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Yep. You hold a paper towel tube up to someone’s ass—then, if you stick your penis in it—you’re an asshole.
The Hitler clan was Mexican?
I wouldn’t tell his buddies about that…
Argentinian. All the R III leadership came from Argentina, Bolivia and the -aguays, so, after the war, they all just went home.
I was always surprised people seemed to think he was an expert on the Bible or a religious scholar.
He came across as someone who’d read a few books in a religious studies course in college, but he hardly came across as an expert, particularly when he did things like insist the the Serbs, who were members of the Eastern Orthodox faith were actually Catholics and considered themselves Catholics.
When the poster is an asshole?
That’s not in The Bible so I’m not sure why that’s evidence for your point.
He would argue with believers, they’d say ‘bullshit’, then he’d provide the relevant quote from the Bible and make them look stupid.
I never got the impression that he was an expert on such matters. It seems more likely to me, in retrospect, that he was simply adept at using the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
Do you have a cite for that assertion?
It’s only a matter of time before there’s a side area of the SDMB for our very own internal online dating. We can call it the “We Got a Room!” forum.
Jesus, how many sports did you mashup in that mangled metaphor?
Always an enjoyable show.
My post is my cite.
And you know who else had religious views that aligned very closely with his political stance? Just about everybody.
In general, uninformed people (and some informed people) judge the “winner” off an argument to be the one whose conclusions they like best, having no other basis with which to decide.
I don’t think you need to look any further than that. The ones who declare Dio to have been some sort of expert on the bible tend to be the same ones chortling with glee over his sticking it to fundamentalists - as in this thread - so it’s unlikely that the two are uncorrelated.
ETA: this was magnified in the case of Dio, who was a bombastic sort and brimming with self-confidence. If he declared something to be so - and you liked what he was saying - then it was easy to assume he must know what he was talking about and the other guy must be ignorant of these basic facts.
DoggyKnees and I share an interest in early Christian history. All it takes to achieve a level of expertise on the subject is a thorough grounding in Hebrew, Greek and likely German. Some Coptic would be helpful. Actually, that’s just for starters. It is a fascinating subject with no actual hope of definitive fact, and many a great mind has foundered upon the rocks. University libraries should hold such books in a special locked section and offer counseling to such unwary students who might be tempted to wander about therein. This Way Lies Madness.
The schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church did not occur until the 5th Century C.E. For someone with a serious interest in the very earliest Christian church, it would not be a matter of any real concern to that specialty.
Someone who was an actual scholar or expert as many gullible dopers seemed to think he was wouldn’t embarrass themselves by making such an elementary mistake.
And that’s not even bringing up the fact that for a guy who freaked out whenever anyone mentioned his daughters, he explicitly stated that if his daughter’s boss asked her to come into the office, dropped his pants, grabbed his penis and declared “suck this” his daughter wouldn’t be the victim of sexual harassment.
Yes, he was fun to laugh at and embarrassingly easy to humiliate, but no, he was hardly brilliant or a scholar.
Not the same thing. His analyses weren’t his own religious views-- he’s an atheist. He was interpreting The Bible, which was not a part of his (non-existent) religious views.
Depends on your definition, I’d say. As an atheist, I have some rather strong views on religion.
Him I miss, but he was certainly an asshole.
He also claimed, and showed some ability, to read the Greek New Testament, and thus to interpret it more accurately than the average Christian. Of course, I didn’t always agree with his interpretations, but I didn’t have any reason to challenge his knowledge of NT Greek.
badchad! He wasn’t here long but he posted a lot & then got himself banned for announcing his targeting of
the nicest, most knowledgeable religious guy* in the group. He blew himself up real good!
*The late great Polycarp
I do have such reason, having spent two years in a Lutheran seminary where I studied Koine Greek. His interpretation of Greek was pretty much the same as his arguments on anything religious (or political, or eventually anything). He simply announced whatever he thought was the “correct” interpretation, and then went into his act.
It’s too bad he got banned, but not because he was any kind of a Greek scholar. IIRC his undergraduate degree was in religious studies, and he couldn’t get into grad school for some reason.
Regards,
Shodan