRE grant P20 GM104318 and by Institutional Development Award (IDeA) grant P20 GM103423 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Additional support was provided to Yin by a Scott R. MacKenzie Foundation award (17003) and an American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant (11SDG7210045).
About the MDI Biological Laboratory
We are pioneering new approaches to regenerative medicine focused on developing drugs that slow age-related degenerative diseases and activate our natural ability to heal. Our unique approach has identified potential therapies that could revolutionize the treatment of heart disease, muscular dystrophy and more. Through the Maine Center for Biomedical Innovation we are preparing students for 21st century careers and equipping entrepreneurs with the knowledge, skills and resources needed to turn discoveries into applications that improve human health and well-being. For more information, please visit mdibl.org.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

subset: commoncrawl


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Official websites use .mil
Secure .mil websites use HTTPS
13th Coast Guard District 24hr (866) 498-0713
Bar Conditions For Oregon and Washington
National Response Center (800) 424-8802.
Regional Exam Center (888) 427-5662
National Documentation Center (800) 799-8362
Navigation Center (703) 313-5900
Report marine emergencies to the nearest Coast Guard Sector office!
- Sector Columbia River / Portland (833) 769-8724
- Sector Puget Sound / Seattle (206) 217-6002
13th Coast Guard District Local Notice to Mariners
United States Coast Guard Navigation Center Marine Safety Information
NOAA is in the process of sunsetting or ending the production of traditional paper charts. Click here to read more about this.
We, the men and women of the Thirteenth Coast Guard District, provide critical maritime services within the Pacific Northwest. Our missions - maritime security, safety, and national defense - require superior professionalism, devotion to excellence and the highest standards of integrity. We pride ourselves in treating others with respect and dignity, facilitating partnerships with local, state and national agencies, and being innovative in our approach to meeting the region's needs.
The Coast Guard 13th District comprises the Pacific Northwest and is the gateway to the North Pacific and Alaska. D13's Area of Responsibility encompasses four states and the entire Pacific Northwest coast. We also share a border with Canada to the north and California to the south.
The Coast Guard first established its presence in the Pacific Northwest with the construction and operation of 16 lighthouses along the coast built between 1852 and 1858. The presence was reaffirmed in 1854 with the entry of the Revenue Cutter Jefferson Davis to Puget Sound. Today, D13's headquarters is located in Seattle with two Sector offices managing operations in their respective areas - Puget Sound, located in Seattle, Washinton and Columbia River, located in Portland, Oregon.
The men and women of D13 conduct a vast array of daily operations in support of the Coast Guard's statutory missions. Our crews can be found conducting search and rescue, patrolling coast, sound and North Pacific to enforce safety and fisheries regulations, conducting safety and compliance inspections and exams on commercial vessels and waterfront facilities and protecting our nation's strategic defense and critical infrastructure.
D13 is home to the largest domestic ferry system in the U.S. moving 24 million passengers and 11 million vehicles annually across 10 routes, the 3rd largest domestic port, the 3rd largest cruise ship port, and the number one grain export gateway in the U.S. through the Columbia River.
D13 is made up of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. More than 3,000 active duty and reserve members, civilian employees, and Coast Guard Auxiliarists are stationed in the Pacific Northwest. D13 operational assets include 21 Cutters, 132 Boats and 11 Aircraft.
D13 also provides support and a homeport to Coast Guard Pacific Area assets including three medium endurance cutters, three icebreakers, a port security unit, maritime safety and security team, and Base Seattle.


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This is who we are
Supra's RocketLauncher comes complete with several preset pages that enable you to hit the ground running with a complete, feature-rich website.
Rick Grimes CEO
Supra features a number of uniquely-designed particles that make adding content to your website easy.
Maggie Greene HR
The Gantry 5 framework is packed with features that empower you to create a website that perfectly matches your vision and branding.


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Or search by topic
I don't know about you but when I'm walking or cycling I like to cut a corner if it's possible and safe. I do this most when I'm walking along a path and the next path is a long way ahead and going off to the left at right angles. Looking from above this might look like this :-
and so I decide to "cut the corner" as it saves time, it's a shorter distance to go, and you can overtake someone who is walking around the path. So I go along the dotted route.
Hey this makes a rather good triangle, also, I guess, rather special. The two shorter sides are the same length and are at right angles to each other.
You may, at school, have a collection of these kinds of triangles and you might be able put them together in different kinds of designs and patterns.
I thought it would be good to have a very "OPEN" challenge this time since this triangle came from the open-air! Here it is drawn on its own.
I've taken a big one of these triangles and cut it several times in a special way. The first cut was from the bottom right hand corner and cut the big triangle in half. I've then gone on to cut in a "Zig-Zag" fashion each cut halves the previous triangle, each time halving the remaining triangle.
You might do it on paper or card. But you might be able to use a draw program on your computer to make these Triangles [if you do that make sure that they are half of the size of the last one].
Finally - - as always -- "I wonder what would happen if we were allowed to . . . . ?"


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"Vote OR Vote" is working as a part of a statewide mission to register 38,000 Oregon students before the voter registration deadline on October 16. The goal specifically for Southern Oregon University is to register 1,300 students before that date.
The groups admit the goal is ambitious—it is the highest goal for student registration ever set by the school, according to Jason Pennell, ASSOU director of governmental affairs. This equates to registering 387 students per week. As of October 4, Pennell said "Vote OR Vote" is about halfway to their goal for SOU.
ASSOU and OSPIRG are spreading their message through a combination of clip-boarding, class presentations (known as "class wraps"), and tabling run by volunteers in front of the Stevenson Union. A kick-off meeting for "Vote OR Vote" was also held where students were invited to hear guest speakers, eat food and hear live music as well as register to vote.
Bekah Holloway, campus organizer for OSPIRG, said one of the reasons she has volunteered for the campaign is her goal of "making it as easy as possible for students to vote," particularly since students are one of the lowest demographics of voters.
"It's one of the easiest and most important things you'll ever do," said Holloway. "To not take advantage of it, you're really hurting yourself in the long run."
Another volunteer with OSPIRG, Kayla Elrod, feels that students need particular encouragement to vote.
"It's important to get your voice heard, or at least feel like you're getting your voice heard," Elrod said.
This coming week will see another part of the campaign called "Color the Vote," which is a program that spreads information to identity-based groups that are typically underrepresented voting communities. The goal for this program is to educate students about the history of voting rights and oppression for these groups.
The next step of the "Vote OR Vote" campaign will be to provide education about ballot measures and to hand out non-partisan voter guides.
"Vote OR Vote" is looking for volunteers to help spread the word and register SOU students. Anyone who is interested in volunteering for the campaign can go to the table in front of the SU weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or contact Jason Pennell at [email protected].


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Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee Lawyer Says 'War on Christmas' Lost?
A lawyer representing a group of churches that appears to have lost their bid to continue a nearly 60-year-old tradition of hosting a Nativity scene at a park in the beach city of Santa Monica, Calif., says the battle to preserve Christmas displays in the national public square has been lost.
"When [Monday] (11/19/2012), United States District Court Judge Audrey B Collins delivered a 28-page ruling denying my client the right to continue a 59-year-old tradition of exhibiting Nativity scenes along Ocean Boulevard in the City of Santa Monica this Christmas season, another dagger plunged into the heart of America's twilight customs and traditions. The sneered-at 'war on Christmas' was effectively lost for good," wrote William J. Becker, Jr., of The Becker Law Firm, in an article.
A controversy over the display about the birth of Jesus at Palisades Park erupted last Christmas season when an atheist group "manipulated" the city's lottery system for spaces, according to the Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee, resulting in only two booths for the Christian group that normally uses 14 booths for the various Nativity-related scenes.
Last Monday, Judge Audrey B. Collins denied a request from the committee to erect the large displays, primarily on the grounds that the city's administration was overburdened with the permit process for the displays, according to Becker. A temporary injunction to allow the displays to go up this Christmas season was not allowed.
Becker wrote in his article that the case has not been dismissed (at least not yet), but it appears that an upcoming hearing on Dec. 3 will be about a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against the city of Santa Monica.
"As lead counsel for the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee, a nonprofit made up of local churches and the police union, it is not my intention to surrender the cause," he states. "But the legal theories we presented to support the preservation of the Nativity tradition in Santa Monica and which the court rejected in their entirety are the identical legal theories advanced in opposition to the City's motion to dismiss … I lack the cheery optimism (or delusional hope) the trend will somehow magically reverse course, carrying us safely back to dock in the port of redemption. I fancy myself an able advocate, not a miracle worker."
Hunter Jameson, head of the Nativity scene committee, told The Christian Post on Monday that it is a shame that the atheist activist group swayed the city to eliminate the tradition.
"It's a very sad day when a small number of people with an axe to grind, people who do not like Christianity, and who do not like God, are able to prevail by manipulating rules to censor our message from the public place where it has been displayed for the enjoyment of millions of people for nearly 60 years," Jameson said.
"It's even sadder that a city government would allow itself to go along with this effort to try to snuff out a message that a small group of people did not agree with," Jameson added.
The group's lawyer summed up: "Traditions like the Nativity displays in Palisades Park Traditions like the Nativity displays in Palisades Park, religious tolerance and common sense can always look to tomorrow. But, I fear, in my naïve way, not before the gravitational pull of society's regressive 'progressive' movement has tired of battle."


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Neath Port Talbot Catering Services provide one million school meals a year. Our menus are carefully planned to meet the Welsh Nutritional Guidelines for school lunches by our catering managers, food advisers and saffron nutritional analysis system.
Healthy School Lunches
Our Catering Staff have undertaken nutrition training so pupils will be encouraged to eat nourishing vegetables or fruit daily and to make healthy choices.
It is our aim to ensure that all pupils can be provided with a healthy, nutritious meal and vegetarians and any special diet requests are catered for.
There is a hot main meal choice including a vegetarian option available daily plus a selection of vegetables, seasonal salads, a pasta option and wholemeal bread. There is also a daily main pudding with an additional option of fruit bowl choice. A daily selection of chilled milk or water are available.
Meals cost £2.35 per day for a two-course meal including a drink and are great value.
You can view and download the current School Lunches Menu
from the Broccoli Bob website by clicking here


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This performance is part of the showcase that starts on Saturday, March 18at Half Step
Busty and the Bass have come a long way in a short time. The nine members of the band connected in their first week at McGill University's jazz school in Montreal and started jamming. Casual house party gigs soon led to scorching live performances in front of thousands on stages across the U.S., Europe, and their home country of Canada. The group's natural chemistry and an ability to create a sound that Complex says is "best described as a lovechild between jazz, hip-hop, and electro-soul" has been a major hit with audiences, bouncing along and chanting "Bus-ty!" in unified delight. Even R&B legend Macy Gray is a fan of Busty and the Bass, praising their soulful living room session cover of her hit song "I Try" as "beeyooteefoh".
The band is gearing up to release their debut full-length album. Compared to their previous three EPs, the album finds them focused on the project as a whole, rather than just a collection of songs. It is also a continuation of their infectious brand of danceable electro-soul, hip-hop and funk.
On previous efforts the group recorded in the "busty basement", a place that guitarist Louis Stein says allowed for "experimentation and fun". This time around they decided to step up their game, enlisting the skills of Grammy award winning producer/mixer Neal Pogue, best known for his work with acts like Outkast, Snoop Dogg, Earth Wind and Fire, MIA, Nikki Minaj, Aretha Franklin, and Lil Wayne.
"Neal was the nucleus around which the entire project came together, bringing together all the diverse voices that make up the band and helping us create a cohesive body of work," says bassist Milo Johnson.
Pogue encouraged the band to listen to classic albums by Parliament, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Michael Jackson. Inspiration was also found in contemporary artists like Kendrick Lamar, D'Angelo, and James Blake. All of these influences can be heard on the album, but the way the band incorporates them into their own sound shows a sharp and original progression.
"The new songs represent a much more developed and mature version of our sound. It saw us moving away from the home-basement tracking that we did ourselves to a more encompassing studio environment," says vocalist and synth player Evan Crofton.
"Exceptional musicianship, wild creativity, and pure fun" (CBC) are difficult to achieve all together, but Busty and the Bass have proven it to be their forte. 2017 is poised to be the biggest year yet for the group as they embark on their first full tours of the U.S. and Europe. With a new album to share with the world, Busty and the Bass are just getting the party started.
Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.


text: Born in Moscow February 18, 1834, Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was the son of Tio Adamova, possibly of Georgian origin. Ivanov had a sad childhood in which he was shunted around by his mother between a foundling hospital and a merchant's family before being removed to a boarding school. At ten years old Ivanov was enrolled at the Imperial School of Ballet where he was a pupil of Marius Petipa's father, Jean Petipa. As a student he danced with Fanny Elssler in Catarina, Esmeralda and La Filleule des Fees. Ivanov was a natural musician; he could play, by ear, the entire score of a ballet on the piano. This talent was not universally respected. The director of the theater school threatened to "let him rot for his uncontrollable inclination toward music." Despite invitations to join the Conservatoire of Music, he showed no enthusiasm for music theory. Although he composed several pieces, he never learned how to write them in manuscript. On his sixteenth birthday, two years before he graduated from school in 1852, Ivanov had joined the Imperial Ballet under the direction of Jules Perrot. His only reward for such early employment was his continued education at the school. After graduating, his yearly salary was 300 roubles. Ivanov eventually rose to the rank of principal dancer, making his mark as a mime and creator of numerous character roles. In 1858 Ivanov began to teach at the theater school and in 1882 became the chief regisseur of the Maryinsky Theater. 1883 brought him the Gold Medal with the Stanislaus ribbon in recognition of his outstanding services. In 1885 he was appointed second ballet master, the assistant to Marius Petipa. In 1891 he was awarded the Order of Stanislaus, 3rd Class, and in 1893 the Order of Anne, 3rd Class. In 1991 he received the Order of Stanislaus, 2nd Class. Ivanov married twice and had three children by each wife. His first wife was Vera Lyadova, an actress, dancer and singer whom he married in 1859. They had danced together in what may have been Ivanov's first piece of choreography, a bolero during Auber's La Muette de Portici in 1857. Vera fell ill and died in March 1870, one year after the two had separated over personal differences. His second wife in 1875 was Varvara Ivanova, whose stage name was Malchugina. His was a constant struggle for financial stability, and even at the end of his life he was forced to petition for money. The authorities always seemed to forward him the requested money, even though there was little chance of repayment. Even after his death they continued to support his family for many years. While preparing a new production of Sylvia, Ivanov was seized with periods of intense fatigue and became ill. He died in St. Petersburg on December 11, 1901. History has conspired to make the naturally retiring Ivanov even more of an enigma. He danced at a time when all attention was paid to the ballerina, his choreography was always in the shadow of the more renowned Petipa and he was a Russian at a time when Russian ballet paid greater respect to foreigners. By his own admission Ivanov was never one to make a decision himself. Having been a premier danseur, then ballet master and eventually Petipa's assistant, he became a choreographer by command of his superiors. The terms of his agreement with Petipa were such that his choreography was always subject to Petipa's approval, who often altered or edited it. Though perhaps lacking in self confidence, Ivanov did produce some wonderfully poignant choreography. His most famous contributions to ballet are The Nutcracker (1892) and the 'white' acts of Swan Lake (1894-5); however, he also choreographed versions of La Fille mal Gardee (his first full ballet), The Haarlem Tulip (1887), The Magic Flute (1893), The Awakening of Flora (1893) and Coppelia. Choreographically, Ivanov's taste lay closer to the Romantic era in which he grew up than the new Classical era of Petipa. However, he never truly escaped from under Petipa's wing. Dance critic Barbara Newman wrote "Momentarily freed from the constraints of the [Petipa] libretto, for The Dance of the Snowflakes Ivanov focused his attention on the physical look and emotional feel of a snowstorm, and came up with a masterpiece of simplicity that embodied the music perfectly and drew unanimous praise." Although he did not leave a large legacy of dance works, Ivanov's influence did bear fruit in the revolutionary work of Mikhail Fokine for The Ballets Russes. Perhaps it is fitting to remember a late entry in Ivanov's own diary: "May you ever be blessed with the spirit and strength not to regard your profession merely as a means of livelihood, but as an Art to which you are resolved to dedicate your very soul."


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More about Orgonites:Orgonite is based on these two principles. It is a 50-50 mix of resin (organic, due to the fact that it is based on petrochemicals), and metal shavings (inorganic). All 7 chakra crystals is also added to the orgonite mix. This is because of its piezoelectric properties, which means that it gives off a charge when it is put under pressure (resin shrinks when it is cured, so constant pressure is put on the 7 chakra crystals).
Due to the fact that the elements contained in orgonite are constantly attracting and repelling energy, a "scrubbing" action takes place, and along with the charge that the crystal gives off, this cleans stagnant and negative energy, and brings it back to a healthy, vibrant state.
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One of the interesting sidelines to come out of the remarkably interesting leaked NYT innovation report in the last few days has been the fact that traffic to the NYT homepage has halved in two years. It's an intriguing statistic, and more than one media outlet has taken it and run with it to create a beguiling narrative about how the homepage is dead, or at the very least dying, why, and what this means for news organisations.
But what's true for the NYT is certainly not true for the whole of the rest of the industry. Other pages – articles and tag pages – are certainly becoming more important for news organisations, but that doesn't mean the homepage no longer matters – or that losing traffic to it is a normal and accepted shift in this new digital age. Losing traffic proportionately makes sense, but real-terms traffic loss looks rather unusual.
Audience stats like this are usually closely guarded secrets, because of their commercial sensitivity, but it's fair to suggest that homepage traffic (at least, to traditionally organised news homepages) is a reasonable indicator of brand loyalty, of interest in what that organisation has to say, and of trust that organisation can provide an interesting take on the day. Bookmarking the homepage or setting it as a start point for an internet journey is an even bigger mark of faith, a suggestion that one site will tell you what's most important at any given moment when you log in – but it's very hard even for sites themselves to measure bookmark stats, never mind to get some sort of broad competitor data that would shed light on whether that behaviour is declining.
It's plausible, therefore, that brand search would be a rough indicator of brand loyalty and therefore of homepage interest; the New York Times is declining there, while the Daily Mail, for example, has been rocketing to new highs recently. I would be incredibly surprised if the Mail shares this pessimism about the health of the homepage, based on its own numbers. (That's harder to measure for The Atlantic, whose marine namesake muddies the search comparison somewhat.)
The death of the homepage, much like the practice of SEO and pageviews as a metric, has been greatly exaggerated. What's happening here, as Martin Belam points out, is more complicated than that. As the internet is ageing, the older, standard ways of doing business and distributing content are changing, and are being joined by newer models and methods. Joined, not supplanted, unless of course you've created your new shiny thing purely to focus on the new stuff rather than the old stuff, the way Buzzfeed focuses on social and Quartz doesn't have any real homepage at all.
You need to be thinking about SEO and social, pageviews and engagement metrics, the homepage and the article page. Older techniques don't die just because we've all spotted something newer and sexier, unless the older thing stopped serving a genuine need; the resurgence of email is proof enough of that. Diversify your approach. Beware of zombies.


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WK Thun
Our history
Water polo club Thun was established in 1970 and named "Water polo team Thun". At the beginning it was just a swimming club, but later an independent division "Water Polo" was created. In September 2000 water polo division founded their own club "Water polo club Thun" (WKT) and separated from the Swimming Club Thun on January 1, 2001. Men's team, women's team and U20 women's team, as well as two U13 teams currently participate in championships.
In 1978 the junior team of WK Thun was launched and that created an important foundation for the subsequent years. New young talents will be integrating into the first team little by little.
1984 was the most successful year in the history of water polo club Thun. Our junior team has become a Swiss champion and the 1st team rose to the National League B (NLB) without point loss.
After three NLB seasons the 1st team has clearly strengthened its position and rose to the NLA. In 1987 Thun water polo players managed to rise to the highest Swiss league.
Since 1988 Thun women's team participate in championships.
In 2013 water polo club Thun was represented by three teams: the men's team, which now plays in the 2. Liga, the women's team, which is represented in the National League and the junior team (U15).
In 2015 women team becomes a cup winner! Young generation has developed outstandingly.


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The sun of Martin's good fortune rose. The day after Ruth's visit, he received a check for three dollars from a New York scandal weekly in payment for three of his triolets. Two days later a newspaper published in Chicago accepted his "Treasure Hunters," promising to pay ten dollars for it on publication. The price was small, but it was the first article he had written, his very first attempt to express his thought on the printed page. To cap everything, the adventure serial for boys, his second attempt, was accepted before the end of the week by a juvenile monthly calling itself Youth and Age. It was true the serial was twenty-one thousand words, and they offered to pay him sixteen dollars on publication, which was something like seventy-five cents a thousand words; but it was equally true that it was the second thing he had attempted to write and that he was himself thoroughly aware of its clumsy worthlessness.
But even his earliest efforts were not marked with the clumsiness of mediocrity. What characterized them was the clumsiness of too great strength - the clumsiness which the tyro betrays when he crushes butterflies with battering rams and hammers out vignettes with a war-club. So it was that Martin was glad to sell his early efforts for songs. He knew them for what they were, and it had not taken him long to acquire this knowledge. What he pinned his faith to was his later work. He had striven to be something more than a mere writer of magazine fiction. He had sought to equip himself with the tools of artistry. On the other hand, he had not sacrificed strength. His conscious aim had been to increase his strength by avoiding excess of strength. Nor had he departed from his love of reality. His work was realism, though he had endeavored to fuse with it the fancies and beauties of imagination. What he sought was an impassioned realism, shot through with human aspiration and faith. What he wanted was life as it was, with all its spirit-groping and soul-reaching left in.
He had discovered, in the course of his reading, two schools of fiction. One treated of man as a god, ignoring his earthly origin; the other treated of man as a clod, ignoring his heaven-sent dreams and divine possibilities. Both the god and the clod schools erred, in Martin's estimation, and erred through too great singleness of sight and purpose. There was a compromise that approximated the truth, though it flattered not the school of god, while it challenged the brute-savageness of the school of clod. It was his story, "Adventure," which had dragged with Ruth, that Martin believed had achieved his ideal of the true in fiction; and it was in an essay, "God and Clod," that he had expressed his views on the whole general subject.
But "Adventure," and all that he deemed his best work, still went begging among the editors. His early work counted for nothing in his eyes except for the money it brought, and his horror stories, two of which he had sold, he did not consider high work nor his best work. To him they were frankly imaginative and fantastic, though invested with all the glamour of the real, wherein lay their power. This investiture of the grotesque and impossible with reality, he looked upon as a trick - a skilful trick at best. Great literature could not reside in such a field. Their artistry was high, but he denied the worthwhileness of artistry when divorced from humanness. The trick had been to fling over the face of his artistry a mask of humanness, and this he had done in the half-dozen or so stories of the horror brand he had written before he emerged upon the high peaks of "Adventure," "Joy," "The Pot," and "The Wine of Life."
The three dollars he received for the triolets he used to eke out a precarious existence against the arrival of the White Mouse check. He cashed the first check with the suspicious Portuguese grocer, paying a dollar on account and dividing the remaining two dollars between the baker and the fruit store. Martin was not yet rich enough to afford meat, and he was on slim allowance when the White Mouse check arrived. He was divided on the cashing of it. He had never been in a bank in his life, much less been in one on business, and he had a naive and childlike desire to walk into one of the big banks down in Oakland and fling down his indorsed check for forty dollars. On the other hand, practical common sense ruled that he should cash it with his grocer and thereby make an impression that would later result in an increase of credit. Reluctantly Martin yielded to the claims of the grocer, paying his bill with him in full, and receiving in change a pocketful of jingling coin. Also, he paid the other tradesmen in full, redeemed his suit and his bicycle, paid one month's rent on the type-writer, and paid Maria the overdue month for his room and a month in advance. This left him in his pocket, for emergencies, a balance of nearly three dollars.
In itself, this small sum seemed a fortune. Immediately on recovering his clothes he had gone to see Ruth, and on the way he could not refrain from jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket. He had been so long without money that, like a rescued starving man who cannot let the unconsumed food out of his sight, Martin could not keep his hand off the silver. He was not mean, nor avaricious, but the money meant more than so many dollars and cents. It stood for success, and the eagles stamped upon the coins were to him so many winged victories.
It came to him insensibly that it was a very good world. It certainly appeared more beautiful to him. For weeks it had been a very dull and sombre world; but now, with nearly all debts paid, three dollars jingling in his pocket, and in his mind the consciousness of success, the sun shone bright and warm, and even a rain-squall that soaked unprepared pedestrians seemed a merry happening to him. When he starved, his thoughts had dwelt often upon the thousands he knew were starving the world over; but now that he was feasted full, the fact of the thousands starving was no longer pregnant in his brain. He forgot about them, and, being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the world. Without deliberately thinking about it, motifs for love-lyrics began to agitate his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric car, without vexation, two blocks beyond his crossing.
He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruth's two girl- cousins were visiting her from San Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of entertaining them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth with young people. The campaign had begun during Martin's enforced absence, and was already in full swing. She was making a point of having at the house men who were doing things. Thus, in addition to the cousins Dorothy and Florence, Martin encountered two university professors, one of Latin, the other of English; a young army officer just back from the Philippines, one-time school- mate of Ruth's; a young fellow named Melville, private secretary to Joseph Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust Company; and finally of the men, a live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a youngish man of thirty-five, graduate of Stanford University, member of the Nile Club and the Unity Club, and a conservative speaker for the Republican Party during campaigns - in short, a rising young man in every way. Among the women was one who painted portraits, another who was a professional musician, and still another who possessed the degree of Doctor of Sociology and who was locally famous for her social settlement work in the slums of San Francisco. But the women did not count for much in Mrs. Morse's plan. At the best, they were necessary accessories. The men who did things must be drawn to the house somehow.
"Don't get excited when you talk," Ruth admonished Martin, before the ordeal of introduction began.
He bore himself a bit stiffly at first, oppressed by a sense of his own awkwardness, especially of his shoulders, which were up to their old trick of threatening destruction to furniture and ornaments. Also, he was rendered self-conscious by the company. He had never before been in contact with such exalted beings nor with so many of them. Melville, the bank cashier, fascinated him, and he resolved to investigate him at the first opportunity. For underneath Martin's awe lurked his assertive ego, and he felt the urge to measure himself with these men and women and to find out what they had learned from the books and life which he had not learned.
Ruth's eyes roved to him frequently to see how he was getting on, and she was surprised and gladdened by the ease with which he got acquainted with her cousins. He certainly did not grow excited, while being seated removed from him the worry of his shoulders. Ruth knew them for clever girls, superficially brilliant, and she could scarcely understand their praise of Martin later that night at going to bed. But he, on the other hand, a wit in his own class, a gay quizzer and laughter-maker at dances and Sunday picnics, had found the making of fun and the breaking of good- natured lances simple enough in this environment. And on this evening success stood at his back, patting him on the shoulder and telling him that he was making good, so that he could afford to laugh and make laughter and remain unabashed.
Later, Ruth's anxiety found justification. Martin and Professor Caldwell had got together in a conspicuous corner, and though Martin no longer wove the air with his hands, to Ruth's critical eye he permitted his own eyes to flash and glitter too frequently, talked too rapidly and warmly, grew too intense, and allowed his aroused blood to redden his cheeks too much. He lacked decorum and control, and was in decided contrast to the young professor of English with whom he talked.
But Martin was not concerned with appearances! He had been swift to note the other's trained mind and to appreciate his command of knowledge. Furthermore, Professor Caldwell did not realize Martin's concept of the average English professor. Martin wanted him to talk shop, and, though he seemed averse at first, succeeded in making him do it. For Martin did not see why a man should not talk shop.
"It's absurd and unfair," he had told Ruth weeks before, "this objection to talking shop. For what reason under the sun do men and women come together if not for the exchange of the best that is in them? And the best that is in them is what they are interested in, the thing by which they make their living, the thing they've specialized on and sat up days and nights over, and even dreamed about. Imagine Mr. Butler living up to social etiquette and enunciating his views on Paul Verlaine or the German drama or the novels of D'Annunzio. We'd be bored to death. I, for one, if I must listen to Mr. Butler, prefer to hear him talk about his law. It's the best that is in him, and life is so short that I want the best of every man and woman I meet."
"But," Ruth had objected, "there are the topics of general interest to all."
"There, you mistake," he had rushed on. "All persons in society, all cliques in society - or, rather, nearly all persons and cliques - ape their betters. Now, who are the best betters? The idlers, the wealthy idlers. They do not know, as a rule, the things known by the persons who are doing something in the world. To listen to conversation about such things would mean to be bored, wherefore the idlers decree that such things are shop and must not be talked about. Likewise they decree the things that are not shop and which may be talked about, and those things are the latest operas, latest novels, cards, billiards, cocktails, automobiles, horse shows, trout fishing, tuna-fishing, big-game shooting, yacht sailing, and so forth - and mark you, these are the things the idlers know. In all truth, they constitute the shop-talk of the idlers. And the funniest part of it is that many of the clever people, and all the would-be clever people, allow the idlers so to impose upon them. As for me, I want the best a man's got in him, call it shop vulgarity or anything you please."
And Ruth had not understood. This attack of his on the established had seemed to her just so much wilfulness of opinion.
So Martin contaminated Professor Caldwell with his own earnestness, challenging him to speak his mind. As Ruth paused beside them she heard Martin saying:-
"You surely don't pronounce such heresies in the University of California?"
Professor Caldwell shrugged his shoulders. "The honest taxpayer and the politician, you know. Sacramento gives us our appropriations and therefore we kowtow to Sacramento, and to the Board of Regents, and to the party press, or to the press of both parties."
"Yes, that's clear; but how about you?" Martin urged. "You must be a fish out of the water."
"Few like me, I imagine, in the university pond. Sometimes I am fairly sure I am out of water, and that I should belong in Paris, in Grub Street, in a hermit's cave, or in some sadly wild Bohemian crowd, drinking claret, - dago-red they call it in San Francisco, - dining in cheap restaurants in the Latin Quarter, and expressing vociferously radical views upon all creation. Really, I am frequently almost sure that I was cut out to be a radical. But then, there are so many questions on which I am not sure. I grow timid when I am face to face with my human frailty, which ever prevents me from grasping all the factors in any problem - human, vital problems, you know."
And as he talked on, Martin became aware that to his own lips had come the "Song of the Trade Wind":-
"I am strongest at noon, But under the moon I stiffen the bunt of the sail."
He was almost humming the words, and it dawned upon him that the other reminded him of the trade wind, of the Northeast Trade, steady, and cool, and strong. He was equable, he was to be relied upon, and withal there was a certain bafflement about him. Martin had the feeling that he never spoke his full mind, just as he had often had the feeling that the trades never blew their strongest but always held reserves of strength that were never used. Martin's trick of visioning was active as ever. His brain was a most accessible storehouse of remembered fact and fancy, and its contents seemed ever ordered and spread for his inspection. Whatever occurred in the instant present, Martin's mind immediately presented associated antithesis or similitude which ordinarily expressed themselves to him in vision. It was sheerly automatic, and his visioning was an unfailing accompaniment to the living present. Just as Ruth's face, in a momentary jealousy had called before his eyes a forgotten moonlight gale, and as Professor Caldwell made him see again the Northeast Trade herding the white billows across the purple sea, so, from moment to moment, not disconcerting but rather identifying and classifying, new memory- visions rose before him, or spread under his eyelids, or were thrown upon the screen of his consciousness. These visions came out of the actions and sensations of the past, out of things and events and books of yesterday and last week - a countless host of apparitions that, waking or sleeping, forever thronged his mind.
So it was, as he listened to Professor Caldwell's easy flow of speech - the conversation of a clever, cultured man - that Martin kept seeing himself down all his past. He saw himself when he had been quite the hoodlum, wearing a "stiff-rim" Stetson hat and a square-cut, double-breasted coat, with a certain swagger to the shoulders and possessing the ideal of being as tough as the police permitted. He did not disguise it to himself, nor attempt to palliate it. At one time in his life he had been just a common hoodlum, the leader of a gang that worried the police and terrorized honest, working-class householders. But his ideals had changed. He glanced about him at the well-bred, well-dressed men and women, and breathed into his lungs the atmosphere of culture and refinement, and at the same moment the ghost of his early youth, in stiff-rim and square-cut, with swagger and toughness, stalked across the room. This figure, of the corner hoodlum, he saw merge into himself, sitting and talking with an actual university professor.
For, after all, he had never found his permanent abiding place. He had fitted in wherever he found himself, been a favorite always and everywhere by virtue of holding his own at work and at play and by his willingness and ability to fight for his rights and command respect. But he had never taken root. He had fitted in sufficiently to satisfy his fellows but not to satisfy himself. He had been perturbed always by a feeling of unrest, had heard always the call of something from beyond, and had wandered on through life seeking it until he found books and art and love. And here he was, in the midst of all this, the only one of all the comrades he had adventured with who could have made themselves eligible for the inside of the Morse home.
But such thoughts and visions did not prevent him from following Professor Caldwell closely. And as he followed, comprehendingly and critically, he noted the unbroken field of the other's knowledge. As for himself, from moment to moment the conversation showed him gaps and open stretches, whole subjects with which he was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, thanks to his Spencer, he saw that he possessed the outlines of the field of knowledge. It was a matter only of time, when he would fill in the outline. Then watch out, he thought - 'ware shoal, everybody! He felt like sitting at the feet of the professor, worshipful and absorbent; but, as he listened, he began to discern a weakness in the other's judgments - a weakness so stray and elusive that he might not have caught it had it not been ever present. And when he did catch it, he leapt to equality at once.
Ruth came up to them a second time, just as Martin began to speak.
"I'll tell you where you are wrong, or, rather, what weakens your judgments," he said. "You lack biology. It has no place in your scheme of things. - Oh, I mean the real interpretative biology, from the ground up, from the laboratory and the test-tube and the vitalized inorganic right on up to the widest aesthetic and sociological generalizations."
Ruth was appalled. She had sat two lecture courses under Professor Caldwell and looked up to him as the living repository of all knowledge.
"I scarcely follow you," he said dubiously.
Martin was not so sure but what he had followed him.
"Then I'll try to explain," he said. "I remember reading in Egyptian history something to the effect that understanding could not be had of Egyptian art without first studying the land question."
"Quite right," the professor nodded.
"And it seems to me," Martin continued, "that knowledge of the land question, in turn, of all questions, for that matter, cannot be had without previous knowledge of the stuff and the constitution of life. How can we understand laws and institutions, religions and customs, without understanding, not merely the nature of the creatures that made them, but the nature of the stuff out of which the creatures are made? Is literature less human than the architecture and sculpture of Egypt? Is there one thing in the known universe that is not subject to the law of evolution? - Oh, I know there is an elaborate evolution of the various arts laid down, but it seems to me to be too mechanical. The human himself is left out. The evolution of the tool, of the harp, of music and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; but how about the evolution of the human himself, the development of the basic and intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or gibbered his first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and which I call biology. It is biology in its largest aspects.
"I know I express myself incoherently, but I've tried to hammer out the idea. It came to me as you were talking, so I was not primed and ready to deliver it. You spoke yourself of the human frailty that prevented one from taking all the factors into consideration. And you, in turn, - or so it seems to me, - leave out the biological factor, the very stuff out of which has been spun the fabric of all the arts, the warp and the woof of all human actions and achievements."
To Ruth's amazement, Martin was not immediately crushed, and that the professor replied in the way he did struck her as forbearance for Martin's youth. Professor Caldwell sat for a full minute, silent and fingering his watch chain.
"Do you know," he said at last, "I've had that same criticism passed on me once before - by a very great man, a scientist and evolutionist, Joseph Le Conte. But he is dead, and I thought to remain undetected; and now you come along and expose me. Seriously, though - and this is confession - I think there is something in your contention - a great deal, in fact. I am too classical, not enough up-to-date in the interpretative branches of science, and I can only plead the disadvantages of my education and a temperamental slothfulness that prevents me from doing the work. I wonder if you'll believe that I've never been inside a physics or chemistry laboratory? It is true, nevertheless. Le Conte was right, and so are you, Mr. Eden, at least to an extent - how much I do not know."
Ruth drew Martin away with her on a pretext; when she had got him aside, whispering:-
"You shouldn't have monopolized Professor Caldwell that way. There may be others who want to talk with him."
"My mistake," Martin admitted contritely. "But I'd got him stirred up, and he was so interesting that I did not think. Do you know, he is the brightest, the most intellectual, man I have ever talked with. And I'll tell you something else. I once thought that everybody who went to universities, or who sat in the high places in society, was just as brilliant and intelligent as he."
"He's an exception," she answered.
"I should say so. Whom do you want me to talk to now? - Oh, say, bring me up against that cashier-fellow."
Martin talked for fifteen minutes with him, nor could Ruth have wished better behavior on her lover's part. Not once did his eyes flash nor his cheeks flush, while the calmness and poise with which he talked surprised her. But in Martin's estimation the whole tribe of bank cashiers fell a few hundred per cent, and for the rest of the evening he labored under the impression that bank cashiers and talkers of platitudes were synonymous phrases. The army officer he found good-natured and simple, a healthy, wholesome young fellow, content to occupy the place in life into which birth and luck had flung him. On learning that he had completed two years in the university, Martin was puzzled to know where he had stored it away. Nevertheless Martin liked him better than the platitudinous bank cashier.
"I really don't object to platitudes," he told Ruth later; "but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous, smugly complacent, superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it. Why, I could give that man the whole history of the Reformation in the time he took to tell me that the Union-Labor Party had fused with the Democrats. Do you know, he skins his words as a professional poker-player skins the cards that are dealt out to him. Some day I'll show you what I mean."
"I'm sorry you don't like him," was her reply. "He's a favorite of Mr. Butler's. Mr. Butler says he is safe and honest - calls him the Rock, Peter, and says that upon him any banking institution can well be built."
"I don't doubt it - from the little I saw of him and the less I heard from him; but I don't think so much of banks as I did. You don't mind my speaking my mind this way, dear?"
"No, no; it is most interesting."
"Yes," Martin went on heartily, "I'm no more than a barbarian getting my first impressions of civilization. Such impressions must be entertainingly novel to the civilized person."
"What did you think of my cousins?" Ruth queried.
"I liked them better than the other women. There's plenty of fun in them along with paucity of pretence."
"Then you did like the other women?"
He shook his head.
"That social-settlement woman is no more than a sociological poll- parrot. I swear, if you winnowed her out between the stars, like Tomlinson, there would be found in her not one original thought. As for the portrait-painter, she was a positive bore. She'd make a good wife for the cashier. And the musician woman! I don't care how nimble her fingers are, how perfect her technique, how wonderful her expression - the fact is, she knows nothing about music."
"She plays beautifully," Ruth protested.
"Yes, she's undoubtedly gymnastic in the externals of music, but the intrinsic spirit of music is unguessed by her. I asked her what music meant to her - you know I'm always curious to know that particular thing; and she did not know what it meant to her, except that she adored it, that it was the greatest of the arts, and that it meant more than life to her."
"You were making them talk shop," Ruth charged him.
"I confess it. And if they were failures on shop, imagine my sufferings if they had discoursed on other subjects. Why, I used to think that up here, where all the advantages of culture were enjoyed - " He paused for a moment, and watched the youthful shade of himself, in stiff-rim and square-cut, enter the door and swagger across the room. "As I was saying, up here I thought all men and women were brilliant and radiant. But now, from what little I've seen of them, they strike me as a pack of ninnies, most of them, and ninety percent of the remainder as bores. Now there's Professor Caldwell - he's different. He's a man, every inch of him and every atom of his gray matter."
Ruth's face brightened.
"Tell me about him," she urged. "Not what is large and brilliant - I know those qualities; but whatever you feel is adverse. I am most curious to know."
"Perhaps I'll get myself in a pickle." Martin debated humorously for a moment. "Suppose you tell me first. Or maybe you find in him nothing less than the best."
"I attended two lecture courses under him, and I have known him for two years; that is why I am anxious for your first impression."
"Bad impression, you mean? Well, here goes. He is all the fine things you think about him, I guess. At least, he is the finest specimen of intellectual man I have met; but he is a man with a secret shame."
"Oh, no, no!" he hastened to cry. "Nothing paltry nor vulgar. What I mean is that he strikes me as a man who has gone to the bottom of things, and is so afraid of what he saw that he makes believe to himself that he never saw it. Perhaps that's not the clearest way to express it. Here's another way. A man who has found the path to the hidden temple but has not followed it; who has, perhaps, caught glimpses of the temple and striven afterward to convince himself that it was only a mirage of foliage. Yet another way. A man who could have done things but who placed no value on the doing, and who, all the time, in his innermost heart, is regretting that he has not done them; who has secretly laughed at the rewards for doing, and yet, still more secretly, has yearned for the rewards and for the joy of doing."
"I don't read him that way," she said. "And for that matter, I don't see just what you mean."
"It is only a vague feeling on my part," Martin temporized. "I have no reason for it. It is only a feeling, and most likely it is wrong. You certainly should know him better than I."
From the evening at Ruth's Martin brought away with him strange confusions and conflicting feelings. He was disappointed in his goal, in the persons he had climbed to be with. On the other hand, he was encouraged with his success. The climb had been easier than he expected. He was superior to the climb, and (he did not, with false modesty, hide it from himself) he was superior to the beings among whom he had climbed - with the exception, of course, of Professor Caldwell. About life and the books he knew more than they, and he wondered into what nooks and crannies they had cast aside their educations. He did not know that he was himself possessed of unusual brain vigor; nor did he know that the persons who were given to probing the depths and to thinking ultimate thoughts were not to be found in the drawing rooms of the world's Morses; nor did he dream that such persons were as lonely eagles sailing solitary in the azure sky far above the earth and its swarming freight of gregarious life.
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A Judge For the Ages – Essays in Honour of Justice Chao Hick Tin
Justice Chao Hick Tin's contribution as a judge is of the first rank. Born in Singapore, Justice Chao studied at Catholic High School before reading law at University College London. He was appointed Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore on 1 October 1987. This marked the commencement of a distinguished judicial career from 1987 right through to 2017 – a remarkable period of approximately three decades (excluding two years, between 2006 and 2008, when he was Attorney-General) and a total period of half a century in service of his country. Justice Chao was appointed Judge of Appeal on 2 August 1999 and Vice-President of the Court of Appeal on 18 April 2008. In this book, experts from the Judiciary, practice and academia explore Justice Chao's jurisprudence in 12 areas of private, public and international law. These essays honour Justice Chao's lasting legacy as a role model for all who aspire to be judges of the highest calibre.
General Editors: Judge of Appeal, Justice Andrew Phang Boon Leong and Associate Professor Goh Yihan
Date of Publication: Sep 2017
CPD Points : N/A
- A Judge For the Ages – Essays in Honour of Justice Chao Hick Tin
- 978-981-11-4353-3
- Books
- Free
- 23.00
- 15.00
- 6.00
- 2.00


text:
It's Day 4 of the White House's new messaging push for the Affordable Care Act. Today the goal is to tell the stories of people with pre-existing conditions who are now entitled to coverage under the new health care law.
One such story comes from within the White House.
Michael Robertson, deputy assistant to the president and deputy cabinet secretary, was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer 16 months ago. He was 35.
"I went overnight from being completely healthy and exercising and all that to having this catastrophic disease," he said in an interview at the White House on Wednesday. Robertson described the shock of realizing "these things can happen in an instant. They don't just happen to older people."
Doctors told him the disease had spread to three organs. He immediately went into treatment. "I had a total of eight months of chemotherapy, a month and a half of radiation — every day — which was a real rough part of it. You go every morning for the radiation. And then I had a total of five surgeries with various stints in the hospital for that, plus the recovery time," said Robertson.
For insurance purposes, Robertson had just become someone with a pre-existing condition. And that made him vulnerable to losing his coverage should he change jobs.
"I'd always imagined pre-existing condition to be something you were born with, something you've had for years," he said. "Not something you can go to bed one night and wake up the next morning and be told you have. That was a real eye-opening thing."
As Republicans have fastidiously catalogued the many hiccups and stumbles with the health law, the Obama administration is eager to shift the focus away from the troubled website and President Obama's false promise that "if you like your insurance, you can keep it."
In Robertson's case, roughly $900,000 of treatment left him with no detectable cancer in his body. He was fortunate to have insurance that covered almost all of the cost.
A White House official says in the coming days, the administration will call attention to stories like Robertson's. While many parts of the Affordable Care Act are unpopular, this provision has broad support. The law prohibits insurance companies from denying or charging higher premiums to people with health problems that may recur, such as cancer, asthma or diabetes.
The administration also hopes that stories like this one persuade so-called young invincibles to sign up for health coverage. The participation of young, healthy people in the system is essential to balance out the cost of older, sicker people who depend more on expensive medical services.
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