Submitted by Crusoe (as a comment on the Haiti We Are Sorry blog
You list some good ideas for the structural retransformation of Haiti [Responding to Commenter Dictionary on the Haiti We Are Sorry blog]. Each in of themselves they do not depend on improved education but do depend on improved technical training (farming etc). However, for all, the long-term success of those initiatives individually and collectively leading to a successful Haiti will certainly also depend on improved education, if as we have been informed, the literacy level is so low.
This has two implications.
Firstly, immediately after initial search, rescue, medical, temporary (short and medium term) and security issues have been addressed as priority, the early reformation must include an immediate education programme, for adult and youth, such that the transformation of Haiti can begin with the active participation of her people, not as ‘serfs’ but as active individuals and communities with an understanding of the reasoning behind the methods and the aim of the methods.
I must add, that ‘transformation’ in this context is not meant to refer to bringing Haiti to the same philosophical outlook as anyone other specific group. In this context it is meant to refer to bringing Haiti to a level of self-capability and self-determination. Now, to expect say a three or four year ‘crash course’ in education and technical skills may seem either impossible or unrealistic, but unfortunately, if this is not done as one of the foundations of the rebuilding (in the context of not only structural, but as a nation of people), than all else may eventually prove futile.
This is obviously along the lines of the old phrase of teaching a man to fish instead of giving him the fish. Merely putting up structures, farms etc may certainly alleviate some misery, but while in the short term foreign contractors etc may gain much from the aid given for this purpose, the long-term goal should be to have Haitians and not only elite, but the everyday Haitian, benefit from money flows and thus create an independent people and a vibrant economy.
It is my view therefore Caricom leaders, should address the education of Haiti, as a priority, as much a priority as any other redevelopment effort.
To reinforce a point, the initial effort must not only be to set up an improved schooling system, but implement as an interim measure, an ’emergency education programme’, with the help of international authorities and the Haitian authorities. If one wants a long-term Haiti, this is essential.
We must give thanks yet again, that Errol Barrow saw the necessity of education as a developmental tool. And, we must forever resist ANY attempts to take free education from Barbadians. Indeed, those of us who wish for an improved world, must seek the furtherance of a sound even if basic education, for all peoples, as a necessity for development.
1,421 responses to “The Reconstruction And Transformation Of Haiti: A Global-Moral Imperative”
David, I just put 3 links in a comment and it was mod piled. Plainly, that is rather restrictive: 2 or fewer links in a comment. I ask you to release the comment, thanks. D
@ac
“Aren’t we all children of God and if so why do we need the Holy Spirit…”
This is such an important question. I challenge you to accept that the Creator not simply made you but is a part of you. Christians believe that this is not so and that the Creator disconnected from man, giving him free choice.
Consider that prior to chrsit coming along and plucking corn on a Sabbath, men thought it was a sin, never to be done. What message is this story sending? Use of the brain and ability to think? Or should we continue to follow what makes no sense?
Do you think that all medical staff should go to church on Sundays and leave the sick & suffering to get worse or die?
@ROK
If you read my previous response to hood most of what you said i agree with in your last response.no agrument fom me.
@ ROK
So what you are saying,ROKie, is that we are part God(creator) and part human?
Onlookers:
It saddens me to have to speak so plainly as I now will, but it is now clearly necessary.
Would ROK, or TH or others of like ilk wish to tell us that their un- or mis- informed opinions on matters of medical diagnosis, or thermodynamics, or sophisticated mathematics, or relativity theory etc were to be taken as seriously as those of knowledgeable and experienced technical experts?
Obviously not.
So, why then — after having been repeatedly corrected by the knowledgeable, on matters of basic epistemology [the theory of getting to warranted, credible truth], logic [the study of correct vs incorrect reasoning], broader philosophy (the study odf basic, hard, deep questions towards learning to love and live by wisdom), theology (with relevant history, language, literature, hermeneutics and archaeological matters), and Bible exegesis, — do they insist on doing such arrogant folly on matters related tot he Christian faith? When, they cannot even cogently address the basic Ac 17- rooted warranting case for the Christian position?
Could it be that because the Christian message comes wrapped in the package “religion” — and because they are bound-up in a deep-rooted animosity that has led e.g. ROK to insist on a slander in the teeth of his duty to truth and fairness to do even as simple a fact check as a google image search? (NB: One or two sacred heart images, some old paintings or sunday school art [and definitely not the bulk of that art], and a few movie actors do not constitute a representative cross section . . . )
[NB: Such a search, as I showed yesterday in this thread, with links, will immediately demonstrate that from as far back as the surviving art work goes, the predominant illustrations — and we have no non-controversial record that specifies Jesus’ appearance (beyond being sufficiently close to typically galilean that men sent to capture him had to have someone who knew him pick him out with the now infamous bought betrayer’s kiss of death) — reflect two trends: (i) they are predominantly of a d. brown- or [nearly] black- haired man with long straightish hair and a beard, and (ii) they (from C6 or so on) share a great many specific points of resemblance to the image in the cloth known as the shroud of Turin. This hotly debated cloth may just have historical warrant, never mind the C-14 dates on portions of disputed cloth — it was patched in the Middle ages after a fire. In any case, both Christians and Jews are forbidden to worship images, and so Bible-believing, evangelical Christians are very reluctant indeed to have anything that could be considered an icon or a statue in or around a church. (And, we are not overly-impressed with the fine points on latria vs dulia vs hyperdulia; when we can see what happens to ordinary unsophisticated people when they have such images used in liturgy.)]
Of course, in the past 250 or so years, there has been a great apostasy that has happened among even many theologians and seminaries.
That tends to lend an unwarranted air of plausibility to the idea that in religion any one opinion is about as useful as any other. Not to mention, it lends credence tot he idea that “Christian Fundamentalists” — nb increasingly an offensive smear word to be avoided, as say AP notes in its style guide — per Dawkins’ cruel but inapt quip,are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. (A big part of what has happened at BU over months is that those who believe this slanderous lie against Bible- believing Christians are casting their prejudices and bigotry over the evident facts that do not fit their beliefs. For instance, I am pretty sure that, had the proposal developed above, on Schools of Hope, come form any other quarter, it would have been enthused over by exactly the same people who now show a sullen resentment and suspicion that they cannot back up with facts. Some rethinking is in order: several commenters need to face the blatant facts that show that Bible-believing Christians in our region are not all ill-educated misfits who are inordinately wicked and traitors to their race — and BTW, biblically, we are all “of one blood” to cite the KJV rendering. Anti-Christian bigotry is just as ugly as any other form of prejudice, slander and uncivil behaviour. ROK, Hopi, et al, it is time to stop it, now. No more excuses or self-rightoeus justifications or projecting tot he despised other. Face what you have been doing, and acknowledge how wrong it has been, then turn from it. If you have any shred of un-benumbed conscience and sense of decency left.)
But in fact, even an introductory serious examination of what is the basis for the rise of modernist, post modernist and associated liberationist theologies, will rapidly show that the foundation is an indefensible imposition of secularist rationalism and ideas on Hegelian and/or even Marxian cultural evolution through thesis, antithesis and synthesis, all driven and controlled by atheistical, selectively hyperskeptical thought.
Finally, ROK et al would do well to learn that when it comes to worldviews choice, the most reasonable approach is onwe that understands human finitude and fallibility — not to mention our tendency to get caught up in confirmation bias, looking for support of what we already hold [and skeptics, this holds for YOU as well ] — and approaches the decision on comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power [elegant simplityt vs ad hoc patchworks and simplistic ideas]. An approach that is not easy for the uninstructed, but if one has been so imbued with skeptical thought that one needs to start tabula raza that is the way to go.
For most Christians who have met God in life-transforming power inthe face of Jesus, Clark Pinnock’s words ring true:
A few balancing thoughts . . .
D
A link: Here is a basic primer on the comparative difficulties approach to worldviews choice. (And yes, it was first presented as a key part of a compulsory course in a leading evangelical Christian seminary in the Caribbean, at the express invitation of its leadership.)
@ the hood
“we are part God(creator) and part human?”
Man you got me here cracking up. what is human? Man, we are all Creator. I believe that we are born with it but it gets corrupted along the path of life as a human being; as we are socialised. We become materialistic because that is what seems tangible.
When it comes to religion, we get so carried away with the personalities that we miss the message. That is what I like about Buddhism. If you see the Buddha coming down the road, kill him. The christ, allah, krishna and the likes constitute idolatry.
Take some of the principles from your own bible that we simply say but do not act on. Seek and ye shall find, the birds are fed so will you, think not where your next bread will come. We act differently. We say that is crazy; even irresponsible, yet it is a principle in your book.
@Dic
I am really not interested in your worldview. I would hate to become like you or think like you. You are in a prison that is guarded by your imaginary fire. You can’t get past the fire so you really don’t have a clue what exist outside it.
This worldview that you keep talking about is not appealing. Everybody has a worldview. here again you seek to monopolise another word, so that when we say worldview, it leads to christianity.
Everybody has a worldview. All you people trying to do is corrupt the world with your foolishness.
Onlookers:
Re ROK: . I challenge you to accept that the Creator not simply made you but is a part of you. Christians believe that this is not so and that the Creator disconnected from man, giving him free choice. Consider that prior to chrsit coming along and plucking corn on a Sabbath, men thought it was a sin, never to be done. What message is this story sending? Use of the brain and ability to think? Or should we continue to follow what makes no sense? Do you think that all medical staff should go to church on Sundays and leave the sick & suffering to get worse or die?
First and foremost, the specific case ROK raises underscores his boldness to hold forth, even in ignorance of the circumstances. Certain Pharisees were putting forth a TRADITION — i.e. in addition to the OT counsels — that Jesus corrected, by showing through several instances that if one would go rescue his animal fallen down a wel on the Sabbath, then it was proper to make a daughter of Israel whole on said day. Similarly, he pointed out how Levites and Priests did work on the weekly and special sabbaths, and pointed out how one of he most respected high priests and most respected kings — both before they ascended to their ultimate eminence — knew that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath, so needed nourishment took precedence over ritual rules. Here, then, we have Jesus’ corrective to a false human tradition in addition to — and contradicting — scripture, is being twisted into an attempt to undermine the scriptures.
Going beyond that, he also essays to “correct” core Christian understandings on the nature of God, man and our relationship with God.
In reply, let us leave off a discussion on the deep and un-resolvable difficulties faced by the implied pantheism or panentheism.
Instead we apply a very simple test:
That is how serious the sorts of things being discussed are.
G’day
D
PS: TH, the same holds for the claimed revelations of Messrs J Smith B Young et al.
PPS: Onlookers, ROK continues to try to collapse truth and our duty to seek and warrant and live by its light into debates over opinion that are decided by rhetorical tactics. Such is plainly and destructively flawed and fallacious, reflecting his underlying problem of a mind he openly declared he padlocked beyond correction 30 years ago. If he will not heed correction, then, let us at least learn from his example of error and resistance to well-merited correction.
@Dic
“a mind he openly declared he padlocked beyond correction 30 years ago.”
Like that is your favourite phrase. You like a policeman trying to arrest everybody he sees on the slightest breach of the law. What is your problem? Can’t you get it through your thick skull that people have different worldviews? You trying to degrade me does not take away from that truth. Yours is but one out of a whole population on this earth.
You will someday come to understand that this world is not about how you view it and truth is not truth only when you say so. I asked you already if you working for the CIA. You on here trying to keep everybody in check according to your gospel.
Steupse!
PPPS: Fulfilling some sobering prophecies of the scriptures . . .
Re ROK: Everybody has a worldview. All you people trying to do is corrupt the world with your foolishness.
Of course, when real foolishness has had to be corrected above, ROK has been absent on acknowledging correction, or has been brazenly defiant in slander, or has tried to change the subject. If one believes a deception, the truth will seem a foolish lie, because it does not line up with the accepted error. So, we need to learn the art of testing our beliefs, opinions and views, precisely as I have laid out and linked above and as ROK has derided and dismissed.
However, we also need to be aware of some quite relevant scriptural predictions and warnings:
Let us prayu that even ROK will wake up to his error, before it is too late. D
Note: It is ROK who openly declared that he had made up his mind on these matters 30 years ago and since then has consistently dismissed all attempts to invite him to re-examine and correct his gross errors. He may find that an unpalatable fact, but fact it is. But at least, he is not so benumbed that he is immune tot he force of the fact. There is hope yet, so do pray for ROK. D.
@Dic
“Note: It is ROK who openly declared that he had made up his mind on these matters 30 years ago…”
I never declared such. These are not things to make up your mind on, that is why you “supposedly” believe. That s why Christianity is a faith. This earth is full of knowledge, as small as it is. We keep gaining knowledge everyday. You now are settled in your mind of what was in vogue 2000 years ago. Tell me who padlocked but you? You trying to fit everything into what little was known 2000 years ago. You living in the past. All this talk about prophesy is nothing but probability. Give it time and it is bound to happen, so no dates to your prophesy, although I see you trying to manufacture some.
By the way, the twin towers started with Romulus and Remus.
@Dictionary, “Anti-Christian bigotry is just as ugly as any other form of prejudice, slander, and uncivil behavior. Rok, Hopi et al, it is time to stop it, now!…If you have any shred of un-benumbed conscience and sense of decency left.”
Sorry Dictionary, If the Pharisees who had the Law and the Testimony of the prophets of the OT, proclaiming the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, whom they vehemently REJECTED, literally in HIS very face, having seen and heard for themselves, what HE proclaimed and DID, confirming exactly what was prophecied in the OT, that HE IS THE Christ, the Anointed One of Almighty God, how can it be expected by Rok et al, who have likewise choosen to also reject *Him* and His Word, the Scriptures, to do any other, but blaspheme Him, and His followers, TRUE to form, Haters of Almighty God and His Word.
ROK et al, are no different, and are like the Pharisees, and are to be told, as Jesus said:
“You do the deeds of your father” (Satan) John 8: 41.
Rok et al, “You are of your father THE DEVIL, and the desires of you father you will want to do.” (v.44)
Let them the BU *Slanderous Satanic Snipers* SSS, crawl and rot in the cess-pit barrel of demonic filth:
“But in accordance with your (their) hardness and impenitent heart you (the BU SSS) are treasuring UP for yourself WRATH in the day of WRATH and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Who will render to each one according to his deeds; eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immoratality; but to those who are self-seeking and DO NOT obey the TRUTH, but obey unrighteouness -indignation and WRATH.” (Rom. 2: 5-8) emphasis added.
Onlookers, overnight I will upload the cite from ROK where he says pretty nearly enough just what I have had to point out. At least, his attempt to deny shows that he is aware that something is wrong. D
@Dictionary: “Onlookers, overnight I will upload the cite from ROK where he says pretty nearly enough just what I have had to point out.
Gosh Dick… Do you ever sleep?
Or do you have a team supporting you?
Or is there more than one of you?
Or are you just highly motivated?
While you work on your above, could you please answer me these two simple questions which came into my mind based on your above about the OLPC:
1. What distribution of Linux do you run on your (and yours’) workstations?
2. What distribution of Linux do you run on your servers?
To give you my answers to the above questions, in the hopes you will reciprocate:
1. Fedora.
2. CentOS.
@ ROK
Quote from Zoe:-“Let them the BU *Slanderous Satanic Snipers* SSS, crawl and rot in the cess-pit barrel of demonic filth:”
**********************************************************************************************
I wonder why this man would keep referring to himself and those of his ilk in this fashion?
“Rok, Hopi et al, it is time to stop it, now”
Just admit that when you see me or Hopi you does just get frighten as hell. You can’t imagine anybody saying the things about your god that we do. That is your problem
“Onlookers, overnight I will upload the cite from ROK where he says pretty nearly enough just what I have had to point out. ”
“pretty nearly enough”? I have problems with your interpretations. You are a twister out of control. You should be a salesman, you could very much sell the Chamberlain Bridge. We could do with the foreign exchange.
It will be good to see you explain what I meant. After all you must be god considering that you will now tell me what I said. LOL!
By the way, the only thing wrong is that I did not say that I padlocked my mind. As usual, you want to tell people what I do and what I say even though you are somebody else. I am eagerly awaiting.
Now I know where your sanity is at; no sleep for the wicked.
Onlookers:
Trying out a wireless router, and so I have a moment. Pulling my vaults:
There we have it, astonishing declarations in the teeth of easily accessible correctives — just a link away in many cases (or, like the correction tha there is abundant extra-biblical corroboration for Bible historicity on OT and NT, or that Bible believing Christians have no commitment to worshipping a blond haired blue eyed idolatrous god, right there in the threads in question . . . — but, thirty years ago, ROK claims to have come to KNOW — which means: warranted, credibly true belief — that Christianity is “just a belief,” one with “a probability that is tending to zero,” and so when he is challenged he does not show his warrant but responds “with a probability that is tending to zero, why worry?”
In short, sadly but plainly, the fallacy of the closed, yea even padlocked, indoctrinated mind.
ROK needs to re-open his mind, and re-examine the actual degree of warrant attaching to what the believes and thinks he knows, vs. that for the gospel that he so confidently rejects and dismisses, all the while — as the thread in question documents to hundreds of pages — manifesting many gross errors of fact and reasoning on his part.
ROK, surely you can do better than that.
D
PS: The Jan 8 10:40 am comment in question is here.
@Dick
What information did I seek to put out of my mind? I will prove here that you have no analytical skills or interpretation skills. Just tell me what information I sought to put out of my mind?
Do you agree that the information I sought to put out of my mind is the same one you said I padlocked? The biggest dunce would have gotten that right. You got it wrong.
“Onlookers” check the source of the extract and you will see that the information I sought to put out of my mind was information which defined god as an astronaut and a mortal.
This is a self-professed bright man. can’t even get modern writing read or analysed and trying to tell somebody something about interpreting the bible. Who really slandering whom?
“but, thirty years ago, ROK claims to have come to KNOW — which means: warranted, credibly true belief — that Christianity is “just a belief,””
Talk about a twister? I said I came to an understanding, how you manage to transcribe that to mean “know” and “true belief”. You are obsessed with that word. I am not. Stop slandering me. You are very dishonest.
Onlookers:
ROK now tries desperately to twist out of the very direct and painfully plain meaning of his words on Jan 8:
So, onlookers, do not allow him to do twist away from facing squarely what he has stated in so many words and what he needs to address through the corrections to such selectively hyperskeptical dismissals as he indulges.
Indeed, not only do we have those words, we have abundant examples of ideologised, closed-minded behaviours as already identified, some of it in this very thread, on the point: closed minded dismissal in the teeth of easily accessible corrective facts.
And, ROK:
You know that making resort to vulgar name-calling — yet again — is simply underscoring the force of the point that you are reacting in the classic patterns of the closed-minded.
Surely, you can do better than that.
G’nite
Dictionary.
Well! Well! Well! the man telling me what I said. All that happen is that he lost what was said. He lives in a fairy tale world.
Have never seen such arrogance except from the Jamaican economist. The two of you must be first cousins.
Fella, you know what it means to come to an understanding? Why are you deliberately and dishonestly twisting my words? Coming to an understanding has nothing to do with truth. It is about what people do and why they do it; even if what they do is absurd. Belief and faith (religion) on the other hand, does not take reality into account, it fits everything into a predetermined reality to help the believer either keep his sanity or hide the reality from them in order to achieve a specific purpose; maybe family planning.
I need to call you a dunce because you are not bright, and you are also closed-minded; with tunnel vision; blinkered.
@ ROK
Just as these “scholars” taking your simple,everyday words and putting their own spin on them, you can well imagine what they are doing to other people’s words as well as the words of the Bible! I rest my case!
What if you weren’t still around to to make clarification and show them up for what they are doing? They are so good that they would have a lot of people believing they were right and you were wrong as to what YOU were saying at the time!
Onlookers:
It is first of all, quite plain that ROK et al (astonishingly) have nothing substantial to say on the main topic for this blog thread:
Now, too, having tried for months to spin every thread of consequence at BU [including this one], in a desperate attempt to trash and dismiss CHRISTIANITY — thus the core of the Christian faith, the gospel message as shown in 1 Cor 15:1 – 11, ROK made the rhetorical mistake yesterday of trying to dismiss the import of his declarations of exactly two months ago yesterday.
So, despite rhetorical sand being kicked up into our eyes to blind us to the patently clear facts, let us simply and directly look again at what ROK declared ever so confidently two months ago, but for two months has proved utterly unable to back up. Here I highlight his references to the Bible, to a different “perspective” [i.e. worldview] and to the Christian faith, to make it plain just what was the focus of his dismissive ire:
Now, when confronted by his own confidently announced words — words that on a plain and simple reading of the actual text amount to implying that the Christian faith is a potentially tyrannically theocratic imposition on the Caribbean, and that it has no cogent case [i.e. if you claim something is merely “a belief” that has ” a probability that is tending to zero,” you are saying that it has little or no empirical, inductive warrant] — he proves unable to back them up in the presence of an informed Christian.
FOR TWO MONTHS, TO THE DATE.
Think about what is credibly at stake on this matter of the warrant underlying the Christian faith — our souls and the future of our civilisation — and then weep as you see the sort of fallacy of confident manner that has been used by hyperskeptics to mislead ever so many on the warrant attaching to the gospel.
(Well did Jesus warn those who mislead the naive, that ’twere better far. that instead a millstone be put around their necks and that they cast themselves into the midst of the sea. [In other words through oriental hyperbole, our Lord is saying take drastic steps to avoid misleading those who are in no position to capably judge truth for themselves.])
And Hood, the above is not an exercise in “spin[ning]” words, but in correcting such spin. That is, you have indulged a rhetorical turnabout false accusation.
Look again, and see — note the highlighted words in my cite from ROK Jan 8th — that it is EXPLICITLY the Christian Faith, once for all delivered unto the saints, that ROK sought to discredit and to demonise two months ago, declaring that he had “know[n]” the claimed dismissive truth 30 years ago, to the point where he now no longer bothers to do research, and has for “humanitarian reasons” tried to forget it sometimes.
Only, on being asked to put up his substantiation, it is painfully plain that he has none that he is confident would stand any informed scrutiny.
But then, you too proved unable to address cogent cites by CARM from founders of the LDS movement you advocated.
ROK, Hood et al, you have had two solid months, and more to warrant your case, but have signally failed. Instead, you hafve routinely resorted to rhetorical sniping by the trifecta fallacy of red herring distractors, led away to ad hominem soaked strawman caricatures, which you have ignited through animosity-laced language, to cloud, confuse, choke, polarise and poison the atmosphere. Not least, just now, by trying to distract form the clear and unmistakable import of the direct statements as cited or alluded to repeatedly, and to twist the issue about into a bogus claim of manipulative distortion on my part.
For shame!
So, onlookers, we can see clearly now the true balance on the merits, by comparing a 101 level summary of the basic warranting argument for the gospel, with the lack of ability of the many ever so confident skeptics who hang around at BU to cogently address it — for months now.
And, if you are the praying sort, joins with us in praying that these hyperskeptics will have their eyes opened to see clearly and have their consciences pricked to turn form the way of error. May God haste that day!
G’day
Dictionary.
PS: I should note, too, on how ROK so insistently used a lower case C in spelling Christianity. In a hostile context,t ha tis loaded. Nor, is his focus just the Christian faith, for Judaism is enmeshed in his dismissal of the Bible,a nd indeed, if we excerpt other claims by ROK, we will see that this is so, for instance his ill-informed attempts to infer that Judaism, not just Christianity, is copied from Egyptian paganism as is seen on the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs etc. As was long since pointed out, the Abrahamic communities of faith, derive from a primordial faith in the Most High Creator God that long predated Abraham and Melchizedek, c. 1800 BC [~ 100+ years before the Israelite sojourn in NE Egypt at about the time and place of the Hyksos semitic rulers and coming on half a millennium before Akenaten’s attempted sun god only reformation of Egyptian religion]. For, as we may read in Gen 14 — in an archaeologically well authenticated context where the Bible’s narrative first intersects with regional geo-politics — after Abraham, his personal regiment of 318 and his allies rescued Lot and the citizens of Sodom from the Kedorlaomer-led Mesopotamian league that had defeated them and taken them captive:
Plainly, at no time was knowledge of the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth completely lost, ever since Creation. And this is the true, acknowledged root of Judaism and the Christian faith that sees in Jesus the crucified and risen with 500+ witnesses, the fulfillment of the promise and prophecy [cf exp Is 52 – 53 (c. 700+ BC), with 1 Cor 15:1 – 11 (55 AD, on a summary of the witness of he church tracing to the 30’s AD)] that Messiah would come as a Saviour.
“for instance his ill-informed attempts to infer that Judaism, not just Christianity, is copied from Egyptian paganism as is seen on the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs etc.”
I really don’t know what your agenda is. Here you are trying to tell me what I said. Well let me state clearly that I never at any time spoke about Judaism and I never inferred anything since they are already on the wall of the pyramids. These are facts.
One of two things are obvious, you are either a pure idiot or you know just what you doing; trying to persecute people’s souls. You are the kind of fella that brings out the worst in people. You are so full of yourself, yet too blind to see.
Onlookers:
ROK has again failed to address the substance of what he said, and plainly cannot justify his hostile, dismissive attitude to the Christian Faith, its central message, the gospel as summarised in 1 Cor 15:1 – 11 (based on the testimony of 500+ eyewitnesses) and the Bible which is the literary corpus that communicates the core teachings of that faith.
In addition, he seems — from his remarks just now — to be unaware that the Old Testament (Tanakh) is the primary text of the Hebrew religion, i.e. Judaism, and that The New Testament and Christianity are organically rooted in that matrix. For just one instance, the concept, promise and prophecy of a suffering servant messiah who makes his soul an offering for sin and rises, prolonging his days, justifying many, and seeing his “seed” so that the will of the Lord prospers in his hands is specifically rooted int eh 700+ BC prophecies of Isaiah 52 – 63. Indeed, that is the tap-root biblical prophetic reference behind 1 Cor 15:1 – 11 (and onward), when it says in the crucial verses:
As a result of this organic rootedness of the NT in the OT, thus of the Christian faith and scriptures, any assault on the core of Biblical religion and the Bible, with especially the implication or assertion that the doctrines therein are derived from — unacknowledged — Egyptian pagan sources [and the like] becomes an attack not just on the obvious primary target, Christianity, but also Judaism.
And, what ROK has done is to state that the Biblical religion is based on Egyptian originals found on tomb walls [i.e. in the main, the Book of the Dead — a corpus of myths and magical spells for giving the mummified an afterlife under Osiris, mummified god of the underworld], and to do so has failed to understand that superficial resemblances such as life beyond death are not good evidence of derivation. For instance, it is Osiris who having been outsmarted by Set in a magical contest while drunk at a party, dies, allowing Set to seize power over the land of the living. Isis, wife of Osiris — and thus, presumably not a virgin, contra notions promoted by Harpur, and rooted in speculative (and sometimes Theosophic- occultic) ideas of Kuhn, Massey, et al — desperately seeks the coffin and then the dismembered body, in the process magically conceiving Horus as avenger once a suitable male member has been magically prepared, and in collaboration with yet anotehr god, Thoth, mummifies and magically revivifies Osiris, who then goes tot he underworld and becomes its King as the dead, even dead gods, may not return tot he land of the living. In turn Horus — who is NOT virginally conceived — grows up and eventually fights Set, triggering a general battle among the gods, leading to unbalancing of Maat [order, wisdom etc, personified as Maat, yet another goddess]. The upshot is that Horus rules but Set schemes to overthrow and so periods of order and chaos follow for humans under the gods.
This wholly pagan, polytheistic system of thought, with even the gods being magicians [said magicians being condemned universally in the Bible], is simply not the source of the Hebraic faith, which as I pointed out from Gen 14 [which is externally authent6icated on many archaeological points, and has even a subtle one-phrase reference to tar pits — i.e. to surface seeps of petroleum — where fleeing soldiers get enmeshed] is rooted in the primordial faith in the One true Creator God, the Most High. In turn, modern scholarship has over the past generation since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, more and more come to understand the deep Hebraic roots of the Christian faith. Indeed,t he only surprising feature of the Christian faith is the centrality in it of an out of place resurrection: not at he end of the ages, but so to speak at the pivotal mid-point of history. But, on closer inspection even that is precisely predicted in Is 53. And BTW we have here not a magical resuscitation of a mummified corpse for the revived mummified green god to go rule the underworld, but a living Risen Lord who walks, talks with, eats with, teaches, and even makes breakfast for his disciples.
The Book of the Dead and the like are indeed on the tomb walls of Egypt, but they are the wrong worldview, and the wrong concepts and story lines, with the utterly wrong sequence of actions and driving forces, to be the sources of the OT and NT religion.
What has happened, instead, is that speculative writers popularised notions of the long since discredited and dead History of Religion skeptical school of thought, and in so doing have provided handy dismissive rhetorical talking points used by anti-Christian skeptics to today.
BTW, before closing off, let us note that on the root point that triggered this chain of tangential issues, the assertion that Christians worship a blond blue eyed White man’s god, ROK has been — as usual — utterly unable to respond to the correction to his slanderous distortions.
He needs to face the facts of what he has said, and their implications.
He needs to recognise that for months he has been plainly unable to provide a cogent response tothe central warranting case of the Christian faith.
And, most of all, he needs to face the implications of the manifestly best explanation of the minimal cluster of facts agreed to across theological lines and schools of thought by serious scholarship in this generation, whether conservative or more skeptical/ liberal:
The salvific death, burial and resurrection of Jesus with 500+ eyewitnesses easily accounts for this cluster of facts, and for the onward facts of the millions whose lives have been transformed through the Gospel, the promises of the Scriptures and the power of the poured out Spirit, including thousands all across our region. NO SKEPTICAL THEORY IS ABLE TO COGENTLY DO SO.
So, on inference to best explanation of well attested facts, we have excellent reason to see that far from being of low probability tending to zero, the gospel message is highly credible and well warranted.
On facts we know, or should know as educated Caribbean people.
G’day
Dictionary
PS: The key root text, Is 52:13 – 53:12, c. 750 BC:
The roots of the NT concepts are plain, but of course this came as a surprise tot he C1 Hebrtaic thinkers, whose expectations were very different. it was only the obserfved and experienced fact of the resurrection and its outpoured power, that established this understanding as the central C1 Christian view, as may be seen from say Ac 8: 26 ff:
As a bonus, this last shows the fact that the gospel went to long since prepared soil in Ethiopia [notice the national treasurer of Ethiopia, c. 34 AD, had been to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage of worship!], where we see the roots of one of the first national churches, and it did so long before predominantly gentile churches were established in Europe by the Pauline mission c. 50 AD.
The biblical Christian faith is not a “white man’s religion” and it has never been.
Christians — pace many hateful and irresponsible assertions to the contrary [in this blog centering on the blond blue eyed god slander and culminating in an unrepentant call to arson by Hopi] — are NOT inherent racial traitors.
Man where will you get off. I said that I made no inference to judaism. if you want to make that connection, do it on your own. The root that you should connect to is the Catholic Church; not Judaism. The first gathering; 325 AD, Nicea.
I hope you don’t think that I have the time to indulge you or go into any depth whatsoever in responding to you. Responding to you seriously is a waste of time. You do not provide the intellectual stimulus or challenge. You are into academic cliches that corrupts the faith (and man with it) under the guise of bringing a fresh perspective to religious interpretation.
What you are doing is very dangerous, it also proves that christianity is truly a faith, because if you can come along and change the meanings and interpretations, you can be sure that changes were also done before. Is this your god’s unshakable word that you are manipulating this way?
Therefore, there are one of four options:
1. The bible is not god’s word otherwise it could not be manipulated?
2. The bible is god’s word but god is not who he say he is?
3. The bible is not god’s word but the word of man?
4. There is no god and the bible is a product of man’s active imagination?
I know that none of the above will “suit” you, but hey, the emperor is naked.
Israel, the chosen people…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8552816.stm
chosen to do what?
Onlookers:
ROK, apparently, does not understand the logic of implication.
ID A then B means both (i) A is SUFFICIENT for B, and (ii) B is NECESSARY for A. (Indeed, the classic translation of A => B is {NOT [A and NOT-B)).
Once the Christian faith is rooted in the Bible, which is a Hebraic document, especially in the OT (but the NT was written by and large by Jews too, on the understanding that Jesus was the prophesied messiah), so an attack on the core message of the Bible IMPLIES an attack on Judaism, its context and matrix.
Intent or conscious decision do not enter into the matter, though bigotry, slander and hostility towards Christians — which he seems to have no intent to apologise for and withdraw — are just as reprehensible.
But, maybe if he can realise that through he did not intend it, the positions he takes are also hostile to Judaism, that might just help wake him up to what he has been doing to the primary target of his ill-informed attacks.
In short if implicit anti Judaic claims are the point where ROK wakes up to the reductio ad absurdum he has been indulging, that is a start to recognising his error and changing his mind, then amending his ways.
Finally, after two months or so, it would be nice to see a serious positive substantial suggestion from ROK and co on Haiti.
G’day
Dictionary
F/n: Looks like the heat is on so yet another disractive red herring is posed to try to pull this poor thread off to yet another tangent. The objector to Israel just above is invited to read here, and to note especially the remarks here by one of Israel’s greatest prophets, speaking in the name of God. God’s call to Israel is DESPITE their sins.
(And we have not touched on the major problem of turnabout agitprop that hey have been subjected to, starting with former nazi propagandists who set up shop in Egypt and Syria after eluding justice art Nuremberg. Or, maybe the onlookers didn’t know that the Nazi line was that the Jews had ganged up against Germany and the world to set up WW I, then the defeat and degradation of Germany, so the Nazi-led German response was to “protect” themselves and the world from those deadly bacilli, the Jews? In short, delegitimization, dehumanization and demonizaition are classic preludes to excusing terrorist attacks and murder and the like amounting to attempted genocide against targetted unpopular groups. And the BBC has long lost its lustre as a fair, objective, credible news source. Notice how in the article there is little or no balance in addressing a very real problem faced by Israel, and there are no pictures of the victims of the suicide bombings in question carried out by those exploiting the freedoms to travel that were in place until people were murdered by the hundreds. We would not learn that here were many thousands of attacks, or attempts, with thousands dead or gravely injured. Now, put yourself in the place of a Barbados targetted by a murderous sect from St Vincent or Guyana [duly helped out by many long term resident Vincentians or Guyanese, and even by Bajan citizens with such ethnic roots, that after dozens of attacks has killed maybe 100 people and injured another 500 or so. What would the government do, and why, and what would the population think? Then come back to the BBC article from a more balanced view point.)
F.N 2: Oh, I forgot. there is no such Vincie or Guyanese cult, and there are no people from those territories aiding and abetting in murder and terrorism. How are Guyanese etc being perceived and treated in Barbados again? On what “justification”? Oh. Muy interesante.
So many things I don’t understand and don’t want to understand, especially when they are meant to warp and hoodwink. I can’t even risk learning from you because you are the master at it. You may hoodwink me into thinking that I learning how to hoodwink while being hoodwinked in the process.
How yuh like mah?
Onlookers:
ROK is slandering again and projecting irresponsible, unjustified and unjustifiable false blanket accusations of intent to deceive on the part of Christians, in a context where he has been utterly unable — after two months — to address even a 101 level presentation of the central warranting argument of the gospel and the Christian world and life view.
By now this sort of behaviour has long since passed legitimate rhetorical moves, into utterly indefensible, uncivil and disrespectful conduct.
It goes to character, and what it has to say is not very flattering, but ROK needs to heed it if he is to be a better man.
D
By your standards, being a better man means being absolutely deceitful. I really don’t want to go there. Let me see if you will say that I said this of all the christians too, because you are a very slanderous fella. You like the fella hiding in the bush and pelting stones. You want to appeal to the christians when really it is you I am dealing with. The Christians that I have known over the years are nothing like you. I speak of men of faith, quite unlike you who is of so little faith that you have to manufacture proof.
By the way, a little birdie stopped by the other day and told me that they heard that the followers of Herman Munster practice something called Hermeneutics. I told them that I never heard of that but they told me that it was the practice of mashing up the old and making new weird things with the old parts. Then I understood.
What nonsense by dictionary. Israel as an existing country wishes to be a Jewish country. It thus seeks to discriminate against its own citizens (born in Israel) who are not Jewish. It seeks to separate families because they are not Jewish. Such behaviour should be condemned not justified because someone else did the same to Jews in another country.
Onlookers:
It is sad that a thread dedicated to the task of reaching out to our brothers and sisters in Haiti has to deal with such poisonous distractors as I now have to address.
ROK, sadly, has simply descended into personal abuse and animosity.
He has the fixed notion that the Christian Faith is premised on deception, and when challenged to provide evidence to substantiate such a serious accusation, has proved to have nothing at all to warrant such outrageous assertions and inferences.
But, instead of revising his thinking in light of patently plain corrective evidence, he has continued to padlock his mind.
Sad.
But, let us recall, he needs to address and reasonably resolve the following hostility-laced, bigoted assertions of Jan 8th:
Failing a serious, sober addressing of the issues just highlighted, ROK has — sadly — shown himself utterly ill-suited for positions of trust, judgement, decision-making and responsibility, on a closed-minded prejudice based character failure.
More important than even that, he has shown himself utterly failing in the duty to seek and warrant the truth, using distorted, plainly closed-minded opinions to alienate, slander and demonise ever so many of his neighbours in Barbados and the wider region.
And, plainly, he must know the seriousness of accusing Christians of “destroying our lives,” and it is Christians he means, as Christianity as such is an abstraction that has no hands, feet or voices than those provided by Christians.
ROK has committed grievous, unrepentant slander, which he has no warrant for, and will not yield to corrective evidence.
A sad state.
And, one for prayer.
G’day.
D
PS: Anonymous, why are you insisting on yet another loaded red herring distractor?
Do you not see that such is only calculated to poison the atmosphere, where we SHOULD be dealing with the work of helping our brothers and sisters in Haiti, but have now instead had to address side issues?
In any case, you evidently do not understand the commitments made from the days of the Zionist submission to the Versailles conference [as one of many aggrieved nationalities seeking resolution of their status, in the wider context of an agreement with the emerging Arab nations represented by Feisal Hussein (son of the Sheriff of Mecca) on the joint settlement and redevelopment of the ME by these two cousin peoples; and marginally better treated than the Kurds were], and as are expressed in the Israeli Declaration of Independence — just the opposite of the implied propagandistic, slanderous comparison to the Apartheid regime you hint at.
Excerpting:
While, like any other multi-ethnic society [including those in the Caribbean], Israel struggles to live up to its ideals, Zionism is plainly not to be equated with racism, as the UN learned to its shame, but now seems to be forgetting again.
And Mr Carter is just now beginning to see that he was wrong, grievously wrong, to lend his name to that propagandistic slur designed to justify terrorism and murder, in the name of Islamist hegemony and the declared intent to massacre the Jews. Cf Hamas Charter clause 7 and its citation of the notorious Gharkad tree Hadith if you doubt me, and the similar — but subtler — terms in the PLO charter.
For shame!
Anonymous:
I think you will find this article by a Bedouin Arab Israeli Diplomat — Vice Consul Ishmael Khaldi– in response to the “Israel is an Apartheid state” slander informative and corrective:
Words to the wise.
And for those who do not understand why I am stoutly standing up for the Jews of Israel in he face of vicious slander, please read the poem by Niemoller that is linked through my handle:
D
“Onlookers”
Predictably and sadly, Dic has failed to address the folly of his reasoning and has tried to deflect the charges I levelled against him to the entire Christian community.
“He has the fixed notion that the Christian Faith is premised on deception, and when challenged to provide evidence to substantiate such a serious accusation, has proved to have nothing at all to warrant such outrageous assertions and inferences.”
Here he is in error and being totally scandalous by saying, “He has the fixed notion that the Christian Faith is premised on deception…” Actually, my charge is that the way he has approach scriptural interpretation is deceptive. He takes this deception further afield as can be seen in his constant repetition of the same old lines at, “ROK, January 8, 2010 at 10:40 AM, BU, 2nd coming at Xmas thread, to GP”.
What he has not realised is that there is a punctuation mistake at, “So because my perspective is different, I don’t research.” The mistake is that the sentence should have ended in a question mark.
Note that this was in response to the charge that I do no research. If “Onlookers” would read the sentence again one would see that this Dic has incorrectly interpreted what was written. With all his expertise, he was not able to detect that the sentence should have ended with a question mark.
So, tell me if this sounds correct, “So because my perspective is different, I don’t research?” Does that not make sense with the question mark? Without the question mark it makes little sense. In this instance, my argument was about the interpretation of data. GP was saying that I need to do more research, I said I did not need to do any further research and suggested that his difficulty with my analysis and not my lack of research, but it was my perspective, interpretation and the assumptions that I hold which are different to his. I was clearly not making the statement that, “I don’t research.”
Now it is really outrageous that Dic could try to tell you what I have said, but yet has taken the whole thing out of context in order to satisfy his agenda; whatever that is. As you will see, this is quite damaging to his credibility, because if he can’t get a couple sentences right, how can he be right on scriptural interpretations.
I have allowed him to rant and rave over this, and actually, I have not taken this man serious at all. I find it quite laughable. He does have me and my —– cracking up with his responses. He does not even realise that my responses to him are not serious and mere jest.
Take this response for example, “So many things I don’t understand and don’t want to understand, especially when they are meant to warp and hoodwink. I can’t even risk learning from you because you are the master at it. You may hoodwink me into thinking that I learning how to hoodwink while being hoodwinked in the process. How yuh like mah?”
He still does not get the message, he continues his serious response to me and in doing so, exposes his “tail” like the proverbial monkey. Note his outrageous claim, “He has the fixed notion that the Christian Faith is premised on deception…” when in truth and in fact, I am questioning his approach to biblical interpretation. His approach is not based on historical reality, but on historical pretext that not only changes the meaning, but, by presumption, tries to infer proof where there is none and has been none for more than 2000 years.
It is one thing to say that you believe, but quite another to manipulate everything to fit into your belief; you lose the reality. This is what has happened to Dic. He has lost all sense of reality and chooses to live in a world of his own, not realising that the world out there is far different than he thinks.
While he chooses to try to mislead you into thinking that I am some sort of devil and quotes me to try to “prove” he is right about me, he does not care to research enough to find where I referred to Rev. Errington Massiah who declared in an article which was reported in the Nation Newspaper, that people like Dic are an enemy of Christianity. Let him explain why a Christian is calling him the enemy and let him explain why Codrington College wants to pull them in to give them some training. Let him address the fact that he is trying to concoct proof by remotely connecting probabilities. We know how the imagination can stretch things and Dic has stretched it to the max.
I want him now to deal with the fact that hermeneutics is a South African white man’s mechanism for shifting the goal posts. We know how white love to shift the goal posts to stay on top. This is just another ploy. Dic has swallowed it lock stock and barrel. Poor fella. I suppose that the words of christ will rein on him and his ilk, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Onlookers:
Simply compare ROK’s current spin with his words on Jan 8 as I have repeatedly excerpted.
This is not a claim that my approach to Bible interpretation is flawed or a dispute on a minor point with GP on specifics, much less — and this is a new false accusation — that it is deceptive.
(And FYI, I just intervened in a more recent blog thread, posting a discussion on how to interpret the Bible, in light of basic principles and practice of reading materials for finding out what they mean. I challenge ROK to show — there, where the matters would be topical — that what I have argued for is deceptive. And he will not be able to do so, for I have said we need to read in light of grammar, words and how they are used, genre [I did not use the term, just gave instances], figures, historical and geographic setting, culture, etc. These are basic principles of serious reading that if one objects to them it shows that he is not functionally literate in any meaningful sense. And on the key passage in view, 1 Cor 15:1 – 11, ever since 55 AD it has been pivotal to the Christian understanding, indeed, the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed and the Athanasian creed are palpably built on it and the understanding of it I have put forward. And anyone who rejects this — which is abundantly well documented and researched, as well as being rather easy to see by comparing the creeds with the text of 1 Cor 15:1 – 11 [and of course several other crucial creedal statements in the NT, starting with Heb 1, Jn 1, Col 1 and Phillippians 2 in light of Isa 45] — has disqualified himself as a Christian spokesman, at least in the historic, apostolic, New testament anchored sense of being a Christian..)
On its face, the quote above from ROK, as highlighted, is a blatant all- across- the board- hostility laced attack on the factual foundations and truthfulness of the Christian faith and its scriptures.
But, for over two months now, for neither of these accusations do we find anywhere the faintest trace of responsible warrant.
Plainly, ROK refuses to face up to the responsibility he has for what he said on Jan 8, and instead now resorts to the well-worn propagandistic tactic of further distractive, turnabout false accusation.
Look, onlookers: do you see anywhere where ROK has — for the past two months and counting — provided so much as a short post justifying on facts and logic such harsh assertions as he has made, and as I have again quoted — and the link is there for all to see?
In one words, no.
Above, instead, he now claims Codrington College and a certain Rev. Errington Massiah as authorities to dismiss the undersigned and people like me as “an enemy of Christianity.”
Now, of course, what have I set out to defend that makes me an enemy of Christianity in the sense of the Historic, Apostolic, C1-based, New Testament faith once for all delivered to the saints?
ANS: Nothing.
For, I have set out to defend on facts, logic and general and sound principles of reasoning, the classic framework of Christianity as specified in 1 Cor 1:1 – 11.
And when I have been confronted by a “standard” tactic — as even this discussion [which SHOULD be about helping our sisters and brothers in Haiti, for which in this very thread I have put up a significant porposal] is about — of distraction, distortion and demonisation of orthodox, Bible-believing, historically orthodox Christians and our faith, I have identified the problem; showing why the trifecta fallacy — red herrings led out to slander soaked strawmen ignirted with ad hominems used to cloud, confuse, poison and polarsie the atmosphere thus frustrating any serious discussion — just noted is destructive and uncivil.
A problem that is manifest all over BU and far wider than BU.
Now, do Codrington College’s leadership and and the good Rev Massiah assent to ROK’s assertion of Jan 8th that:
If they do so, then it is plain that these institutions and men have denied the faith once for all communicated to the saints, and are — pardon the painful but necessary word — apostate.
(And indeed, in the past 200 or so years, as I have already linked, a major movement of just such apostasy has riddled many seminaries, denominations and pulpits; namely, modernist theology and its derivatives in various forms. My 101 level notes on this current heresy — another painful but necessary word — are here. Notes that for months of linking here at BU, no one has been able to soundly confute. And this, for the very excellent reason that I have simply summarised the true roots of modernist theology in skeptical philosophy, starting from quoting the words of a leading Caribbean exponent of said modernist theology to make it plain that I am not beating the air pointlessly, but am addressing real problems on the ground in our region’s churches. And again and again, the issue turns not on evidence and its responsible handling, but on selective hyperskepticism, as I have addressed in my already linked note on that subject.)
Let’s get direct.
Do the leaders of Codrington and does Rev Massiah accept that the best explanation of the following cluster of generally accepted facts is true, namely “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures [with particular reference to 700+ BC Is 53], 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters5 at one time, most of whom are still alive,6 though some have fallen asleep.”?
[Pardon, but I give considerably more weight to Paul, Peter (= Cephas), James, and the twelve than to any modern institution or individual.]
The 12 minimal facts as held credible by conservative and by most skeptical scholars, again:
Maybe, the problem is not apostasy, but that the good Revd et al consider that I and others like me are ill-educated, misinformed and abrasive, stirring up a wasp-nest of rage from the skeptical quarters of Barbados and the wider region.
I think that it is plain that I am not either ill educated nor fundamentally misinformed.
As to abrasive, it is rather difficult not to be painful at times when one has to confront insistent slander and irresponsible assertions as have excerpted again above from Jan 8. So, now, let us ask:
If he did not do so, then he would be plainly failing in his duty as a Man of God, given what is actually going on on the streets and in the blogs of Barbados.
I trust he did his duty, stoutly, and that he has been able to hold his own in the teeth of the sort of hostile, slanderous, misinformed and misinforming, distraction, distortion and demonisation based comebacks that have been more or less routine at BU etc.
Failing that, I am sorry, but Revd Massiah is in no position to credibly judge those of us who have had to stand the fire, month after month.
And, onlookers will observe that I have never had a strong thing to say about anyone’s case or character without abundant and unmistakable warrant of error, slander or incivility, and that where I have considered that someone who is trying to defend the Christian faith has gone too far — e.g. Zoe has allowed himself to be goaded into harsh words on occasion, I have corrected such.
So, now, after two solid months ROK still has not addressed the linked correctives to his claim that he “know[s]” that the Christian faith is just a belief without warrant, so much so that its probability of truthfulness is tending to zero.
And, in the end, that tells us all we need to know about the true balance of the case on the merits.
G’day
Dictionary
PS: On hermeneutics, far from being — note the racially loaded, further tangential distractive hate-stirring slander while ROK again fails to deal with central matters — “he fact that hermeneutics is a South African white man’s mechanism for shifting the goal posts,” it is the well established and serious discipline that, as we can see form so basic a reference as a good dictionary, is:
Had ROK bothered to be concerned to be responsible, fair or truthful, he would have addressed my basic discussion here in the thread on that matter, March 9, 2010 at 9:14 AM. He would have seen why it is that geographic, cultural, situational and linguistic setting are all material if we are to understand a text properly, and he would have seen why study and exegesis based on reading the text carefully, addressing its words, grammar, context, genre etc and wider setting are all important.
But, that would not feed into his animosity-tinged agenda.
Finally, ROK:
On the strength of not only your last rhetorical stunt of trying to turn hermeneutics into an exercise in Apartheid, but months of racially tinged animosity against the Christian faith and Christians:
IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO DEAL WITH RACISM PROBLEMS, LOOK IN THE MIRROR.
I have to point this out, in the hope that it may wake you up to what you have ever so plainly become — the mirror image of the racism you resent when it comes from Whites.
Cho man, do betta dan dat!
Dicitonary
“Onlookers” & BU Family
Please tell me which sentence makes sense:
“I do not think you have read much more than me but I have a different perspective. So because my perspective is different, I don’t research.”
“I do not think you have read much more than me but I have a different perspective. So because my perspective is different, I don’t research?”
I started off the sentence by asserting that I am doing my research when I stated that “I do not think you have read much more than me…” This is evident. If I asserted that he has not read any more than I have, is that not an indication that he has nothing on me?
I then go on to say that “I have a different perspective” and then ask the question, “So because my perspective is different, I don’t research?”
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that I made a qualified statement and then went on to ask the question based on the fact of the qualified statement. The fact of the qualified statement is that I am doing research. Why then would I now contradict that fact by stating that I don’t research?
Furthermore, I start the last sentence with “because”. It seems obvious that if I am asking a question, I would say “because this, then that?” Stating that the one does not necessarily follow the next. Which is a different way of saying, “if this, then not that.” Logical conclusion.
I will repeat that basic sentence structure renders the question mark mandatory for the sentence to make sense.
I therefore leave you to judge for yourselves, the skills of this man as one who can interpret. Then I will ask, can this man be trusted to come up with the truth about writings more than 2000 years old?
@Dict………Getting back to your posting of Mar 4 concerning some Greek known as Eratosthenes and his ‘dis-covery’ of the earth being a sphere….
Let me part you with your illusion for just s minute..
Around 5000 BC a Black Kemetian Astronomer discovered that circumference of the earth to be about 25,000 miles and he did this by studying the movement of the SUN during the Summer & Winter Solstices. His Kemetian name was Imhotep or Iemhetep [he who comes in peace, {sounds familiar?}]. Your same greek friends deified him as Asklepius.
Why did this Greek go to Aswan to discover the shape of the earth? Why couldn’t he have done this in Athens?
And according to you since the Europeans knew of the spherical shape of the earth why didn’t the Royal Court inform Christopher Columbus of such?
—————————————————————————–
Let it be known that the roots of your christian religion have been nurtured by the waters of the Hapi….here are just a few more similarities;
IU or Horus [Heru] the manifesting Son/Sun of God
Jesus the manifesting Son/Sun of God
Isis [Aset] the virgin mother of IU, her SU or Son
Mary, the Virgin mother of Jesus
Osiris [Ausaur] whom Horus loved
Lazarus whom Jesus loved
Anup the precursor of Horus
John the forerunner of Jesus Christ
Horus the Gracious child
Jesus the child full of grace
Horus as the Lamb
Jesus as the Lamb
Horus as the Lily
Jesus as the Lily
Horus the Word made flesh
Jesus the Word made flesh
Horus the Krst
Jesus the Christ
So my dear I’ll leave you with a para-quote from Massey…
“In this manner the Mythos can be followed, as it goes on eating its way thru’ the history, like the larvae of the Anobium Pertinax, where one specimen perforated 27 folio volumes in a line so straight that a cord could be passed thru’ the hole, and the 27 volumes slung up altogether.”
Yours and all others that followed the Ancients!
Hetep!