Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 April 20

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April 20

10mmAutomatic(10x25mm)

I really enjoyed your extremely informative article regarding the 10mm Automatic handgun cartridge. I was wondering why the author didn't include that the HK-MP5 was/is used by the F.B.I.in 10mm Automatic. Also in military service the Glock Model 20 in 10mm Auto. is curently issued to an elite special forces unit of Danish Navy known as SIRIUS. They are responsible for the patrol of Greenlands enormous coastline(Denmark is the sovern of Greenland). The SIRIUS patrols carry the Glock 10mm mostly for self defense against large polar bears as the 9x19mmNATO round has been found to be unsatisfactory. Thank you. Maybe these things can still be addressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.28.181.213 (talk) 03:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

They certainly can be addressed - and you can help address them! Anyone can edit Wikipedia, just click the 'edit' link at the top of the page and start writing!

However, there are a couple of things it would be good to do first. When we add information to an article, we need to cite the source of the information, and make sure that it is a 'reliable source'. This means that, despite the fact that you already know the information above, you will need to prove it to other editors by finding it in an article from a well-known newspaper, or a (non-fiction) book or similar. You can find more reliable sources in the guide I just linked to.

If you have trouble editing the article, the best place to ask for help is on its talk page. If you need help finding the references in reliable sources, you can ask here. You might also like to pop in to the Teahouse, which is a new project on Wikipedia to help introduce new users to how things work round here. Best of luck! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 06:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, our article on 10mm Auto already notes that 10mm rounds are used by Danish forces in Greenland. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Housing question

i have a flat/apartment in india in Assam the which i am not occupied but locked . the society charges a huge amount monthly for maintenance which has increased again. are there any provisions within which i can be exempted some amount for non occupancy as it is hampering my budget. What is the body that controls the residents association in india. please suggest — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.70.233 (talk) 07:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

If I understand you, you own an apartment, but are unable to live there and want to know if you are responsible for the entire monthly maintenance fee. We can't give legal advice, but, in most places, you are obliged to pay the entire amount. I suggest you rent out the apartment, in your absence, to help pay it, if this is allowed. If not, try to sell it. StuRat (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Are BOF Auger Fines same as MIll Scales?

BOF Auger Fine is a "by-product" when a steel mill is producing "steel raw material such as billets or ingots" using "different process"! - May I know what is the difference between auger fines compared to mill scales?118.101.50.166 (talk) 07:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC) TQ

Harry Potter, Christianity, and Witchcraft

I've heard that J. K. Rowling is a Christian. Is that true? If so, then how come I've heard that Harry Potter is evil because it promotes witchcraft and witchcraft is from the Devil?

Bowei Huang 2 (talk) 09:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

People will tell you whatever they want you to hear. I'll just quote another famous English author here: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" --TammyMoet (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

If you read the books you will make up your own mind as to whether they promote witchcraft. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Bowei, what you have heard is irrelevant next to what is. You keep asking these witless one-line questions whose answers are either totally subjective or easy to research. You've been asked to stop, and you don't. Your recent questions about systems of governance have been especially daft.

However, because this is a reference desk, and most of us are here because we like trying to answer questions, I'll try:

Joanne Rowling is at least an occasionally practising member of the Church of Scotland, a presbyterian church which is the established church in Scotland, as much as there is one. She is on record as saying "I believe in God, not magic".

The Harry Potter novels are fantasy fiction. They depict a wildly divergent picture of the world, in which history, politics and science are all very different from how they are in the real world. This is because all of these divergent feature were made up by Ms Rowling, or derived by her from admittedly fictional or legendary sources.

There are, to the best of my knowledge, no references to or depictions of Satan (or of God or Jesus) in the Harry Potter novels. There is almost no depiction of witchcraft as it is conceived of by modern Christian conservatives. The books draw on legendary conceptions of witchcraft, alongside other magical or quasi-magical systems such as divination and alchemy, to build up a secondary world in which magic can be studied as an academic subject by those with the aptitude to do so. Magic is depicted as an eccentric alternate science, in which precision and repeatability are key. Dealing with magical creatures is often depicted as a risky and unwise proposition.

But these are novels, and do not give any explicit moral guidance of any kind, nor is this the purpose for which they are commonly read.

The idea that 'witchcraft is from the devil' is a late medieval Christian synthesis without much earlier foundation. In the 11th century, devout Christians in western Europe practised folk-magic rituals alongside Christianity. More recently, Christian anti-witchcraft hysteria has killed many people; as a Christian I regard this as a sinful and sorrowful state of affairs.

The claim that the Harry Potter novels promote witchcraft and Satanism is a lie. If you believe in a personal devil, you might ask yourself who it is that is called the 'father of lies'.

And of course, we have an article on this: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

"'witchcraft is from the devil' is a late medieval Christian synthesis" is not entirely correct as witchcraft is condemned in the Old Testament ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus 22:18). Rmhermen (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It's by no means unanimously agreed that Exodus 22:18 refers to witchcraft at all, much less to witchcraft as understood in the late medieval and modern West. There's also no reference to a personal devil there, either. A quick search on Bible Gateway reveals not a single use of 'Satan', 'devil', or 'adversary' in this sense in the entire Torah/Pentateuch. I'd suggest that this is because the culture that produced it did not have any such concept. The idea of the Adversary as an accusing angel is late (it occurs in Job, for example); the idea of an explicitly anti-God chief devil or fallen angel is even later, probably a borrowing from Zoroastrianism in the late Second Temple period. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Judaism's view of Satan is quite different from that of Christianity, hence his omission from the Pentateuch - but he does appear, for example, in the book of Job, which according to mainstream Jewish tradition, was penned by Moses. In terms of witchcraft in the Old Testament, Exodus 22:18 is about bestiality ("Whoever lies [carnally] with an animal shall surely be put to death.") Presumably, you mean 22:17 - it's fairly unambiguous that it's dealing with sorcery, although Rashi makes it clear it deals with both sexes (noting parenthetically that it's just that more women are involved than men). The prohibition is expanded significantly (and even more unambiguously) in Deut 18:9-12, Rashi helpfully explains how the various types of magic worked. There are extensive references to wizardry in Pharaoh's court in Exodus 7, including a variety of types of magicians in 7:11. Numbers 22 deals with the magic of Balaam, and it is made clear in various places that he was a pretty potent wizard, with an interesting relationship with God. In short, the OT is entirely consistent that witchcraft is prohibited, but the idea of it being "from the Devil" is not from the OT, which doesn't care a jot for "the Devil". --Dweller (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

For the record, the Church of Scotland is not established (see State religion#State religions by country). 81.98.43.107 (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The most likely explanation seems to be that the people who wrote, and spread, the idea that Harry Potter was teaching 'witchcraft' were mistaken. Those stories began at the publication of the first few books, where only perceptive readers were able to notice that Harry Potter was being set up as a Christ-figure and that the series was explicitly Christian in its narrative. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:08, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Church of Scotland is not established That's debatable (and the article you cite has no references). It's legally constituted by act of parliament, and it ministers to all Scots, but it's also independent of state control. In any case, that's hardly relevant to the question. --Colapeninsula (talk) 22:21, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Witches

One thing people often were accused of in the past was being witches. But how did they know if someone was a witch?

Bowei Huang 2 (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

They didn't know. They guessed, listened to false accusations, and used pseudoscientific methods, including torture, to come to their conclusions. Then they often persecuted or even murdered the accused.

There is no such thing as a witch, in the sense of a person with control over supernatural forces. So there is no such thing as the true knowledge of someone being a witch. It should be obvious, therefore, that no-one ever 'knew' that those accused of witchcraft were really witches.

And yet despite this shameful and murderous record, people are still prepared to accuse their neighbours of witchcraft today. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not really a complete answer, because it misses the point that at least some people practised (and still practise to this day) witchcraft of some type or another. Thus neighbours' reports that X "is a witch" are not necessarily false, even if magic does not exist. In other words, witches do/did exist (probably). But I agree that the evidence types Alex mentions are probably the correct ones, and that it was a very haphazard process that invariably did involve suggestions of magic actually having been practised (in the sense that livestock died as a result of Y's activities yesterday evening, or whatever). - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone asked a similar question last week. If Bowei is genuinely interested in researching this topic in more detail, the works of John Putnam Demos are very informative and authoritative. --Jayron32 12:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Easy: witches weigh the same as ducks. Nyttend (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Darn, ya beat me to it. —Tamfang (talk) 07:38, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, he just barely pipped you - by 40 hours. I'm surprised there wasn't an edit conflict.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The question is implicitly based on a false premise, that such beliefs no longer exist. This is not the case, as a glance at Witchcraft will tell you. Many people die each year because they are accused of being witches, or harbouring demons. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

The most recent case was just 2 days ago.[1] I don't know what's sadder, people who stone "witches" or people who bury their head in the sand in order to pretend the former group doesn't exist. 142.150.237.18 (talk) 18:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

The OP asks "...how did they know if someone was a witch?" in many cases those doing the accusing neither "knew" nor even believed that someone was a witch when they did the "accusing". It was a convenient social or political strategy to assign negative characteristics to someone you didn't like. Arthur Miller made that point very strongly in his 1952 play The Crucible, which is an allegory of McCarthyism. HiLo48 (talk) 22:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

There was a famous book called Malleus Maleficarum ("The Hammer of Witches"), published in 1487, that explained in detail how witches could be recognized and how they should be treated. During the witch-prosecution era it was widely considered authoritative. Looie496 (talk) 23:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

UK import customs

So, a friend of mine sent me some stuff from america, and as well as charging me tax on it, the customs want to charge an £8 clearance fee too, I'm wondering what this is for and whether it's anything I can persuade them to drop whilst I argue that they're overcharging on the tax. Also, since they managed to take a week just to send me this letter and another whole weekend to ship my package out, I need it delivered to another address, is it possible to arrange this, or will I need to pay to have it posted to my new address afterwards?

79.66.96.30 (talk) 19:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not ask the relevant government department? They're far more likely to know than us. HiLo48 (talk) 21:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It might be worth checking where that clearance fee is coming from. It might be imposed by the shipper/customs broker rather than by HM Customs. Best of luck, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Why you are being charged VAT and/or customs duty depends on what is in the package and how much it is worth. This page on the Royal Mail website (scroll down to the last item) explans about the conditions when they charge the fee. Basically, they have 'got you over a barrel' - you pay the £8 plus any VAT & customs duty, or you don't get your package; it's as simple as that.

For the £8 handling fee, they keep the package in the mail centre, come to the pokey window when you come to get your package, collect your money and fill out the customs paperwork. Barely 50p's worth of service IMHO, but unfortunately such "handling fees" are the kind of crap you have to put up with when the government try to run a public service (like the mail) as a for-profit business </rant> Astronaut (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Have you looked in to customs handling/brokerage/clearance fees for private couriers per chance? Nil Einne (talk) 17:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)