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I just learned that Violet Hobaugh, who lived in the house I documented in the set "conviction" passed away this week.
© laura kicey
(Studio Amsterdam)
This sentence is a lie.
Who can’t but be intrigued by this 'truth'? I certainly am.
"we hoed in like a horde of hungry locusts"
It’s like I have stopped writing. This is something I will have to get over, get beyond, I mean. It’s that feeling of dependency on others, on a correspondent, someone I feed off and attempt to feed. That principal someone has been, for 25 years, the eponymous Rack of ‘Rack and Ruin’. Image making is also directed towards ‘the other’, that ‘responder’ out there, the resplendent ‘Seven’, or whoever. It speaks of a ‘failing’. I don’t know if it might speak of a lack of imagination as well. But in ‘truth’, I don’t care. I am not sure I want to write like that anyway, that ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’ Rack speaks of.
I certainly couldn’t describe places, in New York or wherever, through memories, details of a place that might bring those places alive. They would be fictional. Perhaps I could re-find them through Google ‘streetview’ walks, but they have so changed since last century. I sometimes try to Google-walk some of them, those streets, ones I knew well even, such as that stroll from my 27th Street loft to my 28th street studio, in Chelsea, but it is now somewhere else. But that’s not really how I want to tell a story. It’s the convoluted interior walks I want to re-find and pillage, and that seems more doable. This, perhaps, takes one more into fiction, perhaps not. If it is, it’s another type of fiction, more comprising of the lies I have always told to myself. I don’t see this as a problem, there is always the possibility that one might have lied to oneself extravagantly, but I am more of the mind that these lies were more or less the commonplace prevarications that any and everyone might engender in their own lives to make moving forward possible. Life’s ‘drives’, and ‘drivers’, might be at the engineering of these same lies, through us, to move itself instinctively forward, to evolve, to be constantly growing through decay. Again, we are back to that kernel, the embracing of one’s own mulch. That marriage of then and now, and the inherent fertilised bed of the self, that relentless and lifelong ‘hoeing in’ (and how I have hoed), in its own time as the possible seedbed for what is to come. I don’t mean to say that this makes one exceptional in any way, mulch being mulch and all that wondrous palaver, it just speaks of a blinding equality, an absorption into that clay.
I don’t think I could describe Amsterdam, though I am in, shared and voluntary, quarantine, living here blissfully even. But then I wouldn’t want to attempt such a description. Amsterdam is perfectly capable of describing itself. It doesn’t need a pale echo of itself, ditto New York, London, Paris, wherever.
I haven’t stopped writing, but I have stopped writing that way.
Hoe (hoed, past tense)
verb
gerund or present participle: hoeing
1.
use a hoe to dig (earth) or thin out or dig up (plants).
"we were out in the fields, planting crops and hoeing weeds"
2.
INFORMAL•AUSTRALIAN
eat eagerly.
"we hoed in like a horde of hungry locusts"
I lied. I don't just like that marriage, I love it.
October 11, 2018 – Risso’s Dolphins Slaughter – Taiji, Japan
Taiji: On the second red Cove day in a row, a pod of 8 Risso’s dolphins was driven into the cove. Although they attempted to escape several times, the hunters were persistent to drive them in.
Among the young dolphins, 3 of them were carried out in slings to the sea pens inside the Taiji harbor, trainers by their sides... so close to the butcher house where their mothers and pod mates were cut apart. In the sea pens, one of the juveniles spy-hopped and seemed to look right at our cove monitors through the net. These young dolphins face a life sentence in captivity.
Pledge NOT to buy a ticket to a dolphin show.
Credit: DolphinProject.com
live from hand to mouth
(verb) to satisfy one’s basic needs because of a lack of money
Example Sentences:
The University students are living from hand to mouth because they don’t have a lot of money from their part-time jobs.
Jana lived from hand to mouth while studying for her Masters.
While Rebecca is unemployed she willlive from hand to mouth, so she decided to cancel her vacation.
Devil Beside You
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (March 2010)
Devil Beside You
Devil Beside You (Chinese: 惡魔在身邊; pinyin: Èmó zài shēnbiān) is a 2005 Taiwanese drama starring Mike He, Rainie Yang and Kingone Wang. It is based on Japanese manga Akuma de Sourou, The Devil Does Exist (悪魔で候 Akuma de Sōrō?), written by Mitsuba Takanashi. It was produced by Comic Ritz International Production (可米瑞智國際藝能有限公司) with Chai Zhi Ping (柴智屏) as producer and directed by Lin He Long (林合隆). The series was first broadcast in Taiwan on free-to-air China Television (CTV) (中視) from 26 June to 18 September 2005 and cable TV Eastern Television (ETTV) (東森) for 20 episodes.Characters[edit]
Major characters[edit]
Drama characterActorManga characterCharacteristics
Qi Yue (齊悅)Rainie YangKayano SaitouShe is a sweet and innocent sophomore in college who lives with her widowed mother. She is shy and sometimes clueless, but has a loyal and kind heart that shines even through the toughest of times. She harbors a crush on the captain of the basketball team, Yuan Yi, but her life is turned upside-down by Ah Meng. Eventually, she falls out of love with Yuan Yi and starts developing feelings for Ah Meng. She constantly worries about him and their relationship being discovered. Qi Yue is also one of the managers of the basketball team. Although it hurts for her to accept that Jiang Meng is her future brother, she still continues to love the devil boy.
Jiang Meng aka Ahmon (江猛)Mike HeTakeru EdogawaHe is the son of the president of the school. He is a freshman at the college, yet he has power over his teachers due to his father's position. Ah Meng is also frightening to a lot of people and is known to bully girls, yet he is also known as the "prince of seduction." Despite his cool composure and "bad" attitude, Ah Meng has a gentle side and often sticks up for what is right. Li Xiang has a crush on him, which he does not reciprocate, but Ah Meng has feelings for Qi Yue. Although she is his future stepsister (elder), he does love her and enjoys teasing her. He knows that she loves him but gets jealous when he finds out that there are new people that are pursuing her. Ah Meng also joins the basketball team and has faster reflexes than rival Yuan Yi's. Ah Meng also has a little brother.
Shang Yuan Yi (尚源伊)Kingone WangKamijou YuuichiHe is a boy in Qi Yue's class (teasingly nicknamed "Ah Yi (Auntie in Chinese)", and is the captain of the basketball team. Qi Yue is initially in love with Yuan Yi for his gentle personality. Yuan Yi reciprocates her feelings and they become a couple. When Qi Yue falls in love with Ah Meng, she breaks up with Yuan Yi, wishing not to lead him on. Yuan Yi is angry and hostile towards Ah Meng at first, but gets over it and realizes his feelings for Qing Zi after she kisses him and he admits that he has feelings towards Qi Yue but he also knows he has no more chance because of Ah Meng.
Qing Zi (晴紫)Tsai Pei Lin (蔡裴琳)Harukawa KyokoShe is Qi Yue's outspoken best friend. She and Xiao Cai are the ones who encourages Qi Yue to confess her love to Yuan Yi, even though Qing Zi herself had a crush on him. Qing Zi cares for Qi Yue a lot and spends a lot of effort in helping her. After Qi Yue and Yuan Yi break up, Qing Zi starts dating Yuan Yi. Qing Zi and Yuan Yi's relationship is tested when Qing Zi feels that Yuan Yi is spending more time playing basketball than being with her. Feeling dejected, she meets with a stranger she chatted with online. She later gets into a tussle with him and Yuan Yi comes to her rescue instead of playing in the team's basketball match. When her father gets a new job, he forces her to emigrate with him, taking her away from Yuan Yi and her friends. Yuan Yi, in order to keep her with him, challenges her father, a skilled swordsman.
Xiao Cai (小彩)Fu Xiao Yun (傅小芸)NanachanShe is Qi Yue and Qing Zi's friend. She and Qing Zi were the ones who supported Qi Yue to confess her love to Yuan Yi. Unlike Qing Zi, Xiao Cai appears to be more calm. She also alerted Yuan Yi of Qing Zi's escapade with the stranger because she was worried about Qing Zi's safety.
Xin Li Xiang (辛莉香)Fan Hsiao Fun (范筱梵)Rika MoroboshiIn high school, she was an anti-social girl and acted snotty to all the girls in the class. Whenever she got bullied, Ah Meng would protect her. Li Xiang has also developed a crush on Ah Meng, calling him "Prince". She would do anything to get Ah Meng to notice her, she would even go as far as hiring girls to beat her up so Ah Meng could "save" her. Finally she realizes that this is not the way to get him to love her. Yang Ping had a crush on her and she then starts to have feelings for him and goes out with him.
Yu Yang Ping (于陽平)Masuyama YukiYouheiHe is Ah Meng's best friend who supports him. He used to be mocked by the middle school basketball teacher because he was overweight and he could not play well. Ah Meng was defensive and protective over him and he beat up the teacher. This lead them to become good friends. He has feelings for Li Xiang, but she has a crush on Ah Meng. He is willing to do anything for her, even trying to beat up Qi Yue. Li Xiang then starts to develop feelings for him and they start to go out.
Yuan Chuan Rang aka Ah Rang (袁川讓)Figaro CengYuzuruHe is Ah Meng's younger brother. Their father tried desperately to forget about him, and named Ah Meng as the successor of the company. Ah Rang follows and stalks Qi Yue everywhere, trying to force her and blackmail her to like him, who in turn, does everything she can to stop him. He tries to ruin Ah Meng's name, and puts Ah Meng and Qi Yue in lots of danger. He is later softened by Qi Yue, who later feels sorry for him and reaches out to him, and becomes more open. Ah Rang actually really looks up to Ah Meng and sees him as a hero, and actually cares deeply about him. He also tried to act like him, which causes him to get bullied and beaten up in school. Ah Meng then teaches him how to protect himself and fight the boys who bulied him. His mother chose him instead of Ah Meng when his parents divorced, causing Ah Meng to envy his younger brother. Ah Meng would often ignore him and never look at him, and act coldly toward him. Ah Rang is also being helped by the university president's assistant who is in love with Ah Rang's mother, who does not reciprocate that love. Plus, Ah Meng had accidentally shoved Ah Rang into a vase that had severely injured and cut his neck when they were young. This caused Ah Meng to have felt really sorry to his younger brother over the years. Because of this injury, he usually is weak and can collapse due to breath failure. He has asthma and after a "fake" attack, he and Ah Meng rekindle their relationship and become brothers once more.
Liu Mei Di (劉美蒂)Katherine Wang Kai Di (王凱蒂)A girl who Ah Meng saved when she dropped her glasses in the middle of a road. He took her to an optician and bought new glasses for her. She never got a good sight of him as she broke her glasses, but she fell in love with him. Coincidentally, Ah Meng's grandmother arranged a marriage for him and Meidi to try to break Ah Meng and Qi Yue apart. She is well-sheltered because everyone thinks she is cute and innocent due to her appearance. Ah Meng is the only person, besides blunt Li Xiang, that didn't give her what she wanted which is one of the reasons she loves him so much. She also has anemia that causes her to be dependent on chocolate, notably Ferrero Rocher, so she always carries a box in her bag. She likes to give out the chocolates to thank people for their kindness.
Tian Si Shen (田思慎)Wu Zhong Tian (吳中天)Shin FujitaQi Yue's first crush. He was her father's student when they were younger. He and Qi Yue had spent a lot of time together, and he was her mentor. She had always said when she was younger that she wanted to marry him when she grew up. He studied overseas for some time. When he came back, he became a substitute professor for a short while at her college. He also became the coach for the basketball team. Though he has a girlfriend, he harbors feelings for Qi Yue. Once he knows that Qi Yue is not the same girl she used to be and is in a relationship with Ah Meng, he then tries to get back his girlfriend.
The crowd gathered in Parliament Square to protest the proscription of Palestine Action on 6 September 2025 defied easy categorisation, drawing a diverse demographic that included clergy, doctors, military veterans, and disabled activists. They assembled for a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state's proscription of Palestine Action.
In this image, a large group is gathered under the shadow of the statue of Gandhi, remembered for his readiness to go to jail for justice. An inspiration for all those holding a sign in support of Palestine Action, who knew they could face a lengthy prison sentence for merely expressing solidarity with the outlawed activist group.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.
That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.
By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence. Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offence is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime. The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign.
By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation.
Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion.For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr initially sentenced to death on the wheel. However, when this failed to kill her, she was beheaded. According to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains. At this time Egypt was a Muslim country so this Christian monastery in the enormous mountain passes of Sinai could use an Egyptian saint from the Early Church. (Wikipedia)
3xp DRI
*Featured Desktop on Lifehacker.com*
While looking at minimalistic wallpapers, I found this wallpaper and an idea sparked in my head. Wouldn't it be cool to have desktop information "reflected" in the mirrors of the wallpaper? I thought so, especially since I hadn't previously seen something like this done.
What's In this Desktop:
[Wallpaper:]
- Link. What you see in the screen shot is a slightly modified version I did to accommodate for the task bar.
[Icons:]
[Taskbar:]
The invisible taskbar can be found here.
[Rainmeter:]
- 10-Foot HUD
- Simple Sentence for the weather temps and conditions.
- Lines for the RAM and CPU measures
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full-Size screen shot of the desktop.
I have this entire suite bundled in a Rainstaller file for easy installation! (Scaled to 1440x900) AND now since the amount of traffic I got to download this file, I have moved a fixed installer to a file hosting site:
If the Rainstaller doesn't work for you:
Then download the zip archive of the skins at the link below. Just copy the skins into the Rainmeter directory in My Documents and restart Rainmeter.
Have any comments, tips, or tweaks you think it could use? Let me know!
This is another illustration I did on the vintage book pages from a dilapidated old Alice in Wonderland book. I used acrylic paints. I bordered the page with a fabric by Robert Kaufman and it looks really keen, see my blog: shebrews.com
Film: Fuji Neopan 1600. Shot and developed as 3200
Developer: D-76 (Stock)
Taken with: Nikon FM2 with Nikkor 45mm 1:2.8
Place: Moscow, Exhibition "Samurai. 47 Ronin"
Gesehen beim Amtsgericht in Schorndorf, Baden-Württemberg. Ein Urteil mit Sofortvollzug ;-)
Lösung: Ein Parkplatzschild beim Schloss. Die Hühner sind zwischen Schlossmauer und Parkplatzschild.
Juli 2013.
Seen at the district court (German = Amtsgericht) in Schorndorf, Baden-Wurttemberg. A judgment with immediate execution ;-)
Resolving: A parking lot sign near the castle with the court. The chickens are between castle wall and parking lot sign.
July, 2013.
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs (leaning over railing) speaks to a crowd in Canton, Ohio June 16, 1918 where he opposed U.S. entry into World War I and praised those jailed for opposing the draft.
The United States charged him with 10 counts of sedition for making the speech and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison where he joined several hundred others who opposed the war.
President Woodrow Wilson refused to commute his sentence calling Debs, “a traitor to his country,” despite a million signatures on a clemency petition.
Following President Warren Harding’s election in 1920, Harding ordered a review of Debs status. He granted Debs clemency on Christmas Day 1921.
Debs, who ran five times for U.S president—the last time receiving nearly a million votes from his prison cell, left Atlanta penitentiary and headed to Washington, D.C. to call on Attorney General Harry M. Dougherty and President Warren Harding who had commuted his sentence.
Debs joked that, “I’ve started for here four or five times (to the White House), but this is the first time I ever landed,” (referring to his five times running for President).
After a day and a half in the nation’s capital, Debs headed home to his wife in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Debs was known for organizing the American Railway Union, one of the first industry-wide unions in the U.S. and leading the unsuccessful Pullman Strike. His presidential campaigns on the Socialist Party ticket received the larges percentage of votes of any left wing party in the history of the United States, receiving nearly 6% of the vote in the 1912 election.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskst8faZ
For a blog post on Debs visit to Washington, DC following his release from prison, see washingtonspark.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/unbowed-unbroken...
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the National Archives, Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group (National Archives Identifier 2641496).
It's just still too cold and to o cloudy...and just plain yucky to go out on a photoshoot, at least that's the way I am feeling. My camera was feeling neglected. So, out comes the word cube game! We had some fun here with this a few years back...so here is round two! ; ) (as Mr A to Z, Jason Mraz, says...it's all about the wordplay!)
OBITUARY.; Madam Eliza B. Jumel.
New York TImes
Published: July 18, 1865
A single sentence in this morning's TIMES serves to awaken many memories of the past, and revive remembrances of men and parties long since crumbled or forgotten. Thus it reads: "Died, on Sunday morning, July 16, at her late residence, Washington Heights, madam ELIZA B. JUMEL, in the 92d year of her age."
Madam JUMEL, whose death is chronicled above, was a very singular person, about whose name twined many marvelous stories, and with whose history the greatest men of colonial and Revolutionary days were intimately connected. According to one historian, she was born of an English, mother, Mrs. CAPET, in the cabin of a French frigate, which in the year of our Lord 1769 was carrying troops to the West Indies from La Brest. The mother died as the child drew the first breath of life. Somewhat embarrassed by the tender charge, the Captain concluded to keep her, but afterward, when driven into Newport, R.I., harbor, he placed her in the custody of an elderly lady named THOMPSON, who agreed to take good care of her. Mrs. THOMPSON was a good woman, and many clergymen visited her comparatively humble dwelling, so that the early years of the little one were passed amid good influences.
Many of His Britannic Majesty's officers dwelt in Newport. Among them was a certain Col. P. CROIX, whose personal appearance is reported to have been most taking -- whose position in society was excellent. The Colonel met Miss CAPET when she was about seventeen years of age, and fell in love with her pretty face and pleasant figure. She reciprocated the tender passion, which eventuated in an elopement, the indiscreet but entirely happy pair proceeding to New-York, where the lady lodged at a "handsome wooden structure," but recently standing where now rests the north wing of STEWART's marble palace.
Brought at once into contact with the best people in the city, the lady became a cultured woman of the world, fond of its pleasures, versed in its intrigues, interested in the cabals of politicians, and espousing with ardor one side or the other of the continual military emeutes with which the latter days of the eighteenth century were so cursed in New-York City. She was present at the opening of the first session of Congress at Philadelphia, in September, 1774, and at the inauguration of WASHINGTON as President, she created a decided impression by her beauty and general air of savoir faire. She was about twenty years of age then, and very elegant in person and distinguished in bearing. Mme. JUMEL first met AARON BURR when he ranked as a Captain in the army, and was greatly impressed by his power and expression. She was even then intimate with BENEDICT ARNOLD, whose wife she fancied her best friend, and with PATRICK HENRY, in whose breast of reserve she started a dangerous fire of love and passion; but, forgetful of those noted men, and of the scores who bent willingly before her shrine, she wrote thus of the man who, in after years, was destined to be her lord, if not her master. She says:
"Capt. AARON BURR, in the hey-day of his youth, as he now was, appeared to me the perfection of manhood personified. He was beneath the common size of men, only five feet and a half high, but his figure and form had been fashioned in the models of the graces. Petite as he comparatively was, he had a martial appearance, and displayed in all his movements those accomplishments which are only acquired in the camp and embellished in the boudior of the graces. In a word, he was a combined model of Mars and Apollo. His eye was of the deepest black, and sparkled with an incomprehensible brilliancy when he smiled; but if enraged, its power was absolutely terrific. Into whatever female society he chanced, by the fortune of war or by the vicissitudes of private life to be cast, he conquered all hearts without an effort; and, until he became deeply involved in the cares of State, and the vexations incident to the political arena, I do not believe a female capable of the gentle emotions of love ever looked upon him without loving him. Wherever he went he was petted and caressed by our sex, and hundreds vied with each other in a continuous struggle to offer him some testimonial of their adulation. And yet, with all this popularity in the polite circles, he never took advantage of his position, and I do not believe that any female ever had cause to complain of his seductive wiles, perfidy or injustice."
The casual meeting between the two took place at the rooms of Lady STIRLING, and resulted in Miss CAPET's acceptance of an invitation to accompany Capt. BURR that evening to the theatre. On the way to the house, BURR asked permission to stop for a friend, and so doing he brought into the carriage and introduced to Miss CAPET as his friend the afterward celebrated MARGARET MONCRIEF. A desperate flirtation followed, but beyond that nothing of any moment occurred between them, and he soon after was called away, so that for years they did not meet.
Continuing her gay career, Miss CAPET met and knew intimately the great leaders of the Revolutionary struggle. THOMAS JEFFERSON was a frequent visitor at her house, and a friendship formed between them which ceased only with his death, in 1826. Old BEN FRANKLIN called her his "Fairy Queen," and was on terms of such intimacy with her as permitted him to salute her lips in the presence of friends. Gen. KNOX was likewise a worshipper before her, and LAFAYETTE was greatly charmed. That such a woman as this should have gone through escapades and adventures is but natural; that she should take pleasure and pride in bringing men of loftiest position to her feet is quite understandable; that her reputation should materially suffer by the scandal of her rivals and the jealous tattlings of her female friends is what one would expect; but that she should finally accept the hand of, and marry, a quiet, hard-working, adventurous trader, is a vagary difficult of explanation. She did it, however. In the early days of this century she was wooed and won by a Frenchman named STEPHEN JUMEL, who, landing here poor, made an immense fortune in the wine trade. He became noted for his wealth, liberality and kind-hearted benevolence, and singular foresight in business matters. Of him our worthy but eccentric fellow-citizen, GRANT THORBURN, said:
"STEPHEN JUMEL, a Frenchman, was among our early merchant princes. One morning, about 10 o'clock, in the year 1806, this gentleman, in company with WILLIAM BAYARD, HARMON LE ROY, ARCHIBALD GRACIE, Gen. CLARKSON, and some dozen others, was reading and discussing the news just arrived from Liverpool in the extraordinary short passage of seven weeks. The matter mostly concerned NAPOLEON I. and the battle of Wagram. While thus engaged, a carman's horse backed his cart into the Whitehall-slip. The cart was got out, but the horse was drowned, and every one began pitying the poor carman's ill-luck. JUMEL instantly arose, and placing a ten-dollar bill between his thumb and finger, and holding it aloft while it fluttered in the breeze, and with his hat in the other hand he walked through the length and breadth of the crowd, exclaiming, "How much you pity the poor man? I pity him ten dollars. How much you pity him?" By this ingenious and noble coup he collected in a few moments about seventy dollars, which he gave over at once to the unfortunate and fortunate carman. This has since been imitated often, but of its originality with him there can be no question."
Shortly after this marriage, the downfall of the great NAPOLEON occurred, and the pacification of Europe was secured. This seemed a favorable opportunity for the wealthy Frenchman, who had long since retired from active business, to take his beautiful and accomplished wife to the centre of continental splendor. They went to Paris, purchased a magnificent establishment, and under the social patronage of LAFAYETTE and his contemporaries, Madame JUMEL became as noted in the salons of the French capital as in the parlors of the western metropolis. Her wit and talent placed her in the very van of the frequenters of the court, and while she never failed to make continual conquests, we are not of those who believe the slanderers of her reputation. Gaiety is not always guilt, frivolity not always the exponent of heartlessness, and despite Madame JUMEL's wonderful gaiety and never-ceasing frivolty, she was deep and shrewd and able enough to maintain her position against the combined attacks of those who envied her.
Her life of prodigious prodigality made sad inroads upon her husband's fortune, and he became low spirited. She rallied him, but investigation demonstrated the comparative wreck of his estate, and she failed to arouse him to the necessary exertion. Self-reliant, bold, independent and clear-sighted, she broke up their establishment in Paris and returned alone to New-York in 1822. Resolved to mend what she had broken, she retired to an estate of her own on the island, and devoted herself to the recuperation of her husband's fortune with such signal success that when, in 1828, at the age of sixty-four, he returned to this country, he found himself possessed of means at once abundant and satisfactory. They lived happily together until his death, which resulted in his seventieth year, from an accidental fall.
At this time Col. BURR was practicing law, with great success, in New-York. His legal position was in the front rank: triumph succeeded triumph and although old in years, he seemed but in the prime of life. There was talk of cholera in the city, and Madame JUMEL, who had large interests in real estate determined upon a carriage tour in the country siring, however, to take legal advice on some matters before leaving, she determined to consult Col. BURR, whose preeminence in real estate law was universally conceded. It was a long time since she had seen him. Years had changed them both; oceans and events had separated them; marriage and its consequences had turned the thoughts of each in other directions; and now, when the one was an old man and the other a well-advanced woman, they were to meet. He was perfect in all the subtleties of social life; she was the exponent, ne plus ultra, of fashionable life. The one could not hope to blind, mislead, or seduce the other. His office was at No. 23 Nassau-street, and she drove thither to consult him. Never forgetful of eye, or feature, or figure, he recognized her in a moment, and, as PARTON in his Life of Aaron Burr, says:
"He received her in his courtliest manner, complimented her with admirable tact, listened with soft deference to her statement. He was the ideal man of business -- confidential, self-possessed, polite -- giving his client the flattering impression that the faculties of his whole soul were concentrated upon the affair in hand. She was charmed, yet feared him. He took the papers, named the day when his opinion would be ready and handed her to her carriage with winning grace. At seventy-eight years of age, he was still straight, active, agile, fascinating.
On the appointed day she sent to his office a relative, a student of law, to receive his opinion. This young gentleman, timid and inexperienced, had an immense opinion of BURR's talents; had heard all good and all evil of him; supposed him to be, at least, the acutest of possible men. He went. BURR behaved to him in a manner so exquisitely pleasing, that, to this hour, he has the liveliest recollection of the scene. No topic was introduced but such as were familiar and interesting to young men. His manners were such as this age of slangy familiarity cannot so much as imagine. The young gentleman went home to Madame JUMEL only to extol and glorify him.
Madame and her party began their journey, revisiting Ballston, whither, in former times, she had been wont to go in a chariot drawn by eight horses; visiting Saratoga, then in the beginning of its celebrity, where, in exactly ten minutes after her arrival, the decisive lady bought a house and all it contained. Returning to New-York to find that her mansion had been despoiled by robbers in her absence, she lived for a while in the city. Col. BURR called upon the young gentleman who had been Madame's messenger, and, after their acquaintance had ripened, said to him, "Come into my office; I can teach you more in one year than you can learn in ten, in an ordinary way." The proposition being submitted to Madame JUMEL, she, anxious for the young man's advancement, gladly and gratefully consented. He entered the office. BURR kept him close at his books. He did teach him more in a year than he could have learned in ten in an ordinary way. BURR lived then in Jersey City. His office swarmed with applicants for aid, and he seemed to have quite lost the power of refusing. In no other respects, bodily or mental, did he exhibit signs of decrepitude.
Some months passed on without his again meeting Madame JUMEL. At the suggestion of the student, who felt exceedingly grateful to BURR for the solicitude with which he assisted his studies, Madame JUMEL invited Col. BURR to dinner. It was a grand banquet, at which he displayed all the charms of his manner and shone to conspicuous advantage. On handing to dinner the giver of the feast, he said: "I give you my hand, Madame; my heart has long been yours." This was supposed to be merely a compliment and was little remarked at the time. Col. BURR called upon the lady; called frequently; became ever warmer in his attentions; proposed, at length, and was refused. He still plied his suit, however, and obtained at lost, not the lady's consent, but an undecided no. Improving his advantage on the instant, he said, in a jocular manner, that he should bring out a clergyman to Fort Washington on a certain day, and there he would once more solicit her hand.
He was as good as his word. At the time appointed, he drove out in his gig to the lady's country residence, accompanied by Dr. BOGART, the very clergy, man who, just fifty years before, had married him to the mother of his THEODOSIA. The lady was embarrassed, and still refused. But then the scandal! And, after all, why not? Her estate needed a vigilant guardian, and the old house was lonely. After much hesitation, she at length consented to be dressed and to receive her visitors. And she was married. The ceremony was witnessed only by the members of Madame JUMEL's family and by the eight servants of the household, who peered eagerly in at the doors and windows. The ceremony over, Mrs. BURR ordered supper. Some bins of M. JUMEL'L wine cellar, that had not been opened for half a century, were laid under contribution. The little party was a very merry one. The parson, in particular, it is remembered, was in the highest spirits, overflowing with humor and anecdote. Except for Col. BURR's great age, (which was not apparent,) the match seemed not an unwise one. The lurking fear he had had of being a poor and homeless old man was put to rest. She had a companion who had been ever agreeable, and her estate a steward than whom no one living was supposed to be more competent.
As a remarkable circumstance connected with this marriage, it may be just mentionen that there was a woman in New-York who had aspired to the band of Col. BURR and who, when she heard of his union with another, wrung her hands and shed tears. A feeling of that nature can seldom, since the creation of man, have been excited by the marriage of a man on the verge of fourscore.
A few days after the wedding, the 'happy pair' paid a visit to Connecticut, of which State a nephew of Col. BURR's was then Governor. They were received with attention. At Hartford, BURR advised his wife to sell out her shares in the bridge over the Connecticut at that place and invest the proceeds in real estate. She ordered them sold. The stock was in demand and the shares brought several thousand dollars. The purchaser offered to pay her the money, but she said, "No; pay it to my husband." To him, accordingly, it was paid, and he had it sewed up in his pocket, a prodigious bulk, and brought it to New-York and deposited it in his own bank to his own credit.
Texas was then beginning to attract the tide of emigration which, a few years later, set so strongly thither. BURR had always token a great interest in that country. Persons with whom he had been variously connected in life had a scheme on foot for settling a large colony of Germans on a tract of land in Texas. A brig had been chartered and the project was in a state of forwardness, when the possession of a sum of money enabled BURR to buy shares in the enterprise. The greater part of the money which he had brought from Hartford was invested in this way. It proved a total loss. The time had not yet come for emigration to Texas. The Germans became discouraged and separated, and, to complete the failure of the scheme, the title of the lands, in the confusion of the times, proved defective. Meanwhile, Madame, who was a remarkable thrifty woman, with a talent for the management of property, wondered that her husband made no allusion to the subject of the investment, for the Texas speculation had not been mentioned to her. She caused him to be questioned on the subject. He begged to intimate to the lady's messenger that it was no affair of her's and he requested him to remind the lady that she now had a husband to manage her affairs and one who would manage them.
Coolness between the husband and wife was the result of this colloquy. Then came remonstrances. Then estrangement. BURR got into the habit of remaining in his office in the city. Then, partial reconciliation. Full of schemes and spebulations to the last, without retaining any of his former ability to act successfully, he lost more money, and more, and more. The patience of the lady was exhausted. She filed a complain accusing him of infidelity and praying that he might have no more control or authority over her affairs. The accusation is now known to have been groundless; nor, indeed, at the time was it seriously believed. It was used merely as the most convenient legal mode of depriving him of control over her property. At first, he answered the complaint vigorously, but afterward he allowed it to go by default and the proceedings were carried no further. A few short weeks of happiness, followed by a few alternate months of alternate estrangment and reconciliation, and this union, that begun not inauspiciously, was, in effect, though never in law, dissolved."
Since then Madame JUMEL, who has never resumed her late husband's name, has resided in her home at Washington Heights, comparatively alone. She knew but few, and cored not to extend her list of friends. She died on Sunday, possessed of considerable property, which her grand-children will doubtless inherit. Her funeral will be to-day.
Arvid Pettersen (b. 1943) - Den nye broen [The new bridge] (1973). In the collection of KODE, Art Museums of Bergen, Norway.
As oil revenues started flooding the Norwegian state coffers in the 1970's, there was a big push by the political and economic establishment to develop the country's transportation infrastructure which, given the particular morphology of Noway with numerous mountains and fjords, inevitably meant lots of bridges, tunnels and tree felling. Like many fellow artists in Norway in that period, Arvid Pettersen was committed to intervene through his art in the political debates on issues such as the over-exploitation of natural resources, the environmental impact of development and the integration into the European Common Market.
The lady pictured was sentenced to 6 months in Newcastle City Gaol for stealing money from a person of another.
Age (on discharge): 24
Height: 5.1 ½
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Blue
Place of Birth: Newcastle
Married or single: Single
Occupation: Hawker
These photographs are of convicted criminals in Newcastle between 1871 - 1873.
Reference:TWAS: PR.NC/6/1/1243
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
To purchase a hi-res copy please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk quoting the title and reference number.
Mary Erskine Christie was sentenced to 6 months in Newcastle City Gaol for thieving money from a person in 1873.
Age (on discharge): 20
Height: 5.4
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Place of Birth: Newcastle
Status: Single
These photographs are of convicted criminals in Newcastle between 1871 - 1873.
Reference:TWAS: PR.NC/6/1/1161
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
To purchase a hi-res copy please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk quoting the title and reference number.
The AMT used to run one train a day each on the Lakeshore line all the way to Rigaud, Quebec (not too far from the Ontario border). They cut this train back to Hudson in 2010. The last train to Rigaud ran on June 30, 2010. These photos were taken on the train to Rigaud 2 months before. I travelled with my girlfriend (now wife), her father (a railway consultant) and a business partner of his, as well as Marc Chouinard, a railfan and regular user of this train.
John Scott was sentenced to carry out 6 months in Newcastle City Gaol for stealing lead in 1872.
Age (on discharge): 29
Height: 5.5½
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Grey
Place of Birth: Newcastle
Status: Married
Occupation: Labourer
These photographs are of convicted criminals in Newcastle between 1871 - 1873.
Reference:TWAS: PR.NC/6/1/1214
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
To purchase a hi-res copy please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk quoting the title and reference number.
Richard Bradshaw was caught stealing money and was sentenced to 6 months to serve in Newcastle City Gaol in 1872.
Age (on discharge): 40
Height: 5.6½
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Grey
Place of Birth: Ireland
Status: Married
Occupation: Hawker
These photographs are of convicted criminals in Newcastle between 1871 - 1873.
Reference:TWAS: PR.NC/6/1/1171
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
To purchase a hi-res copy please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk quoting the title and reference number.
Please don't post your photos here nor GLITTERY IMAGES. They will be removed. Don't invite me to any group. I will not accept ;-)
For no fault of his own, this loving creature, awaits his fate. I'm horrified by the lines of people "dumping" there companion pets at local shelters. Day in, day out. The lines never seem to get shorter.
(i got my hair cut :D!)
the last sentence you spoke broke my heart.
i went searching for someone better, someone who wouldnt hurt me like you did.
and when i herd the first sentence he spoke, i knew.
Norway Declares Death Sentence for 1052 Whales
Sea Shepherd vessel Whales Forever in confrontation
over Norwegian whaling operation in 1994
That other cruel and ecologically insensitive whaling nation Norway has set a kill quota of 1052 whales for 2008.
The quota is the same as last year despite the whalers being unable to find enough whales to meet that quota. The actual kill was 97 whales short of 1052.
The majority of the whales will be taken from the coastal areas around the Barents Sea, Svalbard and the North Sea.
Norway, displaying an incredible ignorance of marine ecology, claims that the piked whales must be killed to protect diminishing fish populations.
Norway claims there are 70,000 piked whales in the North Atlantic although they have not provided any scientific data to support this estimate. If there are 70,000 whales then taking 1,000 will have no significant statistical impact on fish consumption by cetaceans. However, if there are 70,000 whales then why has it been so difficult for the whalers to fill their quota historically?
Presently, Sea Shepherd is engaged in pursuing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary off the coast of Antarctica. Critics in Japan have accused Sea Shepherd of ignoring the Norwegian whale kill and focusing only on illegal Japanese whaling. These same critics claim that Sea Shepherd's motivation is racist.
These critics in Japan are ignorant however. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society considers Norwegian whaling to be as illegal as Japanese whaling. Norway is blatantly killing whales for commercial purposes in defiance of the International Whaling Commission's global moratorium on commercial whaling.
"At least the Norwegians are honest criminals," said Captain Paul Watson. "They don't even pretend to be killing whales for so called ‘scientific research’ like the Japanese."
"However to say that Sea Shepherd ignores Norway to focus on Japan is ridiculous. Sea Shepherd crewmembers have sent a number of Norwegian whalers to the bottom," he continues.
The whaling ship Williamson Senior was scuttled by agents of Agenda 21 in August 2007. Four other whalers were sunk between 1992 and 2007. Norwegian whalers have been forced to pay war insurance premiums to protect their illegal whaling operations.
During the summer of 2007, Sea Shepherd's Operation Ragnarök helped shut down illegal Icelandic whaling operations and Sea Shepherd has been opposing the resumption of whaling by the Makah Indian tribe in the USA since 1995.
"We don't discriminate when it comes to outlaw whaling operations," said Captain Paul Watson. "I don't care what the race or culture of a whaler is; killing whales illegally is unacceptable by anyone, anywhere, for any reason. The enforcement of marine wildlife conservation law is and must be blind to everything but the law."
The Port Arthur massacre of 28–29 April 1996 was a mass shooting in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The murderer, Martin Bryant, pleaded guilty for the incident and was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history. Fundamental changes of gun control laws within Australia followed the incident. The case is regarded to be amongst the most notable massacres in Australia's history.
Location
The main location of the incident was the historic Port Arthur former prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia.
Perpetrator
See also: Martin Bryant
In 1992, Martin Bryant - then 25 - was bequeathed about $570,000 in property and assets from a friend, Helen Harvey, who left her estate to him following her death in a car crash.[6] He used part of this money to go on many trips around the world from 1993 onwards.[7] Bryant also withdrew many thousands of dollars during this period. He used at least some of this money in late 1993 to purchase an AR-10 semi-automatic rifle through a newspaper advertisement in Tasmania.
Bryant's father had tried to purchase a bed and breakfast property called Seascape, but Noelene (also known as Sally) and David Martin bought this property before his father could ready his finances, much to the disappointment of Bryant's father, who often complained to his son of the "double dealing" the Martins had done to secure the purchase. Bryant's father offered to buy another property from the Martins at Palmers Lookout Road, but they declined the offer. Bryant apparently believed the Martins had deliberately bought the property to hurt his family and believed this event to be responsible for the depression that led to his father's 1993 suicide. Bryant later described the Martins as "very mean people" and as "the worse [sic] people in my life."
In late 1995, Bryant became suicidal after deciding he had "had enough". He stated, "I just felt more people were against me. When I tried to be friendly toward them, they just walked away". Although he had previously been little more than a social drinker, his alcohol consumption increased and, although he had not consumed any alcohol on that day, had especially escalated in the six months prior to the massacre.
In March 1996, Bryant had his AR-10 repaired at a gun shop and made inquiries about AR-15 rifles in other gun shops. At the time of purchase, non-handguns were not required to be registered in Tasmania.
According to Bryant, he thought the plan for Port Arthur may have first occurred to him four to 12 weeks before the event.[8][9]
Motivation
Bryant's motivation for the massacre remains a closely guarded secret, known only to his lawyer, who is bound not to reveal confidences without his client's consent. The lawyer later released a book outlining that Bryant was motivated largely by the media reports of the then-recent Dunblane school massacre. From the moment he was captured, he continually wanted to know how many people he had killed and seemed impressed by the number. Bryant is only allowed to listen to music on a radio outside his cell, and is denied access to any news reports of his massacre. Photographers allowed in to take pictures of him in his prison cell were forced to destroy the film in his presence when the Governor found out
Gun laws in Australia before the Port Arthur massacre[edit]
A redesign of the laws for all States and Territories of Australia had been finished[by whom?] and presented at a meeting of police ministers in Launceston in 1995. It had been rejected by Tasmania.
Attacks
28 April 1996
The events of this day were pieced together after investigation by police. The facts were then presented in court on 19 November 1996.
Morning events
Bryant was awakened at 6:00 a.m. by his alarm clock. His girlfriend and other family members said he had never been known to use it since he did not work and had no other commitments. At 8:00 a.m., his girlfriend left the house to visit her parents. Bryant left the house and switched on the burglar alarm, which registered the time as 9:47 a.m.
Bryant travelled to Forcett, arriving some time around 11:00 a.m. He continued down to Port Arthur and was seen driving into Seascape down the Arthur Highway around 11:45 a.m. He stopped at the Seascape guest accommodation site (43.11888°S 147.85326°E[15]) that his father had wanted to purchase, owned by David and Noelene Martin. Bryant went inside and fired several shots, then gagged David Martin and stabbed him. Witnesses testified to different numbers of shots fired at this time. It was stated in court that it was believed that this was the time that Bryant killed the Martins, his first two victims.
A couple stopped at Seascape and Bryant met them outside. When they asked if they could have a look at the accommodation, Bryant told them that they could not because his parents were away and his girlfriend was inside. His demeanour was described as quite rude and the couple felt uncomfortable. They left at about 12:35 p.m.
Bryant drove to Port Arthur, taking the keys to the Seascape properties after locking the doors. Bryant stopped at a car which had pulled over from overheating and talked with two people there. He suggested that they come to the Port Arthur café for some coffee later.
He travelled past the Port Arthur historic site toward a Palmer's Lookout Road property owned by the Martins, where he came across Roger Larner. Larner had met him on some occasions more than 15 years before. Bryant told Larner he had been surfing and had bought a property called Fogg Lodge and was now looking to buy some cattle from Larner. Bryant also made several comments about buying the Martins' place next door. He asked if Marian Larner was home, and asked if he could continue down the driveway of the farm to see her. Larner said OK, but told Bryant he would come also. "Bryant then responded that he might go to Nubeena first" and he was going to return in the afternoon.
Port Arthur Historic Site
Port Arthur Bay, Port Arthur, was the location of most of the shootings
At around 1:10 p.m., Bryant got in line at the toll booth at the entrance to the historic site. He paid the entry fee and proceeded to park near the Broad Arrow Café, near the water's edge. The site security manager told him to park with the other cars because that area was reserved for camper-vans and the car park was very busy that day. Bryant moved his car to another area and sat in his car for a few minutes. He then moved his car back near the water, outside the café. The security manager saw him go up to the café carrying a "sports-type bag" and a video camera, but ignored him. Bryant went into the café and purchased a meal, which he ate on the deck outside. He attempted to start conversations with people about the lack of "WASPs" in the area and there not being as many Japanese tourists as usual. He appeared nervous and "quite regularly" looked back to the car-park and into the café.
Broad Arrow Café murders
Bryant finished his meal, walked into the café and returned his tray, assisted by some people who opened the door for him. He put his bag down on a table and pulled out of it a Colt AR-15 SP1 Carbine with a Colt scope and one 30-round magazine attached. The bag also contained, among other things, the knife he had used to stab Martin. It is believed the Colt magazine was partially emptied from the shootings at Seascape.
The café was very small, with the tables very close together, and was particularly busy that day, with many people waiting for the next ferry. The following events happened extremely quickly. Bryant took aim from his hip and pointed his rifle at Moh Yee (William) Ng and Sou Leng Chung, who were visiting from Malaysia and were seated at a table beside Bryant. He shot them at close range, killing both instantly. Bryant then fired a shot at Mick Sargent, grazing his scalp and knocking him to the floor. He fired a fourth shot that killed Sargent's girlfriend, 21-year-old Kate Elizabeth Scott, by hitting her in the back of the head.
A 28-year-old New Zealand winemaker, Jason Winter, had been helping the busy café staff. As Bryant turned towards Winter's wife Joanne and their 15-month-old son Mitchell, Winter threw a serving tray at Bryant in an attempt to distract him. Joanne Winter's father pushed his daughter and grandson to the floor and under the table.
The café structure in 2015. A memorial garden has been established at the site.
44-year-old Anthony Nightingale stood up after the sound of the first shots, but had no time to move. Nightingale yelled "No, not here!" as Bryant pointed the weapon at him. As Nightingale leaned forward, he was fatally shot through the neck and spine.
The next table had held a group of ten friends, but some had just left the table to return their meal trays and visit the gift shop. Bryant fired one shot that killed Kevin Vincent Sharp, 68.The second hit Walter Bennett, 66, passed through his body and struck Raymond John Sharp, 67, Kevin Sharp's brother, killing both.The three had their backs towards Bryant, and were unaware what was happening — they at first believed someone was letting off firecrackers. One of them made the comment "That's not funny" after hearing the first few shots, not realising that they were real. The shots were all close range, with the gun at, or just inches away from, the back of their heads. Gerald Broome, Gaye Fidler and her husband John were all struck by bullet fragments, but survived.
Bryant then turned towards Tony and Sarah Kistan and Andrew Mills.[16] Both men stood up at the noise of the initial shots, but had no time to move away. Andrew Mills was shot in the head. Tony Kistan was also shot from about two metres away, also in the head, but had managed to push his wife away prior to being shot. Sarah Kistan was apparently not seen by Bryant, as she was under the table by that time.
Thelma Walker and Pamela Law were injured by fragments before being dragged to the ground by their friend, Peter Crosswell, as the three sheltered underneath the table. Also injured by fragments from these shots was Patricia Barker.
It was only then that the majority of the people in the café began to realise what was happening and that the shots were not from a reenactment at the historical site. At this point, there was great confusion, with many people not knowing what to do, as Bryant was near the main exit.
Bryant moved just a few metres and began shooting at the table where Graham Colyer, Carolyn Loughton and her daughter Sarah were seated. Colyer was severely injured in the jaw, nearly choking to death on his own blood. Sarah Loughton ran towards her mother, who had been moving between tables. Carolyn Loughton threw herself on top of her daughter. Bryant shot Carolyn Loughton in the back; her eardrum was ruptured by the muzzle blast from the gun going off beside her ear. She survived her injuries, but learned after she came out of surgery that, despite her efforts, Sarah had been fatally shot in the head.
Bryant pivoted around and shot Mervyn Howard who was seated. The bullet passed through him, through a window of the café, and hit a table on the outside balcony. Bryant quickly followed up with a shot to the neck of Mervyn Howard's wife, Mary.[16] Bryant then leaned over a vacant baby stroller and pointed the gun at her head and shot her a second time. Both of the Howards' injuries were fatal.
Bryant was near the exit, preventing others from attempting to run past him and escape. Bryant moved across the café towards the gift shop area. There was an exit door through the display area to the outside balcony, but it was locked and could only be opened with a key. As Bryant moved, Robert Elliott stood up. He was shot in the arm and head, left slumping against the fireplace but alive.
All of these events, from the first bullet that killed Ng, took approximately 15–30 seconds, during which twelve people were killed and ten more wounded.
Gift shop murders[edit]
Bryant moved toward the gift shop area, giving many people time to hide under tables and behind shop displays. He fatally shot the two local women who worked in the gift shop: 17-year-old Nicole Burgess, in the head, and 26-year-old Elizabeth Howard, in the arm and chest.
Coralee Lever and Vera Jary hid behind a hessian (burlap) screen with others. Lever's husband Dennis was fatally shot in the head.Pauline Masters, Vera Jary's husband Ron, and Peter and Carolyn Nash had attempted to escape through a locked door but could not. Peter Nash lay down on top of his wife to hide her from Bryant. Bryant moved into the gift shop area where several people, trapped with nowhere to go, were crouched down in the corners. Gwen Neander, trying to make it to the door, was shot in the head and killed.
Bryant saw movement in the café and moved near the front door. He shot at a table and hit Peter Crosswell, who was hiding under it, in the buttock. Jason Winter, hiding in the gift shop, thought Bryant had left the building and made a comment about it to people near him before moving out into the open. Bryant saw him, with Winter stating "No, no" just prior to being shot, the bullet hitting his hand, neck and chest. A second shot to the head proved fatal to Winter. Fragments from those shots struck American tourist Dennis Olson, who had been hiding with his wife Mary and Winter. Dennis Olson suffered fragment injuries to his hand, scalp, eye and chest, but survived.
It is not immediately clear what happened next, although at some point, Bryant reloaded his weapon. Bryant walked back to the café and then returned to the gift shop, this time looking down to another corner of the shop where he found several people hiding in the corner. He walked up to them and shot Ronald Jary through the neck, then Peter Nash and Pauline Masters, killing all three. He did not see Carolyn Nash, who was lying under her husband. Bryant aimed his gun at an unidentified Asian man, but the rifle's magazine was empty. Bryant then quickly moved to the gift shop counter, where he reloaded his rifle, leaving an empty magazine on the service counter, and left the building.
Up to this time, Bryant had killed 22 people and injured 12.
Car park murders
During the café shooting, some staff members had been able to escape through the kitchen and alerted people outside. There were a number of coaches outside with lines of people, many of whom began to hide in the buses or in nearby buildings. Others did not understand the situation or were unsure where to go. Some people believed there was some sort of historical reenactment happening, and moved towards the area.
Ashley John Law, a site employee, was moving people away from the café into the information centre when Bryant fired at him from 50–100 metres (50–110 yards) away. The bullets missed Law and hit some trees nearby.
Bryant then moved towards the coaches. One of the coach drivers, Royce Thompson, was shot in the back as he was moving along the passengers' side of a coach. He fell to the ground and was able to crawl, then roll under the bus to safety, but later died of his wounds. Brigid Cook was trying to guide a number of people down between the buses and along the jetty area to cover. Bryant moved to the front of this bus and walked across to the next coach. People had quickly moved from this coach towards the back end, in an attempt to seek cover. As Bryant walked around it, he saw people scrambling to hide and shot at them. Brigid Cook was shot in the right thigh, causing the bone to fragment, the bullet lodging there. A coach driver, Ian McElwee, was hit by fragments of Miss Cook's bone. Both were able to escape and survived.
Bryant then quickly moved around another coach and fired at another group of people. Winifred Aplin, running to get to cover behind another coach, was fatally shot in the side. Another bullet grazed Yvonne Lockley's cheek, but she was able to enter one of the coaches to hide, and survived.
Some people then started moving away from the car park towards the jetty. But someone shouted that Bryant was heading that way, so they tried to double back around the coaches to where Brigid Cook had been shot. Bryant doubled back to where Janet and Neville Quin, who owned a wildlife park on the east coast of Tasmania, were beginning to move toward Mason Cove and away from the buses. Bryant shot Janet Quin in the back, where she fell, unable to move, near Royce Thompson.
Bryant then continued along the car park as people tried to escape along the shore. Doug Hutchinson was attempting to get into a coach when he was shot in the arm. He quickly ran around the front of the coach, and then along the shore to the jetty and hid.
Bryant then went to his vehicle, which was just past the coaches, and changed weapons to the self loading rifle. He fired at Denise Cromer, who was near the penitentiary ruins. Gravel flew up in front of her as the bullets hit the ground. Bryant then got in his car and sat there for a few moments before getting out again and going back to the coaches. Some people were taking cover behind cars in the car park, but because of the elevation, Bryant could see them and the cars did not provide much cover. When they realized Bryant had seen them, they ran into the bush. He fired several shots. At least one hit a tree behind which someone was taking cover, but no one was hit.
Bryant moved back to the buses where Janet Quin lay injured from the earlier shot. Bryant shot her in the back, then left; she later died from her wounds. Bryant then went onto one of the coaches and fired a shot at Elva Gaylard who was hiding inside, hitting her in the arm and chest and killing her. At an adjacent coach, Gordon Francis saw what happened and moved down the aisle to try to shut the door of the coach he was on. He was seen by Bryant and shot from the opposite coach. He survived, but needed four major operations.
Neville Quin, husband of Janet, had escaped to the jetty area, but returned to look for his wife. He had been forced to leave her earlier after Bryant shot her. Bryant exited the coach and, spotting Quin, chased him around the coaches. Bryant fired at him at least twice before Quin ran onto a coach. Bryant entered the coach and pointed the gun at Neville Quin's face, saying, "No one gets away from me" Mr Quin ducked when he realised Bryant was about to pull the trigger. The bullet missed his head but hit his neck, momentarily paralysing him. After Bryant left, Quin managed to find his wife, although she later died in his arms. Neville Quin was eventually taken away by helicopter and survived.
Bryant fired at James Balasko, a U.S. citizen, hitting a nearby car. Balasko had been attempting to film the shooter. Many people, unable to use their parked cars, were hiding or running along Jetty Road and did not know where Bryant was because the gunfire was extremely loud and difficult to pinpoint.
At this time, Bryant had killed 26 people and injured 18.
Toll booth murders and carjacking[edit]
Bryant then got back into his car and left the car park. Witnesses say he was sounding the horn and waving as he drove. Bryant drove along Jetty Road towards the toll booth where a number of people were running away. Bryant passed by at least two people.
Ahead of him were Nanette Mikac and her children, Madeline, 3, and Alannah, 6.[19] Nanette was carrying Madeline, and Alannah was running slightly ahead. By this point, they had run approximately 600 metres (660 yd) from the car park.[19] Bryant opened his door and slowed down. Mikac moved towards the car, apparently thinking he was offering them help in escaping. Several more people witnessed this from further down the road. Someone recognised him as the gunman and yelled out "It's him!"[19] Bryant stepped out of the car, put his hand on Nanette Mikac's shoulder and told her to get on her knees.[19] She did so, saying, "Please don't hurt my babies" Bryant shot her in the temple, killing her. Next, he fired a shot at Madeline, which hit her in the shoulder, then shot her fatally through the chest.[19] Bryant shot twice at Alannah, as she ran behind a tree, missing.[19] He then walked up, pressed the barrel of the gun into her neck and fired, killing her instantly.
Bryant fired at some people hiding in a bush, but missed. Having seen the murders of the children, some people further up the road began running. They told drivers of cars coming down the road to go back. The people thought Bryant would head up the road, so instead they proceeded on foot down a dirt side road and hid in the bush. The cars reversed up the road to the toll booth.
Bryant drove up to the toll booth, where there were several vehicles, and blocked a 1980 BMW 7 Series (E23) owned by Mary Rose Nixon.[19] Inside were Nixon, driver Russell James Pollard and passengers Helene and Robert Graham Salzmann An argument with Robert Salzmann ensued, and Bryant took out his rifle and shot Salzmann at point-blank range, killing him. Pollard emerged from the BMW and went towards Bryant, who shot him in the chest, killing him.[19] More cars then arrived, but seeing this, the drivers were quickly able to reverse back up the road. Bryant then moved to the BMW and pulled Nixon and Helene Salzmann from the car and shot them dead, dragging their bodies onto the road. Bryant transferred ammunition, handcuffs, the AR-15 rifle and a fuel container to the BMW. Mary Nixon, Russell Pollard, Helene Salzmann and Robert Salzmann are the people Bryant was charged with killing at the toll booth.
Another car then came towards the toll booth and Bryant shot at it. The driver, Graham Sutherland, was hit with glass. A second bullet hit the driver's door. Sutherland quickly reversed back up the road and left. Bryant then got into the BMW, leaving behind his Volvo 244, including his Daewoo shotgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
At this point, Bryant had killed 33 and injured 19.
Service station murder and abduction[edit]
Graham Sutherland, who had just been shot at in his car, reversed back up the road and drove to the service station close by, where he tried to inform people what was happening. Bryant drove up to the service station and cut off a white Toyota Corolla that was attempting to exit onto the highway. Glenn Pears was driving, with girlfriend Zoe Hall in the passenger seat. Bryant quickly exited the car with his rifle in hand and tried to pull Hall from the car. Pears got out of the car and approached Bryant. Bryant pointed the gun at Pears and pushed him backwards, eventually directing him into the now open boot of the BMW, locking Pears inside.
Bryant then moved back to the passenger side of the Corolla as Hall attempted to climb over to the driver's seat.[19] Bryant raised his rifle and fired three shots, killing her.[19] Many people around the service station witnessed this and ran to hide in nearby bushland. The service station attendant told everyone to lie down and he locked the main doors. He grabbed his rifle, but by the time he could retrieve some ammunition and load his gun, Bryant had left in the BMW. A police officer arrived several minutes later and then set out in pursuit of Bryant.
Zoe Hall was the 34th victim killed.
Seascape roadway
As Bryant drove down to Seascape, he shot at a red Ford Falcon coming the other way, smashing its front windscreen.[19] Upon arriving at Seascape, he got out of his car. A Holden Frontera 4WD vehicle then approached Seascape along the road. Those in the vehicle saw Bryant with his gun, but believed him to be rabbit hunting and actually slowed down as they passed him. Bryant fired into the car; the first bullet hit the bonnet and broke the throttle cable. He fired at least twice more into the car as it passed, breaking the windows. One bullet hit the driver, Linda White, in the arm. The car was going downhill so it was able to roll down the road out of sight around a corner, despite its broken throttle cable. White swapped seats with her boyfriend, Michael Wanders, who attempted to drive the car, but was unable to, because of the broken throttle cable.
Another vehicle then drove down the road, carrying four people. It was not until they were almost adjacent to Bryant that they realised he was carrying a gun. Bryant shot at the car, smashing the windscreen. Douglas Horner was wounded by pieces of the windscreen.[19] The car proceeded ahead where White and Wanders tried to get in, but Horner did not realise the situation and drove on. When they saw that White had been shot, they came back and picked them up. Both parties then continued down to a local establishment called the Fox and Hound, where they called police.
Yet another car drove past and Bryant shot at it, hitting the passenger, Susan Williams, in the hand.[19] The driver, Simon Williams, was struck by fragments.[19] The driver of another approaching vehicle saw this and reversed back up the road. Bryant also fired at this car, hitting it but not injuring anyone. Bryant then got back into the BMW and drove down the Seascape driveway to the house where the Martins, his first victims, lay dead.
Sometime after he stopped, Bryant removed Pears from the boot and handcuffed him to a stair rail within the house.[19] At some point, he also set the BMW on fire.[19] He is believed to have arrived at the house by about 2:00 p.m.
29 April 1996
Capture
Bryant was captured the following morning, when a fire started in the guest house, presumably set by Bryant.[21] Bryant taunted police to "come and get him", but the police, believing the hostage was already dead, decided that the fire would eventually bring Bryant out. Bryant eventually ran out of the house with his clothes on fire, suffering burns to his back and buttocks. He was arrested and taken to hospital for treatment.
It was discovered that Glenn Pears had been shot during or before the standoff and had died before the fire. The remains of the Martins were also found. It was also determined they had been shot, and that Noelene Martin had suffered blunt-force trauma. They both died before the fire; witness accounts of the gunfire, as presented to the Supreme Court of Tasmania, place the time of death of David and Noelene Martin as being approximately noon on 28 April. One weapon was found burnt in the house, and the other on the roof of the adjacent building where police believed they had seen Bryant the night before. Both weapons had suffered from massive chamber blast pressure, possibly from the heat of the house fire.
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 (S-21; Khmer: មន្ទីរស-២១) by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979. From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng and it was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted the prison's chief, Kang Kek Iew, for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. He died on 2 September 2020 while serving a life sentence.
To accommodate the victims of purges that were important enough for the attention of the Khmer Rouge, a new detention center was planned in the building that was formerly known as Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in March or April 1976 into a prison and an interrogation center. Before, other buildings in town were used already as prison S-21. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison for the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes and suicides.
From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. In the early months of S-21's existence, most of the victims were from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc. Later, the party leadership's paranoia turned on its own ranks and purges throughout the country saw thousands of party activists and their families brought to Tuol Sleng and murdered. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage", these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were sometimes brought en masse to be interrogated and later executed at the Choeung Ek extermination center.
In 1979, the prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese army. At some point between 1979 and 1980 the prison was reopened by the government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea as a historical museum memorializing the actions of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Upon arrival at the prison, prisoners were photographed and required to give detailed autobiographies, beginning with their childhood and ending with their arrest. After that, they were forced to strip to their underwear, and their possessions were confiscated. The prisoners were then taken to their cells. Those taken to the smaller cells were shackled to the walls or the concrete floor. Those who were held in the large mass cells were collectively shackled to long pieces of iron bar. The shackles were fixed to alternating bars; the prisoners slept with their heads in opposite directions. They slept on the floor without mats, mosquito nets, or blankets. They were forbidden to talk to each other.
The day began in the prison at 4:30 a.m. when prisoners were ordered to strip for inspection. The guards checked to see if the shackles were loose or if the prisoners had hidden objects they could use to commit suicide. Over the years, several prisoners managed to kill themselves, so the guards were very careful in checking the shackles and cells. The prisoners received four small spoonfuls of rice porridge and a watery soup of leaves twice a day. Drinking water without asking the guards for permission resulted in serious beatings. The inmates were hosed down every four days.
The prison had very strict regulations, and severe beatings were inflicted upon any prisoner who disobeyed. Almost every action had to be approved by one of the prison's guards. The prisoners were sometimes forced to eat human feces and drink human urine. The unhygienic living conditions in the prison caused skin diseases, lice, rashes, ringworm and other ailments. The prison's medical staff were untrained and offered treatment only to sustain prisoners' lives after they had been injured during interrogation. When prisoners were taken from one place to another for interrogation, they were blindfolded. Guards and prisoners were not allowed to converse. Moreover, within the prison, people who were in different groups were not allowed to have contact with one another.[5]
Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months. However, several high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres were held longer. Within two or three days after they were brought to S-21, all prisoners were taken for interrogation. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners' heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique. Women were sometimes raped by the interrogators, even though sexual abuse was against Democratic Kampuchea (DK) policy. The perpetrators who were found out were executed. Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions. The "Medical Unit" at Tuol Sleng, however, did kill at least 100 prisoners by bleeding them to death. It is proven that medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. There is clear evidence that patients in Cambodia were sliced open and had organs removed with no anesthetic. The camp's director, Kang Kek Iew, has acknowledged that "live prisoners were used for surgical study and training. Draining blood was also done."
In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal background. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners' thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. At the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners' friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were in the confession list were often called in for interrogation.
Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for the CIA, the KGB, or Vietnam. Physical torture was combined with sleep deprivation and deliberate neglect of the prisoners. The torture implements are on display in the museum. It is believed that the vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the charges against them and that the torture produced false confessions.
For the first year of S-21's existence, corpses were buried near the prison. However, by the end of 1976, cadres ran out of burial spaces, the prisoner and family members were taken to the Boeung Choeung Ek ("Crow's Feet Pond") extermination centre, fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh. There, they were killed by a group of teenagers led by a Comrade Teng, being battered to death with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and many other makeshift weapons owing to the scarcity and cost of ammunition. After the prisoners were executed, the soldiers who had accompanied them from S-21 buried them in graves that held as few as 6 and as many as 100 bodies.
Almost all non-Cambodians had left the country by early May 1975, following an overland evacuation of the French Embassy in trucks. The few who remained were seen as a security risk. Though most of the foreign victims were either Vietnamese or Thai, a number of Western prisoners, many picked up at sea by Khmer Rouge patrol boats, also passed through S-21 between April 1976 and December 1978. No foreign prisoners survived captivity in S-21.
Even though the vast majority of the victims were Cambodian, some were foreigners, including 488 Vietnamese, 31 Thai, four French, two Americans, two Australians, one Laotian, one Arab, one Briton, one Canadian, one New Zealander, and one Indonesian. Khmers of Indian and Pakistani descent were also victims.
Two Franco-Vietnamese brothers named Rovin and Harad Bernard were detained in April 1976 after they were transferred from Siem Reap, where they had worked tending cattle. Another Frenchman named Andre Gaston Courtigne, a 30-year-old clerk and typist at the French embassy, was arrested the same month along with his Khmer wife in Siem Reap.
It is possible that a handful of French nationals who went missing after the 1975 evacuation of Phnom Penh also passed through S-21. Two Americans were captured under similar circumstances. James Clark and Lance McNamara in April 1978 were sailing when their boat drifted off course and sailed into Cambodian waters. They were arrested by Khmer patrol boats, taken ashore, where they were blindfolded, placed on trucks, and taken to the then-deserted Phnom Penh.
Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison. He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality. Robert Hamill, his brother and a champion Atlantic rower, would years later make a documentary, Brother Number One, about his brother's incarceration.
One of the last foreign prisoners to die was twenty-nine-year-old American Michael S. Deeds, who was captured with his friend Christopher E. DeLance on November 24, 1978, while sailing from Singapore to Hawaii. His confession was signed a week before the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and ousted the Khmer Rouge. In 1989, Deeds' brother, Karl Deeds, traveled to Cambodia in attempts to find his brother's remains, but was unsuccessful. On September 3, 2012, DeLance's photograph was identified among the caches of inmate portraits.
As of 1999, there were a total of 79 foreign victims on record, but former Tuol Sleng Khmer Rouge photographer Nim Im claims that the records are not complete. On top of that, there is also an eyewitness account of a Filipino, a Cuban and a Swiss who passed through the prison, though no official records of either are shown.
Out of an estimated 20,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only twelve known survivors: seven adults and five children. One child died shortly after the liberation.[5] As of mid-September 2011, only three of the adults and four children are thought to still be alive: Chum Mey, Bou Meng, and Chim Meth. All three said they were kept alive because they had skills their captors judged to be useful. Bou Meng, whose wife was killed in the prison, is an artist. Chum Mey was kept alive because of his skills in repairing machinery. Chim Meth was held in S-21 for 2 weeks and transferred to the nearby Prey Sar prison. She may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom where Comrade Duch was born. She intentionally distinguished herself by emphasising her provincial accent during her interrogations. Vann Nath, who was spared because of his ability to paint, died on September 5, 2011. Norng Chan Phal, one of the surviving children, published his story in 2018.
The Documentation Center of Cambodia has recently estimated that, in fact, at least 179 prisoners were freed from S-21 between 1975 and 1979 and approximately 23 prisoners (including 5 children, two of them siblings Norng Chanphal and Norng Chanly) survived when the prison was liberated in January 1979. One child died shortly thereafter. Of the 179 prisoners who were released, most disappeared and only a few are known to have survived after 1979. It was found that at least 60 persons (out of the DC Cam list) who are listed as having survived were first released but later rearrested and executed.
The prison had a staff of 1,720 people throughout the whole period. Of those, approximately 300 were office staff, internal workforce and interrogators. The other 1,400 were general workers, including people who grew food for the prison. Several of these workers were children taken from the prisoner families. The chief of the prison was Khang Khek Ieu (also known as Comrade Duch), a former mathematics teacher who worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Other leading figures of S-21 were Kim Vat aka Ho (deputy chief of S-21), Peng (chief of guards), Mam Nai aka Chan (chief of the Interrogation Unit), and Tang Sin Hean aka Pon (interrogator). Pon was the person who interrogated important people such as Keo Meas, Nay Sarann, Ho Nim, Tiv Ol, and Phok Chhay.
The documentation unit was responsible for transcribing tape recorded confessions, typing the handwritten notes from prisoners' confessions, preparing summaries of confessions, and maintaining files. In the photography sub-unit, workers took mug shots of prisoners when they arrived, pictures of prisoners who had died while in detention, and pictures of important prisoners after they were executed. Thousands of photographs have survived, but thousands are still missing.
The defense unit was the largest unit in S-21. The guards in this unit were mostly teenagers. Many guards found the unit's strict rules hard to obey. Guards were not allowed to talk to prisoners, to learn their names, or to beat them. They were also forbidden to observe or eavesdrop on interrogations, and they were expected to obey 30 regulations, which barred them from such things as taking naps, sitting down or leaning against a wall while on duty. They had to walk, guard, and examine everything carefully. Guards who made serious mistakes were arrested, interrogated, jailed and put to death. Most of the people employed at S-21 were terrified of making mistakes and feared being tortured and killed.
The interrogation unit was split into three separate groups: Krom Noyobai or the political unit, Krom Kdao or the hot unit and Krom Angkiem, or the chewing unit. The hot unit (sometimes called the cruel unit) was allowed to use torture. In contrast, the cold unit (sometimes called the gentle unit) was prohibited from using torture to obtain confessions. If they could not make prisoners confess, they would transfer them to the hot unit. The chewing unit dealt with tough and important cases. Those who worked as interrogators were literate and usually in their 20s.
Some of the staff who worked in Tuol Sleng also ended up as prisoners. They confessed to being lazy in preparing documents, to having damaged machines and various equipment, and to having beaten prisoners to death without permission when assisting with interrogations.
When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of ten rules that they were to follow during their incarceration. What follows is what is posted today at the Tuol Sleng Museum; the imperfect grammar is a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer:
You must answer accordingly to my question. Don't turn them away.
Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
During testimony at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on April 27, 2009, Duch claimed the 10 security regulations were a fabrication of the Vietnamese officials that first set up the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
In 1979, Hồ Văn Tây, a Vietnamese combat photographer, was the first journalist to document Tuol Sleng to the world. Hồ and his colleagues followed the stench of rotting corpses to the gates of Tuol Sleng. The photos of Hồ documenting what he saw when he entered the site are exhibited in Tuol Sleng today.
The Khmer Rouge required that the prison staff make a detailed dossier for each prisoner. Included in the documentation was a photograph. Since the original negatives and photographs were separated from the dossiers in the 1979–1980 period, most of the photographs remain anonymous to this day.
The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved, with some rooms still appearing just as they were when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 20,000 prisoners who passed through the prison.
The site has four main buildings, known as Building A, B, C, and D. Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B holds galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms subdivided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.
Other rooms contain only a rusting iron bedframe, beneath a black and white photograph showing the room as it was found by the Vietnamese. In each photograph, the mutilated body of a prisoner is chained to the bed, killed by his fleeing captors only hours before the prison was captured. Other rooms preserve leg-irons and instruments of torture. They are accompanied by paintings by former inmate Vann Nath showing people being tortured, which were added by the post-Khmer Rouge regime installed by the Vietnamese in 1979.
The museum is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On weekdays, visitors have the opportunity of viewing a 'survivor testimony' from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Along with the Choeung Ek Memorial (the Killing Fields), the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is included as a point of interest for those visiting Cambodia. Tuol Sleng also remains an important educational site as well as memorial for Cambodians. Since 2010, the ECCC brings Cambodians on a 'study tour' consisting of the Tuol Sleng, followed by the Choeung Ek, and finishing at the ECCC complex. The tour drew approximately 27,000 visitors in 2010.
S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine is a 2003 film by Rithy Panh, a Cambodian-born, French-trained filmmaker who lost his family when he was 11. The film features two Tuol Sleng survivors, Vann Nath and Chum Mey, confronting their former Khmer Rouge captors, including guards, interrogators, a doctor and a photographer. The focus of the film is the difference between the feelings of the survivors, who want to understand what happened at Tuol Sleng to warn future generations, and the former jailers, who cannot escape the horror of the genocide they helped create.
A number of images from Tuol Sleng are featured in the 1992 Ron Fricke film Baraka.
The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than 1,000,000 people were killed and buried by the Communist Party of Kampuchea during Khmer Rouge rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975). The mass killings were part of the broad, state-sponsored Cambodian genocide.
Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicates at least 1,386,734 victims of execution. Estimates of the total deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including death from disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, ending the genocide.
The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime.
The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Cham, Cambodian Christians, and Buddhist monks were the demographic targets of persecution. As a result, Pol Pot has been described as "a genocidal tyrant". Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era".
Ben Kiernan estimates that about 1.7 million people were killed. Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution". A United Nations investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed. Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline suggests that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed, while Marek Sliwinski suggests that 1.8 million is a conservative figure. Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion. By late 1979, UN and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to "the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot", who were saved by international aid after the Vietnamese invasion.
Process
The judicial process of the Khmer Rouge regime, for minor or political crimes, began with a warning from the Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime. People receiving more than two warnings were sent for "re-education," which meant near-certain death. People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity; having had contact with a foreign source, such as a U.S. missionary, international relief or government agency; or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean." They were then taken away to a place such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution.[citation needed]
The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes. Inside the Buddhist Memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek, there is evidence of bayonets, knives, wooden clubs, hoes for farming and curved scythes being used to kill victims, with images of skulls, damaged by these implements, as evidence. In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was "to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths."[citation needed]
Prosecution for crimes against humanity
In 1997 the Cambodian government asked for the UN's assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal. It took nine years to agree to the shape and structure of the court—a hybrid of Cambodian and international laws—before the judges were sworn in, in 2006. The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007. On 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He faced Cambodian and foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal and was convicted on 7 August 2014 and received a life sentence. On 26 July 2010 Kang Kek Iew (aka Comrade Duch), director of the S-21 prison camp, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 19 years, as he had already spent 11 years in prison. On 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He died on 2 September 2020.
Legacy
The best known monument of the Killing Fields is at the village of Choeung Ek. Today, it is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the victims, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide. The memorial park at Choeung Ek has been built around the mass graves of many thousands of victims, most of whom were executed after interrogation at the S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh. The majority of those buried at Choeung Ek were Khmer Rouge killed during the purges within the regime. Many dozens of mass graves are visible above ground, many which have not been excavated yet. Commonly, bones and clothing surface after heavy rainfalls due to the large number of bodies still buried in shallow mass graves. It is not uncommon to run across the bones or teeth of the victims scattered on the surface as one tours the memorial park. If these are found, visitors are asked to notify a memorial park officer or guide.
A survivor of the genocide, Dara Duong, founded The Killing Fields Museum in Seattle, US.
The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow.
The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in the jungles of eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although it originally fought against Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge changed its position and supported Sihanouk following the CCP's advice after he was overthrown in a 1970 coup by Lon Nol who established the pro-American Khmer Republic. Despite a massive American bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal) against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer Republic in 1975. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. In 1976, they renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.
The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, totalitarian, and repressive. Many deaths resulted from the regime's social engineering policies and the "Moha Lout Plaoh", an imitation of China's Great Leap Forward which had caused the Great Chinese Famine. The Khmer Rouge's attempts at agricultural reform through collectivization similarly led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, including the supply of medicine, led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria.
The Khmer Rouge regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents, and its racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. Summary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978. Ultimately, the Cambodian genocide which took place under the Khmer Rouge regime led to the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge were largely supported and funded by the Chinese Communist Party, receiving approval from Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came from China. The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of its forces. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand, whose government saw them as a buffer force against the Communist Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the Vietnamese and the government of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of the war in 1989. The Cambodian governments-in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto Cambodia's United Nations seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy was restored and the name of the Cambodian state was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty.
In 1996, a new political party called the Democratic National Union Movement was formed by Ieng Sary, who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge. The organisation was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999. In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.
The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had long been supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.
The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military invaded in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. By January 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people had died due to the Khmer Rouge's policies, including 200,000–300,000 Chinese Cambodians, 90,000–500,000 Cambodian Cham (who are mostly Muslim), and 20,000 Vietnamese Cambodians. 20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated, and only seven adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields, where they were executed (often with pickaxes, to save bullets) and buried in mass graves. Abduction and indoctrination of children was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll, with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease.
The genocide triggered a second outflow of refugees, many of whom escaped to neighboring Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In 2003, by agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge Tribunal) were established to try the members of the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for the Cambodian genocide. Trials began in 2009. On 26 July 2010, the Trial Chamber convicted Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court Chamber increased his sentence to life imprisonment. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were tried and convicted in 2014 of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. On 28 March 2019, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon Chea of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility. Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment.
Contrary to what we are lead to believe by the popular media, science is not the enemy of Christianity.
Genuine science is completely compatible with the belief in the creator God of Christianity.
Most of the world's greatest scientists, who were the pioneers and founders of modern science recognised this.
It is only fairly recently with the rise of militant atheism that science has been portrayed, through propaganda, as being in conflict with Christianity.
So why were so many great scientists convinced that the principles of science were in perfect harmony with belief in the Christian God?
Consider this ....
A creator God (or supernatural first cause) has been made redundant and the final gap (pertaining to the so-called God of the gaps) has now been filled ... who says so?
Atheists, along with the secularist pundits in the popular media.
Why do they say that?
Because they believe that the greatest brain in atheism - Stephen Hawking, has finally discovered the secret of the origin of the universe and a naturalistic replacement for God.
The atheist replacement for God is summed up in a single sentence written by Hawking:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing"
That is it .... problem solved - apparently!
The secularists in the popular media loved it, as far as they were concerned the problem certainly was solved. Hawking had finally dealt the fatal blow to all religion, especially Christianity. No need to question it, if a revered scientist of his calibre, is so sure of how the universe came into being, it must be correct.
The new atheists loved it, they wasted no time in proclaiming the ultimate triumph of 'science' over religious mythology and superstition.
So just how credible is the atheist claim that God has been made redundant?
And just how 'scientific' is Hawking's replacement for God?
Shall we analyse it?
"Because there is a law of gravity ....
So,
1) If the law of gravity existed, how is that nothing?
AND -
2) Where did the law of gravity come from?
AND -
3) How can a law of gravity exist before that which gravity relates to ... i.e. matter?
"the universe can and will create itself from nothing"
4) How can something create itself, without pre-existing its own creation?
(A) could possibly create (B), but how could (A) create (A)? Of course it can't.
5) What about the 'nothing' that is not really nothing, as most people understand 'nothing', but a bizarre 'nothing' in which a law of gravity exists. A nothing which is actually a 'something' where a law of gravity is presumably some sort of eternally, existent entity?
AND -
6) Is Hawking implying that the self-creation of the universe is made possible by the pre-existence of the law of gravity?
Of course, natural laws are not creative agents, they simply describe basic properties and operation of material things. They can't create anything, or cause the creation of anything. Something which is a property of something, cannot create that which it is a property of.
So, even if we ignore the law of cause and effect which definitively rules out a natural, first cause of the universe, the atheist notion of the universe arising of its own volition from nothing is still impossible, and can be regarded as illogical and unscientific nonsense. Hawking's naturalistic replacement for God, presented in his single sentence, and so loved by the new, atheist cabal, is obviously just contradictory and confused nonsense.
The truth, which atheists don't want to hear, is that atheism is intellectually and scientifically indefensible. That is why they always duck out of explaining how the concept of an uncaused, inadequate, natural first cause is possible.
The best they ever come up with, is something like "we don't really know what laws existed at the start of the universe".
However, the atheist claim that - we don't really know... is completely spurious.
We certainly do know that the Law of Cause and Effect is universal, there is no way round it.
The only reason atheists don't want to accept it, is ideological.
And ... isn't it strange, that the only laws atheists dispute are precisely those that interfere with their beliefs. For example, atheists seem pretty sure that one law existed .... the law of gravity (even prior to that which gravity is a property of … matter).
Why are they so sure that the law of gravity existed?
Because their naturalistic substitute for God, summed up in the sentence by Stephen Hawking, apparently requires that the law of gravity existed before anything else …..
Here it is again ...
‘Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing’ Stephen Hawking.
So atheists DO KNOW for sure that the law of gravity existed, but they don’t really know what other laws existed at the start of the universe. They especially doubt that the Law of Cause and Effect existed.
AMAZING!
Well, how about this for a refutation of Hawking’s replacement for God, also summed up in a single sentence?
Because there is a Law of Cause and Effect, the universe can’t and won’t create itself from nothing!
That is something Stephen Hawking conveniently forgot.
Apparently, he accepts that the law of gravity existed, because he thinks it suits his argument, but he ignores the existence of other laws that positively destroy his argument.
So now you know the truth about the best substitute for God that atheists have ever come up with.
IMPRESSED? I think not!
Why is it ATHEISTS that try to dispute the universality of natural laws?
According to their claims, atheists are supposed to be the champions of science. Yet we find in practice that it is actually theists who end up defending natural laws and the scientific method against those atheists who try to refute any laws and scientific principles that interfere with their naturalistic beliefs.
Whatever happened to the alleged conflict between science and religion?
That is revealed as purely, atheist propaganda. There is obviously much more conflict between atheism and science.
Why is the law of cause and effect so important?
Because it tells us that all natural entities, events and processes are contingent.
They are all subject to preceding causes. It tells us that natural entities and events are not autonomous, they cannot operate independently of causes.
That is such an important principle, it is actually the basis of the scientific method. Science is about looking for adequate causes of ALL natural events. According to science, a natural event without a cause, is a scientific impossibility.
Once you suggest such a notion, you are abandoning science and you violate the basic principle of the scientific method.
What about the first cause of the universe and everything?
How does that fit in?
Well, the first cause was obviously a unique thing, not only unique, but radically different to all NATURAL entities and occurrences. The first cause HAD to be an autonomous entity, it HAD to be eternally self-existent, self-reliant, NON-CONTINGENT ... i.e. it was completely independent of causes and the limitations that causes impose.
The first cause, by virtue of being the very first, could not have had any preceding cause, and obviously didn't require any cause for its existence. When we talk about the first cause, we mean the very first cause, i.e. FIRST means FIRST, not second or third.
The first cause also had to be capable of creating everything that followed it. It is responsible for every subsequent cause and effect that is, or has ever been. That means that nothing, nor the sum total of everything that followed the first cause, can ever be greater, in any respect, than the first cause.
So the idea that the first cause could be a natural entity or event is just ludicrous.
We know that the first cause is radically different to any natural entity, it is NOT contingent and that is why it is called a SUPERNATURAL entity, the Supernatural, First Cause (or Creator God). All natural events and entities ARE contingent without exception, so the first cause simply CANNOT be a natural thing.
That is the verdict of science, logic and reason. Atheists dispute the verdict of science and insist that the first cause was a 'natural' event which was somehow able to defy natural laws that govern all natural events.
Consequently, atheism can be regarded as anti-science. Which means .... the real enemy of atheism is science, not religion. And the real enemy of science is atheism, not religion.
An idea which seems to be popular with atheists at present, is a continuously, reciprocating universe, one which ends by running out of energy potential and then rewinds itself in an never ending cycle ..... this is an attempt to evade the fact that an uncaused, natural, first cause is impossible. They claim that, in this way a first cause, is not necessary. And that matter/energy is some sort of eternally existent entity.
So is it a valid solution?
Firstly .....
Matter/energy cannot be eternally existent in a cycle with no beginning).
Why?
Because all natural things are contingent, they have to comply with the law of cause and effect, so they cannot exist independently of causes. The nearest you could get to eternally existent matter/energy would be a very, long chain of causes and effects, but a long chain is not eternally existent, it has to have a beginning at some point. At the beginning there would still have to be a non-contingent first cause. So a long chain of causes and effects simply pushes the first cause further back in time, it can't eliminate it.
Secondly ....
It is pretty obvious that the idea of the universe simply rewinding itself in a never ending cycle, which had no beginning, is complete, unscientific nonsense. How such a proposal can be presented as serious science, beggars belief.
It seems atheists will try anything to justify their naturalist ideology. They apparently have no compunction about completely disregarding natural laws.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out such atheist, pie-in-the-sky, origins mythology.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, the idea of a rewinding universe is tantamount to applying the discredited notion of perpetual motion - on a grand scale, to the universe.
Contingent things don't just rewind of their own accord.
The Second Law (not to mention common sense) rules it out.
Where does the renewed power or renewed energy potential come from?
If you wind up a clock, it doesn't rewind itself after it has stopped.
The universe had a beginning and it will have an end. That is what science tells us, it cannot rewind itself.
Such ridiculous, atheist musings are just a desperate attempt to wriggle out of the inevitable conclusion of logic, and the Law of Cause and Effect which are the real enemies of atheist ideology.
Once again atheism is hoisted on its own petard by natural law and science, not by religion.
A variation of the cyclical universe is the argument proposed by some that the universe just is?
Presumably they mean that the universe is some sort of eternally-existent entity with no beginning - and therefore not in need of a cause? Once again an eternally self-existent universe is not possible for the same reason outlined above.
In addition ....
The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us the universe certainly had a beginning and will have an end. The energy potential of the universe is decreasing from an original peak at the beginning of the universe. Even the most rabid atheists seem to accept that. Which is why most of them believe in a beginning event, such as a big bang explosion.
So the question is how did it (the universe) begin to exist, not whether it began to exist?
Which takes us back to the question of the nature of the very first cause.
It can only be one of two options,
an uncaused, natural first cause
OR
an uncaused, supernatural first cause.
An uncaused, NATURAL first cause is impossible.
Thus the only possible option is a supernatural first cause, i.e. God.
Atheists can’t refute the Law of Cause and Effect which is so devastating to their naturalist agenda, so they regularly invent bizarre scenarios which ignore natural laws, and hope people won’t notice. If anyone does they just brush it off with remarks like “we just don’t know ” what laws existed prior to the beginning of the universe.
Sorry, the atheist apologists may not know …. but all sensible people do know, we certainly know what is impossible ….
And we certainly know that you cannot blithely step outside the constraints of natural laws and scientific principles, as atheists do, and remain credible.
We know that natural laws describe the inherent properties of matter/energy. Which means wherever matter/energy exist, the inherent properties of matter/energy also exist - and so do the natural laws that describe those properties. if the universe began, as some propose, with a cosmic egg. or a previous universe, those things are still natural entities with natural properties, and as such would be subject to natural laws. So the idea that there were natural events leading up to the origin of the universe that were not subject to natural laws is ridiculous.
The atheist claim; that we just don't know, is not valid, and should be treated as the silliness it really is.
The existence of the law of cause and effect is essential to the scientific method, but fatal to the atheist ideology.
SO ....
Is the law of cause and effect really universal?
Causation is necessary for the existence of the universe, but ALSO for the existence of any natural entities or events that may have preceded the creation of the universe.
In other words, causation is necessary for all matter/energy and all natural entities and occurrences, whether within the universe or elsewhere.
ALL natural entities are contingent wherever they may be, whether in some sort of cosmic egg, a big bang, a previous universe or whatever.
Contingency is an inherent character of all natural entities, so it is impossible for any natural entity to be non-contingent.
Which means you simply CANNOT have a natural entity which is UNCAUSED, anywhere.
If, for example, matter/energy was not contingent at the start of the universe, or before the universe began, how and why would it be contingent now?
Why would nature have changed its basic character to an inferior one?
If matter/energy once had such awesome, autonomous power - if it was, at some time, self-sufficient, not reliant on causes for its operation and existence, and not restricted by the limitations causes impose, it would effectively mean it was once an infinite, necessary, self-existent entity, similar to God.
Now if matter once had the autonomous, non-contingent powers of a god, why would it change itself to a subordinate character and role, when it became part of the universe?
Why would it change to a role where it is limited by the strictures of natural laws. And where it cannot operate without a preceding, adequate cause?
To claim matter/energy was, at one time, not contingent, not subject to causes (which is what atheists have to claim) – is to actually imbue it with the autonomous power of a god.
That is why atheism is really just a revamped version of pagan naturalism.
By denying the basic, contingent character of matter/nature, atheism effectively deifies nature, and credits it with godlike powers, which science clearly tells us it doesn’t possess.
Thus, if anyone dismisses causality, they effectively deify matter/nature.
Which means they have chosen the first of the 2 following choices …
1. Atheism ... the unscientific, illogical belief in a natural, uncaused god (of matter or nature) which violates natural laws - which science recognises restrict its autonomy?
2. Theism ... the logical belief in an uncaused, supernatural God, which created matter and the laws that govern matter. And therefore does not violate any laws, is not contingent, and thus has completely unrestricted autonomy and infinite powers?
Which one would you choose?
Which one do scientists who respect natural laws and the scientific method choose?
The great, scientific luminaries and founders of modern science, such as Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur etc., in fact, nearly all of the really great scientists and founders of modern science, had no doubts or problem understanding that choice, and they readily chose the second (theism), as the only logical option.
So, by choosing the second - a supernatural first cause – rather than meaning you are anti-science or anti-reason or some sort of uneducated, superstitious, religious nut (as atheists frequently claim) actually puts you in the greatest of scientific company.
To put it another way, who would you rather trust in science, such scientific giants as: Newton, Pasteur, Faraday, Von Braun, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Mendel, Marconi, Kelvin, Babbage, Pascal, Herschel, Peacock etc. who believed in a supernatural first cause?
OR,
the likes of: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, Andrew Denton etc. who believe in an uncaused, natural first cause?
No contest!
We can see that atheists are anti-science, because they treat natural law and the whole principle of the scientific method with utter contempt, and all the while, they masquerade as the champions of science to the public.
The question of purpose ....
A further nail in the coffin of bogus, atheist science is the existence of order.
Atheists assume that the universe is purposeless, but they cannot explain the existence of order.
The development of order requires an organizational element.
To do useful work, or to counter the effects of entropy, energy needs to be directed or guided.
Raw energy alone actually tends to increase the effects of entropy, it doesn't increase order.
The organizational principle in living systems is provided by the informational element encoded in DNA.
Atheists have yet to explain how that first, genetic information arose of its own volition in the so-called Primordial Soup?
Natural laws pertinent to all natural entities, they guide the behaviour of energy and matter, but also serve to limit it, because natural laws are based only on the inherent properties of matter and energy.
So ... natural laws describe inherent properties of matter/energy, and natural processes operate only within the confines of natural laws which are based on their own properties. They can never exceed the parameters of those laws.
The much acclaimed, Dawkinsian principle that randomness can develop into order by means of a sieving process, such as shaken pebbles being sorted by falling through a hole of a particular size is erroneous, because it completely ignores the regulatory influence of natural laws on the outcome, which are not at all random.
If we can predict the outcome in advance, as we can with Dawkins' example, it cannot be called random. We CAN predict the outcome because we know that the pebbles will behave according to the regulatory influence of natural laws, such as the law of gravity. If there was no law of gravity, then Dawkins' pebbles, when shaken, would not fall through the hole, they would not be sorted, they would act completely unpredictably, possibly floating about in the air in all directions. In that case, the randomness would not result in any order. That is true randomness.
Dawkins' randomness, allegedly developing into order, is not random at all, the outcome is predictable and controlled by natural laws and the inherent properties of matter. He is starting with 2 organizational principles, natural laws and the inherent, ordered structure and properties of matter, and he calls that randomness!
Bogus science indeed!
This tells us that order is already there at the beginning of the universe, in the form of natural laws and the ordered composition and structure of matter .... it doesn't just develop from random events.
A major problem for atheists is to explain where natural laws came from?
In a purposeless universe there should be no regulatory principles at all.
Firstly, we would not expect anything to exist, we would expect eternal nothingness.
Secondly, even if we overlook that impossible hurdle, and assume by some amazing fluke and contrary to logic, something was able to create itself from nothing ….. we would expect the ‘something’ would have no ordered structure, and no laws based on that ordered structure. We would expect it to behave randomly and chaotically.
This is an absolutely fundamental question to which atheists have no answer. The basic properties of matter/energy, and the universe, scream …. ‘purpose’.
Atheists say the exact opposite.
Furthermore, if we consider the accepted, atheist belief; that matter is inherently predisposed to produce life and the genetic information for life, whenever environmental conditions are conducive (so-called abiogenesis), where does that predisposition for life come from? Once again, atheists are hoisted on their own petard, and the atheist idea of a random, purposeless, universe is left completely in tatters.
It is the atheist ideology that is anti-science, not necessarily individual scientists.
There may be sincere, atheist scientists who respect the scientific method and natural laws, but they are wedded to an ideology that - when push comes to shove, does not respect natural laws.
It is evident that whenever natural laws interfere with atheist naturalist beliefs, the beliefs take precedence over the rigorous, scientific method. It is then that natural laws are disregarded by atheists in favour of unscientific fantasies which are conducive to their ideology.
Of course, in much day-to-day practical science and technology, the question of violating laws doesn't even arise, and we cannot deny that in the course of such work, atheists will respect the scientific method of experiment and observation within the framework of the Law of Cause and Effect and other established laws of science.
Bizarrely, It is a different matter entirely, when it comes to hypotheses about origins. It then becomes an 'anything goes' situation. The main criteria then seems to be that it doesn’t matter whether your hypothesis violates natural laws (all sorts of excuses can be made as to why natural laws need not apply), all that matters is that it is entirely naturalistic, and can be made to sound plausible to the public.
However, the same atheist scientists would not entertain anything in general, day-to-day science, that is not completely in accordance with the scientific method, they make an exception ONLY with anything to do with origins, whether it be the origin of the universe, or the origin of life, or the origin of species.
Atheism is not simply passive non-belief, you can only be a ‘genuine’ atheist if you proactively believe in the following illogical and unscientific propositions:
1. A natural, first cause of the universe that was ‘uncaused’.
2. A natural, first cause of the universe that was patently not adequate for the effect, (a cause which was able to produce an effect far greater than itself and superior to its own abilities).
3. That the universe created ITSELF from nothing.
4. That natural laws simply arose of their own accord, without any reason, purpose or cause.
5. That energy potential at the start of everything material was able to wind itself up from absolute zero, of its own accord, without any reason, purpose or cause.
6. That the effect of entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics) was somehow suspended or didn’t operate to permit the development of order in the universe.
7. That life spontaneously generated itself, of its own volition, from sterile matter, contrary to: the Law of Biogenesis, the laws of probability, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Information Theory and common sense.
8. That the complete human genome was created by means of a long chain of copying mistakes of the original, genetic information in the first living cell, (mutations of mutations of mutations, etc. etc.).
9. That the complex DNA code was produced by chemical processes.
10. That the very first, genetic information, encoded in the DNA of the first living cell, created itself by some unknown means.
11. That matter is somehow inherently predisposed to develop into living cells, whenever conditions are conducive to life. But such a predisposition for life just arose of its own accord, with no purpose and with no apparent cause.
12. That an ordered structure of atoms, guiding laws of physics, order in the cosmos, order in the living cell and complex information, are what we would expect to occur naturally in a purposeless universe.
The claim of atheists to be the champions of science and reason is clearly bogus.
They think they can get away with it by pretending to have no beliefs.
However, when seriously challenged to justify their dogmatic rejection of a Supernatural First Cause, they indirectly espouse the unscientific beliefs outlined above, in their futile attempts to refute the evidence for a supernatural first cause.
Of course, whenever possible, they avoid declaring those beliefs explicitly, but you don’t need to be very astute to realize that relying on those beliefs is the unavoidable conclusion of their arguments.
That is why atheism is intellectually bankrupt and is doomed to the dustbin of history. And that is why we are seeing such a rise in militant, evangelizing, atheist zealots, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.
Their crusading, bravado masks their desperation that the public is so hard to convince. What Dawkins et al need to face is that they are in no position to attack what they consider are the bizarre beliefs of others, when their own beliefs (which they fail to publicly acknowledge) are much more bizarre.
What about Christianity and pagan gods?
Atheists frequently try to dismiss and ridicule the idea of a Creator by comparing it to the numerous, pagan gods that people have worshipped throughout history.
Do they have a good point?
Certainly not, this is just a red herring ….
Other gods, cannot be the first cause or Creator.
Idols of wood or stone, or the Sun, Moon, planets, Mother Nature, Mother Earth etc. are all material, contingent things, they cannot be the first cause.
They are rejected as false gods by the Bible and by logic and natural laws.
They are considered gods by people who worship things which are 'created' rather than the Creator, which the Bible condemns.
In fact, they are much more similar to the atheist belief in the powers of a naturalistic entity to create the universe, than they are to the one, Creator God of Christianity.
For example, the pagan belief in the creative powers of Ra (the Sun god) is similar to the atheist belief that raw energy from the Sun acting on sterile chemicals was able to create life.
So atheist mythology credits the Sun (Ra) with the godlike power of creating life on Earth. And thus, atheism is just a revamped version of paganism.
Just like paganism, atheism rejects worship of a Supernatural, First Cause, and rather chooses to worship created, natural entities, imbuing them with the same godlike powers, that theists attribute to the Creator.
There is nothing new under the Sun ... We can see that atheism is just the age old deception of ancient paganism, revisited.
The Creator is a Supernatural, First Cause, which is not a contingent entity, nothing like the pagan gods, but rather a self-existent, necessary entity. As the very first cause of everything in the universe, it cannot be contingent (it cannot rely on anything outside itself for its existence, i.e. it is self-existent) and therefore it cannot be a material entity.
The first cause is necessary because, not being contingent, it necessarily exists.
If anything exists that is not contingent, it has to have within itself everything necessary for its own existence. If it is also responsible for the existence of anything outside itself (which as the first cause of the universe, we know it is) it is also necessary for the existence of those things, and has to be entirely adequate for the purpose of bringing them into being and maintaining their continued existence. It is not subject to natural laws, which only apply to natural events and effects, because, as the first cause, it is the initiator and creator of everything material, including the laws which govern material events, and of time itself.
The atheist view of a natural first cause is not even rational, to propose that all the qualities I have mentioned above could apply to a material entity is clearly ridiculous. But apparently, atheism has no regard for natural laws or logic. Atheists get round it by simply dressing up their irrational beliefs to make them appear ‘scientific’.
This combined with rants and erroneous and derisory slogans about religious myths and superstition makes it all seem perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, those with little knowledge, or who can’t be bothered to think for themselves are taken in by it.
Atheists repeatedly claim that they have refuted the law of cause and effect by asking : So what caused God then?
How true is that?
The ... what caused God? argument is a rather silly argument which atheists regularly trot out. All it demonstrates is that they don't understand basic logic.
The question to always ask them is; what part of FIRST don't you understand?
If something is the very FIRST, it means there is nothing that precedes it. First means first, not second or third.
That means that the first cause cannot be a contingent entity, because a contingent entity depends on something preceding it for its existence. In which case, if something precedes it, it couldn't be FIRST.
All natural entities, events and effects are contingent ... that is why the Law of Cause and Effect states that ... every NATURAL effect requires an adequate cause.
That means that the first cause cannot be a natural entity. An UNCAUSED, NATURAL event or entity is ruled out as not possible by the Law of Cause and Effect.
Therefore the very FIRST CAUSE of the universe, which we know cannot be caused, by virtue of it being FIRST (not second or third) CANNOT be a natural entity or event.
Thus we deduce that the first cause ... cannot be contingent, cannot be a natural entity, and cannot be subject to the Law of Cause and Effect.
So the first cause has to be non-material, i.e. supernatural.
The first cause also has to have the creative potential to create every other cause and effect that follows it.
In other words, the first cause cannot be inferior in any respect to the properties, powers or qualities of anything that exists...
The effect cannot be greater than the cause....
So we can thus deduce that the first cause is: UNCAUSED, SUPERNATURAL, self-existent, and capable of creating everything we see in the existing universe.
If there is life in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create life,
If there is intelligence in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create intelligence.
If there is information in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create information.
If there is consciousness in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create consciousness. And so on and on. If it exists, the first cause is responsible for it, and must have the ability to create it.
That is the Creator God … and His existence is supported by impeccable logic and adherence to the demands of natural law.
Essential characteristics of the first cause.
Consider this short chain of causes and effects:
A causes B, - B causes C, - C causes D, - D causes E.
'A, B, C & D' are all causes and may all look similar, but they are not, there is an enormous and crucial difference between them.
Causes B, C & D are fundamentally different from cause A.
Why?
Because A is the very first cause and thus had no previous cause. It exists without a cause. It doesn’t rely on anything else for its existence, it is completely independent of causes - while B, C & D would not exist without A. They are entirely dependent on A.
Causes; B, C & D are also effects, whereas A is not an effect, only a cause.
So we can say that the first cause ‘A’ is both self-existent and necessary. It is necessary because the rest of the chain of causes and effects could not exist without it. We also have to say that the subsequent causes and effects B, C, D and E are all contingent. That is; they are not self-existent they all depend entirely on other causes to exist.
We can also say that A is eternally self-existent, i.e. it has always existed, it had no beginning. Why? Because if A came into being at some point, there must have been something other than itself that brought it into being … which would mean A was not the first cause (A could not create A) … the something that brought A into being would be the first cause. In which case, A would be contingent and no different from B, C, D & E.
We can also say that A is adequate to produce all the properties of B, C, D & E.
Why?
Well in the case of E we can see that it relies entirely on D for its existence, E can in no way be superior to D because D had to contain within it everything necessary to produce E. The same applies to D it cannot be superior to C, but furthermore neither E or D can be superior to C, because both rely on C for their existence, and C had to contain everything necessary to produce D & E.
Likewise with B, which is responsible for the existence of C, D & E.
As they all depend on A for their existence and all their properties, abilities and potentials, none can be superior to A whether singly or combined. A had to contain everything necessary to produce B, C, D & E including all their properties, abilities and potentials.
Thus we deduce that; nothing in the universe can be superior in any way to the very first cause of the universe, because the whole universe, and all material things that exist, depend entirely on the abilities and properties of the first cause to produce them.
So to sum up … a first cause must be uncaused, must have always existed and cannot be in any way inferior to all subsequent causes and effects. In other words, the first cause of the universe must be eternally, self-existent and omnipotent (greater than everything that exists). No natural entity can have those attributes, that is why a Supernatural, Creator God MUST exist
Atheists often say: you can’t fill gaps in knowledge with a supernatural first cause.
But we are not talking about filling gaps, we are talking about a fundamental issue ... the origin of everything in the material realm.
The first cause is not a gap, it is the beginning - and many of the greatest scientists in the history of science had no problem whatsoever with the logic that - a natural, first cause was impossible, and the only possible option was a supernatural creator.
Why do atheists have such a problem with it?
Atheists also seem to think that to explain the origin of the universe without a God, simply involves explaining what triggered it, as though its formation from that point on, just happens automatically.
This has been compared by some as similar to lighting the blue touch paper of a firework. They think that if they can propose such a naturalistic trigger, then God is made redundant.
That may sound plausible to some members of the public, who take such pronouncements at face value, and are somewhat in awe of anything that is claimed to be 'scientific'.
But it is obvious to anyone who thinks seriously about it, that a mere trigger is not necessarily an adequate cause.
A trigger presupposes that there is some sort of a mechanism/blueprint/plan already existing which is ready to spring into action if it is provided with an appropriate trigger. So a trigger is not a sole cause, or a first cause, it is merely one contributing cause.
Natural things do only what they are programmed to do, i.e. they obey natural laws and the demands of their own pre-ordered composition and structure. Lighting blue touch paper would do absolutely nothing, unless there is a carefully designed and manufactured firework already attached to it.
What about the idea proposed by some atheists that space must have always existed, and therefore the first cause was not the only eternally, uncaused self-existent power?
This implies that the first cause was limited by a self-existent rival (space,) which was also uncaused, and therefore the first cause could not be infinite and could not even be a proper first cause, because there was something it didn’t cause i.e. ‘space’.
There seems to be some confusion here about what ‘space’ actually is.
Space is part of the created universe, it is what lies between and around material objects in the cosmos, if there were no material objects in the cosmos, there would be no space. The confusion lies in the failure to distinguish between empty space and nothing. Nothing is the absence of everything, whereas space is a medium in which cosmic bodies exist. ‘Empty’ space is just the space between objects. So space is not an uncaused, eternally self-existent entity, it is dependent on material objects existing within it, for its own existence.
What about nothing? Is that an uncaused eternally self-existent thing? Firstly, it is not a thing, it is the absence of all things. So has nothing always existed? Well, yes it essentially would have always existed, but only if the first cause didn’t exist. If there is a first cause is that is eternally self-existent, then there is no such thing as absolute nothing, because nothing is the absence of everything. If a first cause exists (which it had to), then any proposed eternal ‘nothing’ has always contained something, and therefore can never have been ‘nothing’.
What about the idea that the first cause created everything material from nothing? Obviously, the ‘nothing’ that is meant here is … nothing material, i.e. the absence of any material entities.
The uncaused, first cause cannot be material, because all material things are contingent, so the first cause brought material things into being, when nothing material had previously existed. That is what is meant by creation from nothing.
So what existed outside of the eternally existent first cause? Obviously no other thing existed outside of the first cause, the first cause was the only thing that existed. So did the first cause exist in a sea of eternally existent nothingness?
No! the first cause was not nothing, it was ‘something’. So to ask what surrounded the something that is the first cause is not a valid question, because if something exists that is not ‘nothing’. This means that such a notion of ‘nothing’ didn’t exist, only something – i.e. the eternally existent first cause. If you have a box with something in it, you wouldn’t say there is both something and nothing in the box. You would say there is something in the box, regardless of whether there was some empty space around the thing in the box.
Atheists invent all sorts of bizarre myths to explain the origin of the universe and matter/energy.
Such as the utterly, ludicrous notion of the universe creating itself from nothing. Obviously for something to create itself, it would need to pre-exist its own creation, in order to do the creating!
They are clutching at straws and anyone with any common sense understands that.
So to sum up .....
The atheist ideology is illogical, unscientific nonsense. Even worse, it has no compunction in treating natural laws and the basic principle of the scientific method with utter distain and contempt whenever they interfere with atheist beliefs.
Science, not religion, is the real enemy of atheism, and atheism, not religion, is the real enemy of science.
The garden path of lies
I'm doing my best impersonation of a truncated sentence. Here I am trying to explain it to my senior class who swear that they've never heard of it.
Except for the green footless tights from 'Sportsgirl', everything is Thrifted & Remixed - animal print wrap dress, tourist scarf of Venice & YSL flats.