Roland98

Moved back to the public board with Metacrock's permission. Any personal attacks and it will be quickly closed.

Roland98
IIDB Admin

Metacrock

Hi Lee. I wasn't going to respond anymore. but Toto ask my permission to re-open and that made me curious. I will answer this, not in defense of myself, because I don't think it's an attack. But I do want to explain my motives.

First, yea I agree with you about fundies. I don't necessarily think they are a small group. I know they are large and growing. But they are not the majority if you take christians of the world. They may be in the US. But the fundies you know are primarily the product of the American South. Fundies in places like Amsterdam are very different, totally reaosonabel and so different you would think they were liberals. I've known conservative Christians in seminary, from places like Liberia,the Phillipines, they are not like American fundies at all.So I see it mainly as an American phenomenon. It's tied up with republicans, conservatism, Americanism, the right wing, the civil war (the defeated south, reconstruction) and all that.

Of course those groups began urbanizing (I mean moving to the coasts) in WWII (to work in defense plants) and their grandchildren today have "infected" urban centers. But that's still an outgrowth of a kind of American culture that is rooted in the Anntebellum past of the American south (I say, don't you know you all). I myself am a southerner so I say that as an "insider."

Secondly, there is a continuum.ON that continuum you run the gammot from knee jerk idiots to salt of the earth homespun saints. Many people who are in those groups and might strike you as "fundies" turn out to be really fine people. They might have opinions you and I would consider "dumb" but they would die for you on the street or take you into their homes. So you can't just write them all off as thought hey don't exist. When one encounters a kinship of spirit concerns one's most sacred beliefs, it's hard to just ditch that because of some other issues that are somewhat more periferal.

But I agree that there are those with whom I find no kinship at all. Some of whom I wonder how they even worship the same God I do, or if they even have read the New Testament. But in the course of apologetical battle, one has to have allies, as one makes enemies. That's one reason to get out of apologetics. I kind of got taken under the wing by "fundies" on CARM and so not wishing to brake ranks with my comrades, sort of allied with them. These would be Nomads, the Laymans and the BK's, anyone remember Hillarius? Anyone remember Enoch or I don't know, several of those guys. I knew them all on CARM. So it was easy to kind of take sides. Do you see what I'm saying?

Now, having said all that, I do see a great deal of my "mission" as it were to try and enlighten the fundie camp. But I think I will have a much better chance of that from a position of being taken somewhat seriously as a Christian by them. Conservative Christians are so peranoid. They so eaisly think anyone who is different is the pawn of satan, to reach them one must be known to them as a turely dedicated Christian. So I don't attack them direcly and I try not to break rank with them on message boards. But I do try to disabuse them of their inerreancy. You have not been on CARM and you don't know how many times I"ve dealt with fundies about that issue and about evolution and so forth. You should know from my boards that I have often been attacked by yecs and other creationists and have fought creationists with the "gang of four" and atheistic types such as Tiny Thinker.*

So I can see where you are coming from, but I think my reasons are sound. I would not be accepted by atheists trying to do the same thing from within their camp, because I'm not one. I am a Christian, although not a fundie, so I have a better chance of reaching them from within their camp. I just try not to go into it too deeply.



Yea i admit that's a failing in myself. I don't set out to think of myself as supirior, but I resot to it as a defense mechinism when I feel insulted. I know that's a failing.

As for the challenge, there are very bright people here. I fell into insult mode with Spin, but I think Spin is bright. I think Toto is bright, but we have very different approaches to things, but that's cool. I admire his knowlege of china. I love Chinese culture. If I had my life to do over again, I would study southern Hung gar technique very seriously and the Sourthern Mantis style, if I could find a Master in Texas (that's Kung fu you know). As it is I'll have to content myself with Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies. But I read the Teo Te Ching. I do begining Ti Chi on University House channel.

I think Peter is a total whiz. He's great and I do amire him. I liked James Still, I thought he was a steller thinker who really will make a name in the "real world" of academia. I found hard to get on with Richard Carrier, we did not hit it off. If there is an oppossite of hitting it off, that's we did. We rubbed each other the wrong way.

All of that is cool. I bear no one ill will. But I know you don't see it, but there is a dynamic here that just resist pelsant discussion and meeting of the minds, and foatments attack. I wish I could explian it. It's like reading the Bible; we can both look at the same passage and I see "ah, the the love of God, wonderful" and you see "14 new Bible contradictions!" it's just the glass half empty, glass half full.

Other places, like CARM, have very intelligent thoughtful skeptics and lack that dynamic. So I find them more productive as venues. But not to insult anyone. I often find that people here within whom I almost come to blows, when I get them on other boards they are totally different.







With some. Not all atheist are intellectuals, not all Christians are not. But I've made friends with some at II. I made friends with a guy calling himself Ender/Neitzsche. And also with James Still for a time. I've had pleasant exchanges with Peter. I have a lot in common with some, but not all. If you know HRG, he's at CARM too and we are good friends. O and Vinnie. Vinnie was on my boards a long time ago, and he was almost like my student in a way. He suprpassed me in some ways, but we are still freinds and post on his boards at times. I fought to keep him from being ostracized by the Chritsians--our mutual mess board Christian friends--and almost stopped hanging with them over their treatment of him.


ahahhaha, cool. BTW I'm not taking my boards down. I'm just going into an alternative. It's still theological, and also philosophical and political, but not apologetical. So you can keep linking. I apprecaite the traffic too.

But it will be aimed at "meeting of the minds" rather than debate and will branch out into other topics. It will be cool there to think differently.

_____________

*I don't know if anyone remembes "the gang of four." Tiny Thinker was one fo them. A guy named Rick and a guy named Pat and there were like three others at different times. They were all skeptics, and very good in science.They had a hobby of searching the net for creationists to argue with, and they gave that Hovand guy a real hard time. They were the first totally expose him as the fraud he was. Their heay day was ending about the time I discovered apologetical boards, about 98. So they were some of the major skeptical power house types back in the 90s.

Metacrock

My major arguments with fundies now days are on an issue totally unrelated to apologetics. On that issue, egalitarianism, I have a lot of battles with fundies. That issue is the equality of women in the chruch, home, and society. There is a whole segement of the chruch maintains that the Bible doesn't teach that women should be silenced or that they are second class, but that they are equal, and that the bible teaches gender equality. It's a vast study, it coveres houndreds of passages.I've put up extensive pages on Doxa (under theology) and have had many battles with fundies over it.

Most of the women on that issue are very conservative theologically, except for that issue, and tend to be somewhat moderate to liberal poltically and socially. It's basically movement located within the reasonable end of Evangelicalism.

Here's a link to my pages.

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...men_index.html

Rusting Car Bumper

I am a member of this group that exists in meatspace:
Dallas Philosophers Forum.

Metacrock gave a lecture there once and frankly I thought it was full of hooey. It was well spoken and thought out but in the end it amounted to justifying the claim that god belief isn't irrational based on what I saw as solely analytical propositions. In the end that means you can define any justification into existence.

DC

Metacrock

How could it be analytical when the phenomena under discussion were totally an empirical matter? It was my religious experinces argument, and religoius experinces are definition an empiricial matter. It could only be analytical if the warrent for the proposition was based only upon dedutive reasoning and reqiured no empirical observation. Experience requires empirical observation.

Anyway, I wish I knew who you were. Did we talk? Did you ask a question? I like that group. One of the major people in it has been a frined for a long long time and I've spoken to them many times. I do pretty good in public speaking, if I do say so myself.

MrFrosty

This thread is in good company down here in ~E~ :wave:

Apikorus

Metacrock, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, Jesus is not mentioned explicitly anywhere in the Mishnah. The best you can hope for is a reference to ploni in M. Yev. 4:13, but ploni in Mishnaic Hebrew simply means "so and so" and it is hardly clear that the reference is to Jesus.

If you still claim that you can document Jesus in the Mishnah, then please provide a citation to the Mishnah itself.

I had pointed out that the Mishnah is almost exclusively halakhic (i.e. legal matter) rather than aggadic (i.e. stories, narration). The point here is not that it is impossible for Jesus to be mentioned in such a setting, but rather that it is more likely for Jesus to be mentioned in a section of aggadah, in the Talmud.

Another problem for you is that while some of the oral tradition behind the Mishnah undoubtedly does have a first century provenance, the Mishnah itself is dated c. 200 CE.

Since I believe in an historical Jesus, I would not be particularly shocked by an early reference to Jesus in the rabbinic literature. I happen to believe in an historical Hillel as well, but if someone claims that Hillel appears in Josephus, then I must take exception (since that claim is false).

My views on the matter (quoted from the earlier thread):

Metacrock

I came back to post on this thread because I thought we could make progress in exploring that dyamic I talked about and get passt this Yamering kind of "debte." so this is a set back. I'm not going to get into this stuff. But I am curious, why, when I document it with several sources do you continue to bitch at me about it? Why don't you take it up with F.F. Bruce and Wikopedia?


I've already documented three sperate sources that say Jesus is in the Mishna and I quoted one of them ont he thread; that was from Wikapedia.

why don't you criticize them? Write to them and ask for the sources.



Wikopedia:

http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/Yeshu


"Most scholars today believe that discussions of Yeshu in the Mishnah are references to Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of Christianity. However, this view is controversial. The question has historically been a delicate one because Yeshu is portrayed in a negative light; negative portrayals of Jesus in the Talmud might incite, or be used as an excuse for, anti-semitism among Christians."

Toto

Wikipedia is collaborative software that allows different users to update a page. Metacrock is quoting what appears to be an old version of that article.

The current version is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu

It reads (in part): But there is a long talk page on this article, and there was a vote on deleting it. I do not see a discussion on the accuracy of the term Mishna - the author of the article seems to use Misha and Talmud interchangably, but the quotes are from the Talmud or later sources, not the Mishna.

Apikorus

Metacrock, your response is laughable -- a parody of scholarship! Is this how they teach you to deal with sources where you are working on your "Ph.D." -- "I saw it on wikipedia -- why won't you accept that?"

You always try to cite Jewish sources on Jesus, yet Judaism has deemed Jesus a false messiah, and religious Jews are still awaiting the arrival of the Messiah. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be a part of God; Jews view Jesus as just one in a long list of failed Jewish claimants to be the messiah.