Deity
A deity is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as "a god or goddess". C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". In the English language, a male deity is referred to as a god, while a female deity is referred to as a goddess. Religions can be categorized by. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity, polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Although most monotheistic religions traditionally envision their God as omnipotent, omniscient and eternal, none of these qualities are essential to the definition of a "deity" and various cultures conceptualized their deities differently.
Monotheistic religions refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine and without gender. Many ancient cultures – including the ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks and Norsemen– personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects; some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities were envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities were envisioned as a form of existence after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are subject to death when their merit is lost; the English language word "deity" derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or "divine nature", coined by Augustine of Hippo from deus. Deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European origin to *deiwos; this root yields the ancient Indian word Deva meaning "to gleam, a shining one", from *div- "to shine", as well as Greek dios "divine" and Zeus.
Deva is masculine, the related feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Greek thea. In Old Persian, daiva- means "demon, evil god", while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the "heavenly, terrestrial things of high excellence, shining ones"; the linked term "god" refers to "supreme being, deity", according to Douglas Harper, is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, which means "that, invoked". Guth in the Irish language means "voice"; the term *ghut- is the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo, Sanskrit huta-, from the root *gheu-,An alternate etymology for the term "god" comes from the Proto-Germanic Gaut, which traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to-, derived from the root *gheu-. The term *gheu- is the source of the Greek khein "to pour"; the German root was a neuter noun. The gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity. In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities.
There is no universally accepted consensus on what a deity is, concepts of deities vary across cultures. Huw Owen states that the term "deity or god or its equivalent in other languages" has a bewildering range of meanings and significance, it has ranged from "infinite transcendent being who created and lords over the universe", to a "finite entity or experience, with special significance or which evokes a special feeling", to "a concept in religious or philosophical context that relates to nature or magnified beings or a supra-mundane realm", to "numerous other usages". A deity is conceptualized as a supernatural or divine concept, manifesting in ideas and knowledge, in a form that combines excellence in some or all aspects, wrestling with weakness and questions in other aspects, heroic in outlook and actions, yet tied up with emotions and desires. In other cases, the deity is a principle or reality such as the idea of "soul"; the Upanishads of Hinduism, for example, characterize Atman as deva, thereby asserting that the deva and eternal supreme principle is part of every living creature, that this soul is spiritual and divine, that to realize self-knowledge is to know the supreme.
Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more deities. Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, which are assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with accompanying rituals. In most polytheistic religions, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature. Henotheism accepts the existence of more than one deity, but considers all deities as equivalent representations or aspects of the same divine principle, the highest. Monolatry is the belief that many deities exist, but that only one of these deities may be validly worshipped. Monotheism is the belief. A monotheistic deity, known as "God", is u
Water
Water is a transparent, tasteless and nearly colorless chemical substance, the main constituent of Earth's streams and oceans, the fluids of most living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life though it provides no calories or organic nutrients, its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. Water is the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard ambient pressure, it forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are formed from suspended droplets of its solid state; when finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is water vapor. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, condensation and runoff reaching the sea. Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface in seas and oceans. Small portions of water occur as groundwater, in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, in the air as vapor and precipitation.
Water plays an important role in the world economy. 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a major source of food for many parts of the world. Much of long-distance trade of commodities and manufactured products is transported by boats through seas, rivers and canals. Large quantities of water and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances. Water is central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, sport fishing, diving; the word water comes from Old English wæter, from Proto-Germanic *watar, from Proto-Indo-European *wod-or, suffixed form of root *wed-. Cognate, through the Indo-European root, with Greek ύδωρ, Russian вода́, Irish uisce, Albanian ujë; the identification of water as a substance Water is a polar inorganic compound, at room temperature a tasteless and odorless liquid, nearly colorless with a hint of blue.
This simplest hydrogen chalcogenide is by far the most studied chemical compound and is described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve many substances. This allows it to be the "solvent of life", it is the only common substance to exist as a solid and gas in normal terrestrial conditions. Water is a liquid at the pressures that are most adequate for life. At a standard pressure of 1 atm, water is a liquid between 0 and 100 °C. Increasing the pressure lowers the melting point, about −5 °C at 600 atm and −22 °C at 2100 atm; this effect is relevant, for example, to ice skating, to the buried lakes of Antarctica, to the movement of glaciers. Increasing the pressure has a more dramatic effect on the boiling point, about 374 °C at 220 atm; this effect is important in, among other things, deep-sea hydrothermal vents and geysers, pressure cooking, steam engine design. At the top of Mount Everest, where the atmospheric pressure is about 0.34 atm, water boils at 68 °C. At low pressures, water cannot exist in the liquid state and passes directly from solid to gas by sublimation—a phenomenon exploited in the freeze drying of food.
At high pressures, the liquid and gas states are no longer distinguishable, a state called supercritical steam. Water differs from most liquids in that it becomes less dense as it freezes; the maximum density of water in its liquid form is 1,000 kg/m3. The density of ice is 917 kg/m3. Thus, water expands 9% in volume as it freezes, which accounts for the fact that ice floats on liquid water; the details of the exact chemical nature of liquid water are not well understood. Pure water is described as tasteless and odorless, although humans have specific sensors that can feel the presence of water in their mouths, frogs are known to be able to smell it. However, water from ordinary sources has many dissolved substances, that may give it varying tastes and odors. Humans and other animals have developed senses that enable them to evaluate the potability of water by avoiding water, too salty or putrid; the apparent color of natural bodies of water is determined more by dissolved and suspended solids, or by reflection of the sky, than by water itself.
Light in the visible electromagnetic spectrum can traverse a couple meters of pure water without significant absorption, so that it looks transparent and colorless. Thus aquatic plants and other photosynthetic organisms can live in water up to hundreds of meters deep, because sunlight can reach them. Water vapour is invisible as a gas. Through a thickness of 10 meters or more, the intrinsic color of water is visibly turquoise, as its absorption spectrum has
Haute-Marne
Haute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River. Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790, it was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy and Franche-Comté. In March 1814 the departmental prefecture, was the unwitting witness to the end of the First Empire. On 1 March, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria signed an accord forbidding any individual peace deal with Napoleon I, to fight until his final defeat. During World War II, Haute-Marne was partitioned under German occupation; the canal which runs from the Marne to the Saône served as a border, dividing the department into east and west. The east was a "reserved zone", intended for the creation of a new German state, whereas to the west would be the traditional "occupied zone". Haute-Marne was liberated by the Allies, in the form of the division of General Leclerc, between August and September 1944. Haute-Marne is part of the region of Grand Est and is surrounded by the departments of Meuse, Haute-Saône, Côte-d'Or, Marne.
The nearest cities with a population over 100,000 inhabitants, are Paris, Strasbourg, Basel in Switzerland and Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany. The highest mountain is Haut-du-Sac, in the Langres Plateau, in the southwest of the department, which rises to a height of 516 m; the lowest points at 117m are found on the plains of Der. The department is named after the Marne River; this river covers 120 kilometres within the department. The department is to the east of the Parisian basin, is characterised by a concentric sequence of cliff faces of varying geological origin, oriented northeast/southwest; the Haute-Marne department is not a famous department but this peaceful territory has numerous interesting places to present. Indeed, the department was one of the most powerful in French history thanks to metallurgy economy and was a land of confrontations along history. Thus, among other examples, the French Wars of Religion began with the Massacre of Vassy in the north of the Haute-Marne department.
Following this event, open military conflicts across France Kingdom began. The Edict of Nantes is the consequence of this period; the fortified town of Langres, famous for Denis Diderot author of the Encyclopédie, the Renaissance castle of Joinville, the Lake Der-Chantecoq, the Cirey-sur-Blaise castle where Voltaire lived for a while in with Émilie du Châtelet and the village of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises where Charles De Gaulle lived until his death are all major attractions. Haute-Marne is well known for some famous French great men and women as: Louise Michel Camille Flammarion and his brother Ernest Flammarion Goncourt brothers most famous all around the world with the Prix Goncourt, literature prize given by the académie Goncourt for "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year" Albin Michel Charles de Gaulle was a longtime resident of the department, in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, died there on 9 November 1970, at the age of 79. Arrondissements of the Haute-Marne department Cantons of the Haute-Marne department Communes of the Haute-Marne department Prefecture website General Council website Haute-Marne at Curlie / Official Tourist Board website
Gers
The Gers is a department in the Occitanie region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River. Inhabitants are called les Gersois. In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby; the Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Gascony. In 1808 it lost Lavit on its north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne; the culture is agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as: Armagnac brandy, Côtes de Gascogne, Floc de Gascogne, Foie gras, wild mushrooms. Some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza and grain; the Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not spoken. The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south. Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.
A horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-d'Armagnac between 1951 and 1976. The President of the General Council is Philippe Martin of the Socialist Party. Located in southwestern France, the Gers is part of the Occitanie region, it is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The Gers is referred to as amongst the least densely populated, or most rural, areas in all of Western Europe. List of the 10 most important cities of the département: The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East; the winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures. The amount of sunshine is about 1950 hours/years; the summers are dry. Auch is, together with Toulouse, Nîmes, Ajaccio, Marseille and Perpignan, one of the hottest cities in France. According to recent data tourism represents annually: 610 000 tourists, 5.900.000 nights, 22.100 commercial beds, 2 400 paid employment related to tourism, the tourist represent an equivalent of 17.100 permanent inhabitants, their estimated expenditure is 141.000.000 €.
Cantons of the Gers department Communes of the Gers department Arrondissements of the Gers department General Council website Prefecture website Welcome to the Gers in Gascony http://www.tourisme-gers.com
Saône-et-Loire
Saône-et-Loire is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies. When it was formed during the French Revolution, as of March 4, 1790 in fulfillment of the law of December 22, 1789, the new department combined parts of the provinces of southern Burgundy and Bresse, uniting lands that had no previous common history nor political unity and which have no true geographical unity, thus its history is that of Burgundy, is to be found in the local histories of Autun, Mâcon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Charolles and Louhans. Saône-et-Loire is the seventh largest department of France, it is part of the region Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. In the west, the department is composed of the hills of the Autunois, the region around Autun, in the southwest the Charollais, the Mâconnais in the south. In the centre, the department is traversed from north to south by the Saône in its wide plain; the source of the Loire, is south of the department, in the department of Ardèche. It makes its way in the opposite direction, forming the southwest border of the department, draining into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Canal du Centre links the Saône to the Loire between Chalon-sur-Saône and Digoin, thereby linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic ocean. In the east, the department occupies the northern part of the plain of Bresse. In the west, its industrial heart is in Le Creusot and Montceau-les-Mines noted for their coal mines and metallurgy; the department consists of five arrondissements: Autun Chalon-sur-Saône Charolles Louhans MâconThere are 29 cantons in the department and 567 communes. Touristic sites: Roche de Solutré, Abbaye de Cluny, Taizé and Taizé Community Dompierre-les-Ormes. Mâcon - Capital Cantons of the Saône-et-Loire department Communes of the Saône-et-Loire department Arrondissements of the Saône-et-Loire department Chizerots General Council website Prefecture website Saone-et-Loire at Curlie
Entrains-sur-Nohain
Entrains-sur-Nohain is a commune in the Nièvre department in central France. At the 1999 census, the population was 975. On 1 January 2007, the estimate was 900. Entrains fosters partnerships with the following places: Saranac Lake, New York, United States Monzingen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Communes of the Nièvre department INSEE commune file
Gaul
Gaul was a historical region of Western Europe during the Iron Age, inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Belgium, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 494,000 km2. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486.
While the Celtic Gauls had lost their original identities and language during Late Antiquity, becoming amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture, Gallia remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages, until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period. Gallia remains a name of France in modern modern Latin; the Greek and Latin names Galatia and Gallia are derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal-to-. The Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians to the "milk-white" skin of the Gauls. Modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu, Cornish galloes, "capacity, power", thus meaning "powerful people"; the English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, despite superficial similarity. The name Gaul is derived from the Old Frankish *Walholant "Land of the Foreigners/Romans", in which *Walho- is reflex of Proto-Germanic *walhaz, "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin-speaking people indiscriminately, making it cognate with the names Wales and Wallachia.
The Germanic w- is rendered as gu- / g- in French, the historic diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant. French Gaule or Gaulle cannot be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a, the diphthong au would be unexplained. Proto-Germanic *walha is derived from the name of the Volcae. Unrelated, in spite of superficial similarity, is the name Gael; the Irish word gall did mean "a Gaul", i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th-century book Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib; as adjectives, English has the two variants: Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. There is little written information concerning the peoples that inhabited the regions of Gaul, save what can be gleaned from coins.
Therefore, the early history of the Gauls is predominantly a work in archaeology and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships and linguistic divisions coincide. Before the rapid spread of the La Tène culture in the 5th to 4th centuries BC, the territory of eastern and southern France participated in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture out of which the early iron-working Hallstatt culture would develop. By 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France. Out of this Hallstatt background, during the 7th and 6th century representing an early form of Continental Celtic culture, the La Tène culture arises under Mediterranean influence from the Greek and Etruscan civilizations, spread out in a number of early centers along the Seine, the Middle Rhine and the upper Elbe. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spreads across the entire territory of Gaul; the La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age in France, Italy, southwest Germany, Moravia and Hungary.
Farther north extended the contemporary pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. The major source of materials on the Celts of Gaul was Poseidonios of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by Timagenes, Julius Caesar, the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, the Greek geographer Strabo. In the 4th and early 3rd century BC, Gallic clan confederations expanded far beyond the territory of what would become Roman Gaul, into Pannonia, northern Italy and Asia Minor. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans descr
