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Posted
Have you been to a church service? Not exactly interesting. The happy clappies try to jazz it up a little but I'd rather go somewhere you could have a drink while listening to the band.

The church services I went to as a kid and teenager were the primary cause of dispensing with any religious views and becoming mildly hostile to it.

 

Sitting there listening to some bloke tell you how bad you are and how much you need salvation, week after week, gets on the nerves after a while!

 

 

Posted
Beyond belief, all things are possible. How could that be dull? Nev

That should be the way it is, but the people I'm talking about appear to be without belief, say nothing that indicates any attempt at studying history without a chip on their shoulder, but just sit on the fence waiting for someone to post, then come out like a small dog, mindlessly yapping.

 

 

Posted
The church services I went to as a kid and teenager were the primary cause of dispensing with any religious views and becoming mildly hostile to it.Sitting there listening to some bloke tell you how bad you are and how much you need salvation, week after week, gets on the nerves after a while!

In that case your beef is with one of the Christian denominations - there's a wider world out there that doesn't flog that story, which usually changes for a few minutes when you throw money in the plate.

 

 

Posted
...Sitting there listening to some bloke tell you how bad you are and how much you need salvation, week after week, gets on the nerves after a while!

Especially when, years later you discover they already knew of gross hypocracy of church elders.

 

 

Posted

I want one that allows you to use your own brain. Not indoctrinate you with garbage and try to get all your money to make their version of a god messenger rich. Nev

 

 

Posted
That should be the way it is, but the people I'm talking about appear to be without belief, say nothing that indicates any attempt at studying history without a chip on their shoulder, but just sit on the fence waiting for someone to post, then come out like a small dog, mindlessly yapping.

Don't punish yourself TP, I don't mind your yapping.

 

Studying history (human history, anyway) is a fraught exercise. Historical events are not something we can read one view on and say "it definitely happened this way". It's generally written by whoever held political power at the time, and that narrow view is redacted, revised, altered, lost and misinterpreted over the years. Physical evidence is great but it doesn't give a complete picture. For example if you just looked at a 12th century English cathedral you might say "What an advanced civilisation! Look at the skill and craftsmanship that went into their buildings, they must have been a rich and prosperous people."

 

The truth of course (or as much as we know) is that the vast majority of buildings were crude 1-room huts without even the benefit of chimneys (smoke from the central fire just gathered under the roof until it escaped from the eaves) and the majority of people were poor as muck and spent their lives in servitude to others. Sanitation and medicine were pretty much non-existent and art was limited to depictions of religious stories.

 

Add to this the censorship imposed on people recording history and you can't get an accurate picture of the people at the time. An Egyptian pharaoh may have been an inbred, retarded drooling idiot (fairly likely given their penchant for marrying family members), but history will record them as a great and noble leader.

 

 

Posted
say nothing that indicates any attempt at studying history without a chip on their shoulder

The problem with histories is that there are too many of them. We choose which to believe, invariably the one that supports our opinions. If you want to believe in a god, you can find proof in the texts you want to believe in - just ignore the rest.

 

I wouldn't call it a chip on the shoulder. Subjective view is a probably more accurate description.

 

Now, where did I put my unicorn book?

 

 

Posted

OK then, history doesn't exist, so you can stop pedalling some academic's version of the "History" they want you to believe. That should free you up to go and do your homework on the past.

 

 

Posted
Don't punish yourself TP, I don't mind your yapping.

That's exactly what I was talking about - mindless use of forum space.

 

Studying history (human history, anyway) is a fraught exercise. Historical events are not something we can read one view on and say "it definitely happened this way". It's generally written by whoever held political power at the time, and that narrow view is redacted, revised, altered, lost and misinterpreted over the years. Physical evidence is great but it doesn't give a complete picture. For example if you just looked at a 12th century English cathedral you might say "What an advanced civilisation! Look at the skill and craftsmanship that went into their buildings, they must have been a rich and prosperous people."The truth of course (or as much as we know) is that the vast majority of buildings were crude 1-room huts without even the benefit of chimneys (smoke from the central fire just gathered under the roof until it escaped from the eaves) and the majority of people were poor as muck and spent their lives in servitude to others. Sanitation and medicine were pretty much non-existent and art was limited to depictions of religious stories.

 

Add to this the censorship imposed on people recording history and you can't get an accurate picture of the people at the time. An Egyptian pharaoh may have been an inbred, retarded drooling idiot (fairly likely given their penchant for marrying family members), but history will record them as a great and noble leader.

People who want to do their homework would not be sucked in by your simple examples. These days, particularly with the benefit of the digital age, you can find the archaeological evidence, the anecdotal evidence, the musical evidence, and you can cross reference ancient sources. Week by week the incorrect histories are being exposed for what they are.

 

 

Posted

Which IF it is then documented will be some academic's version of some event. Just more grist for the mill.

 

This is the problem We get views interpreted for us and facts selectively presented. TRUTH is undervalued, and discarded or covered up, if it affects the story adversely. Nev

 

 

Posted

Yes and No. The leveling factor is the electronic media which gives both sides the opportunity to tear down false assumptions, and many have been torn down over the last decade.

 

 

Posted

The only thing electronic media does is give a voice to the fringe elements who then are over-represented online. You can't define a "truth" by seeking a middle ground between opposing views.

 

People who want to do their homework would not be sucked in by your simple examples.

Point out one error with my "simple examples" along with supporting evidence, if you want to be taken seriously.

 

 

Posted
What? supply supporting evidence for a post which didn't supply supporting evidence? Dream on.

Funny, that's exactly the response I expected. Can't refute with facts.

 

OK here you go:

 

Lack of chimneys: http://www.ultimatehistoryproject.com/chimneys.html - "The origin of chimneys, designed to carry smoke out of the dwelling, remains unclear, but it is unlikely that chimneys were constructed in Europe prior to the twelfth century."

 

 

Crude 1-room huts: http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/123%2013%20society.htm - "

 

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A medieval peasant's house

 

 

 

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Wood was in short supply in medieval England so only the frame of the house was constructed of timber. There were no foundations, but the timbers were sometimes placed on stone supports to discourage damp and rot.

 

The spaces in the walls were filled with branches and twigs, caked together with mud, and the whole surface was then coated with a limestone wash to render them waterproof. This system was called "wattle and daub."

 

The roof was generally thatched with straw.

 

The floor was simply earth, which was covered with straw (periodically thrown out and replaced) to reduce dust and dirt.

 

The internal floor-plan tended to be very simple - the house was divided into a byre for livestock and supplies, and a living area for people with a central hearth. Generally, there was no chimney - smoke merely escaped through a hole in the roof.

 

 

Sanitation: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/life-in-medieval-york - "By today’s standards, hygiene in medieval England was appalling, with debris and waste building up in and out of houses and on the streets. Families had to get rid of their own rubbish and often dumped it in their own back yards.

 

 

 

Cess-pits were dug near properties and usually back-filled with normal rubbish and soil. Deeper pits were dug to act as wells. The water in the wells had passed through foul conditions, however, and was unfit for drinking unless it was heated in the process of brewing.

 

 

Medicine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine_of_Western_Europe - "Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of existing ideas from antiquity, spiritual influences and what Claude Lévi-Strauss identifies as the "shamanistic complex" and "social consensus."[1] In this era, there was no tradition of scientific medicine, and observations went hand-in-hand with spiritual influences."

 

 

I could go on. Your turn Turbo.

 

 

Posted
...- "Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of existing ideas from antiquity, spiritual influences and what Claude Lévi-Strauss identifies as the "shamanistic complex" and "social consensus."[1] In this era, there was no tradition of scientific medicine, and observations went hand-in-hand with spiritual influences."

...

Like most cultures, the peoples of Europe would have developed a reasonably extensive knowledge of useful plants and herbs. Most of that was lost when the God botherers had the people with that expertise burned alive in their thousands.

 

 

Posted
Funny, that's exactly the response I expected. Can't refute with facts.

Not can't, just not interested. I did take you seriously for a while, and this was almost something original, but has nothing to do with religion.

 

 

Posted
That is interesting, because that is just what Jesus said (as recorded in Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14): "Enter ye in at the strait (= narrow) gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it".

I was thinking more Bon Scott and Robert Plant.

 

 

Posted

Interesting interview with professor Robert Darnton on Late Night Live yesterday on the subject of censorship. Apparently textbook publishers in the USA have to print different versions of the same textbook for some US states. For example textbooks bound for California can be complete, where those bound for Texas are heavily edited.

 

Why?

 

Because states like Texas have a board of governors who control the education system and decide the syllabus. These governors are mostly extremely conservative in their religious views. The publishers know that if they don't edit the content to remove "contentious" stuff like Darwin's theory of evolution, their books won't be used in that state.

 

Oh, and talking of nut jobs, apparently Donald Trump is currently the leading contender for the Republican nomination.

 

 

Posted
Oh, and talking of nut jobs, apparently Donald Trump is currently the leading contender for the Republican nomination.

Guy has run successful businesses amongst other successes, you know they are seriously worried about him by the "nut case" smear program they are running against him.

 

 

Posted
Guy has run successful businesses amongst other successes, you know they are seriously worried about him by the "nut case" smear program they are running against him.

We could really use some politicians that have actually had some experience running a proper business, and turning a profit.

 

 

Posted

Bex I've been trying to agree with your post about Waleed Aly, but it seems to have been erased.

 

I sure don't share his religion, but the bloke runs rings around most commentators and politicians.

 

Surely people like him should be kept inside the tent.

 

 

Posted
Guy has run successful businesses amongst other successes, you know they are seriously worried about him by the "nut case" smear program they are running against him.

Er... he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and daddy's money put him thru the best schools, following which he's run a chequered career where sometimes he's made a motza and other times he's fallen on his ar*se. He's a mixture of blow-hard showbiz and single-issue politics ('We love WINNERS! We hate LOSERS!').

 

His recent achievements include calling all Mexicans "rapists" and calling John McCain a loser for being shot down and captured in Vietnam (while he was avoiding the war altogether).

 

Basically he's Pauline Hanson with more money and less looks.

 

 

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