Mermaid

The earliest account of a mermaid appeared in Assyria around 1000 BC. It is the story of the Syrian goddess Atargatis who became half-fish after accidentally killing a shepherd she loved.

John William Waterhouse A Mermaid

The One Thousand and One Nights includes several tales featuring "Sea People", such as Djullanar the Sea-girl. Unlike other mythologies, these are almost the same as humans, except the fact that they can breathe and live underwater.

The mermaid, or syrenka, is the symbol of Warsaw. Images of a mermaid have symbolized the Polish capital on its crest since the middle of the 14th century.

Coat of arms of Warsaw

On January 9, 1493, Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, thought he saw mermaids. They were "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men." Most likely they were manatees, which are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, large faces and paddle-like tails.

Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren't made up, were most likely manatees, dugongs or Steller's sea cows which became extinct by the 1760s due to over-hunting.

The most famous mermaid in literature is Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale The Little Mermaid, which was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1837 in the third volume of Fairy Tales Told for Children  It has been translated into many languages.

The famous sculpture of The Little Mermaid at the entrance to Copenhagen harbor was unveiled on August 23, 1913.

Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen (1913)

In August 2009, the town of Kiryat Yam in Israel offered a prize of $1 million for anyone who could prove that mermaids existed off its coast, after dozens of people said they had seen a mermaid leaping out of the water like a dolphin and doing tricks in the air before returning back to where it had come from. The prize has not yet been awarded.

The Mermaid is a Chinese romantic comedy movie that was released on February 8, 2016.  It tells the story of a playboy businessman who falls in love with a mermaid that was sent to assassinate him. Within 12 days, it had become the highest-grossing film of all time in China.

Animal Planet has twice made documentaries that uses evolution-based theories and several real examples from nature as a springboard to weave an imaginary story about the existence of mermaids.  In 2012, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was forced to publish that Mermaids weren’t real. This was due to one of the program's claiming that a Mermaid’s body had been found on a beach. Some believed it and contacted the NOAA, making them state: "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found."

There is a strong belief in mermaids in Zimbabwe but they often have a bad reputation including kidnapping, torture and murder.

Jesus Christ

EARLY LIFE

The Roman Emperor Augustus issued a decree in 6 BC that a census be taken of the entire Roman world. As a consequence a carpenter called Joseph was forced to register in his hometown of Bethlehem. He was accompanied by his young pregnant fiancé, Mary, whose baby had been conceived by the Holy Spirit.

The baby was named Jesus meaning "Yahweh is salvation". He was born inauspiciously in a cave in Bethlehem thus fulfilling a prophecy in the Jewish sacred book of Micah, and laid in an animal's feeding trough.

Jesus' name translated from Hebrew to English would be 'Joshua'. We get the name 'Jesus' by translating the Hebrew name to Greek to Latin to English.

After hearing of King Herod's intentions of slaying all children aged two years or younger, due to his concern that the anointed King of the Jews had recently been born, Mary and Joseph, along with the baby Jesus, were forced to flee to Egypt.

After Herod's death, Mary and Joseph returned to Palestine. From about the age of 6, Jesus would have received some education from a teacher paid for by the Nazareth synagogue, using used what we now know as the Old Testament as his textbook.

Jesus excelled in his early schooling: the Bible tells us in Luke 2 that the 12- year-old Jesus astounded the nation’s foremost teachers at the Temple Courts in Jerusalem.

ADULT LIFE

Jesus Christ probably was olive skinned, clean shaven, (or possibly a short cropped beard, it was a known fashion of third century Jews.) It was only in the fourth century that images of Christ showed him with a beard.

Saint Paul said it was disgraceful for men to have long hair in 1 Corinthians 11 v 14, so it was unlikely Christ had long hair.

Jesus was a keen fisherman; He relaxed by taking out a boat onto the middle of the lake. He also gained much strength by praying to his Father in heaven.

The Greek word for "Carpenter" more accurately translates as "home builder" and since Judea built structures primarily out of stone, Jesus was likely a stone mason.

Jesus had plenty of platonic friendships with women, which was unusual in his culture. However his main friendships were with the twelve disciples who he trained up to spread the Christian message. Of the disciples he was closest to John. It is thought He knew the majority of them before his public ministry started.

We know that Jesus was able to read from Luke 4 v 18 where He reads out an Old Testament passage to the congregation in the temple.

MINISTRY

Around 26 AD a cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist, was going round Jerusalem and Judea baptizing in water all who came to him and confessing their sins. He was announcing the Christ's imminent coming.

After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He commenced his public ministry during which He traveled around towns and villages healing the sick, casting out demons and proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God.

A researcher has calculated that the total miles Jesus walked during the three years of his public ministry was 3,125 miles.

The first public miracle that Jesus performed was turning water into wine. Unlike His Nazirite cousin, John the Baptist, Jesus was happy to imbibe wine and He attracted criticism from various quarters for His willingness to drink and mix with tax collectors and "sinners".

Many who were not virtuous people before such as a prostitute called Mary and a crooked tax collector called Zacchaeus were attracted to Christ's message because of His willingness to socialize and drink with the unpopular members of society and many saw their lives transformed.

Jesus' attributed his healing gifts to His heavenly Father, whom He glorified when performing His miracles and many became  His followers after He'd ministered to them. Possibly Jesus'  most remarkable miracle was the raising of His friend Lazarus from the dead. Another time He healed a paralyzed man by forgiving his sins. (It was a common belief in Jewish culture at the time that sickness was the result of sin).

DEATH AND RESURRECTION

33 AD was the likely year of Jesus’ crucifixion and rising from the dead according to the Bible and earthquake research. It would have been in late march early April as it took place around the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Just before His crucifixion, Jesus and his twelve disciples participated in The Last Supper, a Passover meal where He predicted his imminent betrayal and death as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity. The meal was roast lamb eaten in its entirety served with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.

The house where they were eating was daubed with the blood from the freshly slaughtered lamb. In referring to the bread as His body and the wine, His blood and bidding the disciples to participate of each, Jesus instigated the Eucharist/Holy Communion/Mass.

Jesus was open in his criticism of the hypocrisy of the religious Jews which made Him unpopular among the ruling classes. He also  made many enemies among the Jewish religious leaders with his declarations that He was the Son of God. On the morning following the Last Supper, He was arrested on trumped up charges and led away to be crucified.

Before He was nailed to the cross, Jesus was offered wine to drink mixed with gall, which is a narcotic for deadening pain. The Savior of the World refused to drink it as he wanted to retain a clear mind and be fully conscious on the cross. Because of His willingness to suffer for us without any medical help, we are now free to approach God without our sin getting in the way.

Jesus endured a horrendously painful death on the cross as a sacrifice for all our sins. By this means He enabled everybody who believes in the innocent sufferings of the crucified Christ as being counted by God as perfectly righteous. In other words, Jesus created a way out of the consequences of sin for all those who follow him.

Bronzino's depiction of the Crucifixion with 3 nails, no ropes, and a hypopodium standing support, c. 1545.

Jesus' body was buried in a tomb which belonged to one of his followers, Joseph of Arimathea. On the day after the Sabbath, early in the morning, some women went to treat the body with spice and perfumed oil, only to find the body of Jesus had gone, This is called the Resurrection.

Only a few days later, the risen Christ was appearing to his followers. Jesus spent 40 days training and encouraging them before ascending up to heaven.

Around ten days after Jesus' Ascension, on the Jewish feast called Pentecost, His followers were meeting together when they experienced the sound of a mighty rushing wind and tongues of fire coming down on them. This, one of the Disciples, Peter, explained to the crowd immediately afterwards, was the coming of the Holy Spirit, as foretold by the prophet Joel.

The Bible tells us that there will be Second Coming when Jesus Christ will return to earth. Most English versions of the Nicene Creed include the following statements: "...He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. ... We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

Josephus, the Jewish historian, who was governor in Galilee in 66 A.D., wrote a history of the Jews from Adam through the time of Nero. His book was called the Antiquities of the Jews. He mentioned three references to Jesus including one about Jesus’ relationship with his brother James who was put to death by the Sanhedrin.

The Jewish Talmud contains eight references to Jesus Christ. All are designed to discredit him. For example, one refers to the hanging of Jesus and mentions his practice of sorcery. Another ridicules the virgin birth and claims that Mary and a Roman soldier were his birth parents.

Both first century Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius make references to Christ and to his followers. Tacitus reports Nero’s persecutions and mentions that Christ was executed very the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suetonius mentioned the expulsion from Rome of the who caused a great tumult under the influence of Christ.

Hundreds of second century documents refer to, or are written about, Jesus.

LEGACY

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all wrote biographies of Jesus written within 70 years of his death. These make up the gospels in the Bible.

Among the many fine oratorios and masses that Jesus has inspired possibly the most well known is Handel's "The Messiah" Other musical genres that comes from the Christian faith include hymns, carols and gospel music.

In 1927 H.B. Warner took the role of Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's biblical cinematic epic King Of Kings. DeMille forbade the actor from pursuing such non-biblical activities as playing cards, riding in convertibles or swimming during the film's shooting.

The Head of Christ is a 1940 portrait painting of Jesus of Nazareth by American artist Warner Sallman (1892–1968). The work originated as a charcoal sketch done for the cover of the February, 1924 issue of the religious magazine Covenant Companion. Sallman did several variations of the picture over the years, and in 1940, he was asked to reproduce that painting by the students of North Park Theological Seminary. The yellow-brown picture of Christ with long flowing hair was an icon of the forties and fifties and more than 500 million copies have been sold.

Head of Christ, 1940

Today, the Christian faith, based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is the world's largest religion with about 2.4 billion adherents.

41% of Americans say Jesus Christ will return to the Earth by 2050, according a 2015 Pew Research Center survey.

Source Crosswalk.com

God

God's name in Hebrew was written YHWH, as originally there were no vowels in the language. Jews used Adonai (Lord) instead for fear of taking God's name in vain. The vowels AOA were inserted in YHWH in time, and so He became YAHOWAH .

One of the earliest western men to write about God in a monotheistic way was the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who described god as the Supreme Cause.

Almost all ancient worshippers had statues of one or more of their gods. The Israelites were the exception to this rule. When Pompey the Great entered the temple in Jerusalem in 63 BC, he and his men were deeply impressed that they had no image of God in the sanctuary.

The word for God in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is “Elaw.”

The Bible's New Testament, explains that there are three beings who are God in different forms: the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit (also known as the Holy Ghost).

There are different names for the Supreme Being in different religions. Some examples are Allah in Islam, Yahweh or Elohim in Judaism, Baha in Baha'i Faith, Waheguru in Sikhism, and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.

The Roman military ritual evocatio found them attempting to deprive an enemy of divine protection by summoning their god and promising to worship it better.

Pope Gregory the Great was elected to the papacy in 590 at a time when the plague was consuming Rome. It is said that Pope Gregory originated the usage of the phrase “God Bless You”, when someone sneezed, as sneezing was at the time a mortal symptom because of the plague. ( The Romans used to cry “absit omen!” (flee, omen!)).

Saint Anslem (1033-1109) argued in his theological classic Prologion that God's existence can be argued for by our capacity to conceive of a perfect being.

The word "Goodbye" originated from the phrase, "God be with ye."

Source The So That’s Why! Bible

Ghost

In Ancient Rome, May 13 was the last of three days on which the feast of Lemuralia was celebrated, when malevolent ghosts were exorcised from homes.

The Apparition of Mrs. Veal is a pamphlet that was published anonymously in 1706 and is usually attributed to Daniel Defoe, It has been described as the first modern ghost story.

Telling ghost stories around a fire was originally a Christmas Eve tradition. Beginning with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol it was an annual tradition throughout the Victorian Era and only changed when Halloween became popular in the 1920s.

23-year-old Elva Zona Heaster (see below) was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia on January 23, 1897. Initially judged a death by natural causes, the court later declared that the woman had been murdered by her husband following testimony by the victim's mother, in which the latter claimed that her daughter's spirit revealed the true cause of death. The murder trial is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

After a bad date 16-year-old Daniel LaPlante dug a burrow into the crawl space of the girl’s home and terrorized her for months during the mid 1980s as a spirit of her late mother. He was discovered by her father dressed as a bride wielding a hatchet.

In 2013, 3000 workers at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh went on strike, some even rioting, not for better pay or working conditions, but because they wanted something to be done about the ghost inhabiting the bathroom.

Lemurs take their name from the Latin lemures meaning ghosts, because of their mysterious and mainly nocturnal lifestyles.

Ghosts looking like walking bed sheets comes from burial sheets. In old theater productions, when you wanted someone to look as if they had risen from the dead you would have them appear in their burial sheet thus representing that they were corpses. And that has lasted on to mean you become a ghost by putting a sheet over your head.

According to a report in 2011, 25 per cent of Britons say they have seen a ghost.

Source Daily Express 

The Devil

Evil came from some rebellious angels who have corrupted the earth at both human level and nature level. Way before God created man he created the angels including Lucifer who were once pure holy and living in God’s presence. The Old Testament book of Ezekiel says that Lucifer was once the anointed cherub nearest to the throne of heaven before he became proud and rebelled. Like man the angels had free will and along with Lucifer some gave in to pride allowing themselves to be corrupted. They rebelled against God and became demons following Lucifer instead.

A demon means ‘inferior deity’.

The Bible gives the devil five different names: Satan, Apollyon, Belial, Lucifer and Beelzebub.

The literal Hebrew meaning of the word Beelzebub is ‘Lord of the Flies’ from which William Golding came up with the title of his famous 1954 novel.

The word ‘Satan’ is derived from the Aramaic word for an adversary.

Satan's visual image evolved from Pan, who had a crooked nose, pointed ears, goat's beard, goat's feet and horns. When Christianity was established, the former Greek and Roman gods were transformed by the church into fallen angels.

John Bunyan illustrated the powers of darkness in The Pilgrim’s Progress as lions chained on a short tether on either side of the celestial city road. Those who walk in the centre of the road (in God’s will) cannot be touched. Meanwhile those who wander onto the side of the road are torn to pieces. If we keep doing God’s will, the devil can't touch us.

In William Lorimer's translation of the New Testament into the Scottish language, only the devil speaks English.

The Faust legend originated from Johann Faust (c1480-1540) of Germany, a wandering astrologist, scholar and magician who slighted Jesus' miracles and bragged that he could do the same. He was hated and feared by Martin Luther and when he disappeared in a strange manner and was later found dead in a pile of dung, many felt his strange demise was the work of the devil. Subsequently his name became the center of a great body of legend and poetry in European literature.

The phrase“Speak of the Devil” is the shortened version of “Speak of the Devil and he doth appear. ” The term was first used in Giovanni Torriano’s Piazza Universale in 1666 where he wrote: “The English say, Talk of the Devil, and he's presently at your elbow.”

In Japan, it is illegal to name your baby Akuma, which means "devil."

Angels

The word angel comes from the Greek “angelos” meaning “messenger.”

Despite numerous references in the Bible to angels, none says explicitly that they have wings.

Pixiebay

Angels are numberless and arranged in angelic orders. There are nine orders Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones contemplate God and reflect his glory. Dominions, Virtues and Powers regulate the stars and the universe. Principalities, Archangels and angels who minister to humanity. 

Satan, also known as Lucifer, is an angel-a fallen angel. He led the angelic revolt.

There is no known reference to a female angel- maybe they are genderless.

Archangel Michael is the most senior angel, with Gabriel ranked below him. Both are mentioned in the Bible. Other high ranking angels include Raphael (who is mentioned in the Apocrypha) and Unez, Chamuel, Jophiel and Zadkiel (who are all mentioned in Enoch).

Angels are powerful. 2 Kings 19 tells us that only one angel was needed to wipe out 185,000 Assyrians in a single night.

St Patrick spent 40 days in retreat on the Crough Patrick Mountain, fasting and praying with tears that Ireland might be delivered from the hands of the pagans. Every night an angel appeared to him with more and more promises from God arising from his prayers. Patrick stubbornly refused to leave the mountain until all his prayers were answered including that at the last judgement Patrick himself should be appointed to pronounce judgement on the Irish people. Finally he was assured by the angel that all his prayers had been heard and he descended the mountain pausing only to preach a sermon in which he cast the snakes (meaning the serpent symbolism of the Irish pagans) out of Ireland.

In 596 Pope Gregory I spotted some Angles (British) boys who have been bought to Rome and being told they are pagan “angli” the pope exclaimed “They are not Angles but Angels”. Inspired he instructed the respected abbot, Augustine to lead a mission to convert Britain. Within a few years much of southern Britain was Christianized.

According to the Book of Revelation 5: 11 the number of angels is "ten thousand times ten thousand", which is a general term to denote either a countless number, or an exceedingly great number.

Pixiebay

According to 14th century members of the Jewish Kabbalah sect, the total number of angels is 301,655,722.

William Blake (1757-1827), the painter, engraver and mystic described in later life the visionary experiences he had as a child, including visions of angels in a tree and the prophet, Ezekiel in a field.

The Angels of Mons became famous after a Fleet Street description by Arthur Machen of an angelic vision during the British retreat from Mons in 1914. Machen later said he made the story up, but many soldiers described a similar experience.

The first Russian astronaut told his communist masters that he didn’t see any angels when he went into space.

Pope John Paul II confirmed his belief in angels in 1986 when he explained: “They are invisible, for they are purely spiritual beings.”

A belief in or study of angels is called angelology.

Two Quotes: GK Chesterton: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

Psalm 91 v11 “For He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”

Here's a list of songs about angels on Songfacts.com

Alien

Alien life, such as microorganisms, has long been hypothesized to exist in the Solar System and throughout the universe. This hypothesis relies on the vast size and consistent physical laws of the observable universe. Such life might range from simple prokaryotes (or comparable life forms) to beings with civilizations far more advanced than human beings.

Aristotle and Plato both opposed the idea of extraterrestrial life.

Not only did 17th-century astronomer Christiaan Huygens contribute to our knowledge of the planets; he speculated about the extraterrestrial life on them. In the 1690s, he wrote, "It's not improbable that the rest of the Planets have their Dress and Furniture ... and their Inhabitants too." To critics who might have called his ideas blasphemous, he pointed out that if God made the stars, it's likely he also populated the planets of the universe with "Planetarians."

In the late 19th century, telescopic observation of apparent Martian canals increased speculation about life on Mars. In 1895, American astronomer Percival Lowell published his book Mars, followed by Mars and its Canals in 1906, proposing that the canals were the work of a long-gone civilization. The canals however, turned out to be optical illusions.

Artificial Martian channels, depicted by Percival Lowell

The idea of life on Mars led British author H. G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds, an 1898 science fiction novel about Martians attacking Earth. The book's plot arose from Wells wondering "if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the [indigenous] Tasmanians?", which most modern scholars characterize as a genocide.

Sightings of UFOs (sometimes called flying saucers) date to ancient times, but they only became widely discussed only after the first highly publicized U.S. sighting in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico.

According to theology, human beings may exist on other planets then the Earth, the Vatican stated on November 1, 1952. Roman Catholics are free to accept or deny the existence of space dwellers, in line with their own points of view, it said. The last word is up to experimental science. There is nothing else to do for the theologians but wait.

During the space race, the director Stanley Kubrick was so worried that humans would soon make first contact with aliens that he tried to buy an insurance policy for his 2001: A Space Odyssey movie in case audiences found his depiction of aliens ridiculous.

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin. The signal was 72 seconds long and had a narrow bandwidth of about 10 kHz. It was about 30 times stronger than the background noise at that frequency. The signal was not detected again, and its origin remains unknown.

Ronald Reagan was deeply affected by the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, to the point that at his first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, on November 19 and 20, 1985, he suggested that the world might put national differences aside in in the case of an alien invasion.

The U.S. city of Boston held the world's first convention for people who said they had been abducted by aliens. The convention took place at the Sheraton Commander Hotel on May 7, 1988 and was organized by Budd Hopkins, a renowned psychotherapist from New York City. Hopkins, who had authored the book Missing Time exploring the topic of alien abductions, played a pivotal role in bringing together approximately 100 participants.

The Boston alien convention was met with mixed reactions. Some people were skeptical of the stories, while others were intrigued and wanted to learn more. The convention helped to raise awareness of the issue of alien abductions and to create a community of people who shared these experiences.

Tom Delonge quit the band Blink-182 not because of artistic differences, but because he wanted to research the existence of aliens.

Ozzy Osbourne was named on March 21, 2004 the UK's favorite ambassador to welcome aliens to planet earth. The rock vocalist came top of a poll as the face people want to represent them to alien life.

Fermi's Paradox proposes theories as to why we haven’t heard from or seen any aliens. One of which being that they aren’t communicating because of an impending threat they know about, that we are not aware of.

Alien abduction insurance is only redeemed if the insured person can prove they were abducted by aliens and returned to Earth. Some insurance companies offer policies for alien abduction, alien pregnancy, alien examinations, and even death by aliens.

Alien abduction insurance has been available in the United States since 1987.