h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Because this is about me, I'll just point out that all I've said, is I never received them. I don't know if they got lost, or what...

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AFAIK, the same standards applied to early handwritten copies of the NT.

"(though I manage it somehow ). "

Interesting. I don't recall actually ever having met a religious Jew (or Hindu, for that matter) on this thread or H2G2 in general, despite the prevalence of pagans, christians, and atheists/agnostics here. I wonder if there's a reason? Or am I just forgetting people/not here enough?

There's just no discussing certain issues with some people. Still, that would explain other unusual beliefs I guess. ">>

well as people come on here from all over the globe , good guess there beliefs will differ .

Hi Dr J
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It's true. I've seen some old copies and they're very beautiful. A synagogue round the corner from where I live has a roll from what I think is the 16th century.

Among the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran) was a famous scroll of the complete book of Isaiah. When compared with Masoretic texts from the tenth century (the earliest available until Qumran) there were no significant differences, showing just how accurate the copying has been over the centuries.

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I'd love to see something like that...

Hi there Apple. I know it isn't the real thing, but you can always Google for images such as this one: http://faculty.luther.edu/~martinka/art43/daily/first%20days/deads.jpg

Here's my original search result: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=dead%20sea%20scrolls&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-48,GGLD:en&sa=N&tab=wi

toxx

Interesting link Toxx, I poked around and found this quote from Lucian(born in 120AD) @ http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/saw.html

'Lucian, Perigrinus, 11ff.

It was then that he [Perigrinus] learned the wondrous lore of the Christians by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine. And--how else could it be? He made them all look like children; for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

... The poor wretches have convinced themselves first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody, most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another, after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods, and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property--receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan or trickster able to profit from them comes along and gets among them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk.'

alji

"I don't think it's a 'slur' to comment that someone has unusual beliefs."

that wasn't the slur, toxx, and you know better than that. Naivete ain't your thing! the slur was:
You said of Jez that "There's just no discussing certain issues with some people" and connected her beliefs to that. The implication was that there is some sort of connection between the two.

"Those who do are usually happy that it is so. Math is certainly content to be regarded as eccentric. So am I, for that matter."

So did you mean "eccentric" by "There's just no discussing certain issues with some people", and does that mean you feel that all eccentric people will hold minority religious views? I'd have to say it's a tenuous argument, toxx, and you've not evinced any evidence.

"Given an unusual belief set, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the remainder of that belief set is also such as to accommodate the known unusual elements."

so you really are proposing:
"There's just no discussing certain issues with some people" = eccentricity
Eccentric people are uniformly eccentric
therefore Eccentric people hold minority religious beliefs

Math may be content to be defined as eccentric but I am not. but that would depend on how you define eccentric. If, for example, your definition lies along the line of "anyone holding a minority religious view is eccentric, this is self evidently (in the above case) circular.

Me: How does criticism of lustful intentions = Feminist>

Toxx: "This all goes back to the evolutionarily derived differences between the sexes."

well, no, toxx; it goes back to your suggestion that any criticism of lustful intentions is 'feminist'.

"One form of feminism tends to decry male characteristics it doesn't like, and to deny those that would otherwise seem to them to be creditable."

Actually, being bisexual, I don't regard lustful intentions as a male characteristic.
In addition, in the original context it was not lustful intentions per se but (if you'll forgive me) lustful intentions which might be seen as inappropriate e.g. given an age difference and the fact that the recipient has told the one offering the intentions that they are unwelcome. That is not a gender related issue to me, but one of a person imposing their views on someone else - one of harassment. How does feminism come into this unless you wish to state that if someone has lustful intentions she or he has the right to express them freely and without regard to the recipient? If that is your argument, I would suggest that it is out of step with majority societal values which have nothing to do with "feminism" and everything to do with respect for individual choice.

"As Roymondo says, lustful intentions are just fine and natural. Assumption and then criticism of them is something I particularly attribute to this form of feminism."

If both you and Roymondo make this assumption then, as someone who is bisexual, that seems to me to be a particularly heterosexual opinion, *and* one which seems to me peculiarly male-centred.

"It is the implausibility of the assumption that suggests the vacuity of the charge. Lustful intentions evolved to be triggered by the sensory awareness and proximity of a suitable female."

sorry, this again seems to me to be an heterosexual assumption. For a number of men, it would only be other men. How would this make the charge feminist?

"Admittedly, I am relying on the assumption of the truth of a theory myself. I do so in order to understand why certain charges are made. This might be seen as 'ad hominem', but I've already mentioned how this category breaks down in the face of certain belief sets or subsets."

Nope. It seems to me your logic is faulty as it is predicated on a priori assumptions about the nature of sexuality and the responses to it, based on a subset model being the only set of parameters, and the politics attached to that model being, therefore, having universal application.

If there's a schul in your area you should consider asking the rabbi there, the worst he could say is no. It's not a sin to show the scroll to a goy [non-jew] that I know of [if so then my rabbi is guilty], but some scrolls are very old and treasured dearly, adorned with silver or gold. Not that ANY torah is not treasured, make no mistake about that; little else has as much importance to jews. Among all the prayer books and other items in the schul, the torah scrolls are kept apart in an ornate cabinet called an ark; in front of the ark is a light that always burns; before the ark can be opened a prayer must be recited. Jeepers, there's a prayer for almost everything you do with the torah from what I can recall. Short prayers are sung or chanted as you remove the silverware, then the silk covering. AT times during the sabbath prayer sessions the rabbi or someone he chooses will hold the torah over his head and walk through the congergation, allowing closer contact withthe people. Nobody actually touches the scroll, only the wood it's rolled up on, directly. Men will touch with the tassels at the end of their prayer shawl [talis] and women will usually use a prayer book, then they will kiss what they used to touch the torah. I can tell you that carrying a torah over your head isn't easy-think of holding two rolling pins with 15 pounds of pizza dough on each one over your head. There's always someone ready to help if you think you might drop it. My last exposure was just a few years ago, in 1972 at my bar mitzvah at Grossinger's Hotel in upstate New York.

What I found most intersting, Andrew, was the old and new were mirror images of one another, right down to the complex shapes of the letters no matter where you looked.

I should point out that I'm not heterosexual, and just think sex is fun, and not something to get hung up about.

But society does not always permit us to indulge our sexual feelings with abandon.

Thanks, toxxin. Having a look right now...

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There's one in the CBD, near us, and when we lived in Wellington (the capital city) there was one right down the road from us.

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It's lucky you have someone to help! That account is very interesting, Dr J.

The nearest I got to going in to the local synagogue in Wellington, was a book sale the attached pre-school was having, partly in memoriam for a local photographer killed in a helicopter crash in 1987.

I don't think I'd gone far into the logical connections of my thoughts about discussing and unusual beliefs. On reflection, I'd put it as follows.

Sometimes, in discussion with an individual, the analysis becomes stuck on a premise which one party believes true and the other false.

This will happen with greater frequency if, and to the extent that, one or both of the parties has non-standard (eccentric) beliefs.

Eccentric beliefs in one area (belief subset) will require adjustments in the rest of the belief set, in order to keep it consistent.

Hence discussion involving eccentric(s) is likely to get 'stuck' relatively easily whatever the topic.

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I suggest that holding minority religious views is an indicator of more general eccentricity, although not part of it's definition. Hence there is no circularity. It's possible that the religious views are hived off into a separate 'compartment'. Possibly, they are knowingly inconsistent with other of the person's more generally accepted views.

So there you have it with a bit more formality, HS. Do return to this if you find it unsatisfactory.

toxx

I fear I'm in no position to forgive you, being between the Scylla of your accusations and the Charybdis of az's requirement that I don't discuss the topic. I am also constrained not to reveal confidential communications which could cast a different light on relevant matters.

Where is the evidence of any lustful intentions on my part, apart from some very light badinage? It is a different matter where the recipient of communications wishes them to cease only following intervention by third parties claiming that the communications, whatever their content, are inappropriate. It seems odd to me to have rules about who may speak to, and share interests with, whom! Any private conversation is assumed to be motivated by lustful intentions. What a load of humbug!



Not 'a priori'; I base my thinking on an accepted body of work in Evolutionary Psychology. We might not be able to tell an evolutionary story about homosexuality, for obvious reasons. But then again, it might have contributed to group survival by limiting the numbers of young mouths to be fed by the group during hard times.

I have to admit that I'm not clued up with regard to the feminist approach(es) to variant sexual orientations.

toxx

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I didn't know that. Was that the way the Essenes (or whoever) wrote, or is it a reverse impression through the scroll?

I've heard the Masoretes put the vowels in; if so I guess that would make a difference in the text itself.

While I'm on the subject of old scrolls lost in the desert, most of the Old Testament texts are represented to some degree at Qumran. The New Testament texts are not represented there. But there are New Testament fragments around from other places dating from that era (up to the year 150) or a bit later, and they show that the specifically Christian texts have been conserved accurately with very few variants.

Hi Dr J
Forget my question about Essenes: I now realise I misunderstood your previous post completely!

The copies are exactly the same, and what the links don't give much of a sense of is the size: these texts are large-scale.