Paul's background offers up insight into the reasons why God chose him to bring the Good News to the Gentiles. While studying under the rabbi Gamaliel provided Paul with a strong grounding in Jewish law and theology, it was his coming from Tarsus, an important university town renowned for its Stoic philosophy, that gave him a first-class education into the pagan mindset. Acts 17 records an incident in which Paul called upon this training.
While preaching and reasoning to the passers-by in an Athenian market-place a group of Stoics and Epicureans took him to task over Jesus and the resurrection. Luke only records a fraction of the debate, and despite his freely quoting Aratus, Epimenides and, quite possibly, Cleanthes, Paul nevertheless saw their philosophies as standing in distinct opposition to the Creator God of the Bible. Few Christians ever investigate precisely what these philosophies stood for, so some quotes from these ancient world-views would be of considerable aid to comprehend why Paul so unequivocally took issue with them.
The Epicurean belief was distinctly evolutionary. While gods may have indeed existed, they did not truly interact with the world. Equally certain was the Epicurean belief entertained no Creator God who used His wisdom, demonstrated by rapid and accurate completion of task, to bring nature and life into existence. Rather, large amounts of time, unfolding an uncountable number of material permutations upon permutations, eventually brought forth the world as we know it. Time and accident were the factors drawn upon to transform God into a superfluous hypothesis.
Lucretius, in his De rerum natura, states “When bodies are being born by their own weight straight down through the void, at quite uncertain times and places they veer a little from their course, just enough to be called a change of motion. If they did not have this tendency to swerve, everything would be falling downward like raindrops through the depths of the void, and collisions and impacts among the primary bodies would not have arisen, with the result that nature would never have created anything.”
Epicurus, in his Letter to Herodotus, lays out his belief in the eternity of matter, the epistemological prerequisite for materialism: “The atoms move continuously for ever...There is no beginning to this, because atoms and void are eternal.”
Central to any materialist account of origins is that life on earth is merely an outcome of probability. Lucretius states, “For so many primary particles have for an infinity of time past been propelled in manifold ways by impacts and by their own weight, and have habitually travelled, combined in all possible ways, and tried out everything that their union could create, that it is not surprising if they have also fallen into arrangements, and arrives at patterns of motions, like those repeatedly enacted by this present world.”
The Stoics, despite being materialists, held that there was one principle which permeated all of reality, Reason, which gave rise to everything else. If 'God' were mentioned it was rarely, if unambiguously ever, referring to a personal deity, let alone a Creator of the magnitude unveiled in the Bible.
Aetius, reporting on Stoic belief, states that they “made god out to be intelligent, a designing fire which methodically proceeds towards creation of the world, and encompasses all the seminal principles according to which everything comes about according to fate.”
Cicero relates how Chrysippus held that “divine power resides in reason and in the mind and intellect of universal nature..the world's own commanding-faculty...it is the common nature of things..the force of fate and necessity.”
Both of these ersatz explanations remove God's presence as much as possible. By this I mean that theological considerations are weakened to the extent that a fully-blown materialism is the final result. While Epicureanism relied on chance as the universe's creative metaphysic, Stoicism embedded an ordering principle within nature that tamed chaos and directed it to complexity.
Luke's specific mention of these pagan philosophies and Paul's counter to them contains an important lesson for us today. These two counterfeits are perhaps the most logical replacements for the Christian Creator Jesus and both have resurfaced, not without, but within the Church. Leading theologians have stripped the pagan philosophies of their inherent atheism but taken on-board their ultimate reliance on chance, deterministic law and matter. According to their quasi-scientism, God, when he is presented, has brought together this faux trinity and allowed the universe to itself unravel from the Big Bang to the present.
John Polkinghorne, a greatly admired and quoted Anglican priest and physicist, has stated that "[n]ecessity is the regular ground of possibility, expressed in scientific law. Chance, in this context, is the means for the exploration and realization of inherent possibility, through continually changing (and therefore at any time contingent) individual circumstances. It is important to realize that chance is being used in this `tame' sense, meaning the shuffling operations by which what is potential is made actual. It is not a synonym for chaotic randomness, nor does it signify just a lucky fluke.... I am still deeply impressed by the anthropic potentiality of the laws of nature which enable the small-step explorations of tamed chance to result in systems of such wonderful complexity as ourselves."
He also argues that “[a]t the heart of evolution is the interplay between “chance” (the contingent detail of what actually happens) and “necessity” (the lawfully regular environment in which events occur). It takes place “at the edge of chaos,” where order and openness interlace. If things are too orderly, they are too rigid for anything really new to emerge. If they are too haphazard, nothing that emerged could persist.”
The evolutionary palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris, also a Christian, writes that “[f]or all this exuberance and flair [in evolution] there are constraints[but] there is also a patent trend of increased complexity.” He also states “[t]he complexity and beauty of ‘Life’s Solution’ can never cease to astound. None of it presupposes, let along proves, the existence of God, but all is congruent. For some it will remain as the pointless activity of the Blind Watchmaker, but others may prefer to remove their dark glasses. The choice, of course, is yours.”
As an aside, Morris is regarded, by some, as an expert on the Burgess Shale, despite admitting its fossil remains being so pristinely preserved “by as yet largely unknown mechanisms”. He writes that “the processes of rotting and decay have been largely held in abeyance so that the true richness of ancient life is revealed: not only are there animals such as trilobites and molluscs with tough, durable skeletons, but completely soft-bodied animals are also preserved. These remarkable fossils reveal not only their outlines but sometimes even internal organs such as the intestine or muscles.” Any chance the early chapters of Genesis provide an explanation, say, a worldwide flood destroying practically all life on the earth?
The perspicuous absence of any mention of Christ's role in the creation by these Christians makes their explanation no better than a pagan one. Particularly counter-productive, with respect to a truly Christian world-view, is the preponderate dependence of their explanation for the creation's existence on the creation itself. What principles are supposedly made manifest in the world are made to substantiate the world itself. That is, the marriage of chance and law, evolution, is entirely able to account for the world's and its occupants' being here.
No where to be seen is the direct link Paul and John make between the world and Christ the Creator. Both make it plain that the creation cannot be explained without Christ's visible input. If nothing that exists can be made without him, then nothing that does actually exist can have their ultimate existence put down to principles operating within the creation. If chance and necessity are sufficient, then Christ can be struck out with an Ockham resolve.
More worryingly is the attitude that the creation cannot directly point us to the Creator. No longer is it “in Christ all things consist” and that we can “attain to all riches of the full assurance of understanding”, but rather it comes down to a preference because nothing can, as Morris believes, prove the creation's ultimate dependence on Christ.
Whenever men subscribe to a metaphysical belief that it is principles upholding the creation, and not Christ, then Paul's daily reasoning in the marketplace against the pagans appears a futile exercise. It now seems that Stoic and Epicurean ideas have well and truly taken hold of Christian men's minds. If these non-Christian philosophies are representative of the church – and I believe they are – then the paganisation of the Church is almost complete.
Showing posts with label SADism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SADism. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
What really counts
Check this post at Mark's blog. He tells us that evangelical courage is needed where the world/devil is attacking the church: say...origins? Well here in the SAD camp, we turn tail on that one, and make the Bible say what the world wants it to say...oops, have I let the SAD cat out of the bag?
Monday, September 13, 2010
2 ways to have a laugh
Overheard: a couple of younger men discussing 2 ways to live on the way to work: one has had it 'done' to him, and he was chuckling about the 'stupid pictures' and the guy presenting it using them to talk to him; he clearly found the whole experience laughable and underwhelming. The other guy he was talking too was in disbelief that anyone would seriously think of this approach to an adult conversation.
So, I wonder if the 2W2L crowd did any market testing (you know, focus groups) to see what people thought of it....
So, I wonder if the 2W2L crowd did any market testing (you know, focus groups) to see what people thought of it....
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
What a novel idea: something from nothing
An 'interesting” letter appeared in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald. It was written in response to someone else's criticism of Stephen Hawking's incredible claim that the universe's existence comes down to nothing more than one very big accident or an almost infinite series of chance events. The writer, someone so obviously unexposed to, let alone actually trained in, even the most elementary philosophical principles, objected to the earlier writer's judgement that it was unreasonable to argue for the universe's coming into existence without a Designer. Here is what he – oh heck! let's call him, say, Ian Stewart of Davidson - claimed: “You just have to get your head around the idea of nothingness. Then it's quite easy. There was nothing, then the universe created itself spontaneously.”
My first impression was that this was a superb piece of mickey taking – you know, ostensibly quite serious, but really a parody in order to expose one's opponent's truly weak argument. However, reading further and seeing Ian Stewart of Davidson's unequivocal religious belief in the non-existence of God, I could see Ian Stewart of Davidson was writing a spoof-free letter to the editor and was actually presenting the idea that an ontological nothing can produce an actual something, that something in fact being a universe! When put so straightforwardly and unencumbered by technical jargon, this snippet of paralogical nonsense would surely leave even the most dogged atheist philosopher embarrassed and speechless.
Universities full of philosophers, for millennia, have scorned such unmitigable obtuseness, so I won't add anything except to say this. If an actual nothing, a zero, can produce a yet-to-be-fully-measured universe, then why on earth am I putting all my money into a bank? Surely the best thing I can do is to spend, spend, spend until my balance is nada, and then patiently wait until it begins to go back into the black....all by itself. You know, before long, on Ian Stewart of Davidson's philosophical outlook on reality, I won't have to invent Windows or Cochlea Ear Implants to become the richest man in the universe – chance and time will take care of that!
Evolution says much the same thing: no genetic information in the beginning is able to produce whole libraries full of the weightless "stuff" all obeying an “invisible” code. Or more simply, non-life is able to produce life, without so much as a skerrick of empirical demonstration.
It seems like the world is full of Ian Stewarts. How sad then that the Sydney Anglican Diocese encourages the Ian Stewarts of this world to flourish by subscribing to an evolutionary worldview.
My first impression was that this was a superb piece of mickey taking – you know, ostensibly quite serious, but really a parody in order to expose one's opponent's truly weak argument. However, reading further and seeing Ian Stewart of Davidson's unequivocal religious belief in the non-existence of God, I could see Ian Stewart of Davidson was writing a spoof-free letter to the editor and was actually presenting the idea that an ontological nothing can produce an actual something, that something in fact being a universe! When put so straightforwardly and unencumbered by technical jargon, this snippet of paralogical nonsense would surely leave even the most dogged atheist philosopher embarrassed and speechless.
Universities full of philosophers, for millennia, have scorned such unmitigable obtuseness, so I won't add anything except to say this. If an actual nothing, a zero, can produce a yet-to-be-fully-measured universe, then why on earth am I putting all my money into a bank? Surely the best thing I can do is to spend, spend, spend until my balance is nada, and then patiently wait until it begins to go back into the black....all by itself. You know, before long, on Ian Stewart of Davidson's philosophical outlook on reality, I won't have to invent Windows or Cochlea Ear Implants to become the richest man in the universe – chance and time will take care of that!
Evolution says much the same thing: no genetic information in the beginning is able to produce whole libraries full of the weightless "stuff" all obeying an “invisible” code. Or more simply, non-life is able to produce life, without so much as a skerrick of empirical demonstration.
It seems like the world is full of Ian Stewarts. How sad then that the Sydney Anglican Diocese encourages the Ian Stewarts of this world to flourish by subscribing to an evolutionary worldview.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Knocked out, dazed, but blithely unaware
A couple of items in the press recently present a nice line up of the irrationality of the SADs.
1. One Bruce Haddon is at logger heads with the rector of his parish, Dominic Steele (ex 2GB journo from mem'ry) is concerned by, it would appear, Mr Haddon's disbelief in the virgin birth. The Herald reports this.
2. Atheism's true belivers gather together. In this Herald article we are told that atheists are really opposed to "the denial of the theory of evolution".
Now, if atheists are really opposed to something, you'd think it was because it stymied atheism. On the other hand the SADs, who don't think the notion of organic evolution is opposed to biblical theism, are worried because one man has taken that view to its logical conclusion: only things that science permits can occur!
I'll leave the reader to judge who is reaping what they sow.
1. One Bruce Haddon is at logger heads with the rector of his parish, Dominic Steele (ex 2GB journo from mem'ry) is concerned by, it would appear, Mr Haddon's disbelief in the virgin birth. The Herald reports this.
2. Atheism's true belivers gather together. In this Herald article we are told that atheists are really opposed to "the denial of the theory of evolution".
Now, if atheists are really opposed to something, you'd think it was because it stymied atheism. On the other hand the SADs, who don't think the notion of organic evolution is opposed to biblical theism, are worried because one man has taken that view to its logical conclusion: only things that science permits can occur!
I'll leave the reader to judge who is reaping what they sow.
Friday, May 8, 2009
For the slow learners
It's come up at least once before on this blog: various SADs, have not wanted to repeat the church's mistake made when it rejected Galileo's work and so reject the truth content of Genesis 1, but here we go again, just for the slow learners in St. Andrew's House, Moore College and the rest.
In trying to avoid the church's mistake back then they are doing precisely what the Roman church did; repeating the mistake (thus 'slow learners'). They are adopting the current popular philosophical view and rejecting observational science!! They are absorbing the speculation and rejecting what refutes it.
Hop over to the ABC Morning Interview (big file) where Throsby adulates (as she does) Dr Peter Slezak of UNSW, a lecturer in the phil. of science.
The interview celebrates the restaging of the trial of Galileo. Slezak chats on about this and other things.
He tells us about the role of dissidents in advancing science, that Galileo ran up against the Aristoteleans (not the church) who wanted to stick with their 'common sense' view of the world (common sense then, but not regarded as common sense now, only going to show how even the ordinary person is influenced by the ideas of the day); and importantly makes this remark, paraphrased:
"it wasn't the church that was resistant, as is the popular view, but the philosophers who refused to take seriously his observations".
The problem was, the church had read the philosphers' presumptions back into the Bible, just like theistic evolutionists do, in their philosophical juvenescence. Just like the SAD does, reading the Bible and making their theology on the basis of a world view in basic conflict with that of the Bible.
The story is more complex, of course, but I'll leave that research to you, dear reader.
Good one!
In trying to avoid the church's mistake back then they are doing precisely what the Roman church did; repeating the mistake (thus 'slow learners'). They are adopting the current popular philosophical view and rejecting observational science!! They are absorbing the speculation and rejecting what refutes it.
Hop over to the ABC Morning Interview (big file) where Throsby adulates (as she does) Dr Peter Slezak of UNSW, a lecturer in the phil. of science.
The interview celebrates the restaging of the trial of Galileo. Slezak chats on about this and other things.
He tells us about the role of dissidents in advancing science, that Galileo ran up against the Aristoteleans (not the church) who wanted to stick with their 'common sense' view of the world (common sense then, but not regarded as common sense now, only going to show how even the ordinary person is influenced by the ideas of the day); and importantly makes this remark, paraphrased:
"it wasn't the church that was resistant, as is the popular view, but the philosophers who refused to take seriously his observations".
The problem was, the church had read the philosphers' presumptions back into the Bible, just like theistic evolutionists do, in their philosophical juvenescence. Just like the SAD does, reading the Bible and making their theology on the basis of a world view in basic conflict with that of the Bible.
The story is more complex, of course, but I'll leave that research to you, dear reader.
Good one!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Sleeping with the atheists
Did anyone catch last Saturday’s Herald an article ‘When extinction becomes a heresy’? It was an edited extract from an essay titled ‘Empathy for the enemy’, which, as I’ll soon explain, is manifestly ironic.
The article was jam-packed with the usual maudlin and irrational animal “rights” rhetoric that is endlessly promoted nowadays in mainstream media. More outrageous was its attempt to compare the necessary elimination of rabbits and foxes from Australia with the barbarism of Auschwitz. This elevation of animal rights, I may add, is entirely consistent with Nazi practices and their obsession with all things green.
Notwithstanding this attempt to muddy the clear line of separation between man and animal, attention needs to be called to the only theoretical basis on which such a move can be reasonably postulated, that being the “truth” of evolution. In other words, all life has common ancestry, and this was clearly reiterated in the article.
As a related aside, the Evangelical Union of Sydney University recently had their perennial compromising science/religion lunchtime talk. One of the scientists on the panel of “experts”, when asked about evolution, gave it an unqualified thumbs up. I couldn’t help but notice the confused look on the atheist’s face who asked the question. Quite rightly she instantly realised the incommensurability and the procrustean explanation of a putative marriage between Christian theism and this materialistic worldview.
One last jibe at the essay’s author Clive Marks. Marks is blissfully and philosophically unaware that just because something is the case (i.e. rabbits suffer when exposed to Myxomatosis), that this is sufficient epistemic justification to derive moral condemnation concerning this fact (i.e. it’s morally reprehensible to expose rabbits to Myxomatosis because rabbits suffer). And certainly, on an evolutionary epistemic in which the fit win and the weak are removed, I can’t see how a reversal of nature’s norm is at all warranted.
Now to the real comment I wish to make.
What grabbed my attention was the article’s opening sentence: “Time and evolution have been detached creators”
This blog has endlessly pointed out that the heretics over in that other world of Sydney Anglicanism have robbed Christ of his glory and office by substituting another creator for Him. These wolves neither read the Bible properly nor listen to commonsense and advice and thus, in chasing after the world’s wisdom, they “are deluded by specious arguments…and fall prey to hollow and misleading philosophy.” Rather than wholeheartedly upholding Paul’s statement that “everything was created through him”, these rascals have deceived others that the gods of time and evolution can act as a surrogate for Christ. Not content with their own evil thoughts, they pour scorn on and try to silence any who oppose their ideas.
That atheists openly worship time and evolution as the “gods” of materialism only makes the SADs enlisting of these very same “gods” inexcusable.
The article was jam-packed with the usual maudlin and irrational animal “rights” rhetoric that is endlessly promoted nowadays in mainstream media. More outrageous was its attempt to compare the necessary elimination of rabbits and foxes from Australia with the barbarism of Auschwitz. This elevation of animal rights, I may add, is entirely consistent with Nazi practices and their obsession with all things green.
Notwithstanding this attempt to muddy the clear line of separation between man and animal, attention needs to be called to the only theoretical basis on which such a move can be reasonably postulated, that being the “truth” of evolution. In other words, all life has common ancestry, and this was clearly reiterated in the article.
As a related aside, the Evangelical Union of Sydney University recently had their perennial compromising science/religion lunchtime talk. One of the scientists on the panel of “experts”, when asked about evolution, gave it an unqualified thumbs up. I couldn’t help but notice the confused look on the atheist’s face who asked the question. Quite rightly she instantly realised the incommensurability and the procrustean explanation of a putative marriage between Christian theism and this materialistic worldview.
One last jibe at the essay’s author Clive Marks. Marks is blissfully and philosophically unaware that just because something is the case (i.e. rabbits suffer when exposed to Myxomatosis), that this is sufficient epistemic justification to derive moral condemnation concerning this fact (i.e. it’s morally reprehensible to expose rabbits to Myxomatosis because rabbits suffer). And certainly, on an evolutionary epistemic in which the fit win and the weak are removed, I can’t see how a reversal of nature’s norm is at all warranted.
Now to the real comment I wish to make.
What grabbed my attention was the article’s opening sentence: “Time and evolution have been detached creators”
This blog has endlessly pointed out that the heretics over in that other world of Sydney Anglicanism have robbed Christ of his glory and office by substituting another creator for Him. These wolves neither read the Bible properly nor listen to commonsense and advice and thus, in chasing after the world’s wisdom, they “are deluded by specious arguments…and fall prey to hollow and misleading philosophy.” Rather than wholeheartedly upholding Paul’s statement that “everything was created through him”, these rascals have deceived others that the gods of time and evolution can act as a surrogate for Christ. Not content with their own evil thoughts, they pour scorn on and try to silence any who oppose their ideas.
That atheists openly worship time and evolution as the “gods” of materialism only makes the SADs enlisting of these very same “gods” inexcusable.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Serendipity & Wine
Talk to any wine buff and a point sure to pop up will be the supreme joy of purchasing a bottle of some relatively cheap plonk, made by some unfamiliar vintner, setting it down in your cellar, and after a few years uncorking it to discover that it has been transformed into a well tasty, underpriced gem (as an aside, note no miracle here!). This is what I’m hoping for with one of my latest acquisitions, the label of which is eponymously named Johnny Q.
This 2006 Shiraz from Tharbogang NSW (no idea!) also has another drawcard: its rather entertaining blurb on its rear label. Let me quote from it.
‘In the beginning, there was the wine creator…a sumptuous Shiraz created with your enjoyment in mind. For 6 days and 6 nights the fruit was harvested, crushed and left macerating on skins to develop a long lasting deep colour, intense bouquet and delicious taste. On the 7th day Johnny Q rested.’
Now, I’ve been known to drink a fair bit of this stuff, and I even once tried to ingratiate myself with the housekeeper at Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux in order to obtain a grape-picking job at vintage, but I really know very little about wine production. And so I’m quite happy to accept Mr Q’s oenological account as history, its platitudinous and self-praising aspects notwithstanding.
From the language used - the tight but sufficiently informative details of the passage, as well as its commonsense and everyday usage - it seems entirely the case that Johnny isn’t lying or expecting the reader to access some extra-textual code obtained from some sort of sacerdotal “expert” that unlocks the occult meaning and event sequence of Johnny’s wine-making “week”. It just seems to be, well, saying what it means and meaning what it is saying.
And you know what? I can’t imagine Peter Jensen, Rob Forsyth, Gordon Cheng or any other of the Sydney Anglican Heretics, for one moment, questioning the veracity of Johnny Q’s little history. Yet – and here it comes, guys – while they would whole-heartedly believe this guy, they obstinately deny God’s historical blurb on the first page of the Bible. Think about it: They would take at face-value the word of, in all likelihood, an alcoholic, yet torture and eviscerate the very words of God’s Spirit. Talk about the overturning of commonsense!
I think I need a drink!
This 2006 Shiraz from Tharbogang NSW (no idea!) also has another drawcard: its rather entertaining blurb on its rear label. Let me quote from it.
‘In the beginning, there was the wine creator…a sumptuous Shiraz created with your enjoyment in mind. For 6 days and 6 nights the fruit was harvested, crushed and left macerating on skins to develop a long lasting deep colour, intense bouquet and delicious taste. On the 7th day Johnny Q rested.’
Now, I’ve been known to drink a fair bit of this stuff, and I even once tried to ingratiate myself with the housekeeper at Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux in order to obtain a grape-picking job at vintage, but I really know very little about wine production. And so I’m quite happy to accept Mr Q’s oenological account as history, its platitudinous and self-praising aspects notwithstanding.
From the language used - the tight but sufficiently informative details of the passage, as well as its commonsense and everyday usage - it seems entirely the case that Johnny isn’t lying or expecting the reader to access some extra-textual code obtained from some sort of sacerdotal “expert” that unlocks the occult meaning and event sequence of Johnny’s wine-making “week”. It just seems to be, well, saying what it means and meaning what it is saying.
And you know what? I can’t imagine Peter Jensen, Rob Forsyth, Gordon Cheng or any other of the Sydney Anglican Heretics, for one moment, questioning the veracity of Johnny Q’s little history. Yet – and here it comes, guys – while they would whole-heartedly believe this guy, they obstinately deny God’s historical blurb on the first page of the Bible. Think about it: They would take at face-value the word of, in all likelihood, an alcoholic, yet torture and eviscerate the very words of God’s Spirit. Talk about the overturning of commonsense!
I think I need a drink!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Religion the Jumble
From Scruton, p. 102:
...religion simply as a set of doctrines concerning the origin of the world, the laws that govern it and the destiny of mankind will think of faith merely as a substitute for rational argument, destined to crumble before the advance of science or to persist, if at all, as a jumble of tattered superstitions in the midst of a world that refutes them.
Interesting the connections made by those outside the evangelical fold about religion, the world and its interpretation in science.
Much could be said about Scruton's analysis, but that the analysis is made is itself of significance, I think. Particularly that he can see religion as being concerned with a view of the real world, a view denied, I would suggest, by our SADist friends.
...religion simply as a set of doctrines concerning the origin of the world, the laws that govern it and the destiny of mankind will think of faith merely as a substitute for rational argument, destined to crumble before the advance of science or to persist, if at all, as a jumble of tattered superstitions in the midst of a world that refutes them.
Interesting the connections made by those outside the evangelical fold about religion, the world and its interpretation in science.
Much could be said about Scruton's analysis, but that the analysis is made is itself of significance, I think. Particularly that he can see religion as being concerned with a view of the real world, a view denied, I would suggest, by our SADist friends.
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