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| 25 new of 293 responses total. |
twenex
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response 196 of 293:
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Dec 15 22:22 UTC 2003 |
#193 was in response to #191, although it could justy as easily be in
response to #192, which slipped in.
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lk
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response 197 of 293:
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Dec 16 00:01 UTC 2003 |
(As I said in #165.)
Some homosexual couples reproduce/adopt even after coming out.
As for Jewish beliefs (in a nut-shell), there is no hell. There's not
much said even about an afterlife. When the Messiah comes, the dead
shall rise and we'll all figure it out. There is a concept called
Sheol, more akin to Hades, where all the dead go. But it's not very
well defined. Judaism is more concerned with this life.
Jews do not "recruit" (you know, unlike homosexuals (: ) but do
accept converts to the faith. (Moses himself married a non-Jew, as
did King David, Solomon and others). Converts are considered full Jews
in every sense. In fact, the line of David came from Ruth, a convert.
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jp2
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response 198 of 293:
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Dec 16 00:04 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 199 of 293:
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Dec 16 00:32 UTC 2003 |
I think whether or not they do is pretty irrelevent to the argument.
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jmsaul
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response 200 of 293:
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Dec 16 00:33 UTC 2003 |
well, look at it this way. If Jews, Moslems, adn Christians all worship
the same God, They all say they want peace, adn tehy all keep fighting
each other, SOMBODY has got it wrong!
Yeah -- ALL OF THEM. Why anyone wants to pattern their lives after a set
of religious tenets invented by people who can't even get along with each
other is beyond me. Looking at the Middle East, I'd think that sane
people would reject any way of life that came out of that snakepit on
general principles.
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jep
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response 201 of 293:
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Dec 16 00:56 UTC 2003 |
Huh. I think Middle Eastern monotheism and the general Judao-Christian
moral principles which accompanied it, taken as a whole, surpass by far
any other contribution to civilization which came out of that region.
Or for that matter, any region. I think it's the basis for modern
nationalism instead of tribalism and industry replacing agriculture,
for starters among things that I value in life.
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keesan
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response 202 of 293:
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Dec 16 01:29 UTC 2003 |
Industry has replaced agriculture? I still eat food.
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bru
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response 203 of 293:
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Dec 16 01:59 UTC 2003 |
Ahhh...but it is processed food!
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jep
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response 204 of 293:
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Dec 16 03:23 UTC 2003 |
Processed food? Not in Sindi's case!
Most of us don't make our living by agriculture. I'm not sure if
anyone does who currently logs on to Grex. I don't personally know of
any professional farmer who has ever logged on here.
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rcurl
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response 205 of 293:
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Dec 16 03:51 UTC 2003 |
There is a professional farmer that sends me e-mail here.....
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rcurl
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response 206 of 293:
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Dec 16 03:57 UTC 2003 |
Re #201: I would just as soon have had it that Judeo-Christian-Islamic
mythology had never occurred and that civilization arrived at an ethical
and moral course by rational means. That several millenia diversion into
fantasies has been a source of enormous human suffering.
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twenex
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response 207 of 293:
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Dec 16 09:34 UTC 2003 |
Wow, lots of meat here.
I agree with jmsaul (#200) on almost every point except the last one.
As jep says (#201), the Middle-East provided us with cities, and at a
time when their organized religion(s) w(ere) not monotheistic Islam,
but polytheistic and usually variant from city to city.
Also, during the Dark Ages and Early Mediaeval period when the whole
of Western Europe was still persecuting witches and had descended into
feudal chaos, Muslims and Jews were making adfvances in medical and
the other sciences which seemed like witchcraft to the nearly
barbarian Christians; especially in the case of the Muslims, they are
also often our only surviving source for Greek scientific texts, which
they often studied and improved upon (lest we forget, the Greeks knew
that the Earth was round. It's the only possibly explanation for the
fact that you see the sails of a ship first when it comes over the
horizon.) The Turks, who at one time ruled almost the whole of the
Muslim world, and Palestine, allowed Jews to practice freely on
payment of a tax. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be taxed for
being X than be gassed for it (although, of course, it's not right or
fair to do either; it's the lesser of two weevils.).
Re: #206: I doubt that the internecine strife between Jews, Muslims
and Christians, or persecution by any of these religions against
"infidels", can be seen as the only, the first, or the last instances
of religious persecution. The recent rioting in Gujarat, an Indian
state where the majority religion is Hindu, is one example; further
examples could be provided by the Viking raids on Northern Europe,
taking no account of the fact that the richest pickings, which they
found in churches, were also religious relics, etc.
Furthermore, in respect of Islam, opne of its aims was to *prevent*
tribal warfare between different groups of Arabs, which, afaik, it
succeeded in for a large part of its history - and even now, Arabs
still see themselves as part of the same "nation"; many of the states
that exist now did not exist before the British Empire carved them out
of its Ottoman possessions. If you want other examples of "how the
mighty have fallen", just look at Russia after Catherine the Great,
moddern Italy, modern China, or modern Britain :-(.
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twenex
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response 208 of 293:
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Dec 16 10:12 UTC 2003 |
Thankyou for the clarification re: Judaism, lk.
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lk
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response 209 of 293:
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Dec 16 11:36 UTC 2003 |
You're welcome, but let me clarify a few other points. (:
> The Turks... allowed Jews to practice freely on payment of a tax.
Isn't that an oxymoron? It's true that under the rule of Suleiman the
Magnificent (who rebuilt Jerusalem) Jews fared well. But this was the
exception rather than the rule. In the 19th century, the plight of
Jews in the "Holy Land" (no such place as "Palestine" existed yet)
was so extreme that they turned to western powers for protection.
Look into the Capitulations and the short-lived Tanzimat reforms.
The reason one sees the top of sails before the ship is obvious.
They are less likely to be hidden behind waves and one usually sees
taller objects first anyhow. It has nothing to do with the curvature
of the earth. (: [Archimedes triangulated the diameter of the earth
and came quite close.]
> in respect of Islam, opne of its aims was to *prevent* tribal warfare
> between different groups of Arabs, which, afaik, it succeeded....
I don't think this was an aim. Islam was spread by the sword, through
tribal warfare. Polytheists who refused forced conversion were put to the
sword (Christians and Jews were tolerated). I'm not sure that a "Pax
Islamica" was ever achieved, but the schism between Sunni and Shiite
Muslims would lead to millions of dead. The concept of "Arab unity"
is something like the weather. People always talk about it....
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twenex
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response 210 of 293:
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Dec 16 15:22 UTC 2003 |
Heh. looks like I stand corrected.
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flem
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response 211 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:18 UTC 2003 |
I'll grant that Judeo-Christian monotheism made important contributions
to morality, but that it led to nationalism and industrialization?
That's a bit of a stretch.
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jep
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response 212 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:24 UTC 2003 |
re resp:206: That's wishful thinking on the order of "I wish people
didn't have to get sick", Rane. People didn't spring into being with
full knowledge of how the world works; they had to figure it out. (And
some of you still haven't got it all right. (-: )
Some day people may come to regard quantum physics and relativity in
the same way most of us regard phlogiston, astrology and the sun going
around the Earth on the backs of turtles. That doesn't mean any of
those things were "fantasy". Serious, intelligent people have believed
in all of them, because all of them have pretty well fit available
facts at some point or another.
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jep
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response 213 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:35 UTC 2003 |
re resp:211 (who slipped in): It's fodder for another item, but if you
look at the basic innovation which occurred in Dark Ages and Middle
Ages monasteries, where the monks were constantly striving to free up
time to exercise their devotions, the connection is there.
The striving for improvement, and exploration, that originated in
Western Europe was not an accident. The dominant influence in Europe
from 4th through 18th centuries was the Roman Catholic church. I'm not
claiming it *wanted* the change that it catalyzed, but it'd be pretty
blind to deny it didn't have a lot of influence. The Catholic religion
was *wildly* successful in a whole *lot* of ways.
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rcurl
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response 214 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:08 UTC 2003 |
Re #212: just to keep the subtleties straight...I did not say I *wished*
anything - just that I would have preferred it. I am aware of the original
ignorance of modern humans when they finally evolved and that they had to
figure out everything in a very complex and confusing world. History could,
of course, have taken other directions, but it is not surprising that it
is full of misdirections. I blame a lot of that upon people discovering
that they could control others by inventing fantasies - even coming to
believing them themselves.
I disagree, however, that we will ever "come to regard quantum physics and
relativity in the same way most of us regard phlogiston, astrology and the
sun going around the Earth". It has been known from the start that those
scientific concepts were simply workable hypotheses of limited accuracy.
They were presented in that spirit and challenged to be countered or,
rather, improved, even if that meant to be replaced. It was mostly
adherence to dogma, not to observation, that kept phlogiston et al alive
as long as the did (and have).
What will happen in the future is that the "whys and hows" of quantum
physics and relativity will be discovered. That, however, will not make
even the current manipulations of those concepts less valid within their
limits of accuracy.
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remmers
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response 215 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:13 UTC 2003 |
<remmers wonders what "available facts" supported the concept of the
sun going around the earth on the backs of turtles.>
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jp2
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response 216 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:17 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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flem
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response 217 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:39 UTC 2003 |
re #213: Well, I guess I'll cheerfully argue with you in another item,
then, if you start it. For here I'll confine myself to saying that I
disagree, mostly. :)
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twenex
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response 218 of 293:
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Dec 16 20:33 UTC 2003 |
Re: #2133. Don't forget that we had to come a LONG way in order to get
to Mediaeval Europe in the first place, and the journey started (as
far as my hemisphere is concerned) in China and the Middle-East.
I often wonder how much wisdom we'd have discovered if my ancestors
and ours hadn't destroyed the civilizations of the Americas, or even
if they'd simply written more of it down for us. Or if writing had
been invented separatrely in Europe, for that matter - how on *earth*
did the Mayans build their palaces without using wheeled vehicles; how
on *earth* did the prehistoric people of Britain build Stonehenge with
stone from over a 100 miles away in Wales, again without wheels? (And
what the hell was it for?!) Seems to me they would have needed
*incredibly* complex and organised societies. Btw, Roman and Greek
Chroniclers from Tacitius to Caesar report that Celtic and Germanic
societiews *were* highly complex, and that, possessing no written
language, their memory capacity (or rather their harnessing of the
capacity we all have) was phenomenal.
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rcurl
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response 219 of 293:
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Dec 16 20:44 UTC 2003 |
Re #216: you seem to be confused. I made no such claims as you attribute to
me. Would you care to explain what you are trying to say?
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keesan
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response 220 of 293:
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Dec 16 23:44 UTC 2003 |
Regarding monks 'freeing up time' - I have seen a drawing of a monastery plan
where there was one area of squares marked: sheep, pigs, cows, goats, horses,
servants.
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