An Animaniacs reference in a personal assault! Scintillating. Why, I submit!
Still, you are acting unfairly.
What next: schlepping over into Cafe Society and stomping on Ilsa_Lund for his latest Casablanca thread?
GIGObuster: the nuts have come off the buggy. I’ve got a pretty good grip on your opinion – I know where you’re coming from. In fact, now that I possess a few more facts, and considering what you add to the debate, please, do continue. Opine away.
She shouldn’t, 'cause your bet is bullshit.
I’m pretty certain that Poly did say something like that once or twice. Out of how many posts? Once can still be “so calm and polite” after uttering one or two foul words out of millions.
Your bet is a false dilemma (“heads I win, tails you lose”)
As for your ongoing hardon for Poly, my only assumption is that you’re emotionally damaged by the fact that peope like him and…well…no-one* likes you.
Fenris
*This being the SDMB, there’s no opinion/action/statement that someone won’t debate or defend, one or more of the following statements are sure to follow. Let’s save time and I’ll pre-respond:
[ul]
[li]Who the hell are you to say that no-one likes him?[/li][/ul]
I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees. :rolleyes: That, and I’ve interviewed every Doper except you (including the lurkers) and it’s true: no-one likes him. Happy now?
[ul]
[li]Well, I like him![/li][/ul]
You don’t count. Anyway, go here. They may be able to help.
[ul]
[li]Why are you being so mean to him? He’s only asking questions.[/li][/ul]
Because he’s doing it in the Pit. If he cared about reasoned discussion, he’d have discussed it nicely in GD or IMHO. By putting it in the Pit, he’s “calling Poly out”
[ul]
[li]If he were a tree, what kind of tree would badchad be?[/li][/ul]
Probably a Blackwood tree. There’s none denser.
[ul]
[li]Mr Fenris, you and Renée Zellweger were seen checking into a swank hotel with 34 boxes of lime Jell-o. What can you tell us about that?[/li][/ul]
Renée and I are just good friends. And everyone enjoys a bowl of Jell-o now and again! All perfectly innocent.
[ul]
[li]What about the $734.32 in damages from trying to get jello-stains out of the bathtub?[/li][/ul]
This interview is OVER!
:: leaves post, slamming the “submit reply” button behind him. ::
Fenris, if I may nitpick your rant, technically this thread did not start in the Pit; it was, actually started in GD. It may have been destined to wind up here, but it didn’t start here.
As for me, if I can be judged by the content of my enemies, then once again, I’d say the judgement is favorable.
CJ
Huh. Thanks, CJ!
Everyone else? Cut and past the following response over the original response in bullet point #3:
Because he’s being needlessly hostile. If he’d really wanted a discussion, he should have chosen a tone that was not destined to end in the Pit.
Thanks for the boost Fenris!
Ms. Zellweger’s representative denies this ever happened.
No, his disciples were not asking Him anything, least of all “if it is better not to marry”.
Jesus just got done teaching on divorce, and they were drawing inferences. If it is true that there is no escape clause from a marriage, then it would be best not to marry at all, rather than run the risk of divorce and grave sin.
Jesus says No, that His teachings on divorce ("this word) do not apply to everyone. Some people are born unable to form the kind of committed love that is the ideal for Christian marriage. Others have their chances at it ruined by other people - thru things like abuse, or lack of good role models, or whatever. And others give up the idea of marriage in order to devote themselves to service for the Kingdom of God.
In short, Jesus is teaching [list=a]
[li]This is the ideal - lifelong, mutually faithful marriage.[/li][li]Not everybody can do this. [/li][li]Not everybody can, or should, refrain from marriage. [/li][li]But if you are capable of reaching the ideal, this is what God has in mind for marriage.[/li][/list=a]
Perhaps you could explain the logic by which you reached your conclusions a little more clearly.
Regards,
Shodan
Fenris: now that’s what we needed.
Baker and GIGObuster, please take this at face value: just because you’re the street scooper for the circus parade, you needn’t necessarily step in shit. 
Polycarp has been restored; the guff is again filled.
Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but you were rolling (;)) in the assumption that I was dealing with the OP; in any case you coming trough in the end: understanding were I was coming from, was cool.
OTOH, I just noticed that badchad actually misquoted me, another board no-no; yet another reason why I don’t consider him worthy of debating.
He does not deserve long worded replies from now on.
Look, badchad is somebody with both the ability and the inclination to get under my skin. He and Uncle Toby are I believe the only two Dopers I’ve ever Pitted – what they have in common is that they seem to have no respect for me as a person with any degree of integrity.
However, he is by no means the worst of annoyances this board has ever seen. I can see where his perspective – that any degree of faith in an unknown and unknowable deity is supersittious folly, and that my personal style of applying anthropology and critical exegesis to the Bible does not in his view even have the internal consistency of Fundamentalism – can be a valid worldview.
What I’d ask of him is that he hold off on the nitpickery, and analyze my stance for its internal consistency, or lack thereof, accepting that it can be a reasonable viewpoint for someone to hold, given certain presuppositions that hold true for me.
In very quick summary, probably requiring a great deal of amplification and clarification, my view is this:
There is a God who does take an interest in His creation, and in particular with the human beings with which He has seen fit to populate this plane. I hold this view because I have myself had experiences which I understand as theophanies, though I fully admit that that is a subjective interpretation, and that there are grounds, which I do not consider reasonble, for rejecting my testimony as a superstitious interpretation of a psychological event internal to myself; and because my experiences are commensurate with those recorded by others in Scripture and throughout history.
That creation was most likely done through the means described by modern cosmology and evolutionary biology, not by some phenomenon of the sort posited by a given group of conservative evangelical Christians. I posit this because of the evidence of science and because the alternate view demands a literal reading of passages of Scripture that strike me as myth in the anthropological sense (which is not the common-parlance dismissive sense of “false.”)
Said God is someone of whom many people of many faith traditions have attempted to speak, but what works best for me and seems to me to be the most complete revelation is that understood by the Doctors of the Church of traditional Christianity (as opposed to specifics evolved by varius denominations over the last century or two). I offer no justification for this – it’s personal preference and my own sense of what works best for me – I had as soon engage in a Great Debate about why spaghetti with garlic-meat sauce is “better” than Tex-Mex caliente sauce over tacos.
In reading Scripture, one must bring cultural context and a reasoned judgment about the origins of the various texts that comprise the Bible into play. In particular, one must see the personal prejudices and presuppositions of the writers, not take the product as “the word of God” uncritically.
Given #4, though, one can be spiritually nourished and educated by Scripture; it merely requires that you see it as “the word of God filtered through human psyches” rather than “the word of God dictated verbatim.” And in particular, the teachings recorded in four books (by human authors) as the words of Jesus of Nazareth have a particular importance, because He had a “hotline to the divine” unequalled in human experience. (This of course is IMO.)
This means that anyone claiming to follow Him, including msyelf and others who claim the title Christian, is obliged to espouse an ethics founded on what He taught. I summarize this as:
[ul][li]The Two Great Commandments[/li][li]The Golden Rule[/li][li]The Great Commission[/li][li]Aspiration to a high standard of personal ethics[/li][*Non-judgmentalism and acceptance of others as one’s equals, entitled to one’s love and respect
[li]Repentance and trust in God, accepting one’s inability to live up to the ideals above outlined[/li][li]A quest for decent treatment for all and social justice, particularly for those oppressed by society historically[/ul][/li]
It is appropriate to give advice and counsel where it is welcomed, and to question and challenge others’ misunderstandings and misinterpretations. In particular, it is not only one’s right but one’s Christian duty to challenge attitudes held by other Christians that define “standing by the Bible” to conflict with the behavior outlined in #6.
I am by no means perfect, a plaster saint. I have a temper, a tendency to hyperbole on things important to me, loads of other faults. But I have striven to live up to the system of belief outlined above.
Giggo:
Giggo, were you lying about the pit rules or just mistaken:
Pit rules:
I don’t want anyone posting that they’re simply in the thread to watch the fireworks. This means no posts like “pulls up a lawn chair”
No post parodies without links in the original post. Otherwise, I’m likely to close and/or delete the thread, and get royally pissed off at the thread starter.
Don’t say or imply that someone is on your ignore list.
Absolutely no hate speech.
More rules to come as I find that they’re needed.
I fail to see my saying that I am comfortable being labeled a correct jerk on this list, nor anything that resembles it.
How so?
Now I will quote you:
Seems you disagree with me so little that you have to make stuff up to argue about.
Of course not, apparently you think my content is strong and as such all you can do is make ad homs, like most everyone else on this thread.
Shodan
Mind if I expand the passages in question? I’ll use the KJV if it is all the same to you and bold the parts I think are important.
Matthew 19
3: The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? 4: And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5: And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6: Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 7: They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? 8: He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. 9: **And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.**10: His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. 11: But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. 12: For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. 13: Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14: But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 15: And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence. 16: And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17: And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18: He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, 19: Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Above Jesus was just finished saying this:
“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”
Implying that man should get married as it is what god intends (sure this contradicts Paul but who cares).
How do you know that “this word” means divorce. It seems ambiguous at best and the way I read the passage he is saying that, marrage can be a lot of trouble and is not for everyone, namely castrated males. So I’ll grant you the outside chance that perhaps if you castrate yourself Jesus will allow for divorce, but I think that is reaching, anything more than that and your putting your wants ahead of Jesus’ commands. Aside from Jesus being was quite clear when he said:
“Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”
And these eunuchs should not get married he says. It does not say for them to divorce.
Yes.
True, because they don’t have testicles.
Sounds fair enough.
A little vague but I don’t have a problem with it.
What you left out, is that he also taught that getting a divorce for any other reason than fornicating is adultery, and marrying a divorced person is adultery, and “THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.”
I do give you props Shodan for being one of the few with the courage to argue an on topic and specific point.
badchad: So, how it is that you misquoted me? Suffice to say is I reported that, and it had to do with the creative elimination of some parenthesis. You avoided dealing with the real quote, showing once again a total lack of integrity.
Now, excuse me, I have to go back to debate with more serious posters.
I may be too tired to know or car what’s going on, but isn’t this badchad dude obviously a troll?
The (admittedly tiny percentage) of threads belonging to him/her that I have seem look very trollish. Why therefore are so many people responding?
GIGObuster:
HA! Mr. Integrity, please be more specific.
Because he attacks Polycarp’s integrity.
Now this is a very subtle, and nasty attack. It would not work on me, or a number of other vociferous Christians on this board. But it works on Poly, because of two very obvious facts. Poly is a very faithful servant of Christ. He also happens to be a scholarly and educated man, specifically well read on all manner of history and literature of the period and place of the birth of Christ. That makes him one of a very few people who always try to be both honest, and reasonable in discussions on matters of faith. And then there is the additional fact that he tries very hard to be tolerant of the differences in human interpretation of divine nature.
Badchad on the other hand is a nit picker. He doesn’t really care at all about the subject matter; he just enjoys finding “errors” in other people’s writing. He offers nothing of his own actual philosophy of life, or ethics. He has no standards of conduct to which he publicly subscribes. And he finds it unreasonable that we, who have listened to hundreds of thousands of words of quiet wisdom, and compassion from Poly disagree with the importance of his discovered nits.
Sadly, Polycarp feels the weight these feather light counter arguments because he places great importance on his theology, and his faith, especially when they are different. Badchad doesn’t care, as long as he gets to point out the “inconsistency.” Poly has spent years studying, and thinking about his own deepest held beliefs, and tries to report them openly and honestly. And, by the way, he does it with a noteworthy facility in terms of language, and communication skill. Against this, Badchad need spend only hours or at most a day searching a concordance and throw the tired old anti faith logical darts at him, and then imply that this is a personal character flaw in Polycarp.
Of course it’s all drivel of a particularly odious flavor.
I was right, this thread was beneath reply.
It still is.
But almost nothing is beneath me.
Poly, please ignore this flea. This tiny sin of pride is not worth agonizing over. Give it to the Lord, and go on. We too will forgive you for occasionally making a logical error or two. We know you by your fruits. Tasty little suckers, too!
Tris
Polycarp
That’s a bit of a dodge. If I make a general statement regarding your view, you will ask me for specifics. Now that I have cited specifics o’plenty, rather than addressing them you ask that I hold off on the nitpickery. Also I cannot accept your claim to consistency “given your presuppositions” as it is to a large degree how you accept those presuppositions in which you are inconsistent.
I went into detail a couple of months back regarding your subjective interpretation of your theophanies, and at the time while you did not change your mind, I thought you were in agreement that my criticisms were reasonable. If you disagree please explain, but please do so after addressing my earlier questions in this thread.
I don’t think using your anthropological type of myth is really any different than the dismissive false type. As I have stated before, the Iliad is full of the same kind of myth as you describe here and yet if I asked you true of false, does Zeus rule the world from Mt. Olympus, in a literal sense, I think you would say false.
Which translates into, your not having any good reason to accept the god that you do, and what works for you is to accept the nearest god handy, and modify his instructions to match your personal morality.
This again is another way of saying you accept the parts of the bible that you already think is right and reject that which you don’t, thus making the bible no more a guide to your morality than a coin toss.
And in these gospels of which you hold special importance Jesus identifies very strongly with the god of the old testament, and Christains claim that they are the same guy, meaning that all the bad stuff god did in the old testament, was really done by Jesus too. And the eternal punishment that most of us will receive (according to those gospels) was definitely endorsed by Jesus, at least according to the books you describe as having particular importance. This is not my opinion this is fact.
Your summary is cherry picked and not a complete list of what Jesus asked.
Others teach to a different cherry picked group of moral teachings of the bible. Yours may be superior in practice from a secular humanist perspective but they are not more reasonable from a Christian perspective, IMO.
Will you now provide answers/comments to the specific questions/comments I gave in my 2 previous replies to you on this thread, or admit to where you don’t think your answers are adequate? It would go along way towards establishing credibility with me, assuming you care.
Somehow I wouldn’t blame Polycarp for–by this point–not caring any more.
Triskadecamus:
Wrong Tris, it’s because I’m cool.
badchad: What you seem to be failing to grasp is that Faith is not and cannot be Science.
Polycarps is one of the most sincere people on this planet & he credits his faith with driving that sincerity. Too bad you’re so hung up on casting aspersions on him you’ve missed the sincerity & decency of Polycarp.