Please indulge me in having quoted the entire message, but look at it again, if you quickly passed over it the first time. This is the type of message that Wild Bill posts that drives me to shake my head muttering WTF over and over.
It’s written in english. If you were to say his normal posts are writen in N[sup]th[/sup] grade english, this is written at obviously a N+5[sup]th[/sup] grade level. Why the heck can’t you post at this level all the time Bill???
-Doug
[sub]It’s my OP, I can hijack it if I want![/sub]
Andros, Poly: You guys have read Spider’s book review column from the '70s, haven’t you? It was published in a mag called Galaxy (and later in a book-zine called Destinies). Not only was the column argueably one of the best SF Review columns ever, it also had the unarguably best title of any review column, ever:
Spider vs the Hax of Sol III
If you haven’t read 'em, it’s worth hunting up the issues (Roughly Galaxy, mid-73 through whenever it died, around 1978). They’re also cheap: a buck or two each, last time I checked.
Fenris
I’ve noticed that WB can be very articulate when it suits his purposes. I personally think that he deliberately overdoes the broken english thing so people will go easier on him.
Wasn’t that reprinted in Time Travellers Strictly Cash?
I believe they reprinted the first column (or maybe a couple) in that book, but Spider wrote the columns for several years.
You know something, WB? I’ve asked you and FoG several times to take a stand against pseudo-Christian wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing, and neither of you ever so much as acknolwedges the question.
Tragic, but scarcely unpredictable.
-Ben
Ben,
Please show me where Pat Robertson doesn’t believe in democracy for blacks?
Also did you know the founder of the ACLU was a communist?
Bill, it might be fun to do a little research for yourself! Go to Google, type in “pat robertson blacks” and watch the sources unfold like magic.
Who cares if the ACLU was founded by a communist? It’s not a communist organization. Milwaukee, Wisconsin had a socialist mayor, does that make the town a socialist republic?
I’m really bothered that you don’t support an organization that upholds the civil liberties for all Americans, regardless of religion.
Heh. I decided to a little research myself and I found this little gem from Pat: source
Well, there were multiple founders of the ACLU, and some of them were communists, but not all. Here’s a list, broken down by party affiliation.
Roger Baldwin- Sociologist, pacifist, member of the IWW…if you had to label him, “syndicalist” would be the best term.
Crystal Eastman- Feminist, suffragette, editor…she was a communist.
Norman Thomas-Presbytarian minister, pacifist, 3 time presidential candidate…socialist
Jane Addams-Feminist, pioneered the “halfway house” concept, pacifist…socialist
Florence Kelley-founding member of the NAACP, lecturer on labor issues, pacifist…communist in early life, became socialist.
Lillian Ward-pacifist, social reformer…socialist
Felix Frankfurter-lawyer, professor, later, Supreme Court Justice…Democrat
Oswald G. Villard-founding member of the NAACP, pacifist, newspaper owner…socialist
Paul Kellogg-journalist, sociologist, pacifist…socialist
Clarence Darrow-lawyer…socialist
John Dewey-philosopher, psychologist, educatior…socialist
Charles Beard-historian, pacifist…socialist
Abraham Muste-minister, pacifist…socialist
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn-labor organizer, feminist…first socialist, then communist
Upton Sinclair-novelist, politician…socialist
So, while all of the founders were left of center, only 3 at most were communists. In fact, if you needed to find some trait to bind them together, it would be pacifism.
Yo’ Bill. Your stance on anti-Christians seems clear. One wonders, now, if you watch WTBS or any of the Turner network stations Hmm?
isn’t he the one that does those 7 days of Bond movies???
Bill,
Forgot to mention…nice attempt at an ad hominem, btw…
Thanks. I can’t let Ben have all the fun ya know. 
Hi Bill,
This is a bit off the thread, but it seemed to fit here better than in your GD thread.
I am a Catholic. You, as far as I can tell, are an evangelical fundamentalist Protestant. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I accept the theory of evolution (incidentally, to hijack my own post, in my public school we were taught the theory of evolution and the teacher also said “there is another theory that God created the universe entirely as it appears now in 6 days 6000 years ago.” End of creationism lecture–what else could he have said?). I also try to be the best Christian I can be. To me, the Genesis story has always been more about God being in covenant with his people and offering forgiveness from the very beginning than it is about the actual origins of the human race. It is poetic, and it is true, but it is not a FACTUAL account.
You seem to think that by believing current scientific theory as opposed to following a literal reading of Genesis, I am somehow less of a Christian. Now, I as a Catholic believe in a literal interpretation of much of John (and many other places in the NT) where Jesus goes on and on about how unless one eats his flesh and drinks his blood, he has no life in him:
*John 6:32-35:32 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. 34 They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread. 35 And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.
John 6: 48-59 :48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. 52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. 53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.*
You would take a symbolic or mythologic view of these passages. Would you then say that you are an atheist because you do not read these and other passages literally? Would it be appropriate in your opinion for me to call you an atheist because you don’t believe these passages are literally factual? If not, then why can you make judgments about the way others read the Scriptures?
Palandine,
I was just reading the passage the other day. I do portake in the Lord’s supper not as often as catholics do but we still do it. I believe Jesus is the bread that we need to have everlasting life.
Some passage are meant to be taken as metaphors and other are meant to be taken literally.
I have no problem with taking Genesis literally. I mean how could you take John literally? How can you Jesus’s flesh?
I meant to say how can “eat” Jesus’s flesh?
let’s see, I asked Bill a question at 10:15 am right here on this very page. He’s posted twice, nope three times since then.
Maybe he just doesn’t want to give up TBS?
Ditto, wring. I’m waiting for Bill’s answer regarding Ben’s Pat Robertson question and my concerns about his “bad feelings” for the ACLU.
Wring,
Alrighty then. I can get free movies so I don’t need to watch old Ted’s channel to see an old Bond. So there.
Sax, I am still doing some research on your question. I don’t the aclu at all. Sorry. I think they totally take the constitution out of context and try to twist it to their view.
I mean anybody that would help the KKK and Nazi party gotta be a little messed up in the upstairs department. I know what you are going to say they were just protecting their rights yea yea yea. I think they could have found a better use of their time and money than protecting those two organizations.
Hi Bill,
Fair enough, but you believe it in a symbolic way. You do not believe in transubstantiation–that is, that Jesus makes himself truly present to us in body, blood, soul, and divinity under the appearance of bread and wine (or, I would wager in your case, grape juice [?]). As a Protestant, that’s okay for you to believe. I believe Genesis is symbolic–in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, yes, but not in the exact literal way the inspired author writes. Why would this make me an atheist?
Is it up to you to decide which is which?
Transubstantiation is a difficult topic. I don’t care to discuss it over at GD because it is at heart a mystery, the very mystery of faith, and skeptics don’t usually take well to those sorts of discussions. I’ll not discuss it here because it’s pretty far afield from the OP. If you’d like to write me at palandine@hotmail.com, feel free, and I’ll try to do my best to explain. If I fail at that, I can at least point you to some good sources for information. Long story short, I can do it because Jesus said I am to do it and instituted the ritual by which it is done.
This mini-hijack wasn’t to proselytize or say that you should believe as I do, it was merely to discuss why it’s apparently okay for fundamentalist Protestants to take large tracts of the New Testament as symbolic, allegorical, or mythological, but if one does that to Genesis one is some sort of heretic.