Hell no, just that it put down some of the (pre-existing) early ideas in writing and told people those ideas were right, even holy, and why. Domestication of animals sure as hell predated the creation myth, but the texts of early monotheism codified many of the techniques (what’s “kosher” and what isn’t) and spread these techniques using the religous arm of society.
DJ, that wasn’t a straw man exactly (though probably not far off), it was insulting hyperbole. And what would the pit be without that?
True, but they’re the ones who typically denigrate other belief systems, including both religious (i.e. Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) and non-religious (atheist, agnostic, Materialist).
Perhaps God should have just told us to cook the pig, eh?
BTW, you seem to be contradicting yourself…
So did the Bible arm man with the ideas or were they just a recording of his ideas?
Another question: You seem to be placing special importance on the ideas of monotheism. Am I to infer that you don’t appreciate the value of polytheistic belief systems? You do remember that democracy was really first birthed with the Greeks, a polytheistic society, right?
And questioned when it’s users display ignorance are commit abuses in it’s name.
Or possibly a testament to the persistence of superstitution.
Homebrew, that’s not a contradiction at all. Codifying the methods was important and it did arm man with the tools he needed to build up civilization (at least in that part of the world). Providing standard, proven methods is useful. The act of writing it all down is what’s important here as it prevents people from forgetting and provides each generation with the tools needed to survive. Don’t willfully misinterpret me, all I’m saying is that these writings were a manual for living - and a pretty useful one. Your VCR manual didn’t predate the invention of the damn VCR, but it does arm you with the tools to operate the fucking thing. Get it?
As to the mono versus polytheism thing, again, I believe you are willfully misinterpreting me. The text you cited is monotheistic. I originally used the term to diferentiate between those ancients and “Christians” as they predate Jesus by a few thousand years. I am fully aware that polytheistic religions have similar methods of passing their ideas on to suceeding generations, and those texts should be considered when forming a religous view as well, but we aren’t talking about them right now. You cited a monotheistic creation myth, why the hell can’t I call it that?
If you say “Y tu madre, tambien.” in a discussion that takes place in a heavily Hispanic social setting, you may reasonably expect that someone will be offended. You don’t actually know his mother, and have no authority to make judgments of her character. Your opinion has no weight in the social setting, and you are not a person of any significant social standing in the neighborhood. There is still the chance that someone will be insulted.
If you spit every time you mention the name of a public figure, it might be reasonable to assume that you don’t approve of that person, even though you make no intellectual statement of disagreement with their philosophy. People who revere that public figure might well find your action insulting.
Nothing compels you to refrain from scornful remarks about the friends, heroes, or close associates of other people. Being surprised if they take it personally is a bit absurd. You meant it personally, or you would have chosen impersonal expressions in the place of your scornful derision. But you are free to insult anyone you wish, if you choose. Being surprised that it reduces your persuasiveness is more than absurd, it’s just plain stupid.
That you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a dubiously historic character of no real importance, and that those who believe otherwise are deluded, and perhaps dangerous is certainly an intellectually defensible opinion. Thinking it is unimportant that you speak of Jesus in a deliberately insulting manner is simply incorrect. Some people do believe He is the Son of God, and those people will feel your remarks are insulting, and intended to be so, to them, and to their most beloved. You might think they are wrong about His existence, but it is just stupid to fail to realize that the insult exists, even if the object of it does not.
Again, you may choose to do so, and in many forums, including this one, you will be allowed to continue, unhindered. To pretend that it is not insulting is willful ignorance. If you didn’t expect the sensitivity, and did it once, I might just be a mistake. But to do so repeatedly in the face of voiced objection removes that explanation. When it continues, it is personal, and intentional.
Of course if I insult Ath, the god of Atheists, it would be the same. But I would never do that. Nor would I make insulting generalizations about Republicans, or White Sox fans. The fact that I honestly believe people cannot be fans White Sox without being absolutely ignorant of the Game of Baseball does not alter the fact that my opinion of them is insulting. Even if I am right, it is insulting. And even if it were not insulting, the likely state of affairs that would result from my statement of that opinion would be that this hypothetical White Sox fan would be insulted. Pretending that that is not the case is deliberate ignorance.
Why refrain? You might wish to make yourself appear to be a reasonable and courteous person. Perhaps you might wish to become such a person. You might wish to have a larger portion of your audience listen to your point of view with respect. You might wish to leave the impression that you hold your opinions out of intellectual examination of the facts, or scrupulous conformity to sound philosophical principles. You might want to appear to be a really cool guy.
Or, you could just go ahead, call people whatever you feel like, and just don’t give a damned what emotional effect you have, because no one else’s emotions are anywhere nearly as important as winning the verbal volley game in front of witnesses. However, if people perceive you to be a cruel or prejudiced person, you are ingenuous to pretend you don’t understand why.
Ahh, gotcha. And if a society happened to be illiterate, then they would lack these tools needed (your word, not mine) to survive. After all, such a society wouldn’t be able to enjoy rules on stoning adulterers, lynching “witches,” or cordoning off women while they’re ragging. They’d be TOAST.
:rolleyes:
I know how to tie a tie not because it’s in a book, but rather because my father taught me. But suppose if such a thing WERE in a book, and that’s how I learned? Also, suppose this book also were (indirectly) responsible for more bigotry, death, and intolerance than any other book in human history? Wouldn’t we be better off with a piece of untied silk around our necks?
[sub]I mean, really, the Bible is good because it teaches us that farming is good? That’s a new one on me!
Guinastasia - the woman in your example sounds highly irritating, but as a Wiccan, she wasn’t an atheist. AFAIK, Wiccans have wide-ranging beliefs but usually include worship of at least one God or Goddess. They don’t worship the Christian God, but they’re not atheists.
Due to the comments of a friend of mine on another message board, I’ve found myself lately avoiding expletives such as ‘Christ!’ around her or anyone who might be strong believers (personally, I’m an atheist). She wasn’t asking me to do this, though; we were all mocking the nanny-filter on our message-board, which changed some words in bizarre ways (the moderator agreed with us and modified the banned words list). Her passing comment was that it was ironic that ‘cock’ at the time was censored, while ‘Holy Mary Mother of God’ was not, although that phrase used as an insult would actually offend her, personally.
The problem as I see it isn’t the actual implied insult, it’s the casualness with which it’s thrown around. It’s not a considered debunking of religious beliefs in the context of a theological debate, a point that the believers can make counterarguments against, it’s a word that (in such expletives) is synonymous with shit. I may disagree with people’s beliefs, but I don’t act as if they’re unimportant. That’s what the casual use of these words does.
I would hold the same standard for other religious, philosophical and (most) political views too - i.e. I’m not about to start throwing around Republicans as an insult out of context. (Throwing around the word Republican, that is, not Republican people, if I did that I certainly would be insulting them…)
There’s no way I’d support any official censoring of such words, though. As DanielWithrow says, we use such phrases because they are taboo. They are a normal part of our language and most people don’t mean any insult when they use them. It would be stupid and pointless to require everyone at all times to never say ‘Holy Shit!’ or whatever. But lately I choose to try to avoid it myself - as a personal choice.
(One interesting side-effect of this has been that when I’m talking to people who I know won’t be offended, my usage of such terms has suddenyl increased, as if I have some sort of inner religious profanity vat that has to be emptied daily).
Quixotic, fuck off. I have had enough of people willfully bending my words around. Of course not everybody was literate, but the priests were. All the “kosher” stuff they held in the sacred texts was based on the practicality on the times. Some of it we find odd today, but a lot of it makes sense and by dismissing it out of hand you show yourself to be intellectually lazy and closed minded.
Much of the original writings (many of them left out of the Bible) was about farming, food preperation etc. They wrote it down because written is more reliable than oral, dumbass. The priests kept it because survival is sacred. It was an important step. ALL ancient writings are important.
Yes, the Bible and the texts it is based on are open to interpretation. Yes, some of those interpretations have caused men to commit evil deeds. But that doesn’t mean these writings aren’t without merit. You might as well dismiss Catcher in the Rye as worthless literature because the guy who killed John Lennon had it in his pocket or Moby Dick as worthless because whaling has gone out of favor.
Christ Jesus, you’re sounding like one of the pseudo-athiests I bitched about on the first page. Closed minded, intellectually lazy, and more prone to dismiss opposing ideas without giving them thought than the goddamn fundies.
All right, fair enough. QueenAl, you are right, and I appologize.
However, I think it’s fair to point out that I do know people who revel in calling themselves atheists, and seem to enjoy offending others when it comes to religion. HappyHeathen comes to mind-when the whole Catholic priest molestation scandal broke, he seemed to take joy in seeing the sorrow that this caused us Catholics.
Look, smeglicker, just because you don’t understand me doesn’t mean that I’m intellectually lazy or close-minded. I don’t want to get into a “I’m smarter than you” pissing contest, but suffice it to say that Ph.D.'s aren’t typically awarded to the intellectually lazy (not that I have mine yet, but look me up in a year or two).
You originally said
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I’ll come back to the “kosher” bit, after I deal with the domestication. Rice was domesticated 11,500 years ago (that is, if I understand the BP dating system correctly… even if I don’t, it’s 10K years ago, ballpark), the dog was domesticated about 14,000 years ago (same cite), wheat has BP dates in the 9000s… you’re telling me that, all of a sudden, people were going to “forget” what they’d been doing for thousands of years, simply because it wasn’t written down? That the techniques weren’t “spread” to a NON-LITERATE farming society until they were written down and read by a small, small minority (i.e., the literate priests)? I don’t want you to get your panties even further in a bunch (that must be uncomfortable), so I’ll just ask you: what is it that you’re contending? It seems to me that you’re contending above that… well… you said it: “The act of writing it all down prevents people from forgetting and provides each generation with the tools needed to survive.” To which I succinctly reply: bullfuckingshit. If this were true, domestication of plants and animals wouldn’t have predated the invention of writing by thousands of years.
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Ahh, I see. And, as we all know, the primary function of the priest was to read about farming and then disseminate this crucial information to a large horde of malnourished farmers, saving the society from mass extinction just in time. Or, perhaps, farming techniques were handed down primarily by mouth, by watching parents farm, by watching neighbors farm, dozens of miles away from the temples. I mean, if what you’re saying is REALLY true, how do you explain the survival of societies that never developed their own writing system, and didn’t receive any second-hand alphabet until “recently,” such as the Polynesians or Bantus?
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Tell me (not meant sarcastically; rather, if you know, educate me), why there are no leavening agents used during Passover, whereas these are deemed “safe” the rest of the year? What is it about combining meat and dairy, two ingredients totally safe on their own, that makes them so volatile so as to render it impossible for a Jew keeping kashrut unable to eat a cheeseburger?
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Could you give me an example or two? I mean, just perusing the table of contents of the Dead Sea scrolls (as an example of extra-Biblical material), I see lots about liturgy, commentaries on Biblical material, prayers… but nothing like “How to get your flax to grow REALLY tall.” If having written farming techniques is SO critical, again, how did farming last for thousands of years before language was ever written down?
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Ignoring the understatement of the millenium in your second statement, I agree that the Bible and other religious texts have merit. I’m merely re-emphasizing dalovindj’s point: I think the world would be a better place on the whole without religion.
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Go jerk off in your own shit and eat it, you mental midget. Or, at the very fucking least, make sure you know how to spell “atheist” before you call me an idiot. Also, address my points earlier in this post. In short, literacy is not a necessary condition for a civilization to achieve plant and animal domestication, nor is it crucial in preventing these techniques from being “forgotten.”.
Allright, I’m throwing in the towel. This whole highjack-of-a-highjack started when I took a shot at DJ. Homebrew made a crack at the creation myth, and all I was doing was trying to defend it and say that it is more important than a song by an ex-beatle. Some of those writings were highly pratical (the pork thing for example). Some of it wasn’t but is still interesting and western civilization would not be the same without them. Maybe I went too far out on a limb, I don’t know, but I am not apologizing for anything. All I ever tried to say was that ancient writings are important, and they are. I am not a paleontologist and have no desire to belabor points about ancient history, so I’m done here. (Besides, it’s Friday. I have things to see and women to do, and anything I would post after this may have too much influence from the Anheiser Busch Corporation).
side note#1: I used a lot of invective in this thread because its the pit and, well, I felt like it. My “panties” aren’t really in a bunch as all my insults and hyperbole were posted more to amuse me than to offend anyone else. True, I’m an asshole, but if anyone was truly offended by anything I said they need to grow a fucking spine. It’s the pit, and invective is damn near required to make a thread interesting.
side note #2: I know perfectly well how to spell “atheist”. It was a typo.
side note#3: Quixotic, I sugest you read the thread I linked to on the first page before pulling a “but I have a Ph.D!”. It’s true that you had to work for it rather than AlaItalia’s inborn intelligence, but I doubt your degree is in ancient history, paleontology, or theology. “Intelectually lazy” is different from stupid. Mind you, I really don’t know if you are lazy in that respect. It was just invective. Think about it, however, but don’t take it too seriously.
side note#4: Regarding the unleavened bread: As I understand it, it’s more of a comemerative thing. The Jews were slaves in Egypt and for some reason, did not have access to yeast. They knew how to leaven bread, but couldn’t, so they thought of a way to make it without yeast. During Passover they prepare the food as the slaves would have in order to remember when God granted them their freedom from the Pharoah.
AlaItalia, don’t worry too much about the the other thread. Sometimes I like to "cry ‘HAVOC!’ and let loose the dogs of hyperbole. It helps to get my ya yas out. I may disagree with you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect you. Just know that I truly like you and value your posts - but in the pit I use my horns :).
I was under the impression that the unleavened bread was necessitated by an impending but not yet specified departure time (i.e. Make some bread for the trip, but don’t leaven it, because we can’t promise you that there will be time to wait for it to rise before we have to split), and not because the Hebrews didn’t generally have access to leavening ingredients.
If I’ve been misinformed, please enlighten me, someone.
Actually, although I’m not sure of the specific reasons why, there is a greater risk of food poisoning when these foods are cooked or stored together. Something about bacteria travelling from the meat to the cheese and vice-versa. We don’t really need to worry about this today with our high food standards and refrigeration, but even today you should never keep meat and cheese on the same shelf in the fridge. Most people don’t bother with about that in daily life, but restaurants do. At least in the UK, they won’t pass health and hygiene inspections if the two food products aren’t stored separately. Additionally, iron is absorbed less efficiently when digested at the same time as calcium.
The Hebrews wouldn’t have known the science behind this, but they could have found that in practice there are less cases of food poisoning when meat and dairy are kept separate, and in a world where even diarrhoea can be fatal for small children, that’s important enough to make law.
I’m not saying these strictures were only there for practical reasons. Most cultures have dietary practices that they choose to keep because they separate them from other cultures, and help define them. But these practices usually have sensible reasoning behind them, at least for the time at which they originated.
The argument that kosher rules were imposed because kosher food was safer is a modern Reform Judaism creation superimposed on the language of the Torah to provide a rational explanation for the rules. There is no actual evidence that food safety issues led to the development of kosher rules. The POV of observant Jews is that Jews way back then and Jews today obey the rules because G-d commanded that they do so. Period.
