Kosh

ROTFL Biff!

<Norm Abrams>
Now, I'm just gonna put some yella caaaaaapentas glue on this draawwwwwwwwwwwwww.... woah, look at that! That ain't good, somebody put all these parchments in there!
</Norm Abrams>

<Tom Silva>
Oh Nahm, we're gonna have to rip that whole wall out now...
</Tom Silva>

Bede

The book found in the Temple is thought to be Deuteronomy and not Genesis, Numbers or Leviticus which have a much more complicated textual history. Richard Elliot Friedman's book is a must read, as Sojourner suggested, for anyone interested in this topic. It is scholarly, accessible and really enjoyable.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Sojourner553

Thanks Bede. I must try to watch a trend I have beem sensing recently in myself: a bitterness/anger as I watch George Bush use religion as an undercover to do a great deal of evil -- including:

(1) a war against Iraq (where I think other deterrents would be more effective)
(2) his onslaught on the environment and sciences,
(3) the LT effects his economic policies will have on the US and the world -- especially the poor.

There is a part of me that wonders whether GW Bush could pull this off without his appearances of "praying", frequent invocations of God, simplistic dividing the world into battlegrounds of white (good) vs black (evil.)

If you could address this for me -- --I would like to be shown where this is wrong -- even oversimplistic.[MODERATORS: OBVIOUSLY THE POST DOES NOT BELONG HERE!] Exs: Maybe you are aware of religious groups who oppose Bush's policies. (There was a small religious environmental group that put on an ad that WWJD did not include owning large gas-guzzling vehicles-- Falwell has easily overwhelmed them, seems to me...)

It'd likely make me feel better (so I don't turn into a cranky poster around here/loose my perspective, etc.)

Thanks

Sojourner

PS I am copying this now to the Politics forum, but I do hope to see your participation here.

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Biff the unclean

Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers is what is suggested by Eeduard Meyer Geschichte des Altertums as quoted by Joseph Campbell in The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology

-------------
(1) a war against Iraq (where I think other deterrents would be more effective)
You're not paying very close attention are you. There is no war against Iraq. What there is is saber rattling and the threat of war repeated at regular intervals on TV. That IS the other deterrent, and it seems to be working

Bede

[Off topic]Sojourner,

For what it is worth, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and most Christain groups in the UK oppose a war in Iraq.

Ironically, like Christopher Hitchens, I do not, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with my religion or Hitchens lack of it. I doubt it has anything to do with Bush's either and you are making the age old mistake of seeing religious motivations when you should only see political ones. If you lived in the UK where the church is far to the left of you, I expect you would realise your mistake. The biggest problem with your historical work (a part from a lack of critical thought where something agrees with your predispositions) is you see everything through a 21st century American lens and 'good' or 'bad' depending on whether you think they would vote for the GOP or Dems.

Anyway, I suggest you stop worrying about Bush's religion and start worrying about his policies in their own right. If he was an atheist I doubt a single one of the three points you mentioned would be different as they are supported by right wing atheists over here.

Yours

Bede[/off topic]

Sojourner553

Really...

I am of course reminded of Jesus' verse:

According to my recollection I try to diligently respond to your issues.

Why not start a post laying out some examples proving my lack of "critical thought". Seems to me I have a post somewhere where you ceded to me a win following a long debate we had on St. Augustine... Was it just my poor memory that noticed no instance of you demolishing any of my arguments on the discussion boards here? Why not find them for me...and repeat them here.

I dare you!


For myself, I felt I was always being polite when I saw you not responding to my toughest questions (ie those that would come closer to disproving one or more points of your thesis.

I can easily give you examples -- including on this board.

But I will let you go first as a common courtesy.

Sojourner

__________________________________________
Note 1
[please note I could have used a secular source to espress the same idea: My thinking was it might resonate more to use a religious quote.]

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Sojourner553

As usual, I find it instructive to check up on your black vs white replies--

For Hitchens is very careful to qualify his support as a freedom venture -- not unlike the US fight against the Serbs. He is also not blinded to the risks of the Bush admin leading the rescue effort:


<a href="http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,780434,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,780434,00.html</a>

and

<a href="http://media.guardian.co.uk/attack/story/0,1301,801653,00.html" target="_blank">http://media.guardian.co.uk/attack/story/0,1301,801653,00.html</a>

As I tried to explain to NOGO, I have read of atheists passively accepting Christianity -- even though they think it is all superstition-- because they feel it makes society a better place.

I take that issue very seriously. So I do ask the question if religion makes politics better. I do look for the inter-connections between the two.

Of course I realize there are atheists who like Bush. I have debated a few here.

That is, I am more interested in whether religion makes "good" people act more like sheep in accepting evil. I fully realize all atheists are not "good".

I am sure you have heard the quote: "There are good people and evil people, but it takes religion to make good people evil."

I would not make such a harsh statement. But I have wondered if religion sometimes makes good people more "passive" to evil. It was in that light that I framed the question.

Just another example of my poor critical thinking, I realize.

PS I look forward to your "proofs".

Sojourner

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Bede

Hi Sojourner,

It was when you started accusing Lindberg of religious bias despite not knowing anything about his religious views, I got a bit fed up. Also, you continued to insist the medieval church was anti-science when you have no evidence - you just quoted Lindberg when he was not saying this. Sorry, I just got bored. Also, you never admitted your mistake on Bacon whereas I did on Augustine. Oddly, your points I don't reply to are the ones I consider your weakest.

Set up a debate on the debate board here with a narrower topic on science/religion. Email me with topics when you have got in touch with the moderator. I am not willing to debate on the open boards as the headbangers will jump in again.

I don't want a discussion about Bush or the Iraqi war. Hitchens is in favour of the war on terror, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not. Thus I see no connection between religous views and wanting to attack tyrants. Of course Hitchens hates Bush - but as Hitchens is a leftie that is hardly surprising either. Again, politics. I actually agree with almost everything Hitchens writes except that he does not seem to have much room to moderate Islam (although he occasionally pays it lip service).

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Sojourner553

To Bede:

I have been a business analyst in my line of work. As such I work with operations, programmmers, accountants, and lawyers (including interpreting contracts). Over the years I have been praised by mu bosses as either their "best analyst ever" or having a talent for digging through tons of facts, to find the key relevent issues", etc, etc.

In short, I've had enough successes to be immune to headbanger attacks -- as you call them -- when I am stepping on someone's pet biases. It has prepared me somewhat for the experience of stepping in areas where there is even more emotional biases -- in religion and politics.

I gave you the specifics. Lindberg's detail chapters showed no advancements in sciences during the early medieval period. But real admissions to this were ALWAYS buried in the middle of paragraphs in hard to find places (unless one was looking for them)

In short, it was like looking for the small print in a legal document. Definitely not what he wanted anyone to focus on, yet included so that he could not be accused of being technically incorrect.

If I have to dig out the facts, rather than him highlighting if for me --Yes, he has an agenda.

I gave you a couple of quotes as I recall. I felt yours was the emotional response--you just don't like the message or that I had an honest difference of opinion from you.

I presume you mean Roger not Francis. I have to be shown proof before I admit a mistake. Frankly I feel strongly it is you who are in error. Again I showed my reasoning: I used a religious source that you yourself stated was usually of high quality (but disagreed with in this one instance). More important, your explanation ignored important facts --Bacon's recommendations for writing an encyclopedia were obviously not met with Church support (although you disagreed with the source that stated it was met with violent opposition.) Either way, there was no proof that the Church was pro-science and the model for modern science.

Oh let's see a few: I asked you if you believed in the virgin birth. I had a yes but no type of response.

I think you said you believed in demons. I never heard back if you thought all mental illnesses were caused by demons in the New Testament.

We sort of dropped the thread over whether slavery was worse under Christianity than the pagans.

You admit witch burning was bad, but then seemed to apologize for it in other places: Secular courts did it rather than religious courts; Not "all" women accused of witchcraft were tortured, etc (I showed you how the example of Kepler's mother was not typical.) You were going to do a quick check if there were any Catholic writers denouncing tortures. If this were an easy task, I would presume I would have heard something about it. {I agree if this were a difficult task, it might take a long time to research, and therefore not be a top priority.)


I don't like headbangers either...

I've been attacked probably with as much intensity as you have...

But frankly after your most recent comments --I am not sure right now you haven't joined their ranks...

I was always willing to cut you some slack because I was sympathetic of your desire to want to believe it's all true -- but I think this went beyond that.

Sincerely,

Sojourner

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Bede

Sojourner,

Look, I appreciate you have this idea stuck in your head and can't get it out. But Lindberg never said the church was anti-science. Your quotes: he said science didn't advance in the Dark Ages. This is true but the church was not the cause and he does not say so. Second, that the clergy objected to secular medicene on the grounds it did not work. Now, what could be more rational than that? Medicene did not work and we know this. How can pointing this out be anti-science?!? Those are your quotes from Lindberg. I am afraid that your claiming he has religious bias just because he does not agree with you is unacceptable when talking about one of the leading scholars of the field. And let's face it, he knows a whole lot more about it that you do.

You quoted Francis Bacon's story as a fact. That was wrong and verges on the dishonest. It agrees with your prejudices and you wanted to believe it which is just as bad as religious prejudice. To state a fact in a work of history YOU have to proof it. Perhaps you have now removed it from your site.

On Roger Bacon, you picked up something from a web site that was wrong. You also forget that Bacon was a Fransican and a product of medieval Christianity. You cannot say Bacon was good for science without also saying that his environment which formed his views and beliefs was too. The same goes for other important medieval natural philosophers like Buridan, Oresme, Grossteste, Swineshead etc who never met any opposition from the church and were all clergymen.

What have my opinions got to do with history? I believe in the virgin birth but don't think it can be verified. You point is utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Again, so what? I DO NOT KNOW. This is not even a weak point - it is a non-point.

We found we didn't know enough so agreed it was about the same. Pagans and Christians both used slaves but Christians eventually got rid of it.

Basically, you think trying to point out facts is apologetics - you just cannot bare to see any facts that might screw up your prejudices - is that it? Incidently, it is just sick of you to say that my saying witch burning was bad is an 'admission'. I never once said or implied otherwise - I just pointed to some articles that showed the scale of the problem has been massively exaggerated and the church had less to do with it than commonly believed.

And I said OK.

Well, I eventually got back to Reasonable and even Godfry.

Anyway, if your were on an evangelical discussion board and shrugging off the headbangers there, I might say our situations are equivalent.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>