NP Thur March 19 2020

mlooney · March 20, 2020

So how long, in real time weeks is this date going to take? I mean it's heart warming and dawww worthy, but it doesn't advance the main plot.

So what I'm saying is Dawww, sweetness and light. Young love. Now get on with it!

hkmaly · March 20, 2020

1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Here is

So how long, in real time weeks is this date going to take? I mean it's heart warming and dawww worthy, but it doesn't advance the main plot.

So what I'm saying is Dawww, sweetness and light. Young love. Now get on with it!

D'awwwww ...
Considering it seems that Rhoda's knowledge about dates ends with kissing, I don't think they get on it anytime soon.

Hopefully, there will be some timeskip. After they kiss.

... or, alternatively, maybe Susan can find them? Also preferably after they kiss.

Now, regarding Dan's commentary ... I'm pretty sure self-driving doesn't require the cars to be sentient. We definitely wouldn't know how to do that.
And that thing which meanders would be river.

ijuin · March 20, 2020

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

D'awwwww ...
Considering it seems that Rhoda's knowledge about dates ends with kissing, I don't think they get on it anytime soon.

Given her apparent simplified knowledge within this story, if she has any concept of sexual intercourse at all, it is of the tab-A-into-slot-B nature, so she may not have a concept of how two women could do it with one another.

hkmaly · March 20, 2020

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

D'awwwww ...
Considering it seems that Rhoda's knowledge about dates ends with kissing, I don't think they get on it anytime soon.

Given her apparent simplified knowledge within this story, if she has any concept of sexual intercourse at all, it is of the tab-A-into-slot-B nature, so she may not have a concept of how two women could do it with one another.

Actually, considering everyone in the setting has underwear which is impossible to remove, tab-A-into-slot-B might be more than ANYONE in the setting knows.

Maybe kissing is really all they can do.

That is, unless the unremovable underwear is actually possible to remove off-panel, just like the farms work off-panel.

ijuin · March 20, 2020

Maybe--anyway, the temple probably taught extremely heteronormative values, so it is still likely that Rhoda is thinking of certain things being limited to a male-female context and would need some assistance in thinking outside of that box.

hkmaly · March 20, 2020

3 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Maybe--anyway, the temple probably taught extremely heteronormative values, so it is still likely that Rhoda is thinking of certain things being limited to a male-female context and would need some assistance in thinking outside of that box.

If it was christian temple, then yes. However, we can't be sure what religion that is.
Note that if it would be christian temple, it wouldn't be so likely that head of the temple would have different gender than the other members, would it?

(Also note previous page with "some others did certain things together anyway" ... so, either mixed genders, or same-sex relationship, or both)

ijuin · March 20, 2020

If the attitude of the Head Priest is anything to go on, their religion frowns greatly upon visible displays of sexuality.

ChronosCat · March 20, 2020

Yay for sunburst background in panel four!

(It's debatable whether it truly counts as a sunburst, as the central disk isn't well defined, but I get tired of cheering for starbursts all the time.)

Pharaoh RutinTutin · March 20, 2020

How Rhoda and Catalina get from Pointe A to Pointe B has been established
WHAT Rhoda and Catalina DO at Pointe B does not necessarily need to be our business

9 hours ago, mlooney said:

Now get on with it!

Just that?
Why not something like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXE8LdXzeHM

Darth Fluffy · March 20, 2020

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Considering it seems that Rhoda's knowledge about dates ends with kissing, I don't think they get on it anytime soon.

Previous comic, panel three, she has some hanky panky related knowledge. Presumably, she would not have witnessed sexual intercourse, which would still be private. But even that's not certain; she could have caught them in the bushes, walked in on them, pretended to be asleep in the next bed, or maybe their universe is just that different.

4 hours ago, ijuin said:

Maybe--anyway, the temple probably taught extremely heteronormative values, so it is still likely that Rhoda is thinking of certain things being limited to a male-female context and would need some assistance in thinking outside of that box.

She busted that pretty fast, then, didn't she? Maybe she thinks of hetero as something tied to the temple, and now that she's out on her own, it no longer applies?

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If it was christian temple, then yes. However, we can't be sure what religion that is.
Note that if it would be christian temple, it wouldn't be so likely that head of the temple would have different gender than the other members, would it?

(Also note previous page with "some others did certain things together anyway" ... so, either mixed genders, or same-sex relationship, or both)

I did not have the impression that what Rhoda was in in the game world was a "Christian temple". There's no verbage that indicates there is, and Christians are pretty vocal about their core beliefs; there's none of the symbology, she's not wearing a cross, for instance, and the quest seems generally "good" not "Christian". Also, most Christians do not call their place of worship a temple, although there are exceptions, Mormons being a rather large one.

That all said, why would heteronormative doctrine be tied to a Christian temple? It's not like in our world that is an exclusively Christian belief. Christians inherited it from the Jewish faith, and Islam in turn picked it up. I believe it's in many other cultures, albeit not as strongly?

Interesting side note, the Bible does not mention women with women. It's just not in there. Seriously.

Rhoda's temple did seem to have some monastic tones; but unlike our monasteries and cloisters, it is mixed gender, because we've seen two members of two different genders, although that could be misleading. I had cousins go to school at an all female facility with nuns that had a priest; I think he was in charge.

Darth Fluffy · March 20, 2020

49 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

How Rhoda and Catalina get from Pointe A to Pointe B has been established
WHAT Rhoda and Catalina DO at Pointe B does not necessarily need to be our business

Just that?
Why not something like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXE8LdXzeHM

Rhoda does have the huge ... tracts of land.

mlooney · March 20, 2020

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXE8LdXzeHM

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Rhoda does have the huge ... tracts of land.

One of the great classics of Medieval history.

hkmaly · March 21, 2020

15 hours ago, ijuin said:

If the attitude of the Head Priest is anything to go on, their religion frowns greatly upon visible displays of sexuality.

Sure, but that doesn't imply heteronormativeness. There is correlation seen on Earth, but that doesn't imply causation.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

18 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Considering it seems that Rhoda's knowledge about dates ends with kissing, I don't think they get on it anytime soon.

Previous comic, panel three, she has some hanky panky related knowledge. Presumably, she would not have witnessed sexual intercourse, which would still be private. But even that's not certain; she could have caught them in the bushes, walked in on them, pretended to be asleep in the next bed, or maybe their universe is just that different.

Previous comic panel three MIGHT be just about kissing. Or about someone TALKING about what they were doing. Also, even seeing actual intercourse she might not know what she saw, considering she didn't know what parts of body she should be looking at.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That all said, why would heteronormative doctrine be tied to a Christian temple? It's not like in our world that is an exclusively Christian belief. Christians inherited it from the Jewish faith, and Islam in turn picked it up. I believe it's in many other cultures, albeit not as strongly?

Not limited to Christian only, but note that Christian AND Islam both are based on Jewish faith (although with some heavy changes) and at the same time, together, have very big influence even on cultures not exclusively based on them.

Our data on connection between heteronormativeness and religion in general might be sparse, but it really doesn't make sense.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Interesting side note, the Bible does not mention women with women. It's just not in there. Seriously.

Neither positive nor negative, hmmm ...
Maybe because it wasn't noteworthy?

Darth Fluffy · March 21, 2020

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Previous comic panel three MIGHT be just about kissing. Or about someone TALKING about what they were doing.

Hence, "... she has some hanky panky related knowledge", deliberately non-specific.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, even seeing actual intercourse she might not know what she saw, considering she didn't know what parts of body she should be looking at.

That one is a bit much. Even toddlers know something is up when they walk in on mommy and daddy (or whoever), and Rhoda is mature enough to have hormonal urges. She may be an innocent temple vergin, but she seems to have an idea about how to remedy that.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not limited to Christian only, but note that Christian AND Islam both are based on Jewish faith (although with some heavy changes) and at the same time, together, have very big influence even on cultures not exclusively based on them.

Our data on connection between heteronormativeness and religion in general might be sparse, but it really doesn't make sense.

Christianity embraces Judaism, not necessarily in healthy ways; but it was initially viewed as a sect of Judaism. Islam derives from both, but rewrites much. The rationale is "greatest prophet"; some might see him as self-serving to make this claim.

As far as Christianity being anti gay, I know why you think so, indeed, the hypocracy of the stance and of the hard core believers who centralize that as their belief system; I've heard Ted Haggard speak in person in the 1990s, years before his anti-gay tirade, he was talking about reaching unreached people in isolated places around the world, and hew was dynamic and innovative. And, to be fair, at the time, if he had an anti-gay tirade, I would have been on board. Then hearing of his tirade, not Fred Phelps level, but still adamant and long term, then him getting caught with a male hooker, ... Dobson is another one. Why the #$%& did you stop focusing on your family and start focusing on being a dick to gay people?

Because, the one thing that is clear is that if you do buy into the Christian belief system, it's all about grace. Your shit stinks as bad as everybody else's. That is the one piece you have to own, or you are totally #$%&ing wasting your time.

I mentioned why I changed my mind, an overview, really. Contact with reasonable people who were not straight. Pretty much this movie. I have family and in laws and friends that are LGBQTXYZ. And, yes, I've met some that are assholes, but so are many straight folks; many, many straight folks.

So yeah, I get that the fundies are quite vocal and visible and you can smell their stench, but there are Christian churches that are gay friendly; something you might want to make note of, because I've seen videos of LGBBQ young people grieving feeling cut off from the God they've been raised to understand because their church has rejected them, and their community suicide rate is high; pointing them toward a place where they can get some affirmation could be a life saver.

I don't know all that much about how non-monotheistic cultures are in this regard; but WW II Germany, which was oddly religiously endorsed and hostile to religion targeted gays for extermination, and the atheistic Eastern Bloc, maybe particularly the Soviet Union, also outlawed homosexuality. <shrug>, Maybe it's in our DNA, and it requires education to overcome it, just like so much of culture, like not stealing from your neighbor.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Neither positive nor negative, hmmm ...
Maybe because it wasn't noteworthy?

I suspect that is indeed the case. Women are treated as property in much of the world, which reflects our heritage, and the Bible reflects that. Our modern, enlightened culture is not so far removed that women have equal pay and freedom from harassment, at least not here, nor in Latin America, nor in Russia, nor in China, nor in the few Islamic states where they are not property. Is Europe better in this regard?

hkmaly · March 21, 2020

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, even seeing actual intercourse she might not know what she saw, considering she didn't know what parts of body she should be looking at.

That one is a bit much. Even toddlers know something is up when they walk in on mommy and daddy (or whoever), and Rhoda is mature enough to have hormonal urges. She may be an innocent temple vergin, but she seems to have an idea about how to remedy that.

That's not what I meant. Yeah, she obviously would notice that it's something sexual.

However, if you walk in on someone having intercourse OR someone doing other "hanky-panky", AND they will react in panic, you may not recognize which of those two it was. Of course, it's different if they continue and you have enough time to get closer and look closer.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

As far as Christianity being anti gay, I know why you think so

In addition to what you said, it might also be because I'm not keeping up-to-date with how current pope tries to balance between progressive and conservative parts of Church. I mean, it used to be worse just recently.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't know all that much about how non-monotheistic cultures are in this regard

Me neither.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

but WW II Germany, which was oddly religiously endorsed and hostile to religion targeted gays for extermination, and the atheistic Eastern Bloc, maybe particularly the Soviet Union, also outlawed homosexuality. <shrug>, Maybe it's in our DNA, and it requires education to overcome it, just like so much of culture, like not stealing from your neighbor.

Note that historically, Germany, Soviet Union AND rest of Eastern Bloc used to be Christian. Despite switching to atheism, their culture still has Christian roots and that probably included opinion on gays. I wouldn't use that as example of independent culture. There are some interesting facts about this on wikipedia, but I suspect it's too soon to do a real scientific analysis of the reasons why both fascists and communists targeted gays ...

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Neither positive nor negative, hmmm ...
Maybe because it wasn't noteworthy?

I suspect that is indeed the case. Women are treated as property in much of the world, which reflects our heritage, and the Bible reflects that.

"Heritage"? There used to be matriarchy in past. Then patriarchy won and turned women into property. Bible not just reflects that, I suspect it helped spreading it into places where the win of patriarchy wasn't so big.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Our modern, enlightened culture is not so far removed that women have equal pay and freedom from harassment, at least not here, nor in Latin America, nor in Russia, nor in China, nor in the few Islamic states where they are not property. Is Europe better in this regard?

I think that it's better but still not completely equal. Also, I think the war between genders is not so serious here - I mean, looking at news, I feel that women in US are determined to become equal with men at any cost, fighting harder the closer they are to it, not realizing that their methods are actually making harder to reach their goals now. Of course, news may not be reliable in this regard.

(Also, I might overestimate how similar the situation in other countries is to mine.)

Darth Fluffy · March 21, 2020

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That's not what I meant. Yeah, she obviously would notice that it's something sexual.

However, if you walk in on someone having intercourse OR someone doing other "hanky-panky", AND they will react in panic, you may not recognize which of those two it was. Of course, it's different if they continue and you have enough time to get closer and look closer.

Not to mention, sex and panic can be a bad combination, hazardous to Mr. Winkie if you are getting a BJ.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In addition to what you said, it might also be because I'm not keeping up-to-date with how current pope tries to balance between progressive and conservative parts of Church. I mean, it used to be worse just recently.

I tend to forget that the RC church is the large phenomenon that it is. Here, it's easy to ignore if you aren't one. But yeah, some places, it's the default mental picture when you hear, "Christian".

I've been some flavor of Protestant all my life, with mild exposure to Roman Catholic beliefs. I've come to the conclusion that they are not really better or worse than other flavors of Christianity, just a different set of what they do well and what they do poorly.

I skimmed your linked article, and props to him for trying; he's way more reflective than thoughtful than I would expect a pope to be. That said, some of the statements are just weird. Can't have gay clergy? Seems to ignore the history of the monastic system in Europe through the centuries, or so I am led to believe. Priest and Vatican theologian Priest Krzysztof Charamsa was stripped of his posts after announcing he was in a homosexual relationship? Well, that's consistent with their stance that priests must be single (which they toy with rolling back sometimes), so I guess they would have done for a heterosexual relationship; he's kind of grinding his heel in on that one.

Personal opinion here, it's the stuff you make up as you're going along that tends to be dangerously off mark. I don't know when the whole notion of priests can't marry was introduced, it was early on relative to today, but the earliest church did not practice that. Recall, they were Jews. Jewish rabbis marry. Taking a basic human need and denying it in that fashion is asking for trouble, and they've had theirs.

But, like I said, just a different sett of what they do poorly.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note that historically, Germany, Soviet Union AND rest of Eastern Bloc used to be Christian. Despite switching to atheism, their culture still has Christian roots and that probably included opinion on gays. I wouldn't use that as example of independent culture. There are some interesting facts about this on wikipedia, but I suspect it's too soon to do a real scientific analysis of the reasons why both fascists and communists targeted gays ...

Interesting article.

I think you make a fair point, but remember, the whole point of the Reds was to change the way things were being done. Also, to be fair, Fascists reacting badly to people who think differently is consistent with who they are and what they do; for them, this is not an outlier.

Every culture has influences, historical and external. That just explains how they get to where they are; it's not an apologia for the beliefs and practices. "We used to be Christian" seems a bit lame; "You also used to be Monarchists". Although, as the article points out, not within the mainstream scope of their philosophy, but hey, how can you say you have an encompassing philosophy of society yet ignore a side of basic human function?

I'll add my own quirk to this; I don't buy that the Soviet Union and their satellite states were essentially Communist. Briefly, maybe, in the early 1920s, but after that, not so much; they persecuted unions. Their brand of totalitarian was an awful lot like Fascism. There are states that are Communist, but they aren't them. I guess we'd call it CINO. (Modern Russian oligarchs have more or less owned up to this).

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"Heritage"? There used to be matriarchy in past.

What are you talking about? Where did this happen?

I cannot think of any essentially matriarchal culture; I can think of many that have some matriarchal component. Tribal societies, essentially cultures of extended families, have aspects of their culture dominated by the women. I guess it's like two cultures overlaid, one male, one female. Rarely, the females will get pissed off enough at the males to live separately.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Then patriarchy won and turned women into property.

That appears to be a function of settling down and building towns. Becoming something beyond tribal. Having property beyond the immediate, then treating women and children as resources to be exploited.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Bible not just reflects that, I suspect it helped spreading it into places where the win of patriarchy wasn't so big.

I don't think it was a major factor. Today, because of how it's used, it is a major factor in justifying numerous kinds of cultural wrongs. It is very flexible in that regard; it is easy to read in what you want to see.

This is a major theme of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish powers of his day. If he's a fictitious character, he's at least an icon of doing what's right in spite of the surrounding religious culture. Recall, his own followers were flabbergasted that he would talk openly with a woman as if she were a person, rather than chattel (John 4).

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think that it's better but still not completely equal. Also, I think the war between genders is not so serious here - I mean, looking at news, I feel that women in US are determined to become equal with men at any cost, fighting harder the closer they are to it, not realizing that their methods are actually making harder to reach their goals now. Of course, news may not be reliable in this regard.

(Also, I might overestimate how similar the situation in other countries is to mine.)

I think your perception is based on how weird what passes for news is here. You've had equivalences to Fox News, but they are historical relics at this point, aberrations that have passed. We are still living in this bullshit, and it isn't collapsing yet.

Here, we don't kill women for speaking out. That happens in places.

hkmaly · March 22, 2020

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In addition to what you said, it might also be because I'm not keeping up-to-date with how current pope tries to balance between progressive and conservative parts of Church. I mean, it used to be worse just recently.

I tend to forget that the RC church is the large phenomenon that it is. Here, it's easy to ignore if you aren't one. But yeah, some places, it's the default mental picture when you hear, "Christian".

I've been some flavor of Protestant all my life, with mild exposure to Roman Catholic beliefs. I've come to the conclusion that they are not really better or worse than other flavors of Christianity, just a different set of what they do well and what they do poorly.

...oh. Right. I, on the other hand, tend to forgot that RC church is not THAT large and that there are lot of Christians who have similar opinion on validity of what he's saying as atheists. Or me.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I skimmed your linked article, and props to him for trying; he's way more reflective than thoughtful than I would expect a pope to be. That said, some of the statements are just weird. Can't have gay clergy? Seems to ignore the history of the monastic system in Europe through the centuries, or so I am led to believe. Priest and Vatican theologian Priest Krzysztof Charamsa was stripped of his posts after announcing he was in a homosexual relationship? Well, that's consistent with their stance that priests must be single (which they toy with rolling back sometimes), so I guess they would have done for a heterosexual relationship; he's kind of grinding his heel in on that one.

Well, I'm pretty sure that the previous pope was exactly as reflective as you would expect, if not less

As I said, I suspect that despite officially being head of Church, he's not completely free to change course.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Personal opinion here, it's the stuff you make up as you're going along that tends to be dangerously off mark. I don't know when the whole notion of priests can't marry was introduced, it was early on relative to today, but the earliest church did not practice that. Recall, they were Jews. Jewish rabbis marry. Taking a basic human need and denying it in that fashion is asking for trouble, and they've had theirs.

The explanation that it was so the church can inherit all their money always made sense to me. Jesus' opinion notwithstanding (John 2:13-16) Catholic church always liked the money ...

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"Heritage"? There used to be matriarchy in past.

What are you talking about? Where did this happen?

I cannot think of any essentially matriarchal culture; I can think of many that have some matriarchal component. Tribal societies, essentially cultures of extended families, have aspects of their culture dominated by the women. I guess it's like two cultures overlaid, one male, one female. Rarely, the females will get pissed off enough at the males to live separately.

Well it DID happened before the writing

Yeah, might not be as matriarchal as some of the books I read claimed, but there were definitely more matriarchal components and Catholics destroyed that where they could.

Why do you think there is so much talk about witches? Because women having knowledge or some sort of power looked as more dangerous than men to Catholics.

(This is, obviously, simplified, and I'm not sure how much of sources I base it on was serious research.)

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Then patriarchy won and turned women into property.

That appears to be a function of settling down and building towns. Becoming something beyond tribal. Having property beyond the immediate, then treating women and children as resources to be exploited.

Well, it would be unfair to claim it wouldn't happen without bible. It's just that Bible was written in time when men wanted to solidify and justify turning women into property (and, obviously, mostly written by men, and possibly some who avoided sex to be "clearer" and had therefore problems not thinking about it) and therefore became tool of that.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't think it was a major factor. Today, because of how it's used, it is a major factor in justifying numerous kinds of cultural wrongs. It is very flexible in that regard; it is easy to read in what you want to see.

I don't think it's THAT flexible. I think those cultural wrongs really are there, although not as much as some claims.

It's not surprising. ANY book written in that time would be likely to look outdated today ... it's just that Bible is only book where we pretend to be surprised by it.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Here, we don't kill women for speaking out. That happens in places.

I don't count those places as Europe and I don't care what geographers would say about that.

(Yeah, my Europe ends on Turkey's border. Map on wikipedia agrees.)

And I've already said multiple times (possibly even here) that some of those radical feminists should be going THERE (into muslim countries) and fight for women equality where it really requires weapons, instead of in Europe and North America where the laws are mostly already ok and it's more about educating and making people understand, which can't really be done by force.

.... also, are you sure about that? It doesn't happen often, but ...

12 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I think your perception is based on how weird what passes for news is here. You've had equivalences to Fox News, but they are historical relics at this point, aberrations that have passed. We are still living in this bullshit, and it isn't collapsing yet.

Maybe. I'm not reading Fox News, but I can't rule out the commentators I read do ...

Darth Fluffy · March 22, 2020

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

...oh. Right. I, on the other hand, tend to forgot that RC church is not THAT large and that there are lot of Christians who have similar opinion on validity of what he's saying as atheists. Or me.

The US has a history of ant-Catholicism. So, the 13 original colonies were a mix of English royal grants to various people, and Britain had it's own recent history of breaking away from Catholicism at the time. Unlike Luther, and Huss, and Menno, the English break was about royal succession, Henry VIII needed an heir. The pope wouldn't grant him an out, so he broke away. Then Britain has internal conflicts between Catholic factions and Anglican factions. Down the timeline, Cromwell consolidated Anglican power, and invaded Catholic Ireland.

Then further down the road, the royals are reestablished, and there's a general cultural acquiescence to Anglicanism; other religions are not given much tolerance. Many, if they have the favor of the king,, often in lieu of a debt being repaid, receive a grant in the Americas for a colony of their like minded folk; out of sight, out of mind. Quakers, unpopular for their pacifism, settle Pennsylvania. Lord Baltimore receives Maryland as a Catholic refuge. The Pilgrims flee here as well, aiming for the Virginia colony, but get lost and found Massachusetts. The the Puritans come and take it over. They are kind of dicks, they are the ones famous for the witch trials.

A couple of centuries later, many Irish flee a famine in their homeland. They are easily identified and Catholic, so they are hated as our immigrant problem. Also we have a Civil War (so to speak, it was not particularly civil). The south is largely flavors of Protestant, so when they loose, and the southern veterans form the Klu Klux Klan to attempt to klandestinely retain control, they make one of their tenets "hate the Catholics".

Fast forward another century, and there is a huge influx of immigrants fleeing various European conflicts, coming here for industrial jobs, and various flavors of Catholicism become normative in the north east US. Onion domed churches were notable, but not all that unusual. Then, late in the 20th Century, the US South attracted industry from the Northeast by being anti-union. So I have Catholic friends here, and as long as we stay in the urban areas, they might as well be in the Northeast, but stray outside of town, and you'll only see century old tiny Baptist and Methodist churches, along with the occasional Confederate flag.

It's worse in Britain. "The troubles" in Northern Ireland are all about Protestant, mainly Anglican, possession of the upper end of mainly and historically Catholic Ireland. Scotland has much reason historically to hate England, and was the home of the Catholic faction in the internal struggles. This is still an issue for them.

An interesting side effect of colonialism; India is decidedly not primarily a Christian nation, yet, they have so many people, they are said to have more Anglicans than England, they have a massive number of Catholics, and they have an indigenous church, said to have been founded by the apostle Thomas, the "I won't believe it unless I see him." guy.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Well, I'm pretty sure that the previous pope was exactly as reflective as you would expect, if not less

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

As I said, I suspect that despite officially being head of Church, he's not completely free to change course.

Yeah, pretty sure that's true.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

The explanation that it was so the church can inherit all their money always made sense to me. Jesus' opinion notwithstanding (John 2:13-16) Catholic church always liked the money ...

Funny thing, one of the few Christian radio personalities that I can recall that was not always money grubbing was a Catholic priest, J. Vernon McGee, who had a show, Through the Bible, where he would explain his take on what some passage or section was about. He was on for years, and they played tapes of him long after he died. I recall him being reasonable and polite, not particularly controversial, which may have been intentional, perhaps he avoided mentioning controversial topics, and I don't recall him ever asking for funds.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Well it DID happened before the writing

Yeah, might not be as matriarchal as some of the books I read claimed, but there were definitely more matriarchal components and Catholics destroyed that where they could.

Why do you think there is so much talk about witches? Because women having knowledge or some sort of power looked as more dangerous than men to Catholics.

(This is, obviously, simplified, and I'm not sure how much of sources I base it on was serious research.)

Witch test

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Well, it would be unfair to claim it wouldn't happen without bible. It's just that Bible was written in time when men wanted to solidify and justify turning women into property (and, obviously, mostly written by men, and possibly some who avoided sex to be "clearer" and had therefore problems not thinking about it) and therefore became tool of that.

I don't think it's THAT flexible. I think those cultural wrongs really are there, although not as much as some claims.

It's not surprising. ANY book written in that time would be likely to look outdated today ... it's just that Bible is only book where we pretend to be surprised by it.

The Bible is published as a single book, generally, but is in fact a collection of works spanning hundreds of years. Even individual books within the Bible are controversial for maybe having more than one author over a period of time. The canon, this list of books to include, varies a bit by faith; obviously Jews do not include the New Testament, but there are several books excluded by some and included by others. Some read like history, and some, the ones no one includes, read like bad fan fiction. The pieces are reasonably consistent over the millenia but not 100%, in part due to being translated and re-translated. The collection of pieces for the New Testament has some "not all manuscripts include the following" places, where perhaps someone recalled details later, of possibly someone embellished.

And that's just the mainstream. There are outliers, like the Mormons, who have whole books they add. (It's a long story, ask, and I'll post some half-assed account.)

Personally, I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. There's some really deep stuff there. Real or not, Jesus is a genuinely interesting character. I have my doubts that any author is competent enough to have invented him. Then some stuff, like Noah's ark, it has to be a paraphrase; it's in too many prior cultures, it has to be local, the biosphere does not evidence a worldwide flood of the magnitude of the popular image of Noah's flood. Allegedly written by Moses, he was hundreds of years later, so obviously not an eye witness.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I don't count those places as Europe and I don't care what geographers would say about that.

(Yeah, my Europe ends on Turkey's border. Map on wikipedia agrees.)

And I've already said multiple times (possibly even here) that some of those radical feminists should be going THERE (into muslim countries) and fight for women equality where it really requires weapons, instead of in Europe and North America where the laws are mostly already ok and it's more about educating and making people understand, which can't really be done by force.

.... also, are you sure about that? It doesn't happen often, but ...

Your link was news to me, I don't know how I missed the event(s). There were more at the bottom of the article.

And here's the thing; clearly there is an issue, small numbers, but horrific in context, of Islamic persons who don't want to assimilate aka 'be defiled by the culture around' them taking offense at those that do want to assimilate, particularly younger people, and often female, who may find not being viewed as property attractive. This can sound like Islamophobia, to buy into it wholesale as realism is overreacting. Again, small numbers; as Ecclesiastes puts it: "Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor."

I do think refugees should be given refuge. I've heard that in Europe, some of the younger men of the current generation of refugees rape European young girls, who they view as whores. I do hope this is not true, but if it is, it seems it would be incumbent on the populous to hang the stupid $#!%$. Everybody benefits.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Maybe. I'm not reading Fox News, but I can't rule out the commentators I read do ...

The right thinks our mainstream news has a liberal bias, but this is not true. There is biased left wing news, and it is generally labeled as such. The mainstream is quite centrist. The conservative news has been taken over by loonies, seriously. In fact one of Trumps more damning aspects is he embraces some of the off the chart loons. But Fox News is special, because they are a polished turd.

They are very professionally presented, skilled at what they do, but it is not news. It is propaganda. They won a court case saying so. Not, "some one else won a court case saying they are not news", Fox News used the fact that they are not news to have their way about some issue. It may have been, "We don't fall under the equal time requirement", that seems to ring a bell.

They were never intended to be news, they were intended from their founding to be a propaganda mouthpiece. Dig down the Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdock rabbit holes if you want to know more.

ijuin · March 22, 2020

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The explanation that it was so the church can inherit all their money always made sense to me. Jesus' opinion notwithstanding (John 2:13-16) Catholic church always liked the money ...

Not just money but real estate as well--remember, before global trade, most wealthy people owned some measure of productive land. The Church also wanted to prevent blood-based nepotism, in which noble or wealthy families would monopolize a lot of Bishop positions for generation after generation.

hkmaly · March 22, 2020

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Henry VIII needed an heir

And Charles V needed for him to die without one, yeah.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The the Puritans come and take it over. They are kind of dicks, they are the ones famous for the witch trials.

I though those were Spanish .

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Also we have a Civil War (so to speak, it was not particularly civil)

I'm sure it was just as civil as other civil wars. Or wars in general. Except the world ones, those were worse.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Fast forward another century, and there is a huge influx of immigrants fleeing various European conflicts, coming here for industrial jobs, and various flavors of Catholicism become normative in the north east US. Onion domed churches were notable, but not all that unusual. Then, late in the 20th Century, the US South attracted industry from the Northeast by being anti-union. So I have Catholic friends here, and as long as we stay in the urban areas, they might as well be in the Northeast, but stray outside of town, and you'll only see century old tiny Baptist and Methodist churches, along with the occasional Confederate flag.

Interesting mix.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

An interesting side effect of colonialism; India is decidedly not primarily a Christian nation, yet, they have so many people, they are said to have more Anglicans than England, they have a massive number of Catholics, and they have an indigenous church, said to have been founded by the apostle Thomas, the "I won't believe it unless I see him." guy.

Reminds me the joke: Which English is the correct one? The British one, with 20 millions people talking it, or the Russian one, with 200 millions of russians talking it as second language?

Of course, the answer, outside the scope of the joke and not that much funny, is the India's one, with even more speakers.

Oh, and Thomas. I know that one.

According to Gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus said:

...the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you. ...
... Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there. ...

Sympathetic. Didn't know there is whole church around it.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The canon, this list of books to include, varies a bit by faith; obviously Jews do not include the New Testament, but there are several books excluded by some and included by others.

A bit? Who's bit, tyrannosaurus rex? Oh wait that's bite.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Personally, I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. There's some really deep stuff there. Real or not, Jesus is a genuinely interesting character. I have my doubts that any author is competent enough to have invented him.

They don't seem competent enough to just report about him. But, like, hard to say, perhaps it just looks that way due to later editing.

Anyway, my opinion is that there is no reason to evaluate Bible as one piece when it clearly isn't.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Then some stuff, like Noah's ark, it has to be a paraphrase; it's in too many prior cultures, it has to be local, the biosphere does not evidence a worldwide flood of the magnitude of the popular image of Noah's flood. Allegedly written by Moses, he was hundreds of years later, so obviously not an eye witness.

I suppose it went through the similar process in which story about hero fighting two bandits turns into hero fighting whole army during the time the hero spend in pub afterwards.

World used to be smaller and people might take that story into places not actually affected by that flood later.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

And here's the thing; clearly there is an issue, small numbers, but horrific in context, of Islamic persons who don't want to assimilate aka 'be defiled by the culture around' them taking offense at those that do want to assimilate, particularly younger people, and often female, who may find not being viewed as property attractive. This can sound like Islamophobia, to buy into it wholesale as realism is overreacting. Again, small numbers; as Ecclesiastes puts it: "Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor."

I do think refugees should be given refuge. I've heard that in Europe, some of the younger men of the current generation of refugees rape European young girls, who they view as whores. I do hope this is not true, but if it is, it seems it would be incumbent on the populous to hang the stupid $#!%$. Everybody benefits.

Yeah, I've heard that too, specifically about Germany. Unfortunately, hanging is not popular in Europe. Yet.

And yes, refugees should be thankful at least enough to honor the culture of country which took them in. I would recommend simple test based on traditional national food and drink. (The drink would be, obviously, beer ... and while I don't want to name our traditional nationalal food to keep the illusion the country I live in is secret, I suppose you know where I'm heading to ...)

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

They are very professionally presented, skilled at what they do, but it is not news. It is propaganda. They won a court case saying so. Not, "some one else won a court case saying they are not news", Fox News used the fact that they are not news to have their way about some issue. It may have been, "We don't fall under the equal time requirement", that seems to ring a bell.

... we definitely don't have news sources THIS bad. It's true our prime minister owns several big newspapers, but his advocates didn't tried to use it as argument in any court case yet, and in fact tries to camouflage it.

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The explanation that it was so the church can inherit all their money always made sense to me. Jesus' opinion notwithstanding (John 2:13-16) Catholic church always liked the money ...

Not just money but real estate as well--remember, before global trade, most wealthy people owned some measure of productive land. The Church also wanted to prevent blood-based nepotism, in which noble or wealthy families would monopolize a lot of Bishop positions for generation after generation.

The word I was looking for was "property". Yeah, the cash wasn't that important.

Darth Fluffy · March 22, 2020

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I though those were Spanish .

But, how could you? Nobody expects that!

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm sure it was just as civil as other civil wars. Or wars in general. Except the world ones, those were worse.

I think they're a shade nastier than the 'invade your neighbor' variety. Some lean more toward genocide. Ours, the French, and the Russian had elements of 'show no quarter'. Ours had a lot of irregulars slaughtering neighbors in contested territories. Ours had troops that refused to honor the surrender and became notorious outlaws until killed. Our split our country to this day, the French and the Russian led to brutal slaughter of the other side, and others, well, genocide. (Sam is local news, I've driven past this statue.)

As notes before, ours shoved our technology forward to where we became a formidable industrial power, linked our coastlines, and had the where-with-all to become the ultimate immigrate problem for the indigenous peoples.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Interesting mix.

The US is full of 'interesting mixes', as are many other places. For example, much of US was not initially settled by the English, and we have regional variations based on heritage, as do you, but it is significantly noteworthy that much of the US was settled by Spain long before the English - Florida, and our entire Southwest. And, due to the ignorance of many of my countrymen, the people who have lived there the longest as settlers are viewed as immigrants. "Why can't they adopt the culture." Hey, you're moving into their culture, why don't you adopt their culture. To be fair, many Americans in the Hispanic areas learn Spanish, and Latino food is very popular, also music and some pop culture. But Latinos are often treated as second class citizens.

Americans have a reputations for being insular and ignorant of other cultures. I believe it is a bit unfair; near as I can tell, it's a pretty universal issue. Although, counterpoint, I was asked several times about my passport and visa, and how I would communicate, and "Will they take American money?" when I moved to New Mexico, which to be fair, had only been a state for just under seventy years at that point. Oh, and 'immigrants from Puerto Rico'. Or Guam. Or half a dozen other territories. "You know Puerto Rico is a US territory, an its people are citizens, right? There's more Americans in Puerto Rico that in several smaller US states." You can immigrate from lots of places to the US, but Puerto Rico isn't one of them; you are just moving. (Sadly, you likely gain the right to vote in national elections. That's another story.)

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Reminds me the joke: Which English is the correct one? The British one, with 20 millions people talking it, or the Russian one, with 200 millions of russians talking it as second language?

Of course, the answer, outside the scope of the joke and not that much funny, is the India's one, with even more speakers.

Yes, it is; Indians have many regional languages, so, to speak to each other, they all learn English, and their thickly accented version is actually the norm.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Oh, and Thomas. I know that one.

Sympathetic. Didn't know there is whole church around it.

A bit of conflation there, I think. The Gospel of Thomas is also attributed to the same Thomas, but I don't think the indigenous Indian church holds it as anything; they only share alleged source. For what it's worth, I think the founding of the church sounds likely; the authorship of various apocryphal gospels, less so. Spreading the word is what the apostles were allegedly commissioned to do, so it would have been in character, whereas variant religious tracts had numerous authors, many of whom were not above using the cachet of a big name to promote their work. Wiki agrees: "The text's authorship by Thomas the Apostle is rejected by modern scholars." It seems to have some core Christian doctrine along with some Gnostic ideas. I haven't read it. Twenty years ago I would have said, "and I wouldn't know where to find a copy", but it's probably available online. Come to think of it, you know that, you quoted it.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

A bit? Who's bit, tyrannosaurus rex? Oh wait that's bite.

They're not that old.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Anyway, my opinion is that there is no reason to evaluate Bible as one piece when it clearly isn't.

Good point.

There is a religious tenet that the whole hangs together. I think there is truth in that, but also a level of fog from the fact that it was sourced through people, who wrote what they did in the context of their culture. You really can't take much of it at face value; often, it means the opposite of what it seems to say on the surface. Not the least contributor to that is the Hebrew poetic writing style of the earliest books, where hyperbole seems to be the norm. '... was the greatest prophet/strongest man/wisest man/biggest flood ever' is highly suspect. "Oh, really? Did you meet all the others? What about the ones that haven't been born/happened yet?" And a lot is lost in translation, especially when the translator has a doctrinal ax to grind. Don't get me started on the 'week of creation'. "Really, seven day, huh? And how were they measured? No eye witnesses, you know, not human ones. Hmm, this appears to coincide with an outline of cosmology, are you sure you're not reading too much into your interpretation of the word 'day' in the Hebrew poetic version of creation?" <face palm>

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I suppose it went through the similar process in which story about hero fighting two bandits turns into hero fighting whole army during the time the hero spend in pub afterwards.

World used to be smaller and people might take that story into places not actually affected by that flood later.

All good points.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah, I've heard that too, specifically about Germany. Unfortunately, hanging is not popular in Europe. Yet.

Capital punishment is unpopular, for good reasons; it is too easy to abuse. Places that have it tend toward authoritarian, and use it to eliminate opposition and/or cow the populace. A callous system can execute many innocents. I'm not a fan, but unfortunately, I think it's necessary. Some time, for some people, your best contribution to society may be as an object lesson.

It is like your immune system. Too aggressive, and it will kill you. Not aggressive enough, and you're ripe for infection. (For you engineering types, this smacks of control theory.)

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And yes, refugees should be thankful at least enough to honor the culture of country which took them in. I would recommend simple test based on traditional national food and drink. (The drink would be, obviously, beer ... and while I don't want to name our traditional nationalal food to keep the illusion the country I live in is secret, I suppose you know where I'm heading to ...)

Thank you, right? If you are a guest in someone's home, you respect the host. If you are a guest in someone's country, you respect your hosts. If you can't do that, please don't visit us. Stay in your glorious cultural paradise.

I'm not sure where you're going with your test, but I would view it as provocative if you served someone something against his faith as a test. I mean, if the Nazis had said, "Here, eat this shrimp, then you can go", that's cool, it beats the alternative, but it's still provocative.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... we definitely don't have news sources THIS bad. It's true our prime minister owns several big newspapers, but his advocates didn't tried to use it as argument in any court case yet, and in fact tries to camouflage it.

The closest predecessor I can think of is Pravda, which is in name truth, but was primarily propaganda, and in an odd twist, manages to still be propaganda.

Then they had Krokidil, which seems to be a print analog of The Daily Show; a trustworthy news source.

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The word I was looking for was "property". Yeah, the cash wasn't that important.

I think you could add, 'wielding considerable power and influence'.

hkmaly · March 23, 2020

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm sure it was just as civil as other civil wars. Or wars in general. Except the world ones, those were worse.

I think they're a shade nastier than the 'invade your neighbor' variety. Some lean more toward genocide. Ours, the French, and the Russian had elements of 'show no quarter'. Ours had a lot of irregulars slaughtering neighbors in contested territories. Ours had troops that refused to honor the surrender and became notorious outlaws until killed. Our split our country to this day, the French and the Russian led to brutal slaughter of the other side, and others, well, genocide. (Sam is local news, I've driven past this statue.)

I would expect that the wars where the surrender is generally honored would be the exception. But I'm not doing statistics.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

As notes before, ours shoved our technology forward to where we became a formidable industrial power, linked our coastlines, and had the where-with-all to become the ultimate immigrate problem for the indigenous peoples.

... which, back in era where it were usually the educated intelligent people who emigrated because they turned to be too educated for European establishment, led to even more technology forward.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

And, due to the ignorance of many of my countrymen, the people who have lived there the longest as settlers are viewed as immigrants. "Why can't they adopt the culture."

To be fair, there is even more people who failed to adopt the culture when they immigrate ... to America settled by natives. At least most people are not calling native americans immigrants.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, the answer, outside the scope of the joke and not that much funny, is the India's one, with even more speakers.

Yes, it is; Indians have many regional languages, so, to speak to each other, they all learn English, and their thickly accented version is actually the norm.

Exactly.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Oh, and Thomas. I know that one.

Sympathetic. Didn't know there is whole church around it.

A bit of conflation there, I think. The Gospel of Thomas is also attributed to the same Thomas, but I don't think the indigenous Indian church holds it as anything; they only share alleged source.

Pity.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

For what it's worth, I think the founding of the church sounds likely; the authorship of various apocryphal gospels, less so. Spreading the word is what the apostles were allegedly commissioned to do, so it would have been in character, whereas variant religious tracts had numerous authors, many of whom were not above using the cachet of a big name to promote their work. Wiki agrees: "The text's authorship by Thomas the Apostle is rejected by modern scholars."

I find Thomas's authorship as likely as authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Those seems to be also disputed.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It seems to have some core Christian doctrine along with some Gnostic ideas. I haven't read it. Twenty years ago I would have said, "and I wouldn't know where to find a copy", but it's probably available online. Come to think of it, you know that, you quoted it.

Both originals and translations are linked from the wikipedia article.

... ok, those "originals" might not be everything available ...

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

A bit? Who's bit, tyrannosaurus rex? Oh wait that's bite.

They're not that old.

True. Although there are some group of Catholics which claim that Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct during the Flood because Noe didn't allowed it on his arch, even THAT would be well before the start of Catholics church.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

"Really, seven day, huh? And how were they measured? No eye witnesses, you know, not human ones. Hmm, this appears to coincide with an outline of cosmology, are you sure you're not reading too much into your interpretation of the word 'day' in the Hebrew poetic version of creation?"

Day is defined as one rotation of Earth around it's axis. Which day was Earth created? When it started to rotate?

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Capital punishment is unpopular, for good reasons; it is too easy to abuse. Places that have it tend toward authoritarian, and use it to eliminate opposition and/or cow the populace. A callous system can execute many innocents. I'm not a fan, but unfortunately, I think it's necessary. Some time, for some people, your best contribution to society may be as an object lesson.

Exactly. The capital punishment has bad PR because it's usually overused, and because it's used just as another point of scale. In my opinion, no matter the severity of crime, capital punishment should also require better quality of evidence. But there ARE cases where there really isn't any doubt.

8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm not sure where you're going with your test, but I would view it as provocative if you served someone something against his faith as a test.

Obviously, it's not meant as provocation, to surprise someone with serving such food. It would be official condition of citizenship, proof that they are really interested in our culture, and it would imply that we don't want to give citizenship to people with faith against it (which really isn't traditional in our country).

It MIGHT be too much, after all freedom of faith IS part of our tradition (after traditional problems with faith-based wars, which were obviously all between Christians but that didn't made them any more civil) but support for parties which are against immigration is rising ... and this would protect our culture almost as well as no immigration at all.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The closest predecessor I can think of is Pravda, which is in name truth, but was primarily propaganda, and in an odd twist, manages to still be propaganda.

Then they had Krokidil, which seems to be a print analog of The Daily Show; a trustworthy news source.

That's, obviously, both Russia. But yes, communists party official newspaper was propaganda during the cold war and remains propaganda afterwards ...

(Note that it's Krokodil ... funny how you have the link correct but title not.)

Darth Fluffy · March 23, 2020

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I find Thomas's authorship as likely as authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Those seems to be also disputed.

I disagree. Gnosticism is a known entity. Considered a heresy by what is now viewed as mainstream, is has distinguishing features. That a Gnostic might want to make his views known and feel like (s)he has to resort to a subterfuge seems likely. The flip side, did Matthew write Matthew, Mark write Mark, and so on, does not seem to have the same compelling reason. Why would it matter? They are in some sense going to be collaborations anyway, as the group realizes, "Hey, maybe we need to record this stuff, so our kids will know where we stand."

Luke was a Greek physician, a well educated man; he was not an apostle, seemingly not Jewish, though I guess he could have been both, so likely not even an eye witness. He is said to have transcribed Paul's account. Paul himself was a late arrival; he was a trained Pharisee named Saul during Jesus's ministry. His account must have been sourced by others. Paul is thorough and studious, so it's not surprising that he collected a lot of detail. He was also literate himself, but had vision issues, mentioned in one of his letters. He considered himself 'an apostle to the gentiles', to the Greeks in particular, and Luke has a factual slant that would appeal to an erudite culture.

Matthew was the tax collector that Jesus called; having to report to Rome, he would have been quite literate. He would have been an eye witness, and has a fair bit of detail. He;s an accountant, a detail guy, it fits. He is also a Jew, writing to Jews, and includes Jewish touchstones in Matthew.

Mark is said to have transcribed Peter's account. It is much more terse than the other versions; it might be viewed as the management overview meant to appeal to the Roman rulers.

These three are in substantial agreement. There are glaring differences, such as the geneologies in Matthew and Luke. Jewish culture is matrilineal, Greek and Roman, patrilineal. They are addressing their target audience.

Anyone that says the Gospel of John is not weird isn't being honest. It was written well after the others; likely many of the apostles were already dead. There were several Johns involved in the early church, notably a favored apostle and one of Jesus's brothers. I've heard John was written by the apostle, but is doesn't say so internally, and I don't think it's so clearly cut and dried as religious folks make it out to be. What is clear, is that it takes a much more, uhm, mystical tact. It is grounded in anecdotes, similar to the other gospels, but the actual stories are mostly a different set; similar in character, but there's a somewhat different flavor; where the other three are more like books about Jesus, John strives to be a portrayal of Jesus; to reveal his character, like a biopic instead of a documentary. But the beginning is pure blue sky genesis talk.

Since I don't know any of these people personally, I don't have a whole lot invested in exactly who said what to who when the record was actually put to paper. It was pretty clearly a record from followers, details vary, that's not surprising. If I read a half a dozen articles about a current event, they will focus on different stuff.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

True. Although there are some group of Catholics which claim that Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct during the Flood because Noe didn't allowed it on his arch, even THAT would be well before the start of Catholics church.

Your experience is much different than mine. Catholics here are not particularly vocal about such nonsense, here it's the Evangelical fundies, and they are rabid. We have a Creation Museum. In Kentuckyt, there's a Noah's Ark Park.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Day is defined as one rotation of Earth around it's axis. Which day was Earth created? When it started to rotate?

The Creationists disagree; to them, 'a day' is 24 hours. And logic has nothing to do with it, so don't bring up, 'but the length of the day changes daily'.

Anyway, your definition is one definition out of several. Let me rephrase that; your definition is vague enough to cover a lot of ground, but there's 'faces the sun', and there's 'faces the same direction against the (relatively) "fixed" background of the stars'. They are not the same, and in one year, you will have one more sidereal day than solar days. We don't notice it, because our moon is tidally locked, but you can also have a 'day' where a satellite faces you the same way that is yet another 'day'. If it was spinning rapidly, you might not even call it a day. Thinking toroidal space habitat, if it rotated in minutes, you probably would not want to count that as a day, since culturally, you want days to equate to work periods. Then to, we have the solar day, the time it takes the sun to spin; it is a rotation, but has nothing to do with illumination of the sun. It also occurs in two flavors, relative to the background, and relative to facing us, third sense actually, since the first has no meaning for the sun.

Which one is right? They're all correct, in context, they are functionally selected. A farmer needs solar days. A navigator might require sidereal.

In the Bible, even God disagrees with them. "A day is like a thousand year, and an thousand years is like a day", speaking of God's point of view, and I'm convinced that the only reason it says 'a thousand' is that these folks were not big on math. Seriously, 'a myriad', meaning ten thousand, was a Roman innovation. They even came up with a special symbol, an M (one thousand) with a bar over the top. Jesus blew the disciples minds a couple of times by squaring numbers.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Obviously, it's not meant as provocation, to surprise someone with serving such food. It would be official condition of citizenship, proof that they are really interested in our culture, and it would imply that we don't want to give citizenship to people with faith against it (which really isn't traditional in our country).

We have a constitutional amendment which prohibits the US from supporting a state religion, but that does not keep folks from promoting the notion. Regularly. Like water flowing down from the mountain. Because it's obvious we need to support my religion. I used to think the atheist were obsessive about fighting this, but they have a good point; it's insidious. There's never enough. The only recourse is to draw the line at 'none'.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It MIGHT be too much, after all freedom of faith IS part of our tradition (after traditional problems with faith-based wars, which were obviously all between Christians but that didn't made them any more civil) but support for parties which are against immigration is rising ... and this would protect our culture almost as well as no immigration at all.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, in a "May you live in interesting times" sense.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

(Note that it's Krokodil ... funny how you have the link correct but title not.)

Typo. I got sucked into reading, read about the artists, missed the spelling error. I thought it started with a 'C' saw the 'K', so that one I fixed.

hkmaly · March 23, 2020

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I find Thomas's authorship as likely as authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Those seems to be also disputed.

I disagree. Gnosticism is a known entity. Considered a heresy by what is now viewed as mainstream, is has distinguishing features. That a Gnostic might want to make his views known and feel like (s)he has to resort to a subterfuge seems likely.

On the other hand, Gnosticism was only recognized as heresy later ; it IS possible that Thomas the apostle had opinions later labeled as gnostic. His "I don't believe until I see it" would point in such direction, wouldn't it?

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The flip side, did Matthew write Matthew, Mark write Mark, and so on, does not seem to have the same compelling reason. Why would it matter? They are in some sense going to be collaborations anyway, as the group realizes, "Hey, maybe we need to record this stuff, so our kids will know where we stand."

The apostles obviously had reason to write something down ; however, later authors had reasons to modify what they wrote.

I'm not expert on the issue, but I remember to read that those gospels (or at least some of them) don't even read as consistent texts and that parts seem to be copied between them or from older source. In fact, see wikipedia take on this subject.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Anyone that says the Gospel of John is not weird isn't being honest. It was written well after the others; likely many of the apostles were already dead. There were several Johns involved in the early church, notably a favored apostle and one of Jesus's brothers. I've heard John was written by the apostle, but is doesn't say so internally, and I don't think it's so clearly cut and dried as religious folks make it out to be. What is clear, is that it takes a much more, uhm, mystical tact. It is grounded in anecdotes, similar to the other gospels, but the actual stories are mostly a different set; similar in character, but there's a somewhat different flavor; where the other three are more like books about Jesus, John strives to be a portrayal of Jesus; to reveal his character, like a biopic instead of a documentary. But the beginning is pure blue sky genesis talk.

Also, there are speculation about John's use of Psilocybe. Or was that different John? On wait, it's unlikely someone would know.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

True. Although there are some group of Catholics which claim that Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct during the Flood because Noe didn't allowed it on his arch, even THAT would be well before the start of Catholics church.

Your experience is much different than mine. Catholics here are not particularly vocal about such nonsense, here it's the Evangelical fundies, and they are rabid. We have a Creation Museum. In Kentuckyt, there's a Noah's Ark Park.

I must admit it's not my personal experience, just something I read, and I might misremember who it was.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Day is defined as one rotation of Earth around it's axis. Which day was Earth created? When it started to rotate?

The Creationists disagree; to them, 'a day' is 24 hours. And logic has nothing to do with it, so don't bring up, 'but the length of the day changes daily'.

It's not surprising they disagree OR that they fail basic logic.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Anyway, your definition is one definition out of several. Let me rephrase that; your definition is vague enough to cover a lot of ground, but there's 'faces the sun', and there's 'faces the same direction against the (relatively) "fixed" background of the stars'. They are not the same, and in one year, you will have one more sidereal day than solar days. We don't notice it, because our moon is tidally locked, but you can also have a 'day' where a satellite faces you the same way that is yet another 'day'. If it was spinning rapidly, you might not even call it a day. Thinking toroidal space habitat, if it rotated in minutes, you probably would not want to count that as a day, since culturally, you want days to equate to work periods. Then to, we have the solar day, the time it takes the sun to spin; it is a rotation, but has nothing to do with illumination of the sun. It also occurs in two flavors, relative to the background, and relative to facing us, third sense actually, since the first has no meaning for the sun.

As a bonus, none of those days is really 24 hours. The solar days is closest with current value of 86, 400.002 seconds. And, yes, it changes.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

In the Bible, even God disagrees with them. "A day is like a thousand year, and an thousand years is like a day", speaking of God's point of view, and I'm convinced that the only reason it says 'a thousand' is that these folks were not big on math. Seriously, 'a myriad', meaning ten thousand, was a Roman innovation. They even came up with a special symbol, an M (one thousand) with a bar over the top. Jesus blew the disciples minds a couple of times by squaring numbers.

I wouldn't be surprised if many creationists would have similar issues with understanding squaring numbers. However, they don't have the excuse of living in first century AD.

Although I would argue against your implication that Romans were first coming with term for ten thousand. They might make it popular, but in 400 BC Greek already used οἱ Μύριοι. In fact, they normally counted up to myriad myriad (one hundred million) and Archimedes proposed system counting to 10^{8x10^16}.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Obviously, it's not meant as provocation, to surprise someone with serving such food. It would be official condition of citizenship, proof that they are really interested in our culture, and it would imply that we don't want to give citizenship to people with faith against it (which really isn't traditional in our country).

We have a constitutional amendment which prohibits the US from supporting a state religion, but that does not keep folks from promoting the notion. Regularly. Like water flowing down from the mountain. Because it's obvious we need to support my religion. I used to think the atheist were obsessive about fighting this, but they have a good point; it's insidious. There's never enough. The only recourse is to draw the line at 'none'.

Yes. Unfortunately, even our mostly atheistic nation isn't completely immune to this ...

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It MIGHT be too much, after all freedom of faith IS part of our tradition (after traditional problems with faith-based wars, which were obviously all between Christians but that didn't made them any more civil) but support for parties which are against immigration is rising ... and this would protect our culture almost as well as no immigration at all.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, in a "May you live in interesting times" sense.

Definitely.

Of course, we DO live in interesting times. Unfortunately. And it seems that something like this wouldn't have even just chance to be the most interesting thing happening.

(I think that specifically Coronavirus epidemic will remain on quite short list of notable epidemic quite a long time. I mean, I hope so because it would only disappear if there would be something worse soon.)

Darth Fluffy · March 23, 2020

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On the other hand, Gnosticism was only recognized as heresy later ; it IS possible that Thomas the apostle had opinions later labeled as gnostic. His "I don't believe until I see it" would point in such direction, wouldn't it?

Well, I have more trouble with the label, 'heresy'. It's kind of an intellectual shut down from someone(s) currently holding the reins, the implication being that their knowledge is perfect and complete and they are in a position to judge others. I'm not buying it. The topic is nuanced and complex and most of all hidden and mysterious, unobservable, for the most part, so dogmatic finger pointing is not really warranted. If our alleged God exists, I think we can agree that he is essentially incomprehensible. Powers that be, stop deluding yourselves and pretending you comprehend him. So you and I are arriving at the same point, perhaps by different means; or maybe more similar than it appears at first glance.

It might be useful to link to the Wiki article on Gnosticism. The fundamental core is that knowledge will save you. I think there is some truth in that, but that take to an exclusive extreme, you are back in the first paragraph, pointing the finger at others. Which would speak favorably of a balanced approach where knowledge was held to be significant, but other factors were also important. Now, I have not read The Gospel of Thomas, but the Wiki article about it seemed to be pointing this way.

The Gnosticism article says the same thing I did, Gonstic writing suppressed, Gnostics have motivation to slip their notions into works. Which is kind of what you are saying, or maybe better stated as overlaps; later folks modifying the content to represent their views.

Did Thomas write it? I don't think there's a compelling case, nor do I think it's particularly important. You point, however, that he would have valued knowledge, is a good one, I think you're right, he seems to have that fact checking angle going on. He did it twice in the gospels, and he is contrasted with 'have faith', but I don't see the particular merit of naivete; perhaps I'm missing something. Paul later praises the Bereans (believers from the town of Berea) for fact checking.

Paul is Gnostic slanted, he is very educated and erudite, argues in the learned Greek debating centers, but he himself walks around 'it's not sufficient'. Jesus's spin, I'd call it difficult to follow. He refers to his disciples as 'sheep', but whether that's positive or negative seems to vary with context. As in the Bible at large, he seems to view the rejection of knowledge as dangerous, but again comes back to 'insufficient'.

And that is a fair point. Having the knowledge is important, but so is what you then do with it. That's true of so many things. Isn't one trope having book learning, but no practical sense of how to apply it? Or well educated, but no common sense?

Perhaps that's why Gnosticism was viewed as a heresy, maybe too focused on one aspect of what is needed for character? Albeit, the Roman Catholic church in particular, but all churches do it to some degree, seem to say, "We (clergy) will be educated for you, you don't need knowledge for yourselves." That's a dangerous viewpoint, easy to abuse. Has that ever happened?

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The apostles obviously had reason to write something down ; however, later authors had reasons to modify what they wrote.

I'm pretty sure I've previously posted on this forum, the first thing in any Bible is not Genesis. There is always translator notes, reassuring the reader that when choices had to be made, the translator slanted the translation toward the reader's viewpoint. How is this not a disclaimer that that the translations are biased?

I've read key verses in versions of the Bible that the mainstream does not like, like the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible and the Mormon Bible, and the highlighted omissions or changes do not significantly change the overall message. It's like a blemish on the wall, it's annoying, you want to paint it, but the wall is still there.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not expert on the issue, but I remember to read that those gospels (or at least some of them) don't even read as consistent texts and that parts seem to be copied between them or from older source. In fact, see wikipedia take on this subject.

Nor am I. I think it's clear that what we have today are consensus works, and while we attribute them to an individual, they would have had at the very least a form of peer review; which also explains why there's some variation in the texts, some anecdotal sections added in some manuscripts.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, there are speculation about John's use of Psilocybe. Or was that different John? On wait, it's unlikely someone would know.

I think that's in conjunction with The Book of Revelations aka The Revelation of John, which is a recount of a vision he had, 'he' being a dude named John who is said to be the same John that wrote The Gospel of John and the Letters aka Epistles of John, but there were a lot of Johns. So yeah, what you said.

There were a lot of Jesuses too, probably why he's often referred to by some other qualifier, like the Nazarene (from the town of Nazareth).

There are fewer Thomases (then). It means 'the Twin', so is slightly uncommon. If mom calls, "Thomas" do they both come running? Or is one the designated spare. I guess for inheritance purposes, one is the elder.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I must admit it's not my personal experience, just something I read, and I might misremember who it was.

These people affect our nominally secular text books, ('teach the controversy' <eye roll>), so it's kind of a big deal here. Google 'Monkey Trial' and be amazed at how long we've been dragging this dead weight around.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It's not surprising they disagree OR that they fail basic logic.

There is a saying, "Never mud wrestle a pig, you'll both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it." One of the problems with debating these yahoos is that it's giving them a measure of credence to even do so. Bear on mind, they're not even wrong.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

As a bonus, none of those days is really 24 hours. The solar days is closest with current value of 86, 400.002 seconds. And, yes, it changes.

As an engineer, I'd say, 'It's close enough'. That .002 seconds is not going to matter when you are covering your tomatoes for the night, against the frost.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I wouldn't be surprised if many creationists would have similar issues with understanding squaring numbers. However, they don't have the excuse of living in first century AD.

In his discourse, Jesus expected his first century listeners to be able to follow multiplying two numbers, so it wouldn't be much of an excuse.

In spite of what you might think many of the Creationists are well educated. Follow the Monkey Trial link. The prosecutor was a big name lawyer, successful at his profession. The law under consideration was passed in a sate legislature, and while there is no test to qualify to be a legislator, you have to be somewhat savvy to complete; Forest Gump does not win a seat.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Although I would argue against your implication that Romans were first coming with term for ten thousand. They might make it popular, but in 400 BC Greek already used οἱ Μύριοι. In fact, they normally counted up to myriad myriad (one hundred million) and Archimedes proposed system counting to 10^{8x10^16}.

True, it was only innovative in the context of their own culture. The Greeks were far ahead of them, which they knew and they valued Greeks for their knowledge. Literally. Slave culture.

I don't know why mathematical knowledge did not bleed over from one culture to the next more efficiently than it did, because surely the Romans had access to Greek knowledge. I suppose different number systems and systems of calculating was a hindrance. Probably cultural resistance to change. We still have this today, and it can have expensive consequences. I drive miles, buy pounds of produce, and drink cups. My billion is different than your billion. My space agency crashed an expensive probe into Mars because of the differences.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yes. Unfortunately, even our mostly atheistic nation isn't completely immune to this ...

Well, you've got to scream something during sex. Do you say, "Oh, my lack of God"?

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Definitely.

Of course, we DO live in interesting times. Unfortunately. And it seems that something like this wouldn't have even just chance to be the most interesting thing happening.

Bad time to be a comedian. The jokes are writing themselves, you're just the delivery boy.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(I think that specifically Coronavirus epidemic will remain on quite short list of notable epidemic quite a long time. I mean, I hope so because it would only disappear if there would be something worse soon.)

I don't think it's going away. In a few years, it will be one the the shots you get.

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