Picture Perfect

So read road signs across London and the south, for those who can't avoid going up past Watford, for some reason.

I've always wondered why the good people at the Highway Authority felt that the directions for the north need to be in bold. I've never seen signs saying "The SOUTH" (you must tell me if there are) - but place names, road names, motorway names and directions to other places - such as central london, which is given simply as "the City" - are all lower case letters. So why is it "The NORTH?"

I always felt it was a bit ominous to call it "the north," like it's shrouded in mystery, a place where the normal southerner wouldn't venture unless they absolutely have to. Of course, the explanation may be far more simple than that - northerners have a hard time reading, so they need to enlarge the print for them.

That, at least, is the explanation as per DJ. Feel free to introduce your own thoughts on the matter...! 

People never cease to fascinate me, especially familiar faces.

Of course, we all know a familiar face are those people who you say day-to-day, but never really speak to. Nonetheless, you grow accustomed to seeing them around - be it that lady with the funny hair-style you pass on the way to work, or the elderly gentleman who walks 15 minutes each way every morning to pick up his daily paper - always the daily telegraph - in those odd shoes he always wear - dark brown, the look of leather, worn at the front and sides - which you're convinced are slippers, but aren't quite sure. 

Today, I went to the house of one of my familiar faces.
No, I didn't break and enter just for kicks; I didn't event stalk him. I happen to be friends with his nephew, who said "let's pop into my uncles house!" Ever ready to meet new people, I agreed - and it happened to be a gentleman who I see about twice a week. Ironically, I introduced myself to him just hours before, on a whim that he was related to my friend (my friend's dad and this fellow look quite similar). You should have seen the look of surprise on his face when he came down the stairs to see me sitting on a chair in his living room.

This house was small, the walls covered in books, the people in it gloriously happy and very chatty. A young family, as far as I could tell, it was made up of two parents, three girls (I put their ages at 9 [she looked like she was 5, but she said she was 9...] 14 and 15) two boys (aged 11. I never saw the other). But wait until I get to the good bit: it turns out they have a few pets. A bird, which I'm told by my friend bites - and its wings aren't clipped and yes, they let it fly around the house (i had to duck every so often. Being tall, I didn't fancy my chances as ending up as its perch) - some other things (I forget) and a snake (the other pets pale in comparison to this one). It's called Sammy, apparantly. Sammy the Snake (or, as I said to the girl holding her when I thought she was 5 - "Sammy the squirming squiggly snake!" You know the voice, high pitched, patronising. Thaats. the one.

The point of this post is to tell you: kids, I touched a snake. That's right. I fear nothing and no one. No snakes. Not even moths can bring me down (as Moth Monument on my ceiling shows. I have half a mind to take it down, though. It's been a few years...).

That is all I have to say.  

As you all know, this blog is at the forefront of social, economic, political and religious issues, unafraid to pose any question to anyone or turn over any stone, no matter what kind of ceepy, scary bugs will crawl out from under it.

Once again, my blog rises to the challenge where conventional media is silent, bringing to your attention the need to divest, boycott and generally refraining from supporting Fairy Liquid. That faries are ground up and the resulting fluids used for washing your dishes is, quite frankly, disgusting. For too long the faries have suffered! For too long have we washed dishes with their magical selves! It is no wonder that there remain sceptics to their existence, for fairies surely do not wish to be caught, squeezed and ground up for their juices and thus have learnt to stay away from all humans. We do ourselves no favours by angering magical peoples.

It is clear this must stop and it must stop now, along with the abomination which is "baby powder," "baby oil," and "baby shampoo" - stop the senseless killing!

What is the sabbath? Explain in detail! Thus asketh Arty Of America, student of English.
Let us check the bible.

For six days you may perform melachah [work], but the seventh day is a complete Sabbath, holy to the L-RD ... it is an eternal sign that in six days, the L-RD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. -Exodus 31:15-17

So, essentially, the Sabbath is an "eternal sign" ordained by God to signify that he rested on the seventh day.

But what is "melachah?" I have put "work" in brackets there, as that is the best English translation, but it does not actually mean "work" as such. For instance, it would not be permitted to carry a needle in the street on the sabbath, yet you could spend the entire day shifting heavy furniture from one part of your house to another. Others see"work" in terms of employment: which would mean that a rabbi wouldn't be able to give a sermon or lead the services on the sabbath, for that is his term of employment. So, as Arty correctly asked: just what is defined as work?

God forbade the building of the tabernacle on the Sabbath. Thus, all things required to build the tabernacle are forbidden to do on the Sabbath. There are 39 main catagories (called "av melachot" or, literally, "father of works") of things one must do to build a tabernacle. They are:

sowing, ploughing, reaping, gathering, threshing, winnowing, sorting, grinding, sifting, kneading, cooking, shearing, whitening, combing, dyeing, spinning, stretching threads on a loom, preparing to weave (vie heddles), weaving, separating threads (unweaving), tying a (permanent) knot, untying a (permanent) knot, sewing, tearing, trapping, slaughtering (killing), skinning, salting (tanning), smoothing/scraping, cutting, writing, erasing, building, demolishing, extinguishing, kindling, finishing an object, carrying from one domain to another.

Group I = Numbers 1-11
Group II = Numbers 12-24
Group III = Numbers 25-31
Group IV = Numbers 32-33
Group V = Numbers 34-35
Group VI = Numbers 36-39
Group V = Numbers 34-35
Group VI = Numbers 36-39

Group I is connected to the field work.
Group II is connected to the making material curtains
Group III is connected to the making of leather curtains
Group IV is connected to the Krushim (beams of the tabernacle)
Group V is connected to the putting the walls of the tabernacle up and down
Group VI is connected to the final touches of the tabernacle.
---------------------

Then, there are those things which are explicitly forbidden by God in the bible, which is different to those things above and have nothing to do with the building of the tabernacle. The third and final type of thing forbidden on the sabbath are those things set up by the rabbis to ensure none of the catagories above are violated. For example, it's forbidden to cut your hair on the sabbath. But what if you pulled out your hair? That's not biblically forbidden, but someone pulling out their hair one by one may get the person frustrated and it may escalate to reaching for the scissors to cut more comfortably - and that, of course, is forbidden by the bible. Thusly, a "fence" was set up to ensure things like that don't actually happen.

And there we go! That is your guide to the Jewish sabbath.

Any questions, ask. 

Okay, so why do you believe the OT and not the NT? I always believed (in fact, still do believe!) that the two were inseparable, and that the prophecies of the OT were fulfilled in the NT.

And if that's not so, then who was Jesus?! It's certain that he was a historical figure, and not a figment of someone's imagination. Thus sayeth Nossie, noted scholar, philosopher, teacher and theologian.

This line of thought in my own experience is the archetypal line which I may only assume - merely because it has so oft been quoted to me more or less exactly as Nossie stated - that it is taught in church, schools or sunday school classes across the country and possibly across christendom. Which is fine. I just find is puzzling that many feel the urge to assure me that Jesus actually was a historical figure and whilst that's the view I once took, the amount of people who assured me that "Jesus actually did exist!" got me thinking - and so I did some research and I changed my view.  But first things first.

I believe the so-called OT because of the national witness of God which took place 3, 317 years ago at Mount Sinai. If you read the OT, you will find it states - 4 times, no less - that we should relate the events of the Exodus - the culmination of which was the appearance of God to the entire nation of 4-6 million people - to our children each year on the holiday called "Passover." The OT, therefore, is based on national witness of events.

In comparison, the NT - even if one holds a traditional view (which is what I imagine you would hold Nossie) that each of the epistles and Four Gospels were written by their namesakes - is based upon the alleged experience of a few, who later wrote it down. If God was serious about creating a new social order or religion as He did back in the OT, surely He would have used believable mechanisms as He did the first time around: namely, national witness. Furthermore, this is only fair, for if the whole nation of Israel was expected to conver their ideas, it is only right that the whole nation should witness this "change in plans." 

You may say that Jesus performed wonders and miracles which should have been witness to his divine nature, but this is an unacceptable proof: it wasn't for the wonders and miracles as performed by Moses that the Israelites believed in God and listened to His words, but it was the national experience, which they all had together, in the same place at the same time.

As to the prophecies of the OT being fulfilled in the NT, you would have to be more specific. No doubt, I would disagree with what you would say. The OT itself tells us Jesus would rise up [Deut. 13:1 onwards]: "Every matter I command you, you shall do: you shall not add to it or deminish from it [notice that it says "you shall do" - i.e. actual works, not a view that "Jesus fulfilled the law, therefore I don't have to do anything anymore" - continually do, without stop, for there is no such thing as ever "fulfilling the law"].

If there arises amongst you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you signs or wonders and they shall come to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying "come, let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them" - you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love Him with all your heart and all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commands and obey his voice and serve Him."

There we go. I believe that should sufficiently answer your musings and leave you with a few things to think about :-) 

For a change, I'm going to write a blog post, because I'm bored and not because I was forced to by the powers that be (namely Cat, head of the "let's-bug-DJ-till-he-makes-a-post!" squad).

In a previous post, I discussed accents - and given my recent voice convo's with peoples, I shall write about it again. But much, much more briefly, don't worry.

Arty: As I was talking to arty, arty's mum happened upon the place. As I said to arty and her mum last night, I think out of all American accents, the californian one is the best. If someone from the east coast is reading this, I don't want to hear it! Whatever it is youre going to say in your defence, the answer is you're wrong. All I have to say is "Brooklyn" and "Queens" - I don't even have to get to "The Bronx." New Jersey accents are a little better, yes. But whatever. I'm not discussing this with you. Pfft.

Anyway, the voice conversation was interesting. I think. I was so tired, I don't believe I remember anything else that happened. 

Cat: Always so quiet on mic, dissapointingly so. Until someone taunts her that she's a scardy cat, and boom! She has guts once more. 

Side note: why should people be afraid of voice convos? Their respective voices have gotten them through life this far, without men, women and children running away screaming from them (hopefully) because of how they sound.  End of sideth note.

So it was slow going with cat. We eventually established a two-way mic convo, but I really couldn't hear her due to her rubbishy microphone, which mangled her voice (yes, even more than her accent does :P) into sounding like a computer voice something like...."Hel-LO WO-uld you LIKE to PLAY a GAME?" But with much more static and digitalness. 

Cat's convinced that we had nothing to say to each other and should therefore not ever meet in real life (voice convos are so much easier once you have met, actually. At least, that's what I find with arty) lest the same fate plague us. I'm not convinced, however. 3:00am is not exactly the best time to start any talk of any type. It's the time when you've reached a deep state of sleep, after being in bed for at least 4 hours. that's right, 11:00pm = bed time. Or it should. I think that's what I'm going to do as much as possible from now on...Right now I still have a headache I'm convinced is from the late night.

Anyway. Somehow Cat - surprisingly - got the courage to call me on my cellyphoney. It wasn't on silent and before long the rather loud tones of the theme tune to Larry Davids "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was playing. I had no choice but to pick up. And lo and behold, I understood what she was saying to me (yes, even through the thick scottish accent).

Cat, if you want to know how it'd be if we ever met, just watch one of the epsiodes of CYE. lol. And you laughed a lot more on the phone than on the mic. So there. Lots of ticks for me afterall.

Anyway, I've lost interest entirely in writing anything more, so, uhh, bye! 

Today I ate some food, as one does.

On my plate, there was chips and chicken. Lovely.
On the chicken, I put a thin layer of cheese and melted it...

Hmm? What?

For those unfamiliar with Jewish dietary laws, allow me to explain: mixing a meat dish together with a milk one is completely not allowed. No Big Macs with extra cheese - or any cheese. No ham on top of pizza. No "chicken and cheese" sandwiches. That's right.

And yet, here I am, an allegedly religious Jew cooking and eating foodstuffs in direct contradiction to centuries of traditions and laws. No, I'm not rebelling, nor have I renounced anything: of course, I was using vegetarian-mock-chicken, so dietary laws weren't actually an issue.

The mock chicken was tasted pretty chickeny (the texture was way off though), so I decided to see how a few slices of cheese would taste melted over the top of it. I have to say, after sampling this otherwise forbidden dish, the chicken and cheese combo is, in the words of Avril Lavigne's "girlfriend," "so whatever" and far, far from being "The Best Damn Thing" (hey, if i'm going with the avril theme, it's that theme all the way).

Needless to say, I was dissapointed.
Keeping this in mind, I wish to leave you all with a joke:

A rabbi and a priest were sitting next to each other on a long haul flight to one of the remotest parts of the world - California. Lunch was served. "Aha!" said the priest "your food is different to mine I see. Is this because you're Jewish and can't eat cheese and chicken which has been cooked together?" he enquired solemnly. "Uhh, yes" responded the rabbi. "I've bet you've tried it though" said the priest, winking. "Actually" said the rabbi "I have, once - when I was a young man and very curious as to what it would taste like. I snuck into a McDonalds and ordered meals to my heart's content. But I notice you are a man of the cloth. I understand that your rules forbid you from engaging in sexual relations." "Uhh, yes" responded the priest "this is true." "I bet you've tried it though!" says the rabbi. "Well, actually, yes, I have" said the priest "I was also a young man and could not control my passion...but since then, I have kept to the rules." "I understand" says the rabbi. A short period of silence followed, until the rabbi said "sex is better, isn't it?"

You miserable bunch couldn't get it together to comment in an educated fashion on one serious post of mine, despite it being there for a week and two days. I was going to leave it up for just one week, just to make you all suffer a little by witholding my posts, but also to encourge you to broaden your horizons. Oh, and also because I told Cat I would leave it for a week, so I had to prove my point. 

On the subject of Cat, I must say, I like it when she suffers every now and then. However, I simply cannot explain this immutable desire to relish in her frustration and anguish. Sadistic? I don't think so - I usually feel sorry for her at the end of it all and one may even catch me defending her on occassion. Shocking, I know. It's more of a healthy "I-hate-you-DJ/I-want-to-cut-you-open-from-head-to-toe-Cat" relationship.

Whilst I'm talking about people, I may as well enter a note about Natalie. Yes, you nat.
The first thing which comes to mind is that "nat" is actually the abbreviation for the National Aids Trust; important information for every student indeed. Remember, kids: just touching someone you don't know can give you AIDS.

Now armed with that social skills advice, we may move onto the second thing which comes to mind, a far more dastardly topic: shuffle around the letters of "nat" a little and you get "ant." My expose on Ant will come a littler later, first. Let us finish with Nat.

The reason I mention her at all, is because I would like to officially welcome her to the sordid bunch of people who are most unfortunate to be in the position of reading my blogs. I'm not quite sure why anyone bothers, but they do and that is that. So, whilst Nat and I have our differences (she has a fringe) we also have our things in common (a mutual hatred of Cat) and thus I would like to say, welcome to the select few, Nat!

Ok. Now Ant.
I heard Ant's voice for the first time last night and was privileged enough to hear one of his sermons. I must admit that by the end of the first sentence, I was already telling him over MSN that I disagreed with what his voice was saying. This snowballed into a fully fledged theological discussion, the details of which I shall spare you (judging from the response of the last blog, I'm sure you're all considerably happy about that). For the full details of Ant's voice, one may approach either Nat or Cat (their names are so similar), either of whom will be delighted to give you a play-by-play, sneering, jibing commentary on his accent. All I'll say is, Ant's accent betrays his stint in inner-city London. He saands laak ah roigh' Landanaah. Matt's accent, as I recall, is a standard English accent, well done to him.

At this point, it's noteworthy to mention I heard Nat's voice last night too. Ha, to all those who haven't. Her accent seems to be standard English too.

Whilst we're mentioning all these voices and accents, I think Cat has a fun accent. Not a funny one, a fun one. It seems to say "woooo, listen to meeee, you don't get to hear me every day, do ya?!" And it's true. Other than the occassional TV personality who's Scottish, when does one ever get to hear a Scottish accent (which isn't from Glaaahhhzgoooo)? Unfortunately, over the phone, I am not yet able to get her talking incessantly so that I may be able to hear her accent in all its Scottish glory. Cat, I also noticed that your accent sounds standard-English when you start talking, but slips into a Scottish one when you get into what you're saying. I can only guess that you try and hide your accent when talking to me! How dare you. This will not be tolerated.

On to Arty.
Though subject of much laughter in the UK (not really, hehe), the American accent is quite a good. Unfortunately, I hear it all the time on TV and oddly enough, most of my friends are actually North American. English accents in college are few and far between. We 'aff much of ze French accen' tu.

Anyway. If I were to rate my preferred accents, it would be thusly:
1) French, Persian and Scottish, joint place (I don't know if anyone has ever heard an Iranian speaking, but it's lovely and jumpy - not as pronounced as Mandarin, more casual-jumpy).
2) American (sorry, constant exposure to American accents has decreased it's value for me. I also resent that I am heard to say the words "movies" and "cell" more often now).
3) Standard English, Received Pronounciation and Grammar School Accents (GSA). Whereas these terms usually all mean the same thing, they do not in my blog. Here, I have used "standard English" to denote an accent which is commonly used in the South (NOT the Essex accent. Though SE is common in London too, London has so many accents I can't really generalise).

Received Pronounciation is that posh accent everyone makes fun of these days. Commonly called the 'BBC accent,' you may have heard those sorts of accents on the BBC up until about the late 1980's. This is taught in Public Schools (costly, privately owned schools, usually single sex, thus casting suspicion of latent homosexuality on about 70% of it's members. It is not uncommon for these places to be a boarding school, like Eaton, where we know beyond a doubt they're mostly gay. Ok, ok. Sorry. That's unfair. I meant to say "where they're all gay." OK! Fine. Sorry. No one's gay, except gay people. Happy? Bloomin' Political Correctness...can't even make racist/homophobic/sexist jokes anymore).

King's (or Queen's) English is not the same as RP. It blatantly is, but officially, the monarchs of Britain have their own unique accents.

Grammar School English is basically the same as the BBC accent and RP, but you'll never get me to admit that, ever. A grammar school, by the way, is a selective state school. It brings people affordable private education. Interestingly, the ex-head of the Labour party (Tony Blair) attended public school, whilst I, an ardant Conservative supporter, attended state-run and Grammar schools. If there existed a party which would maintain the current public spending (NHS, eduaction) and would renationalise the utility and travel companies, I'd vote for them, no doubt about it. Most unfortuantely, our balance of payments are most likely unbalanced.

Anyway! Accents.
So, in the world of my blog, Standard English is commonly spoken, standard English of the south. This is not RP, which is spoken by the likes of the posh people in London. Grammar School Accent, which in my world is less pronounced than Public School English (where the hell did I get my accent from?! Aside from my grandad, I'm the only person in my family to have a Grammar Schooly sort of accent).

SO.
Where does that leave us?

It leaves us, dear children, with the title of my blog: notepad. How on earth was it relevant to all this? It wasn't at all. Aside from the fact that my blog is my doodle pad, a notepad of sorts, if you will.

But today I was messing about with notepad. Amazing program it is! Did you know you can have borders? Page numbers? Date? Time? Headers? Footers? All that jazz. Also, it's possible to do all that on MSDOS. Wooo!

Yeah. Anyway, Nat and Cat are bugging me on MSN and making those damn "doo-dee-dum!" noises which is disturbing my rambling entirely. Plus, I want to finish a project today. So. Uhh. BYE!

Seeing the religious fervor which has taken grip on so many blogs, I thought it would be appropriate to perhaps say a few words of my own on the subjects of Numbers 22:2 - 25:9, what is referred to as the portion of Balak. Whilst, strictly speaking, I'm not really allowed to speak about any in-depth religious matters, I figure there's so much out on the net anyway that if someone was really interested, they could pretty much find out what they wanted. Plus, I have that brilliant password contraption on this blog. So, read on, if you dare...

I'm always fascinated by this portion of the bible. It deals with so many riveting topics, pivotal to many debates out there. The topics in this portion include subjects as diverse as what some may refer to as the Calvinist debate (Free will versus predestination), spiritual beings - do they exist and who can see them if they do, - the "End of Days," status of law, rule of law, "does God change His mind?," the concepts of reward and punishment, the place of zealotry and fanaticism within religion and whether or not it has one, what altars and sacrifices achieve, prophecy - does it exist? and if so, what is it and who gets it? amongst other things.

I'll only look at the debate between free will and predestination, then add something about foreknowledge. But before that, one thing which I want to look at which I didn't mention is prayer. What is it and what does it do? This is a somewhat unusual take on things, and probably not one you'll hear anywhere, so brace yourself!

Prayer
I've heard, been in, read about many debates, be it on ccuk, in Dawkin's new book, or anywhere else and all the debates roughly go something like this (NP = no prayer, referring to those who don't believe in that sort of thing, whilst YP = yes prayer, denoting those who do):

NP: Prayer doesn't do anything.
YP: Yes it does.
NP: No it doesn't.
YP: Yes it does.

Depending on how enlightened the folks debating are, there may or may not be a discussion about the psychological state of those meditating or praying and the biological effects it may have on a person, compared to a person who is not in a state of prayer. Believe it or not, there is a difference in the biological state of mind of one praying, and one who isn't. But that doesn't answer the spiritual effect of prayer.

As far as I'm concerned, prayer should first and foremost be looked at as a self-transformative exercise, without regards to the hocus-pocus which may or may not be taking place somewhere upstairs. No one can really ever identify the exact spiritual effect a prayer may or may not have, and for those who claim they can show that (from as far left as Dawkins to as far right as fanatics), the more I am inclined to disbelieve them the more they propound that position. That's simply because, as Karl Marx once said (together with Madonna in her song "Material Girl,") we live in a material world, not a spiritual one and therefore what we see are material effects, not spiritual ones - and any spiritual effects we fancy we see are inferred, not apparant. So, whilst people are welcome to believe or disbelieve the spiritual effects of prayer, I wouldn't encourage people to look at it from that perspective alone.

So what effect does prayer have here in a material world, apart from the pictures we may have seen showing the transformation of brain chemistry?
Manifold. It may bring comfort (mourning, or spontaneous prayers), it may include acknowledgement of a higher power than yourself (grace, psalms in church, giving thanks), it may even make you change perspective on issues (I'll come to that soon). In short, it transforms the self from position A before the prayer, to position B after it is uttered (hence, self transformative).

My favourite is "change perspective on issues." This is what is referred to as "accounting." It is a form of internal reflection, rather than outright prayer, though it includes the latter too. I suppose this is the Jewish equivalent to meditation. Rather than anything hocus pocus going on here, all it is, is going back over (a) past deed(s) and accepting responsibility for them. Rather than being a type of mental self-flagellation, this accounting takes into account everything - the good, the bad and the ugly.

But it goes beyond good/bad deeds. In everyday life, I look at it as follows: would I rather be standing on this side of a decision I've made, or on the other side? I.e. would I rather have not made the decision? Almost always I find that I'm happy I made it. This is much better than worrying over things I've done and "what if I did that" or "what if I didn't do that" which I used to beat myself up with over and over. I find it's a question of taking a step back from your life and viewing it in the general picture of things. I come to realise that a single decision at this point plays very little in limiting my options. So why stress over something which didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, over which I have no control now and which, in the larger picture of life, doesn't actually set me back? No point whatever.

END of Prayer

Free will - Predestination - Foreknowledge.

Do we have free will?
Let's look at the bible.

God tells Balaam that he mayn't go with the officers of Midian. Balaam eventually goes anyway, despite this. On his way, he finds that he is blocked three times, by some sort of unseen spiritual force. Eventually, God reveals that an angel was standing in front of him. Said angel berates Balaam for not listening to God, then says "but fine: go if you want. Just know, you're going to say exactly what God wants you to."

From the fact that Balaam was able to disregard a direct order from God is proof enough for me that we do in fact have free will. However, the latter part of the story - that Balaam would not be free to speak his mind - suggests that Balaam didn't in fact have free will and his actions were being directed by God. Notice too, that God seems to "change His mind" - whereas at first, He told Balaam in no uncertain terms He didn't want him to go with the officers, he then sent an angel to say He in fact will allow him to.

I think the key in answering the disparity are the words "want" and "allow."
God didn't want Balaam to go, who went anyway. God allowed him to go.

This seems to suggest that God will allow people to do what they want, even if He doesn't agree with it. This therefore suggests free will, over predestination.

Interestingly, later on, Balaam's words are not those of curse, but of blessing. He responds to an enraged Balak "Did I not tell you that I could not go against the word of God and whatever He tells me to I shall speak?" This also seems to suggest predestination.

I would say, however, that these were unique circumstances: Balaam was a prophet of God. Whether for good or bad, that was his designated status, and like all prophets, he has absolutely no free will when speaking the word of God. I.e. whether he likes it or not, he must speak what God wants him to. When he was going to curse the Israelites, he said "whatever God shall put into my mouth that shall I speak" and that's exactly what happened. He wasn't the last prophet to disagree with the word of God. Jonah made a great fuss, for whatever reason(s), and ran away from his responsibility of prophecy. Like Balaam, however, whether he liked it or not (and the fact that he was willing to kill himself shows that he really did not like it) he had to speak the words God told him. As a prophet, that was his function.

That one would bring a proof of predestination from an episode where we find throughout the bible that the speakers are more or less forced to speak certain words, is no proof. We all agree that in this specific case, God's will is absolute over that of the individual.

Nontheless, we can bring a proof from the events prior to the prophecy - where God did not want Balaam to go, but in the spirit of free will, allowed him to go. At that point, he had no prophecy to speak. He was not on his way to fulfil any God-given mission and at that point, had free will like the rest of us.

What about the events in Exodus?
Pharaoh's "heart was hardened" by God. This is generally explained to mean that God made him obstinate, so that the inevitable outcome of Pharaoh's decision would be a refusal to free the Israelites. Aha! Predestination. Even more compelling, God says a number of times before the plagues that "I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh in order that Egypt shall see my wonders." This is clearly predestination: God wants X to happen, and is willing to project that want on an individual's choices, in this case, Pharaoh.

The age-old answer to this, is that the first three times, Pharaoh made his own choice: he refused to let the nation go, of his own free will. Nowhere is it written in reference to the first three requests by Moses to Pharaoh that "God hardened his heart." After something is done three times, so the saying goes (As a result from this episode) it is as if he has become set in his ways. I.e. After 3 times, sufficient precedent is given to assume that the outcome of the 4th time onwards, will be the same as the first three times.

But if that's the case, why should God have to harden the heart of Pharaoh in the first place? If it's a given, why remove that free will? Good question, and I don't know.

However, allow me to pontificate.
The words "I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh in order that Egypt shall see my wonders" is only an admission of predestination in this one case - the fact that it is mentioned, shows that it is out of the ordinary. It is not really a case for predestination, than it is a proof that God has the ability to direct events in this world, despite free will. The fact that God would have to "redirect" events may also show that there never was a set event sequence in the first place. That in order to change something, the outcome of the original set of events would have to be something God did not want, therefore something that He did not pre-set.

I believe that should answer that sufficiently.

But what of foreknowledge?
As I see it, foreknowledge of an event does not mean predestined (though predestined does mean foreknowledge). This is best explained by a small story...

Someone standing on top of a building see's two cars speeding. He sees that they're on different roads so that neither driver can see the other car, but those two roads they're on intersect with each other. The person on the roof can see with great clarity that unless something happens to stop this sequence of events, the cars are speeding as such, that they'll collide with each other at the intersection.

Is the person on the roof in control of anything? No. Everything is working independently of the man on the roof and yet he has a certain foreknowledge of events to come.

It is therefore clear, in my mind at least, that knowing the entire picture means you know the entire outcome of events. As such, like an engine, if you know what to tweak and when, you know what outcomes will be given. It just so happens God knows what to tweak, but instead of doing it himself, usually - but apparantly not always - wants us to do it ourselves...

Thus endeth the religious speak.