JamesHackerMP

If I understand you correctly, Betsy, you are stating that because the ancient authors were divinely-inspired, God was somehow teaching them science, which they put in the Bible? I hope that is not what you are saying, because that's absolutely fallacious. Here is a rather hilarious episode from Genesis that shows the ancient authors didn't have a clue when it came to science, and they left their unscientific mark on the Bible. After Rachael gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban: "Allow me to go to my own region and land. Give me my wives and my children from whom I served you and let me go, for you know the service that I rendered you." Laban answered him: "If you will please! I have learned through divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you." He continued, "State the wages I owe you, and I will pay them." Jacob replied: "You know what work I did for you and how well your livestock fared under my care; the little you had before I came has grown into an abundance, since the LORD has blessed you in my company. Now, when can I do something for my own household as well?" Laban asked, "What should I give you?" Jacob answered: "You do not have to give me anything. If you do this thing for me, I will again pasture and tend your sheep. Let me go through your whole flock today and remove from it every dark animal among the lambs and every spotted or speckled one among the goats. These will be my wages. In the future, whenever you check on my wages, my honesty will testify for me: any animal that is now speckled or spotted among the goats, or dark among the lambs, got into my possession by theft!" Laban said, "Very well. Let it be as you say." That same day Laban removed the streaked and spotted he-goats and all the speckled and spotted she-goats, all those with some white on them, as well as every dark lamb, and he put them in the care of his sons. Then he put a three days' journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban's flock. Jacob, however, got some fresh shoots of poplar, almond and plane trees, and he peeled white stripes in them by laying bare the white core of the shoots. The shoots that he had peeled he then set upright in the watering troughs where the animals came to drink, so that they would be in front of them. When the animals were in heat as they came to drink, the goats mated by the shoots, and so they gave birth to streaked, speckled and spotted young. The sheep, on the other hand, Jacob kept apart, and he made these animals face the streaked or completely dark animals of Laban. Thus he produced flocks of his own, which he did not put with Laban's flock. Whenever the hardier animals were in heat, Jacob would set the shoots in the troughs in full view of these animals so that they mated by the shoots; but with the weaker animals he would not put the shoots there. So the feeble animals would go to Laban, but the hardy ones to Jacob. So the man grew exceedingly prosperous, and he owned large flocks, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. (Gen. 30: 25-43) There was apparently an incredibly scientific [sarcasm inserted] belief that if the goats saw certain visual impressions whilst mating, they would be born with that color. (He was rigging it so that he could get the better of Laban as far as his promised "wages" he mentioned.) Jacob was told by God in a dream to do this (check Gen. 31:10-12) (BTW, the copy of the Bible I have has pretty extensive footnotes.) God did not stop to instruct Jacob on the finer points of genetics....or the hydrologic cycle...or the second law of Thermodynamics. Why would the divinely-inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews try to teach science to others at the time who were equally clueless about it? God isn't trying to reveal scientific facts to humans at this stage, he is trying to teach them Christian values. You don't need to light a Bunsen burner and tinker with a chemistry set to do that. I get what you're doing: you're trying to assert that the Bible is scientifically correct in what it says, so that if a scientist argues something to the contrary, you can point to the Bible and call him not only immoral or atheistic, but unscientific. I'm sorry, Betsy but you're smart enough to do better than that. And since the Bible is full of little gems like the one above, my advice would be to seek a "larger truth"--the forest instead of the trees--instead of taking every parable or every episode of biblical "history" as literal truth. It's fine if we can agree to disagree on that but quit repeating the same thing over and over again as if I can't read well enough to notice the first time you said it. Because now you're just going in circles.

October 4, 2017 is the 60th anniversary of the Space Age. (I use the launch of Sputnik as the official beginning.) Despite all the excitement over the last 60 years about space travel and the glittering, futuristic space age that we're now supposed to be living in, there have only been a handful of the human race who have ever slipped the surly bonds of Earth (I was told about 600). We don't have a permanent colony on or under the surface of the Moon. We haven't had any non-robotic missions to anywhere other than the Moon (manned, that is), including Mars which was supposed to be the next logical step after the Moon in space exploration. True, we have a space station but there's how many people on there at any given time? Half a dozen at most? I realize what we ran into is the colossal cost of space travel, and--despite its novelty at the time of its invention--the limits and inefficiency of chemical rockets. You can only send a handful of people up at once, and the cost is in the millions. Add to that the fact you need special training to go into space. So, keeping that in mind, what is in store for space travel and space exploration by the 100th anniversary of the Space Age? (Oct 4, 2057) Will there be a lunar colony? Will there be a colony on Mars? Furthermore, SHOULD there be a Lunar and/or Martian colony? The benefits of space travel and space exploration--both manned and unmanned--have been substantial, to be sure, but so have the costs. For now, it's too dangerous, expensive in both money and resources, cumbersome and inconvenient for any more than a handful of humans to get into orbit or beyond.

Agreed. Not everyone in the world is Christian. Last I read there were about 2 billion Christians, leaving almost 5 billion who aren't. Why would God create that many people "in enmity" with him?

OK, I'm trying to understand your argument, Betsy. You are trying to support that the Bible is entirely factual because what is in it correlates with certain scientific discoveries? Or am I smoking too much incense and hitting the holy water a bit hard? Can you be a little more clear? Seriously you're all over the road here. I realize I have the tendency to wander off, but I'm having trouble getting your underlying point here.

Here's one reason why the bible cannot be taken too literally. There are inconsistencies in it, even contradictions. That's why we have to look at the forest (the larger truth) and the not the trees (the literal "events" described therein) to get the picture. Otherwise, we condemn the Bible to the realm of claptrap. I'm sure you, a good Christian, wouldn't want to do so! Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing the Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? Look to is yourself." Flinging the money into the temple, he departed and went off and hanged himself. The chief priests gathered up the money, but said, "It is not lawful to deposit this in the temple treasury, for it is the price of blood." After consultation, they used it to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why that field even today is called the Field of Blood. (Matthew 27:3-9) but in Acts, we have: He [Judas] bought a parcel of land with the wages of his iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his insides spilled out. This became known to everyone who lived in Jerusalem, so that the parcel of land was called in their language 'Akeldama,' that is, Field of Blood. (Acts 1:18-19) Same point, that Judas payed for his crime. You don't betray Jesus Christ. But if you start getting too literal, it would seem a contradiction that Matthew says he hanged himself, and Acts says his intestines spontaneously exploded. That's why you cannot take the Bible word for word. Just a couple of examples.

Now you're getting my point. I said precisely that! However, you say that, then right below you continue with the hydrological cycle, etc. The ancient authors had no idea about that!!!!! You cannot match science to the Bible, even if it is to personally "confirm" the former. If you keep comparing Bible to science, one or the other will always come up short. The best we can do with the creation myths in the Bible is to treat them as ancient Hebrew traditions. One of those myths is the great flood. Some say that the Hebrews were influenced by the ancient Mesopotamian myths of creation and floods.

Thank you....this was a welcome distraction that I needed. But I now need to clean up. I laughed so hard my own penis decided to pee itself laughing. Damn penises....

Betsy, Science and Religion are two different realms of thought. There's no point in comparing what it says in the Bible as consistent with some sort of scientific belief. Like matter and anti-matter, they are best kept separated. The divinely inspired authors of the Bible (Christian and Jewish canons alike) lacked such scientific knowledge. In fact, there's actually two different stories of creation, one right after the other, in Genesis; two differing accounts of creation. Both are SYMBOLIC. They are ancient Hebrew traditions about the creation of the world (no one had a clue there was a "universe" beyond the planet Earth or even that the "planets" were actually other worlds you could land stuff on) and are in no way indicative, or supportive of, scientific fact (or contradictive thereof I might add). That's precisely what i meant that the bible cannot be taken literally. It must be taken in context, including the context of the contemporary knowledge of the scribes who put pen to paper at that time (or at those times, would be more accurate). The reason I kept on about Bible translations was because I didn't want to quote something, only to have it thrown back at me for being "corrupted". It may seem off topic, but like I asked, is the Revised Standard Version (which comes in Protestant and Catholic editions, of minimal difference as far as I'm concerned) acceptable to you? I didn't mean to get off topic. (But if you want to know, I have two bibles at home, a Revised Standard Version, 2d. Catholic Edition (RSV-2CE), and the New American Bible Rev. Ed. (NABRE)...whichever of these two is less corrupted to you I can quote from, but the RSV2CE is more similar to the KJV and a lot of former Anglican Catholics prefer this one over the NABRE. But yeah maybe that's a bit off topic. Just tell me if either of these is reasonably acceptable to you and I'll use it.) The other reason I brought that up was that the reason there are differnt translations is that things are open to interpretation. As I asked above, how many people here actually speak the languages they were originally written in well enough to actually know for a fact that these supposedly "corrupted" texts are that? And that, as I tried to point out, is precisely why you cannot "trust the bible" as if it were word-for-word literal truth. Instead, it contains an inner truth, a message behind the mere words. People need to stop examining the woods, tree by tree, as if that would give you an accurate picture of what the whole forest looks like. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

If I may ask, what about the Revised Standard Version? Its intro claims it was a revision of the American Standard Bible of 1901, which was itself a revision of the KJV. Just curious. I would think that with that lineage, it would be more acceptable to your tastes, Betsy.

Jesus, guys...weren't we talking about the bible or something? I seem to have suddenly contracted temporary amnesia, and it seems to be catching. That's a good point about a translation. I'd like to see some of those manuscripts, too. I think whether one is "corrupt" or "more accurate" depends on who is translating it (e.g., a Catholic, Baptist, Anglican). Probably it's not the manuscripts themselves, in other words. Sometimes people get out of something what they wanted to get out of it, or believe what they want to believe. All are copies of copies of copies. Christ was illiterate and didn't write anything down in his own hand. Most of the apostles were illiterate. It used to be believed that the Gospel of Matthew was written by the Matthew mentioned as being the tax collector; we now know this to be erroneous, as it was written decades after the twelve apostles were long dead. Also, it used to be believed among Christians that the Torah (which Christians call the Pentateuch) was written by Moses. Many bibles still say "The first Book of Moses, called GENESIS" for example. We now know this to be erroneous as well. The Jewish Canon was written over the years, well after the days of the Patriarchs, Moses, and even the first Israeli kingdom. And with that in mind I am willing to bet that some (if not many, if not most) of the traditions believed by Christians and Jews didn't actually happen, but are not unlike Christ's parables. They illustrate a bigger truth. Today, Christians who believe that there was literally an Arc, that there was literally a garden of Eden, Adam and Eve literally the first man and woman; these Christians are in the minority. That is why I said, as above, that you cannot take it literally and it's open to interpretation. From a Christian perspective I doubt that God meant us to have a perfectly clear guide to interpreting his wishes. If He did, God would have backed it up with some rather admirably clear paperwork.

So besides the venerable KJV, which translations would meet your approval, then?

In this case, hotenough, she's actually spot-on.

Yeah, Galileo got in some deep sh** for that, didn't he? Seems not much has changed, in some quarters.

LOL Sorry I left rather abruptly, I apologize. I respect the fact that you have strong beliefs, Betsy, I just cannot agree on your absolutist interpretation of it. We were discussing, a few pages ago, about Bible translations. While I don't intend to read the entire book you showed me, I'm assuming you read it; so could you give me a precis of why exactly bibles other than the KJV are "corrupted"? I have heard that before and, while not a biblical scholar, I'm a little skeptical. Every Christian sect wants to think that their translation is the superior one. But how do you know that the manuscripts from which various bibles are translated are "corrupted" or "accurate"? All are copies of copies of copies. Jesus didn't write anything in his own hand. By the way, "True" God? Which one is that?

OK, I'm sorry hot enough, I think I was a bit out of line last night saying it that way. Let me get back to you on the article you posted above. The problem with "illegal" wars or invasions is, how do you define a war that's illegal? We haven't declared war since WWII. And of course the US has pulled plenty of shenanigans, as I admitted above. But certainly no less than our counterparts in Moscow. I had hoped that that would end with the end of the Cold War. An Aussie I know put it best: Now that America no longer has to defend liberty and justice, it can defend liberty and justice! But then again, there's realpolitik to consider.

I think it was more the "Arab Spring" that had to do with the rise of ISIS than the US invasion of Iraq. But perhaps it isn't so clear cut, no?

That's the best you can do? Cracked? Is this a serious discussion or not? I read the cracked "article" and thank you, it gave me a good laugh. Or at least it would have if most of its conclusions had been based on more than a few parallels with pop culture. Seriously, you can do better than that. As for the other article, let me get back to you. If it's anything like your other so called source I should have a good laugh as well.

Oooooo kkkkkk....I think we've left the realm of having differing opinions and entered that of fiction. I was talking about what was wrong with US foreign policy. You seem to have extended that to the character of Americans. I personally don't care what your opinion of us is personally. I figured we could talk about what was wrong with US foreign policy, but at least keep it factual. Do you have anything that supports your view that Hitler modeled his final solution after the US, or loved US 'propaganda"?

I am not sure about 70, but I'm aware that the US pulls plenty of shenanigens. I am definitely not unaware of this. My entire point is that perhaps the situation would be better if our policy was more consistent, more careful, slower to act when force would be rash, quicker to act when the situation actually calls for it, and the government (or at least most of it) presented a united front. (The six points I made above.) I'm not sure what you mean by setting the bar high for Germans. As far as "illegal invasions", by the way, the pre WWII world seemed more inclined to accept diplomatic conventions such as declarations of war and so forth. As far as I am concerned, there hasn't been a declared or truly "legal" war since WWII. The cold war made a lot of that stuff fuzzy at best. If you say so. But I don't see what one congressman of no particular importance has anything to do with it. Eh?

good point: more tactical than strategic. That was what I'm talking about. Perhaps it is because we allow the executive branch--the administration of the day which only lasts 8 years at most--the greatest power in foreign policy, rather than a more stable body like the Senate. yes, they have the authority to approve treaties, but of late American presidents have caught on to the idea of the "executive agreement", which is often done to bypass the attempt of the senate to veto such an agreement. Who wants those pesky senators meddling in the executive branch's business, right? If you read the rough draft of the constitution of 1787, foreign relations were pretty much under the control of the Senate if I remember rightly.

I respect your views, eyeball, but I was at least hoping--obviously I was being foolish--if the debate could tend more towards constructive criticism. There was no need to insist, as you did in your post above, that there "is something wrong with Americans themselves." We're all human beings, eyeball. I'm sorry if you see us as subhuman. But let's try to keep it civil, shall we? You don't see me going around saying that there is something wrong with the Canadian character, at least any more than is wrong with any other human being on planet Earth. Funny how some people set the bar so high for America but not any other country. But your use of the word "conflicting" is correct in my opinion. We have principles, our application thereof is quite conflicting. A valid point. Other countries also have variations in their foreign policies. But they don't change so radically overnight. Our foreign policy is short sighted because we're not thinking of our interests over the next ten or twenty years, only to the next election, or even the next congressional midterms, at worst.

I wish to point out, that that illustrates my point. Every new president has some sort of unique foreign policy doctrine, often at odds with his predecessor, and not for any particular change in the geopolitical situation.

Can we keep it more or less civil? It's one thing to accuse a country of terrorism. It's another to start getting personal with other members on here. Anyway, what do you mean by "war crime" and "terrorism"?

I don't agree with your last point. The invasion of Iraq served no practical purpose. The WMD issue didn't quite pan out to be as the government explained it to us. I don't want to get off topic about THAT, however, but despite conditions being non-static, other countries are better at making long-term strategies than the US. You can still make such a policy adaptable; that's still different than the patchwork quilt of individual policies that make up US foreign policy in general.

I'm sure the good members of MLW have their own opinions on what is wrong with their neighbor's foreign policy. It gets brought up a lot. But I think there is one aspect that, even if alluded to, isn't often discussed outright. First, its inconsistency from one administration to the next. Barack Obama is elected president. He abandons Bush's more cowboy approach in favor of trying to get everyone to "like" America. (This is a foolish idea, imho, because some people never will no matter what we do. "If you try to please everybody, nobody will like it.") So we appease the Russians and Kim Jong-Un, even when he sinks a South Korean destroyer and shells an island in SK killing 18 South Korean personnel, and make an executive agreement basically giving another untrustworthy regional power [powderkeg], Iran, the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Donald Trump is elected president and vows to undo all of that. However, I won't bring him up too much, because he's been in power for five months. A wild ride, to be sure, but let's wait and see (even if it is like watching a horror film your friends conned you into watching). This has gone on for more than just the past 16 years, it seems to be a repeating pattern, increasing in its flip-flopping since the end of the Cold War, and the demise of the bipartisan "consensus" during that period. It's now to the point where if you make an agreement with the United States, said agreement will have a maximum shelf-life of about 4 to 8 years. Second, its inconsistency within the same administrations. At the beginning of the Clinton Administration, our feeling on the ethnic cleaning resulting from the after effects of the disintegration of Yugoslavia was that "it's Europe's problem, it's their backyard." This allowed brutal strongmen to massacre hundreds of thousands, maybe more. We eventually did get involved once the EU's "reaction" proved inept, not before the massacres took countless civilian lives. When the war began over the Kosovo province, Clinton didn't wait as long, and started bombing Slobodan Milosovic before the same thing happened again. (I realize this is an oversimplification, of course.) During the 2000 presidential campaign, George II (2001-2009) vowed not to put boots on the ground to "nation-build". That promise was broken pretty quickly after September 11. (Please, do me a huge favor and spare us all the 9/11 conspiracy theories!) We invade Afghanistan (we're still there, unfortunately). And, seemingly for shits and giggles ("hell, while we're at it.....") we invade Iraq. I won't get into a debate over whether that was over oil and little else, except to say that, either way, it proves my point about inconsistency. Decrease that 4-8 year shelf life to about a few months... Third, it reacts too slow at times, not taking action when it ought to. See my above example about former Yugoslavia. Also, as far as not doing something when it ought, we should have toppled Saddam's Ba'athist regime in March, 1991. Instead, George I (1989-1993) calls it quits just short of total victory. 13 years of cat-and-mouse with the UN and no-fly zones, all of which would not have happened if we had found an insider who wasn't batshit (a tall order, yes) and put him in charge. Most of the Iraqi Army had surrendered and his grip on power was falling apart by the time Bush called a cease-fire. Perfect opportunity which Bush 1 pissed away. In 1993, there were fears that Saddam was getting ready to remobilize his army near the Kuwaiti border and do it all over again. I can also go back as far as WWII: FDR tried to get the US involved, since a National Socialist-ruled Europe would have eventually been a threat to the US, and Congress and other actors on the federal stage in Washington did nothing, until we were directly attacked killing several thousand civilians and military personnel alike, and most of our Pacific Fleet lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. If we had gotten involved in what we figured was "Europe's problem" a little earlier...well, who can say. Hindsight is always 20/20 but it might have been over sooner. however, that was pretty hard to convince the American People (and Congress) at the time, so that's probably not the best example. We react not at all when Syrian President Assad uses chemical weapons on his own people (the first time). Even the second time, Pres. Trump was not going to react; a few days later, he changed his mind (which proves my previous point just as well, about the same president flip-flopping himself). Also, the above example of where Obama did not react with strength to the sinking of the SK destroyer and the shelling of SK personnel is applicable. Fourth, it reacts where it shouldn't. See above (2003 invasion of Iraq). Fifth, we lack expertise in many regions, especially in the Middle East. All those civil servants working at the Dept of State really must not have a clue. Or maybe it's the White House staff, many of whom come and go with each administration. (This is part of my next point on the complexity of the US Government.) They're paid well enough that they ought to have a brain but somehow that doesn't seem to work. We always listen to the wrong "advice". Washington tends to like the stories spun by "back parlor exiles" like Ahmed Chalabi and others, rather than finding out for themselves what's actually going on in the region. Washington hasn't got a clue about the Middle East and many other regions of the world. This is party due to the isolationsist streak in Americans. There's nothing to restrain the idiocy of our foreign policy because Americans in general feel like "It isn't our business" about everything that takes place outside our borders. State, CIA, Defense...they might feel differently. In any case, we need to start listening to people who don't have an ulterior motive in pressuring the US to intervene. And it's hard to tell whom to listen to, when you're living in a country that's thousands of miles away from the particular crisis in question. Sixth, the government has no united front. The United States, whatever you may think, is not a calculating, monolithic bogeyman. It's inept, slow to react, and there are too many forces at work. Harry Truman said "the buck stops here". that's a nice theory of presidential governance, but no one rules alone. There are different opinions from State, CIA, Defense, the White House staff, about what he ought to do at any given juncture. Thus, the President himself ends up listening to, or surrounding himself with, the wrong damn people. In the show Yes Prime Minister, a civil servant complaining about his government hit the nail on the head, and it could easily apply to the US Government: "It would be different if the government were a team, but they're a loose confederation of warring tribes." I could go on all day, and I've had to oversimplify some things, but those are the six biggest problems with American foreign policy. sorry it was so long but I've wanted to release my vitriol at the government for a while.