[I] Science and art of debate // was art
Flesh-eating dragon
> > > > Suzi made an aesthetic choice that a mouldy satsuma and not, for
> > > > example, the words "I WAZ HERE" fingerpainted into the dust on a
> > > > disconnected modem was the appropriate example to illustrate her
> > > > point. That was art.
> > >
> > > Nope. That was debate.
> >
> > The *art* of debate.
>
> TINAOD. Debate is a science; you use the words that do
> the job, and if they happen to be the ones that look pretty,
> they still haven't been chosen for aesthetic merit but for
> functionality.
[really? so suzi's conducted this debate in laboratory conditions
500 times and used "mouldy satsuma" as the illustration in 25 of
them, "bent toenail clipping" in another 25, "ball of fur from cat"
in another 25, "mousepad glued to ceiling" in another 25, "I Waz
Here finger-painted in dust on a disconnected modem" in another 25,
etc? - how do you mean a science]
When you're talking about inanimate objects, you can talk about pure
functionality. For example, a match owes its functionality to physics
and chemistry. When you're talking about the human brain, however,
functionality is more complex and often depends on aesthetics.
A debate owes much of its functionality to aesthetics. You choose the
words you think will conjour the most vivid and persuasive mental
image other people's minds, and in the process you assess your own
reaction to those images. That is a blatant example of aesthetics.
Sometimes you make that choice consciously and other times
subconsciously. I don't know if Suzi /consciously/ considered a number
of other illustrations. It doesn't make much difference. Suzi still
used art, even if only in the same way that a lump of metal with 0.001%
gold is a gold alloy.
My position in the "art" thread is that since many things an average
human being does each day involve art to a small extent, it is
absurd to glorify extremely trivial examples of this quality by
displaying them in a gallery. I've not seen any attempt to sensibly
critique either part of that position.
Adrian.
Eric Jarvis
>
> My position in the "art" thread is that since many things an average
> human being does each day involve art to a small extent, it is
> absurd to glorify extremely trivial examples of this quality by
> displaying them in a gallery. I've not seen any attempt to sensibly
> critique either part of that position.
>
I'd question the word "glorify"...choosing what goes in a
gallery...or what works are commissioned...or which get public
subsidy...or which a collector buys...are all aesthetic
judgements...no more and no less
it's a personal or organisational choice...and isn't presented
directly as anything else...it's only when you get into the realms
of art criticism that it begins to be treated as something more (or
less)
it's the same motivation as seeing a pretty pebble (or a strange
one) whilst walking along the beach and showing it to
somebody...just on a somewhat larger scale...it doesn't grade that
pebble as being of any more value than any other pebble...except
that it just happens to be pretty (or interesting) enough to be
worth remarking upon
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"the alternative to seeing things in black and white
is to see them in full colour"
Gideon Hallett
> David Chapman wrote, quoting myself:
>
>> > > > Suzi made an aesthetic choice that a mouldy satsuma and
>> > > > not, for example, the words "I WAZ HERE" fingerpainted into
>> > > > the dust on a disconnected modem was the appropriate
>> > > > example to illustrate her point. That was art.
>> > >
>> > > Nope. That was debate.
>> >
>> > The *art* of debate.
>>
>> TINAOD. Debate is a science; you use the words that do
>> the job, and if they happen to be the ones that look pretty,
>> they still haven't been chosen for aesthetic merit but for
>> functionality.
Debate is most definitely *not* a science, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, science *must* be a) reproducible and b) falsifiable to
qualify as such. Anything else may well be philosophy, but it is
*not* science.
(For example; the Marxist theory of historical materialism; it's
rigorous, self-consistent and logically thought out. However, it
cannot be falsified, and thus is not scientific, as Popper pointed
out.)
Secondly, it involves humans; and human-human interactions. These
are essentially unpredictable, and thus identical initial
conditions do not yield a predictable result. Humans are inherently
fuzzy, and anything that involves them is equally inherently fuzzy.
(This includes science, FWIW, which is, generally speaking, an
idealised abstraction of real-world data in order to illustrate an
underlying principle.)
Thirdly, a debate, whether formal or informal, has elastic and
ill-defined goals. If you say "you use the words that do the job" -
what *exactly* do you mean by the 'job'? - if your job is to win a
debate, then you can only use the words that *you* think will win
the debate; if the adjudication is made by an audience, you can use
the right words by your judgement, yet still get annihilated in the
debate. And unrelated conditions can affect the audience.
A famous example of this is the infamous Kennedy vs. Nixon debate
in the 1960 US election campaign. Kennedy had thought out his
physical image and looked relaxed, whereas Nixon suffered from
'five o'clock shadow' and looked tired. TV viewers thought Kennedy
had won the debate, but radio listeners thought Nixon had won.
When debating, presentation and tone *will* win or lose you the
debate; David should know this, as he used to do it at university.
It doesn't matter what you say if you delivery involves shouting
while frothing at the mouth; those looking for rational debate will
react negatively, and those looking for emotional food may react
positively.
Usage of either style in the incorrect place and time will lose you
a debate regardless of your position's solidity.
Prime example: Julius Caesar, Act III scene ii. Brutus' speech is
typical logician's rhetoric; he excuses his apparent treason by
appealing to larger abstractions of duty and freedom; and his
phrasing is pretty obscure and obfusticatory; he almost manages to
lose his audience in it and pacify them.
Mark Antony's speech is far cruder, and far less elegant; it's a
rabble-rouser, a hate-generator (not unlike a Daily Mail front
page). Rather than deal with abstractions of necessity and honour,
it deals directly with personal actions and personal attacks.
("Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
...
I fear I wrong the honourable men
Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar; I do fear it.")
And, despite the fact that Brutus is obviously the more skilled
logician, Antony's speech wins because he understands his audience
better.
Fourthly, there are no set methods for 'winning' a debate. There
are standard devices (see
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm for examples), but the
usage of these devices is entirely up to the debator; and the
choice of response is usually indicative of the type of debator you
face.
(see also http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html for some
typical examples.)
> My position in the "art" thread is that since many things an
> average human being does each day involve art to a small extent,
> it is absurd to glorify extremely trivial examples of this quality
> by displaying them in a gallery. I've not seen any attempt to
> sensibly critique either part of that position.
I think that debating is an art in much the same way that fencing
is an art; there are standard 'moves' and 'tactics', and people
choose their own preferred methods as part of the contest; what you
do is a product of who you are; debating is self-expression. You
might engage in a certain tactic because you think it is likely to
bring you victory, but you can't find out in advance, because it
depends on how good your opponent is at parry-and-riposte.
Gideon.
--
(((( | ====diog...@freeuk.com.========================|
o__))))) | - Bringing permed '70s-retro hedgehogs to the =|
__ \'((((( | common people since he got bored one afternoon. =|
Flesh-eating dragon
> it's the same motivation as seeing a pretty pebble (or a strange
> one) whilst walking along the beach and showing it to
> somebody...just on a somewhat larger scale...it doesn't grade that
> pebble as being of any more value than any other pebble...except
> that it just happens to be pretty (or interesting) enough to be
> worth remarking upon
I'll believe that when I hear of a major art gallery dedicating space
to preschoolers' fingerpaintings. :-)
Adrian.
Eric Jarvis
why would they...they would be more appropriately exhibited in a
school
which is exactly how it works
there seems to be a general assumption that since most afpers don't
share a set of aesthetic values with those interested in
contemporary art, then there can be no aesthetic values
involved...it's a ludicrous idea
anyone exhibiting or commissioning art chooses it carefully...but
it's just a personal choice (or a committee decision) no more and no
less...what is so hard to understand about that?
as for the press reaction...it's the same as is meted out to anyone
who does things that journalists largely don't
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"money can't buy you love, but sometimes dinner
is much more important"
David Chapman
news:MPG.169096599...@news.dircon.co.uk...
> there seems to be a general assumption that since most afpers don't
> share a set of aesthetic values with those interested in
> contemporary art, then there can be no aesthetic values
> involved...it's a ludicrous idea
Hardly, Eric. After all, what defines aesthetics is a
consensus of opinion, and if the consensus of opinion
is that modern art is not aesthetic then it is not.
>
> anyone exhibiting or commissioning art chooses it carefully...but
> it's just a personal choice (or a committee decision) no more and no
> less...what is so hard to understand about that?
Why they pick such utter shit, instead of actual art.
Or, if you like, why people supposedly exhibiting
art for the benefit of the public pick things that only
*they* like instead of what the public want.
--
Nobody tosses a dwarf!
MegaMole
*NOT* entering into the Great AFP Modern Art Debate, for reasons which
will remain clear.
In article <u2e2m8c...@corp.supernews.com>, David Chapman
<evil...@madasafish.com> writes
>Or, if you like, why people supposedly exhibiting
>art for the benefit of the public pick things that only
>*they* like instead of what the public want.
Erm, which public?
I think it is generally agreed, in this household at least, that for the
lumpen proletariat to define and circumscribe the cultural life of this
country would be a Very Bad Thing Indeed. Imagine a concert of Steps in
the Albert Hall... oh no, that's already happened. Or Charlotte Church.
Or Tracey Emin. Or or or...
What I mean to say is that what the public thinks it wants is almost
always, in these Mammonite times, the result of carefully planned
marketing. Or of a journalist deciding to create a controversy.
This is not to say that All Art Is Art Because <foo> Says So. Which may
be true for <foo>, but on a very superficial level. "It is art because
I say it is" (or s/is/isn't/g) is a highly sterile avenue of debate.
And can only lead to controversy.[1]
<sigh>
De gustibus ect ect, as any fule kno.
[1] I am NOT getting into the debate as to how that word should be
pronounced.
--
MegaMole, the Official Enrico Basilica
\\\\\ laaa! mo...@lspace.org mo...@music.slut.org.uk
\\\\\\\_o / www.countertenor.demon.co.uk for Stuff
__ \\\\\'c/__ Hitting the high notes with hedgehogs since 2001
Eric Jarvis
lets translate that a little...what you mean is that you object to
anything that a journalist can ridicule
just because something can be described in a sentence doesn't mean
that the sentence describes everything about the thing...have you
ever seen Chris Ofili's "paintings"...they are utterly
gorgeous...colourful, accessible, one of the few people around at
the moment who can make a painting really light up a room...but
since he uses a bit of elephant dung in each of them you can't see
the painting as having any importance, since that isn't the thing
written about in the papers or mentioned on the TV
it's only crap to you because you can't get past the crap that is
written about it and deal with it with your own critical faculties
rather than regurgitate half digested the vacuous pap that is
presented as a a poor substitute for journalism in these benighted
times
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Flesh-eating dragon
> lets translate that a little...what you mean is that you object to
> anything that a journalist can ridicule
Eric, perhaps that's a little unfair. It implies peoples' opinions
are not their own. [This paragraph was brought to you from the other
side of the world from said journalists (and from said exhibitions
for that matter).]
> ever seen Chris Ofili's "paintings"...they are utterly
> gorgeous...colourful, accessible, one of the few people around at
> the moment who can make a painting really light up a room...but
> since he uses a bit of elephant dung in each of them you can't see
> the painting as having any importance, since that isn't the thing
> written about in the papers or mentioned on the TV
I don't see how someone would propose /that/ as an example of non-art.
To say such resembles the notion from THHGTTG that milk is a non-drink
because it's squirted out of a cow.
Surely no-one would argue that something isn't art because of what
it's made of. How many paint dyes /don't/ come from an organic source?
But the elephant dung painting was raised not as an example of
non-art, but in response to the claim that artists produce crap. Has
anyone explicitely suggested it's non-art?
Adrian.
David Chapman
> David Chapman wrote:
> > "Eric Jarvis" <nos...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:MPG.169096599...@news.dircon.co.uk...
> > > there seems to be a general assumption that since most afpers don't
> > > share a set of aesthetic values with those interested in
> > > contemporary art, then there can be no aesthetic values
> > > involved...it's a ludicrous idea
> >
> > Hardly, Eric. After all, what defines aesthetics is a
> > consensus of opinion, and if the consensus of opinion
> > is that modern art is not aesthetic then it is not.
> >
> > > anyone exhibiting or commissioning art chooses it carefully...but
> > > it's just a personal choice (or a committee decision) no more and no
> > > less...what is so hard to understand about that?
> >
> > Why they pick such utter shit, instead of actual art.
> > Or, if you like, why people supposedly exhibiting
> > art for the benefit of the public pick things that only
> > *they* like instead of what the public want.
> >
>
> lets translate that a little...what you mean is that you object to
> anything that a journalist can ridicule
Not at all, Eric. I'm perfectly capable of ridiculing
modern "art" all by myself.
>
> just because something can be described in a sentence doesn't mean
> that the sentence describes everything about the thing...have you
> ever seen Chris Ofili's "paintings"...they are utterly
> gorgeous...colourful, accessible, one of the few people around at
> the moment who can make a painting really light up a room...but
> since he uses a bit of elephant dung in each of them you can't see
> the painting as having any importance,
That depends why he uses the shit. Is it in some way a
superior material, or a colour that cannot be reproduced
with traditional oils to a satisfactory degree of accuracy?
If the answer is "no", then it's faux-intellectualist.
since that isn't the thing
> written about in the papers or mentioned on the TV
>
> it's only crap to you because you can't get past the crap that is
> written about it
Not to mention the crap that it's *made* of...
and deal with it with your own critical faculties
> rather than regurgitate half digested the vacuous pap that is
> presented as a a poor substitute for journalism in these benighted
> times
I don't "regurgitate" anything, bastardchops. My
opinions, including my distaste for the elitist
pretentions of these so-called artists and their critics,
are *mine*, reached by using "my own critical faculties".
I don't need you, or anybody else to tell my opinions
to me, and I deeply resent your implication that this is
the case.
Now have a Merry Christmas, you shit-eating wanker.
Eric Jarvis
> "Eric Jarvis" wrote, replying to David Chapman:
>
> > gorgeous...colourful, accessible, one of the few people around at
> > the moment who can make a painting really light up a room...but
> > since he uses a bit of elephant dung in each of them you can't see
> > the painting as having any importance, since that isn't the thing
> > written about in the papers or mentioned on the TV
>
> I don't see how someone would propose /that/ as an example of non-art.
> To say such resembles the notion from THHGTTG that milk is a non-drink
> because it's squirted out of a cow.
>
> Surely no-one would argue that something isn't art because of what
> it's made of. How many paint dyes /don't/ come from an organic source?
>
> But the elephant dung painting was raised not as an example of
> non-art, but in response to the claim that artists produce crap. Has
> anyone explicitely suggested it's non-art?
>
I'm pointing out that they are being discussed as if the fact that
that elephant dung has been used as part of the painting seems to be
all that anyone seems to think is notable about them...apart from
those who have actually seen them
the point is that what you distill from press coverage in NOT the
full extent of the piece...it is a few things that a journalist
finds notable...the Discworld books are much more than "some funny
stories about magic and stuff"...at least I would hope most here are
able to see a little more depth than that
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"I am a man of many parts, unfortunately most of
them are no longer in stock"
Flesh-eating dragon
> That depends why he uses the shit. Is it in some way a
> superior material, or a colour that cannot be reproduced
> with traditional oils to a satisfactory degree of accuracy?
> If the answer is "no", then it's faux-intellectualist.
Now that is an *extremely* ridiculous statement.
Adrian.
Peter Ellis
>
>Now have a Merry Christmas, you shit-eating wanker.
I'm sure this is just humorous hyperbole, but just in case it isn't, can
I warn you that you're getting a bit too heated and a bit too close to
serious ad hominem? I should also probably point out that it didn't
come over anything like as humorously as I believe you intended...
Turning to Chris Ofili (and I may post this on group if I have time),
he's not a "painter" per se, so inquiring whether it's a colour that
can't be matched by oils isn't the right question to be asking.
The question is: Is there any other item with the same texture, colour,
shape, size and cultural references as the material he uses?
To which the answer is quite clearly "no"
Elephant dung, in the dried and polished form (hard, non-oozy and non-
odiferous, btw), is a commonplace feature of African ornamentation.
Since he's of African origin, making his pictures from 3d collages, it's
absolutely an appropriate material to choose. Habitually using it in
his works is a reminder to himself and others of the ethnic wellsprings
of his art, and a very welcome challenge to the overly Westernised art
establishment. Art should be for all peoples, by all peoples.
In the context of the particular work that won the Turner prize, the
subject of the work was a black representation of the Madonna -- wearing
a tear-drop shaped necklace of elephant dung, as indeed would n% of the
female population of the region.
IIRC the Madonna was also set on (or perhaps made up of) a collage of
pictures from what might loosely and inaccurately be called nudist mags.
Pictures of ladies, at any rate *grin*.
Now this, to me and others, raises profound questions about the place in
society of women, in particular the fact that almost all artistic
depiction through history has been either virgin or whore, as well as
questions like "What *is* purity?" As Terry has in in CJ, a woman with
five children can still be a Maiden, and Nanny was intrinsically a
Mother from birth. To look briefly at the most obvious of the religious
messages, the Madonna's a figure of salvation, which is denied to none,
not the lowest of the low, the whores, Gentiles or tax collectors...
All that, and then there's of course the questions raised by portraying
a black Madonna, and a peasant one at that. There's a hideous hegemony,
monotony and exclusivity in the normal white/beautiful/well-
dressed/middle-class depictions of the Madonna. Why should such an
iconic figure (yes, the picture was in the style of an Orthodox icon) be
restricted in significance to one culture or people?
I'd call that art by any description of the term. You might not like
the look of it, or it may not stir those questions in you, but that's so
far from being the point that you can't see it with a good telescope on
a clear day. Personally, I'd call it very good art.
I don't think I'd want it on my wall, though -- clashes *terribly* with
the carpets and curtains, don't you know; but easiness upon the eye and
a "nice" look isn't exactly the pinnacle of art.
Peter
Peter Ellis
Seems I changed my mind and did, then forgot to proofread every
sentence... Ah well, it's Christmas.
Peter
David Chapman
news:MPG.169265463...@news.cable.ntlworld.com...
> David Chapman wrote (among other things):
> >
> >Now have a Merry Christmas, you shit-eating wanker.
>
> I'm sure this is just humorous hyperbole, but just in case it isn't, can
> I warn you that you're getting a bit too heated and a bit too close to
> serious ad hominem?
As opposed to Eric providing the ultimate Art Fart ad
hominem argument of "you don't find this artistic and so
your critical faculties are inferior/non-existent"? Chainsaw
beheading would not be OTT IMHO. But, it's Christmas;
peace and good will to all men - even if they have no taste
and are pissing me off right now.
>
> Turning to Chris Ofili (and I may post this on group if I have time),
> he's not a "painter" per se,
No comment.
so inquiring whether it's a colour that
> can't be matched by oils isn't the right question to be asking.
>
> The question is: Is there any other item with the same texture, colour,
> shape, size and cultural references as the material he uses?
>
> To which the answer is quite clearly "no"
And is there any *need* for him to do it in *every*
*single* *piece*? Equally clearly, there is not.
>
> Elephant dung, in the dried and polished form (hard, non-oozy and non-
> odiferous, btw), is a commonplace feature of African ornamentation.
> Since he's of African origin, making his pictures from 3d collages, it's
> absolutely an appropriate material to choose. Habitually using it in
> his works is a reminder to himself and others of the ethnic wellsprings
> of his art, and a very welcome challenge to the overly Westernised art
> establishment. Art should be for all peoples, by all peoples.
But it's not for all people, is it? It's for those people who
know that in certain parts of Africa they wear ornaments
made of dung. For everyone else, he makes pictures using
shite.
>
> In the context of the particular work that won the Turner prize, the
> subject of the work was a black representation of the Madonna -- wearing
> a tear-drop shaped necklace of elephant dung, as indeed would n% of the
> female population of the region.
You reckon? I thought that custom was Ethiopia and points
south, not the Middle East. In the countries the Madonna most
likely came from, I don't even think there *were* any elephants.
>
> IIRC the Madonna was also set on (or perhaps made up of) a collage of
> pictures from what might loosely and inaccurately be called nudist mags.
> Pictures of ladies, at any rate *grin*. [...] To look briefly at the most
> obvious of the religious messages, the Madonna's a figure of salvation,
> which is denied to none, not the lowest of the low, the whores, Gentiles
> or tax collectors...
No. The most obvious religious message is that the Madonna
is being placed in appropriate company - IOW, equating the
Madonna *with* the lowest of the low [1]. It's an extreme
blasphemy, and also a denigration of women; given that virgin
and slut are mutually exclusive categories, equating history's most
notorious virgin with sluts is a clear statement that *no* woman is
anything but a slut.
>
> All that, and then there's of course the questions raised by portraying
> a black Madonna, and a peasant one at that. There's a hideous hegemony,
> monotony and exclusivity in the normal white/beautiful/well-
> dressed/middle-class depictions of the Madonna. Why should such an
> iconic figure (yes, the picture was in the style of an Orthodox icon) be
> restricted in significance to one culture or people?
Icons are stylised representations, not portraits, tailored
by the Church to provide a symbolic representation of a
religious figure that could be understood by an illiterate and
uneducated congregation.
Because these are meant to be good, dead folk, they are in
Heaven enjoying their reward for being virtuous on Earth; to
represent this reward, they are depicted as well-dressed and
affluent. Their spiritual beauty is depicted as physical beauty,
because the icon is a picture of the soul, not the flesh. And
they are depicted as white because these icons came into use
exclusively in Europe, where the congregation had never seen
a black man - and being unlettered peasants would probably
have burned him at the stake if they had, thinking he was a
demon. So regardless of truth, they were made white so the
viewer would know they were dealing with a human being.
Later, when the word was spread to Africa, they were not
really surprised that all the icons were white because it was the
white man's religion. They would have thought you were daft
if you tried telling them the Madonna was black.
>
> I'd call that art by any description of the term. You might not like
> the look of it, or it may not stir those questions in you, but that's so
> far from being the point that you can't see it with a good telescope on
> a clear day. Personally, I'd call it very good art.
I'd call it a sick attack on Christianity in general and
Catholicism specifically, a twisted expression of misogyny,
and total ignorance on the part of the artist of the history of
any culture other than his own.
[1] Not that prostitutes are anything like the lowest of the low.
Peter Ellis
>> I warn you that you're getting a bit too heated and a bit too close to
>> serious ad hominem?
>
>As opposed to Eric providing the ultimate Art Fart ad
>hominem argument of "you don't find this artistic and so
>your critical faculties are inferior/non-existent"?
I didn't see that, it was more a case of "don't condemn this based on
what other uninformed people have said", coupled with asking how well
you were acquainted with this artist and his work, asking for your
genuine critical reasons behind condemning his work.
>
>Chainsaw
>beheading would not be OTT IMHO. But, it's Christmas;
>peace and good will to all men - even if they have no taste
>and are pissing me off right now.
You're obviously overwrought, and so I will do you the kindness of not
pursuing this thread any further after this post. Rule Zero of Usenet:
"Don't post while pissed off".
>>
>> The question is: Is there any other item with the same texture, colour,
>> shape, size and cultural references as the material he uses?
>>
>> To which the answer is quite clearly "no"
>
>And is there any *need* for him to do it in *every*
>*single* *piece*? Equally clearly, there is not.
It depends on the nature of his vision and his message. Why *do* we in
the West have such a hangup about shit, even in a non-contaminatory
form? Why do you feel so angered when your conceptions of
appropriateness are challenged?
What if he'd instead used a teardrop-shaped water-worn piece of rock,
would that anger you?
What if the rock were unbeknownst to you a fossilised dinosaur turd?
What if the rock were unbeknownst to *him* a fossilised dinosaur turd?
>
>>
>> Elephant dung, in the dried and polished form (hard, non-oozy and non-
>> odiferous, btw), is a commonplace feature of African ornamentation.
>
>But it's not for all people, is it? It's for those people who
>know that in certain parts of Africa they wear ornaments
>made of dung.
Now you know, and your ignorance need no longer affect your
understanding of the work.
In fact, you've managed to take my point and turn it exactly 180
degrees. When I say "for all people", I mean that artists should not be
*restricted* to the all-pervasive and universally-understoood symbols of
the affluent west, nor to the representative tradition of art. Thus it
is acceptable, nay laudable, nay *essential* that there be artists
working in or between their own choice of genres, even those with which
you, David Chapman, are unfamiliar.
>
>For everyone else, he makes pictures using
>shite.
>>
>> In the context of the particular work that won the Turner prize, the
>> subject of the work was a black representation of the Madonna -- wearing
>> a tear-drop shaped necklace of elephant dung, as indeed would n% of the
>> female population of the region.
>
>You reckon? I thought that custom was Ethiopia and points
>south, not the Middle East. In the countries the Madonna most
>likely came from, I don't even think there *were* any elephants.
When I said "the region", I meant the region of the Madonna as depicted,
I.e. African. So much I thought was obvious in my post, I apologise for
not being even more lambently lucid.
Memo to self: When discussing with Chapman on afp, leave nothing
implicit and spell out everything in bi-syllables [1] at most.
>
>>
>> To look briefly at the most
>> obvious of the religious messages, the Madonna's a figure of salvation,
>> which is denied to none, not the lowest of the low, the whores, Gentiles
>> or tax collectors...
>
>No. The most obvious religious message is that the Madonna
>is being placed in appropriate company - IOW, equating the
>Madonna *with* the lowest of the low.
So a painting of Jesus visiting the tax collectors would automatically
indicate he's one himself? A picture of him healing a leper places him
in the "appropriate company" of the lazar houses and implies he's
diseased?
>
>It's an extreme
>blasphemy, and also a denigration of women; given that virgin
>and slut are mutually exclusive categories, equating history's most
>notorious virgin with sluts is a clear statement that *no* woman is
>anything but a slut.
You reckon? Presumably Mary Magdalene being the first to see the risen
Christ indicates that he was knobbing the entire stereotypical
population of Essex on the sly.
You really do have an astonishingly literal mind.
>
>Later, when the word was spread to Africa, they were not
>really surprised that all the icons were white because it was the
>white man's religion. They would have thought you were daft
>if you tried telling them the Madonna was black.
Exactly. But the messages it carries (at its best) are universal. Why
*should* it be the white man's religion, and why *should* the symbol of
the Madonna (rather than the literal body of the person concerned) be
Middle Eastern?
>> I'd call that art by any description of the term. You might not like
>> the look of it, or it may not stir those questions in you, but that's so
>> far from being the point that you can't see it with a good telescope on
>> a clear day. Personally, I'd call it very good art.
>
>I'd call it a sick attack on Christianity in general and
>Catholicism specifically, a twisted expression of misogyny,
>and total ignorance on the part of the artist of the history of
>any culture other than his own.
Well, I believe he's a committed Catholic, and would be very sad to hear
you view it in those terms. However, we all well know that you have
your own idiosyncratic views of Christian literature and history, which
is yet another reason I won't pursue this thread further, having no
desire to reopen old wounds.
Peter
[1] two-part words
Flesh-eating dragon
> As opposed to Eric providing the ultimate Art Fart ad
> hominem argument of "you don't find this artistic and so
> your critical faculties are inferior/non-existent"? Chainsaw
> beheading would not be OTT IMHO. But, it's Christmas;
> peace and good will to all men - even if they have no taste
> and are pissing me off right now.
I agree that Eric's last response to you was misjudged and unfair.
But you've been sprouting some nonsense of your own ("aesthetics is
defined by convention" - what?) and there's no excuse for letting
anyone generate this rzbgvir naq veengvbany qvfcynl.
It is impossible to defend the notion that "he makes pictures using
shite" is, when delivered rationally, a derogatory comment. The use of
unconventional materials is very common in art - only today my mother
gave my grandmother an ornament made of snails among other things,
proving that something pleasant can be made out of a notorious pest.
If there's a reason to do so, it enhances the art. If not, I don't see
how it denigrates it.
To say "It's for those people who know that in certain parts of Africa
they wear ornaments made of dung" is like saying that Terry Pratchett
writes only for people who recognise all the annotations.
You assert as fact that your interpretation of a particular work is
more "obvious" than Peter's. You offer no argument in support of this
notion, except it's the one you thought of therefore it must be true.
Catholicism isn't my religion, so I would be uncomfortable with the
artwork because of my discomfort with Catholicism. But given that
Christians are inherently familiar with the notion that good people
keep bad company, please support your view that your interpretation is
more obvious than Peter's. (For example, if you've seen the artwork,
the expression on the figure's face might support one interpretation
or another. Is it a sympathetic expression, or one of guilty delight?)
> Later, when the word was spread to Africa, they were not
> really surprised that all the icons were white because it was the
> white man's religion. They would have thought you were daft
> if you tried telling them the Madonna was black.
It is, however, valid and necessary to point out that Christianity is
not /supposed/ to be a white man's religion.
> I'd call it a sick attack on Christianity in general and
> Catholicism specifically, a twisted expression of misogyny,
> and total ignorance on the part of the artist of the history of
> any culture other than his own.
You've not offered rational arguments to support any of this. Please
take a break if necessary and come back when you're capable of
intelligent discussion.
Adrian.
esmi
<snip>
>> IIRC the Madonna was also set on (or perhaps made up of) a collage
>> of pictures from what might loosely and inaccurately be called
>> nudist mags. Pictures of ladies, at any rate *grin*. [...] To
>> look briefly at the most obvious of the religious messages, the
>> Madonna's a figure of salvation, which is denied to none, not the
>> lowest of the low, the whores, Gentiles or tax collectors...
>No. The most obvious religious message is that the Madonna
>is being placed in appropriate company - IOW, equating the
>Madonna *with* the lowest of the low [1].
Now I thought it would be difficult to place the Madonna in any given
company - given that she is often referred to as the Mother of All
rather than a select few.
>It's an extreme
>blasphemy,
Blasphemy is often subjective - even within a given religion or
denomination of that religion.
>and also a denigration of women;
Sez who? Given that I am of the gender that is *supposed* be to being
denigrated here, I find absolutely nothing that is even mildly
offensive. I wouldn't like to think that you were speaking on behalf of
all of womankind here - especially as many of us are perfectly capable
of speaking for ourselves.
> given that virgin
>and slut are mutually exclusive categories,
Within any given moment in time, probably [1]. However, every slut was
a virgin once, so if one takes the larger view, the categories are not
so much mutually exlusive as indicative of the passage of time and
experience. ;-)
>equating history's most
>notorious virgin with sluts is a clear statement that *no* woman is
>anything but a slut.
*LOL* Must you see offence everywhere? It seems to me that the message
is that the archetypal woman encompasses both virgion and slut and
everything inbetween. Rather an nice way of illustrating the concept,
IMO.
>> All that, and then there's of course the questions raised by
>> portraying a black Madonna, and a peasant one at that. There's a
>> hideous hegemony, monotony and exclusivity in the normal
>> white/beautiful/well- dressed/middle-class depictions of the
>> Madonna. Why should such an iconic figure (yes, the picture was
>> in the style of an Orthodox icon) be restricted in significance to
>> one culture or people?
>Icons are stylised representations, not portraits, tailored
>by the Church to provide a symbolic representation of a
>religious figure that could be understood by an illiterate and
>uneducated congregation.
Illiterate and uneducated != unintelligent. Stylisation can only go so
far before it becomes self-defeating. The icons of the early Christian
church were far more grounded in the known "facts" than you give
them credit for.
>Because these are meant to be good, dead folk, they are in
>Heaven enjoying their reward for being virtuous on Earth; to
>represent this reward, they are depicted as well-dressed and
>affluent. Their spiritual beauty is depicted as physical beauty,
>because the icon is a picture of the soul, not the flesh. And
>they are depicted as white because these icons came into use
>exclusively in Europe, where the congregation had never seen
>a black man - and being unlettered peasants would probably
>have burned him at the stake if they had, thinking he was a
>demon. So regardless of truth, they were made white so the
>viewer would know they were dealing with a human being.
Bzzzt! Wrong! It wasn't until the Renaissance that paintings of saints
etc began to appear with with alabaster skin, blue eyes and blond hair.
Previously, much religious artwork reflected the olive skin, black or
brown hair and eyes of the assumed heritage of such people (ie Middle
Eastern). Where changes were made, these normally reflected the ethnic
origin of the artists or the religious group concerned. Early Russian
Orthodox art is a good example. Many such pictures, or icons, display
distinctly Asiatic features that reflected the stereotypical ethnic mix
of the region at that time.
>Later, when the word was spread to Africa, they were not
>really surprised that all the icons were white because it was the
>white man's religion. They would have thought you were daft
>if you tried telling them the Madonna was black.
Strangely enough, a quick Google would have shown you that there are
many famous Black Madonna paintings and sculptures - most of which
could not possibly be described as contemporary art [2].
>> I'd call that art by any description of the term. You might not
>> like the look of it, or it may not stir those questions in you,
>> but that's so far from being the point that you can't see it with
>> a good telescope on a clear day. Personally, I'd call it very
>> good art.
>I'd call it a sick attack on Christianity in general and
>Catholicism specifically, a twisted expression of misogyny,
>and total ignorance on the part of the artist of the history of
>any culture other than his own.
The only misogyny that maybe showing is your own given your
interpretation of the piece. As for it being a sick attack on
Catholicism, could be that the artist has a better understanding of
that word than you do?
esmi
[1] However, some societies have (and possibly still do) attach the
label of "slut" to a female whose behaviour has transgressed their own
social code yet whose virginity remains unquestionable. Consequently,
the two states cannot be considered mutually exclusive in all
situations.
[2] For example, the wooden figure of the Black Madonna of Montserrat
was probably carved in the eleventh century.
Therese
pj...@cam.ac.uk says...
> evil...@madasafish.com wrote:
> >Later, when the word was spread to Africa, they were not
> >really surprised that all the icons were white because it was the
> >white man's religion. They would have thought you were daft
> >if you tried telling them the Madonna was black.
>
> Exactly. But the messages it carries (at its best) are universal. Why
> *should* it be the white man's religion, and why *should* the symbol of
> the Madonna (rather than the literal body of the person concerned) be
> Middle Eastern?
Well, most Madonnas I've seen have not been Middle Eastern. Most
of them could fit well as North European/Scandinavian. Some might
have been Mediterranean (sp?).
The comment on an altar painting that was rejected in the fifties
captures a sad spirit of Christian art. "Jesus looks to Jewish."
--
Therese Wikström
My hair! He shot my hair!
Princess Vespa, Spaceballs
Sockii
(esmi) wrote:
<>
> *LOL* Must you see offence everywhere? It seems to me that the message
> is that the archetypal woman encompasses both virgion and slut and
> everything inbetween. Rather an nice way of illustrating the concept,
> IMO.
<>
Dear esmi,
If there were a alt.fan.esmi I'd be your persistent lurkah. I would
support you in email for all eternity, for as long as you continue to
express your thoughts with a grace and colouration which effortlessly
turns insult and high dudgeon into overweaning false sanctimoniousness.
May you have all the words you need, may your syllables never run away,
may your punctuation never hurt, may you say all that you want to say, and
that you be always heard.
Sockii
(Maybe I should'a AOLed...)
--
\\\\_o alt.fan.alt-fan-pratchett::http://wibh.vze.com/afpers.html
\\\\\'/ ;``._ ;``._~ afpguru-ed to SarahR <*> afpfoe of goblin
Afparty in Oz in 2002::http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/afparty.htm
My fly.to account is deleted due to v3.com not keeping it's promises.
Flesh-eating dragon
> > *LOL* Must you see offence everywhere? It seems to me that the message
> > is that the archetypal woman encompasses both virgion and slut and
> > everything inbetween. Rather an nice way of illustrating the concept,
> > IMO.
[...]
> (Maybe I should'a AOLed...)
The artwork tells us that a good woman (or man) is not ashamed to be
seen in the company of people who are socially shunned or who are the
victims of their own situations or decisions.
BTW, I have a very relaxed view of the whole virgin birth thing, and
find the Catholic perspective very difficult to comprehend. I don't
care about the historicity of the virgin birth, and can quote a number
of facts refuting the notion that it is a cornerstone of Christianity.
Adrian.
Richard Bos
> just because something can be described in a sentence doesn't mean
> that the sentence describes everything about the thing...have you
> ever seen Chris Ofili's "paintings"...they are utterly
> gorgeous...colourful, accessible, one of the few people around at
> the moment who can make a painting really light up a room...but
> since he uses a bit of elephant dung in each of them you can't see
> the painting as having any importance, since that isn't the thing
> written about in the papers or mentioned on the TV
Mind you, Ofili himself mentions the elephant dung, and makes it more
important than it would be if it were simply there, having the same
status as the paints and polyester resin he also uses. You can't
entirely blame the media for picking up on something the artist himself
apparently attaches importance to.
> it's only crap to you because you can't get past the crap that is
> written about it
Well, strictly speaking it's crap because it comes out of a mammal's
backside, but...
Richard
Mary Messall
> May you have all the words you need, may your syllables never run away,
> may your punctuation never hurt, may you say all that you want to say, and
> that you be always heard.
> Sockii
> (Maybe I should'a AOLed...)
AFP would've been a little poorer if you had.
-Mary
--
{I drank at every vine. / The last was like the first. / I came upon
no wine / So wonderful as thirst.} {"Heaven bless the babe!" they said
"What queer books she must have read!"} -two by Edna St Vincent Millay
http://indagabo.orcon.net.nz --> my soapbox and grandstand and gallery
Nanny Ogg
<morgan...@netyp.com.au> writes:
>BTW, I have a very relaxed view of the whole virgin birth thing, and
>find the Catholic perspective very difficult to comprehend. I don't
>care about the historicity of the virgin birth, and can quote a number
>of facts refuting the notion that it is a cornerstone of Christianity.
Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of Mary
being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not only
completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin birth,
it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of the
Bible.
All the best,
Sarah
--
`If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you'll be
taller than everyone else.' Kipling and _I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue_
`Unfortunately Real Life lacks a decent tourist information service' Adrian
Morgan
apostate
"Nanny Ogg" <swhi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020101095507...@mb-cp.aol.com...
> In article <a0erbd$hqm$1...@library.lspace.org>, "Flesh-eating dragon"
> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> writes:
>
> >BTW, I have a very relaxed view of the whole virgin birth thing, and
> >find the Catholic perspective very difficult to comprehend. I don't
> >care about the historicity of the virgin birth, and can quote a number
> >of facts refuting the notion that it is a cornerstone of Christianity.
>
> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of
Mary
> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
only
> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
birth,
> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
the
> Bible.
>
What you have to remember is that it is in fact one of the earliest beliefs
of Christianity You also have to remember that for 1500/2000 years
Christianity did not just rely on scripture for revelealed truth. In fact
for most Christtians this is still the case.
Of equal importance is the living Tradition of the faith - which, BTW, is
what Scripture grew out of, not the other way around.
--
The Apostate
Willfully misconstruing in the hope of a cheap laugh
Morpheus
Mary
> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
only
> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
birth,
> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
the
> Bible.
>
The "Cult of the Virgin Mary" that sprang up during the Middle Ages doesn't
seem to reflect Christianity so much as the longstanding mystique and
folklore attached to virginity (i.e, virgins and unicorns, tests of
"purity", etc.). This predates the birth of Christ and can be seen in other
religions (i.e., vestal virgins). Virgins were always deemed to be closer
to God than us ordinary mortals, hence the role of orders of virgins
(nunneries) to act as a spiritual branch of the Church. This seems to be
mainly limited to female virginity despite the establishment of male orders
that were supposed to be equally chaste (infractions by priests and monks
tended to be viewed less harshly than infractions by nuns).
Flesh-eating dragon
> >BTW, I have a very relaxed view of the whole virgin birth thing, and
> >find the Catholic perspective very difficult to comprehend. I don't
> >care about the historicity of the virgin birth, and can quote a number
> >of facts refuting the notion that it is a cornerstone of Christianity.
>
> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of
Mary
> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
only
> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
birth,
> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
the
> Bible.
... by the fact that Jesus had younger brothers.
I can argue equally passionately against the notion that the virgin
birth _must_ have happened, and the notion that it _could not_ have
happened.
That it could not have happened ...
* John the Baptist said that God could make children out of stones. I
would have thought that making them from virgins was relatively
straightforward; I mean, half the work is done!
* Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
It's perfectly /possible/ for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly /possible/ for the atoms
in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
* People who are the sort of people who don't think things through
argue that since the genealogies of Jesus go through Joseph, he must
have been his biological father. But these are the sort of people who
confuse 'biological' with 'real' - an very silly mistake IMNSHO
because they are not the same. If God appointed Joseph to the role of
fatherhood for Jesus, then that, in and of itself, is as real as it
gets.
That it must have happened ...
* Some people claim that the virgin birth is the only way Jesus could
have been both God and man. But y'know, I get rather suspicious around
arguments that begin "God could only ...", especially when the Bible
does not back up the claim.
* There are those who claim that the virgin birth and the crucifixion/
resurrection are the two pillars of Christianity, without which
salvation would be impossible. But such people are inventing their own
theology without looking at what the Bible says. The crucifixion and
resurrection are mentioned over and over again in every part of the
New Testament, whereas the virgin birth is only definitively mentioned
once, and *never* in the context of a theological statement. Continued
in next paragraph.
* The virgin birth is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. It is
not mentioned at all in the Book of Revelation. It is not mentioned at
all in the Letters. It is not mentioned at all in the Book of Acts. It
is only mentioned in the Gospels. Furthermore, it is not mentioned at
all in the Gospel of Mark. It is not mentioned at all in the Gospel of
John. (This doesn't sound like much of a pillar of Christianity, does
it?) It is sort of mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, but not
definitively (see next paragraph). The only definitive mention is the
Gospel of Matthew - and we know on other grounds that Matthew is, of
all the Gospel writers, particularly flexible with historic truth.
* IIRC, the closest Luke's gospel gets to the virgin birth is this.
The angel says to Mary, 'You're going to have a baby'. Mary replies,
'How is this possible? - I'm a virgin'. The angel replies, 'Trust me -
you're going to have a baby'. IIRC, at no stage does it definitively
say that Mary was /still/ a virgin by the time Jesus was conceived.
If it weren't for the presence of Matthew's version in our minds,
maybe we'd find it reasonable to interpret "How is this possible?" as
Mary's way of saying, "Hey you, slow down, I'm still a virgin and
already you're talking about children? Why can't you angels let me
live my life one step at a time?" ... I'm saying this based purely on
English translations (I haven't researched the original Greek) so
maybe this argument doesn't stand up, but it does stand up against the
English translations SFAICS. The angel's response that "the Holy
Spirit will come upon you" isn't terribly helpful because Jewish
belief was that this was true of every birth. The only other verse in
Luke's gospel that implies a virgin birth is Luke 2:5, where Joseph,
betrothed to Mary who is pregnant, goes to Bethlehem for the census.
For Mary to be pregnant and betrothed implies a virgin birth. But in
_The Plain Man Looks at the Apostle's Creed_, William Barclay tells us
in that in one early manuscript, the Syriac version of the NT, as well
as several Latin translations, this verse says not 'betrothed' but
'wife'. So once again, it's not definitive.
* * *
The symbolic meaning of the virgin birth is essential to Christianity.
The virgin birth as a literal, historic event, however, is not. I can
provide more detail on many of the points I've raised in this post,
should anyone question them.
I'm a little puzzled at what the Apostate means by scripture growing
out of tradition - given that the earliest books of the NT had been
written within fifty years, which is microseconds in a historian's
timeframe. Yes the discussions within the early Christian world
influenced what people wrote about Jesus, but at that stage, such
discussions could hardly be called Traditions, surely?
Adrian.
Morpheus
news:a0tm98$489$1...@library.lspace.org...
> * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
> It's perfectly /possible/ for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
> the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly /possible/ for the atoms
> in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
> a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
> likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
>
Don't give people silly ideas. Sooner or later someone is bound to try that
explanation with a paternity suit and oh, to be in the courtroom when they
do.
> * Some people claim that the virgin birth is the only way Jesus could
> have been both God and man. But y'know, I get rather suspicious around
> arguments that begin "God could only ...", especially when the Bible
> does not back up the claim.
>
The "God and Man" stuff came along many centuries after Christ's death and
only after endless convocations, schisms, etc. It's Catholic canon because
the "filioque" boosters won out (a very bloody business as I recall)
>
> * The virgin birth is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. It is
> not mentioned at all in the Book of Revelation. It is not mentioned at
> all in the Letters. It is not mentioned at all in the Book of Acts. It
> is only mentioned in the Gospels. Furthermore, it is not mentioned at
> all in the Gospel of Mark. It is not mentioned at all in the Gospel of
> John. (This doesn't sound like much of a pillar of Christianity, does
> it?) It is sort of mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, but not
> definitively (see next paragraph). The only definitive mention is the
> Gospel of Matthew - and we know on other grounds that Matthew is, of
> all the Gospel writers, particularly flexible with historic truth.
>
As I pointed out in a previous post, the Cult of the Virgin Mary didn't
really get started until the Middle ages and was probably meant to exploit
the longstanding traditions regarding the "holiness" of virginity.
>
> I'm a little puzzled at what the Apostate means by scripture growing
> out of tradition - given that the earliest books of the NT had been
> written within fifty years, which is microseconds in a historian's
> timeframe. Yes the discussions within the early Christian world
> influenced what people wrote about Jesus, but at that stage, such
> discussions could hardly be called Traditions, surely?
>
There is a world of difference between what the Bible says and how it is
interpreted. As I have already pointed out, modern canon is based on
centuries of reinterpretation by theologians who consolidated Christianity
into what we know now (and they're still at it). There was certainly plenty
of time for traditions to rise and be accepted. It is moot what the early
Christians thought since all that survives is the Bible and assorted other
texts that churches accept or not as they choose.
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
wrote:
<...>
>The "God and Man" stuff came along many centuries after Christ's death and
>only after endless convocations, schisms, etc. It's Catholic canon because
>the "filioque" boosters won out (a very bloody business as I recall)
Actually, the "God and Man" stuff appears in Paul's letters, which are
the oldest stuff we've got related to christianity (the apostles' acts
have been written later), so it's an _old_ tradition. It's also the
cornerstone of about 99% of religious wars between christians, of
course... <G>
>As I pointed out in a previous post, the Cult of the Virgin Mary didn't
>really get started until the Middle ages and was probably meant to exploit
>the longstanding traditions regarding the "holiness" of virginity.
I'll have to look into my history books, but I think it predates the
middle ages.
(which is a silly name, BTW, and covers around 1000 years by saying
"we wanted to create a relationship between nowadays and antiquity, so
we had to find a way of downgrading whatever happened in-between").
<...>
>It is moot what the early
>Christians thought since all that survives is the Bible and assorted other
>texts that churches accept or not as they choose.
It is moot, but very interesting. The history of "heresies" (each
church's heresy includes another church's canon) is rather
fascinating, IMHO
FiX
David Chapman
> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> writes:
>
> >BTW, I have a very relaxed view of the whole virgin birth thing, and
> >find the Catholic perspective very difficult to comprehend. I don't
> >care about the historicity of the virgin birth, and can quote a number
> >of facts refuting the notion that it is a cornerstone of Christianity.
>
> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of
Mary
> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
only
> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
birth,
> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
the
> Bible.
And also by Dogma.
Happy New Year.
Flesh-eating dragon
> > * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
> > It's perfectly /possible/ for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
> > the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly /possible/ for the atoms
> > in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
> > a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
> > likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
>
> Don't give people silly ideas. Sooner or later someone is bound to try
that
> explanation with a paternity suit and oh, to be in the courtroom when they
> do.
It would be interesting, wouldn't it? Speaking of courtrooms, I saw
Billy Connolly in _The Man who Sued God_ the other day. 'Twas good.
> > * Some people claim that the virgin birth is the only way Jesus could
> > have been both God and man. But y'know, I get rather suspicious around
> > arguments that begin "God could only ...", especially when the Bible
> > does not back up the claim.
> >
> The "God and Man" stuff came along many centuries after Christ's death and
> only after endless convocations, schisms, etc. It's Catholic canon
because
> the "filioque" boosters won out (a very bloody business as I recall)
This is simply not true. The NT is very clear that Jesus is God and
the NT is very clear that Jesus was a human being.
The NT is, in fact, /very/ emphatic about this, precisely because
Gnostics and other heretics were already claiming it could not be so.
The passage beginning at 1 John 4:1 was to warn people against the
most widespread heresies around at the time, hence the assertion:
"Every spirit that acknowledges the fact that Jesus Christ actually
became man, comes from God, but the spirit which denies this fact does
not come from God".
> There is a world of difference between what the Bible says and how it is
> interpreted. As I have already pointed out, modern canon is based on
> centuries of reinterpretation by theologians who consolidated Christianity
> into what we know now (and they're still at it). There was certainly
plenty
I think many of the Protestant churches have been pretty successful at
taking Christianity back to the Bible.
> of time for traditions to rise and be accepted. It is moot what the early
> Christians thought since all that survives is the Bible and assorted other
> texts that churches accept or not as they choose.
I can't remember where I've read in some detail how the books of the
Bible were selected, but I know they began with the assumption that
the books most reliable would be those known to have been written by
people who knew Jesus personally or by people whose relationship to
such people was well established. Decisions about what was a forgery
and what wasn't weren't made on a whim, but with all the detective
power available to them. A book was rejected if its author was
unknown, although an exception was made for the Letter to the Hebrews
because it had already become a favourite.
Adrian.
Len Oil
[...]
> English translations SFAICS. The angel's response that "the Holy
> Spirit will come upon you" isn't terribly helpful because Jewish
> belief was that this was true of every birth. [...]
I can't be the only person thinking of this the way I am....
Seriously, whether Mortal Man or Holy Spirit, I believe it's perfectly
possible to get pregnant in this way, without penetration, but then I don't
know how much more unlikely it is in the case of a biological virgin[1].
--
Len Oil,
the man with no imaginative .sig yet.
[1] ISTR hymens are porous, as evidenced by other female biological
functions if nothing else, but they would still present a bit of a barrier.
Probably why only a few people have claimed this distinction in the last
2000 or so years...
Non-footnoted PS: I'm probably wrong as I'm obviously of the half of the
population who generally don't know about these things.
Andrew Gray
<len...@lenoil.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> [1] ISTR hymens are porous, as evidenced by other female biological
> functions if nothing else, but they would still present a bit of a barrier.
> Probably why only a few people have claimed this distinction in the last
> 2000 or so years...
There is, of course, the famed incident at Gettysburg (or another ACW
battle; my memory is tired...) where a certain young lady in a
farmhouse was hit, um, intimately with a stray musket ball which had
previously inflicted a very personal and painful flesh wound on a
soldier outside, and the resultant carriage of tissue (and associated
fluids) from his (ex?) testicle to her led to some form of 'immaculate
conception' taking place.
Or, to put a slightly more believable spin on it, that's what she and
the doctor told her mother. ;-)
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
_Which_ dogma ? There are quite a few christian churchs around, and
several of them hold the virginity of Mary as a point of dogma...
catholic and orthodox churches come to mind, there...
>
>Happy New Year.
Ditto
FiX
Richard Bos
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman"
> <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
>
> >"Nanny Ogg" <swhi...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >news:20020101095507...@mb-cp.aol.com...
> >> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of Mary
> >> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not only
> >> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin birth,
> >> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of the
> >> Bible.
> >
> >And also by Dogma.
>
> _Which_ dogma ?
Knowing David's track record of confusing "Christianity" with "what
someone told me", probably Lars von Trier's.
Nevertheless, it is true that the Bible doesn't claim that Mary was a
virgin all her life, and neither does any Christian dogma that I know
of.
> There are quite a few christian churchs around, and
> several of them hold the virginity of Mary as a point of dogma...
At the point of conception, yes. Not, AFAIK, in her later life.
Richard
phil...@see.signature.uk
wrote:
>"Flesh-eating dragon" <morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote in message
>news:a0tm98$489$1...@library.lspace.org...
>
>> * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
Well, greenfly do it all the time <G>.
>> * The virgin birth is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. It is
>> not mentioned at all in the Book of Revelation. It is not mentioned at
>> all in the Letters. It is not mentioned at all in the Book of Acts. It
>> is only mentioned in the Gospels. Furthermore, it is not mentioned at
>> all in the Gospel of Mark. It is not mentioned at all in the Gospel of
>> John. (This doesn't sound like much of a pillar of Christianity, does
>> it?) It is sort of mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, but not
>> definitively (see next paragraph). The only definitive mention is the
>> Gospel of Matthew - and we know on other grounds that Matthew is, of
>> all the Gospel writers, particularly flexible with historic truth.
It depends on whether you are willing to believe that God can get
involved in human history. And that He/She can do miracles. If
God/Whatever created the universe, then He/She/They can also make one
young teenage girl pregnant <G>.
Philippa
Beldin
<snippage>
> * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
> It's perfectly /possible/ for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
> the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly /possible/ for the atoms
> in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
> a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
> likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
It's a thought - I'm afraid though that there have not
yet lived sufficiently many people on earth to make it
probable on a level worth considering.
<more snippage>
> For Mary to be pregnant and betrothed implies a virgin birth.
Had we been discussing anyone else, I would suggest
that it would imply a certain - very common - indiscretion.
A friend of mine is the grandson of the village smith.
When his parents had been married for more than a year
the good folks of the village became convinced that his
mother had miscarried, as it was unheard of that one of
the smith's sons had to wait for more than about 8 months
after marriage for the first child to arrive ;-)
> But in
> _The Plain Man Looks at the Apostle's Creed_, William Barclay tells us
> in that in one early manuscript, the Syriac version of the NT, as well
> as several Latin translations, this verse says not 'betrothed' but
> 'wife'. So once again, it's not definitive.
I've also heard that the original word ascribed to Mary
(I don't remember whether Hebrew or Greek) could equally
well mean "virgin" and "young (possibly unmarried) woman".
--
Beldin
Please reply to t.f...@mail.dk
- I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL
HOPE. I WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST
WHOM NO LOCK WOULD HOLD.
- "Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?"
-- Death consults a job broker (Terry Pratchett, Mort)
Beldin
I'm not entirely sure about the later life of Mary, but
the Catholic Church have (within the last 200 years)
decided that Mary was herself the result of a virgin
birth ...
I don't know if they still advance this position - I must
admit that I found it amusing ;-)
Peter Ellis
>"David Chapman" wrote:
>>
>>And also by Dogma.
>
>_Which_ dogma ?
The film, "Dogma".
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120655 , for those who've not yet seen or
heard of it.
Peter
Denis Feldmann
"Beldin" <Bel...@ValeOfAldur.Alg> a écrit dans le message news:
3C343706...@ValeOfAldur.Alg...
Mmm.. Not exactly. Free from the Original Sin was what "Immaculate
conception" meant...
Flesh-eating dragon
> I've also heard that the original word ascribed to Mary
> (I don't remember whether Hebrew or Greek) could equally
> well mean "virgin" and "young (possibly unmarried) woman".
Nah, *that's* in reference to Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew quotes in
reference to Jesus - "Behold, a maiden shall conceive and bear a son,
and his name shall be called Emmannuel".
For some reason, the Greeks who translated the OT in the third century
B.C. translated maiden (Hebrew: 'almah') as 'virgin'. No-one knows why
they did this. It's true that most languages (the English 'maiden' is
an example) have words that imply virginity but do not require it. I
expect that 'almah' is such a word.
Some people argue that no-one would bother propheciing that "a young
woman shall conceive and bear a son", because that's just the sort of
thing that happens. Therefore it must refer to a virgin in this
context.
This tactfully assumes a number of things, among them that the
prophecy refers to a specific event. But if there's a prophecy that
"there'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover", it doesn't
necessarily prophecy a *specific* *flock*. For a very similar reason,
if there's a prophecy that "a young woman shall conceive and bear a
son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel", it isn't necessarily
about a *specific* *woman*. One theory about the prophecy is that
it's a poetic way of saying, "the nation has problems right now, and
people do not feel that God is near, but wait a while, and soon young
mothers will be so filled with the joy of God's presence that they
will name their sons Emmanuel - God is with us".
The context of the prophecy is that Israel and Syria had combined
against Judah, and Isaiah was foretelling the deliverance of the
latter. This fits with the above theory, and also with the orthodox
Jewish view that the promised child is Hezekiah, the king under whose
reign Judah was miraculously delivered. Myself, I've got my bets on
the former.
What you have to remember is that over and over again, Matthew quotes
a prophecy in reference to Jesus, that originally had nothing to do
with him. He takes this to its ultimate extreme in Matthew 2:23, where
he quotes a prophecy that doesn't even exist - "He shall be called a
Nazarene". It's been suggested that this is a pune, or play on words,
on Isaiah 11:1 - "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of
Jesse, and a branch (hebrew: nezer) shall grow out of his roots".
This can be troubling for Christians familiar with the morality
expressed by Paul in 1 Corinithians 1:16-17 [1] - "For Christ did not
send me to see how many I could baptise, but to proclaim the gospel.
And I have not done this by the persuasiveness of clever words, for I
have no desire to rob the cross of its power". Matthew's liberal use
of prophecy is probably why the idea developed in later centuries that
every verse in the OT has multiple meanings, one of which always
refers to Christ (e.g. "Let there be light" = "Let Christ be the Light
of the World").
There's only one teneble conclusion: If Matthew was alive today, he'd
be flamed off afp for posting Star Trek annotations. :-)
[1] I think. Plus or minus a verse, perhaps.
Nanny Ogg
<car...@miskatonic.edu> writes:
>The "God and Man" stuff came along many centuries after Christ's death and
>only after endless convocations, schisms, etc.
It was only definitely _established_ by something like the 4th century after
Jesus (IIRC) but the whole idea was around quite a lot earlier than that.
Several quotes in the gospel of John indicate a belief in Jesus as God.
Nanny Ogg
<morgan...@netyp.com.au> writes:
>> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of the
>> Bible.
>
>... by the fact that Jesus had younger brothers.
Strictly speaking, I don't think the Bible specifies whether his siblings were
younger or older, so technically I think they could have been Joseph's children
from a previous marriage (though I may very well have missed something there -
it's a while since I read that bit of the Bible).
A more subtle, but I think more profound, problem with the theory of Mary's
perpetual virginity is the wording of Matthew 1:24 - 5. `He took his wife, but
knew her not until she had borne a son'.
Now, if Matthew had wanted to convey that Mary had _never_ had sex with her
husband, he could have just as easily written `knew her not for the time of
their lives together' or some such. I'd say that the `until she had borne a
son' phrasing carries the pretty clear implication that, once she had borne a
son, he did `know' her in the Biblical sense.
............
>* IIRC, the closest Luke's gospel gets to the virgin birth is this.
>The angel says to Mary, 'You're going to have a baby'. Mary replies,
>'How is this possible? - I'm a virgin'. The angel replies, 'Trust me -
>you're going to have a baby'. IIRC, at no stage does it definitively
>say that Mary was /still/ a virgin by the time Jesus was conceived.
>If it weren't for the presence of Matthew's version in our minds,
>maybe we'd find it reasonable to interpret "How is this possible?" as
>Mary's way of saying, "Hey you, slow down, I'm still a virgin and
>already you're talking about children? Why can't you angels let me
>live my life one step at a time?" ...
LOL! I like this interpretation.
One book I read pointed out that, even if Isaiah 7:14 actually did say `The
virgin will conceive and bear a son', the most obvious interpretation of this
as a prophecy would be that someone who was a virgin at the time of the
prophecy would then go on to lose her virginity and conceive in the usual
manner. ;-)
.............
>I'm a little puzzled at what the Apostate means by scripture growing
>out of tradition - given that the earliest books of the NT had been
>written within fifty years, which is microseconds in a historian's
>timeframe. Yes the discussions within the early Christian world
>influenced what people wrote about Jesus, but at that stage, such
>discussions could hardly be called Traditions, surely?
Depends on your definition of tradition. My nuclear family, has been around
rather less than 50 years, but we've still got quite a lot of traditions. Of
course, when this word is used to apply to a church, it does tend to carry
implications of something that's built up over more time.
Nanny Ogg
(Andrew Gray) writes:
>There is, of course, the famed incident at Gettysburg (or another ACW
>battle; my memory is tired...) where a certain young lady in a
>farmhouse was hit, um, intimately with a stray musket ball which had
>previously inflicted a very personal and painful flesh wound on a
>soldier outside, and the resultant carriage of tissue (and associated
>fluids) from his (ex?) testicle to her led to some form of 'immaculate
>conception' taking place.
>
>Or, to put a slightly more believable spin on it, that's what she and
>the doctor told her mother. ;-)
As I recall, this particular UL also claims that the baby was born with the
bullet clutched in its hand. ;-)
Nanny Ogg
writes:
>I'm not entirely sure about the later life of Mary, but
>the Catholic Church have (within the last 200 years)
>decided that Mary was herself the result of a virgin
>birth ...
>I don't know if they still advance this position - I must
>admit that I found it amusing ;-)
The Immaculate Conception, IIRC. This is frequently misinterpreted as
referring to _Jesus's_ conception.
Nanny Ogg
phil...@see.signature.uk writes:
>It depends on whether you are willing to believe that God can get
>involved in human history. And that He/She can do miracles. If
>God/Whatever created the universe, then He/She/They can also make one
>young teenage girl pregnant <G>.
Well, it depends on more than that. It strikes me that it would be perfectly
consistent to believe in a God who is _powerful_ enough to make a virgin
pregnant, but also believe that the evidence doesn't support the claim that God
actually chose to do this.
Nanny Ogg
(Richard Bos) writes:
>fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman" wrote:
>>
>> >"Nanny Ogg" <swhi...@aol.com> wrote
>> >> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of
Mary
>> >> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
only
>> >> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
birth,
>> >> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
the
>> >> Bible.
>> >
>> >And also by Dogma.
>>
>> _Which_ dogma ?
The film with Jay and Silent Bob in it. The main character, a woman who had a
strict Catholic upbringing, is astonished to be told that Mary wasn't a
lifelong virgin and Jesus had brothers and sisters.
>Nevertheless, it is true that the Bible doesn't claim that Mary was a
>virgin all her life, and neither does any Christian dogma that I know of.
I don't know if it's actually an official Catholic belief, but it certainly
seems to be a pretty widely held unofficial one, from my own impressions on the
subject.
>> There are quite a few christian churchs around, and
>> several of them hold the virginity of Mary as a point of dogma...
>
>At the point of conception, yes. Not, AFAIK, in her later life.
Catholics will frequently refer to Mary as the Virgin. I've seen a lengthy
treatise trying to explain away the mention of Jesus's siblings in the Bible in
order to cling to claims of Mary's perpetual virginity. I've seen a book
mention that Mary wasn't a lifelong virgin as if the author fully expected the
news to astonish readers. The author of `Dogma' (Kevin Whatsisname) was
brought up as a Catholic, so he presumably knew something about average
Catholic beliefs on this point.
Maybe I'm overinterpreting, but there do seem to be quite a few people around
who believe that Mary was a virgin for her whole life.
Nanny Ogg
writes:
>I've also heard that the original word ascribed to Mary
>(I don't remember whether Hebrew or Greek) could equally
>well mean "virgin" and "young (possibly unmarried) woman".
You might well be thinking of Isaiah 7:14. This reads `A [or `the'] young
woman will conceive and bear a son' but was translated by Matthew as `A virgin
will conceive and bear a son' and claimed, by him, as being a prophecy of a
Messianic virgin birth.
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
Bos) wrote:
[snip...]
I know the roman catholic church holds the virginity of Mary (as in,
for all her life) as a point of dogma, and am quite sure this is also
the case for orthodox church.
>Richard
FiX (can you tell I'm a catholic ? ;-p)
David Chapman
news:3c33ad7a....@news.cableinet.co.uk...
Especially since a musket ball in flight would be up to a few
hundred degrees Celsius at the time. A bit much for sperm
to withstand, anyway.
David Chapman
news:3c342128....@news.tiscali.nl...
> fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman"
> > <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
> >
> > >"Nanny Ogg" <swhi...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > >news:20020101095507...@mb-cp.aol.com...
> > >> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole
idea of Mary
> > >> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's
not only
> > >> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the
virgin birth,
> > >> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text
of the
> > >> Bible.
> > >
> > >And also by Dogma.
> >
> > _Which_ dogma ?
>
> Knowing David's track record of confusing "Christianity" with "what
> someone told me",
AKA "that stuff I read about in the Bible".
> probably Lars von Trier's.
That's Dogme, not Dogma.
I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's
why I capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
<sigh>
You two either need to get out more, or you need to rent the
video and stay in more.
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
<evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
[snipped rather heavilly]
>"Richard Bos" <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote in message
>news:3c342128....@news.tiscali.nl...
>> fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman"
>> > <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > >And also by Dogma.
>> >
>> > _Which_ dogma ?
[...]
>That's Dogme, not Dogma.
>
>I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's
>why I capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
Then you should have said so in your first post: FYI, I don't watch
TV, I don't watch movies, and I actually _dislike_ doing so when I do
(going out with friend, you know)... so an obscure film by an obscure
author doesn't mean anything to me.
You shouldalso remember that cpitalization rules are different from
language to language. In French, to refer to the film "Dogma", we
would call it <<dogma>>. I german, all noums are cpitalised, and so
on. Relying on proper English capitalization to imply meaning in an
internationnal NG is rather stupid, you know ?
For those who had trouble understanding the first time, look back at
the Kewl Sp33k thread, you will see that, for quite a few of us,
English is not the maternal language.
</flame>
>
FiX, who doesn't like being insulted
Richard Bos
> On Thu, 03 Jan 2002 09:23:48 GMT, in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard
> Bos) wrote:
> [snip...]
> >fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
>
> >Nevertheless, it is true that the Bible doesn't claim that Mary was a
> >virgin all her life, and neither does any Christian dogma that I know
> >of.
> >
> >> There are quite a few christian churchs around, and
> >> several of them hold the virginity of Mary as a point of dogma...
> >
> >At the point of conception, yes. Not, AFAIK, in her later life.
>
> I know the roman catholic church holds the virginity of Mary (as in,
> for all her life) as a point of dogma, and am quite sure this is also
> the case for orthodox church.
Does it? Hm. Odd. I've never heard of this before except when referring
to some kind of oddball extremists. Honestly didn't know the RC church
still held to this - I'd have put it beyond even the pope to be this
irrational.
Richard
Suzi
message news:3c348079....@news.net.oleane.com...
[Snip]
> You shouldalso remember that cpitalization rules are different from
> language to language. In French, to refer to the film "Dogma", we
> would call it <<dogma>>. I german, all noums are cpitalised, and so
> on. Relying on proper English capitalization to imply meaning in an
> internationnal NG is rather stupid, you know ?
This *is* an English speaking group, and therefore it should be assumed
that English *is* the default language being used. People who have those
sorts of major difficulties with normal English grammar should perhaps
try a group which corresponds in their native tongue?
Suzi
Maaike
>In article <3c342128....@news.tiscali.nl>, in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl
>(Richard Bos) writes:
>
>>fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman" wrote:
>>>
>>> >"Nanny Ogg" <swhi...@aol.com> wrote
>
>>> >> Even for people who believe in it, it's hard to see why the whole idea of
>Mary
>>> >> being a _lifelong_ virgin has the pervasiveness it seemed to. It's not
>only
>>> >> completely unnecessary to believe that in order to believe in the virgin
>birth,
>>> >> it's also an idea which is pretty much contradicted by the plain text of
>the
>>> >> Bible.
>>> >
>>> >And also by Dogma.
>>>
>>> _Which_ dogma ?
>
>The film with Jay and Silent Bob in it. The main character, a woman who had a
>strict Catholic upbringing, is astonished to be told that Mary wasn't a
>lifelong virgin and Jesus had brothers and sisters.
Wasn't she Jewish? I seem to remember a scene (very small spoiler)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
7a
...at the beginning o the movie, when she's just getting to work in an
abortion clinic surrounded by protesters. One of them shouts something
along the lines of 'How can you, a decent Christian woman, have a job
like this?' to which she replies 'I'm Jewish.'
-Maaike
Andrew Gray
> >Or, to put a slightly more believable spin on it, that's what she and
> >the doctor told her mother. ;-)
>
> As I recall, this particular UL also claims that the baby was born with the
> bullet clutched in its hand. ;-)
I hadn't heard that variant on it...
Mengmeng Zhang
I'm certainly not an expert on English grammar, but I was taught that titles
need more than just capitalization. If it's a song or short story or poem, it
needs quotes. If it's the title of a larger work (including, I would assume,
a movie), it needs to be italicized or lacking provisions for that, underlined.
Which is why I always write titles like _Small Gods_ or _Dogma_.
MZ
--
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, _The Little Prince_
The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books
must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere
with the nature of causality. - Terry Pratchett, Discworld
apostate
>
> I think many of the Protestant churches have been pretty successful at
> taking Christianity back to the Bible.
which is always a debatable point.
Whis goes back ot my earlier point about tradition. Traditio - that which is
handed on - is not something that is dead but is living, developing
theological thought. Scripture is tradition because it is a reflective
thought on - for example, OT teaching reinterpreted in the light of the
Christ event. A case in point is the teaching on the incarnation moving from
the Marcan idea that Jesus became Lord after the resurrection, through the
Lucan and Matthaen idea theat he became Lord at his birth to the Johannine
idea that he was Lord before his birth. A development of thought in the
space of some 70 years.
As far as the protestants taking Christianity back to the bible - whatever
that may mean - this has been achieved through some very dodgy exegesis
based on the work of a handful of men. This is why for 2000 years most
Christians have stressed the importance of interpretation in the light of
the living tradition of the church. Scriputre - on its own - is
insufficient.
>
> > of time for traditions to rise and be accepted. It is moot what the
early
> > Christians thought since all that survives is the Bible and assorted
other
> > texts that churches accept or not as they choose.
>
> I can't remember where I've read in some detail how the books of the
> Bible were selected, but I know they began with the assumption that
> the books most reliable would be those known to have been written by
> people who knew Jesus personally or by people whose relationship to
> such people was well established. Decisions about what was a forgery
> and what wasn't weren't made on a whim, but with all the detective
> power available to them. A book was rejected if its author was
> unknown, although an exception was made for the Letter to the Hebrews
> because it had already become a favourite.
This was the Lutheran teaching but he used the Hebrew Old Testament which
formed a canon after the Christian Canon favoured by most Christians.
--
The Apostate
Willfully misconstruing in the hope of a cheap laugh
Michel
nl.fan.pratchett? de.fan.pratchett?
but more seriously...This may be an English-speaking group, but since it's
international and English happens to be understood more widely than Suomi,
we speak [1] English. But you can't expect fluent English from every-one.
Some consideration would be polite.
And now, I shall run away before someone hits me gramatically correct.
*zoof*
Michel
[1] or even type, for the ones waiting to make that remark...
--
Chairman of the "Just say no to sigs" club.
E-mail michel at klijmij.net
MegaMole
<swhi...@aol.com> writes
>In article <3C343513...@ValeOfAldur.Alg>, Beldin <Bel...@ValeOfAldur.Alg>
>writes:
>
>>I've also heard that the original word ascribed to Mary
>>(I don't remember whether Hebrew or Greek) could equally
>>well mean "virgin" and "young (possibly unmarried) woman".
>
>You might well be thinking of Isaiah 7:14. This reads `A [or `the'] young
>woman will conceive and bear a son' but was translated by Matthew as `A virgin
>will conceive and bear a son' and claimed, by him, as being a prophecy of a
>Messianic virgin birth.
Hyup. But it wasn't necessarily Matthew as translated that - it was
$Greek_person reading Isaiah's Hebrew "young woman" as "virgin". The
word "maiden" can lead to similar confusion in English.
Or the famous "glass slipper" which was really an ermine one - "vair"
(French) misread as "verre".
--
MegaMole, the Official Enrico Basilica
\\\\\ laaa! mo...@lspace.org mo...@music.slut.org.uk
\\\\\\\_o / www.countertenor.demon.co.uk for Stuff
__ \\\\\'c/__ Hitting the high notes with hedgehogs since 2001
David Chapman
message news:3c348079....@news.net.oleane.com...
> <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
>
> [snipped rather heavilly]
>
> >"Richard Bos" <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote in message
> >news:3c342128....@news.tiscali.nl...
> >> fdem...@capgemini.fr.nospam (François-Xavier de Montgolfier) wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:38:51 -0000, "David Chapman"
> >> > <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > >And also by Dogma.
> >> >
> >> > _Which_ dogma ?
> [...]
> >That's Dogme, not Dogma.
> >
> >I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's
> >why I capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
>
> Then you should have said so in your first post: FYI, I don't watch
> TV, I don't watch movies, and I actually _dislike_ doing so when I do
That, FX, is *your* problem. Please don't make it mine.
> (going out with friend, you know)... so an obscure film by an obscure
> author doesn't mean anything to me.
Kevin Smith is far from obscure.
> You shouldalso remember that cpitalization rules are different from
> language to language. In French, to refer to the film "Dogma", we
> would call it <<dogma>>.
Y'all ain't in France, son.
> I german, all noums are cpitalised, and so
> on. Relying on proper English capitalization to imply meaning in an
> internationnal NG is rather stupid, you know ?
Not when it's an *English-speaking* group.
> FiX, who doesn't like being insulted
You're also evidently not au fait with the careful gradiations of
insults to intelligence in English. "Twit" is right down at the bottom
in terms of insult-level, along with "berk", "nerk" and "divvy".
Supermouse
<evil...@madasafish.com> writes
>
>I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's why I
>capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
I think this sentence, and indeed, the whole post, would have benefited
from the omission of the 'you twits' phrase, which I can only see as an
attack on posters, personally, instead of on what the posters wrote.
Attacking posters personally is not good for Usenet, and should not ever
be the norm on afp.
Cordially,
--
Supermouse
Flesh-eating dragon
> Whis goes back ot my earlier point about tradition. Traditio - that which
is
> handed on - is not something that is dead but is living, developing
> theological thought. Scripture is tradition because it is a reflective
ISTM that tradition is only 'living' if it can be reviewed, as opposed
to augmented. The problem I have with the Catholic church begins with
the fact that once it decides on a dogma, it binds itself for all time.
One stone of tradition piled on another adds up to quite an unstable
theological tower, IMO. Furthermore, history might suggest that the
notion of papal infallibility doesn't scrape up against the first test
of spiritual authority that Jesus gave us - "Ye shall know them by
their fruits".
I've no intention of pursuing protestant/catholic advocacy very far,
but feel it's reasonable to point out the things that bother me most.
> As far as the protestants taking Christianity back to the bible - whatever
> that may mean - this has been achieved through some very dodgy exegesis
> based on the work of a handful of men. This is why for 2000 years most
Protestant churches encourage /anyone/ to interpret Scripture and
reach their own conclusions (which doesn't mean we denigrate good
Biblical scholarship, btw). Protestant beliefs are not intrinsically
tied to anyone's work, although of course the work of a few people
provided the momentum for the movement. By removing binds to human and
organisational authorities and encouraging individuals to think for
themselves, it's inevitable that Protestantism should bring
Christianity back to the Bible, because the Bible is the common
reference point for all of Protestant diversity.
> Christians have stressed the importance of interpretation in the light of
> the living tradition of the church. Scriputre - on its own - is
> insufficient.
Scripture + Catholic tradition isn't exactly a seamless whole, however.
Adrian.
David Chapman
news:M4ewz7A4...@ntlworld.com...
> In article <u38t9mi...@corp.supernews.com>, David Chapman
> <evil...@madasafish.com> writes
> >
> >I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's why I
> >capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
>
> I think this sentence, and indeed, the whole post, would have benefited
> from the omission of the 'you twits' phrase, which I can only see as an
> attack on posters, personally, instead of on what the posters wrote.
It would have been absent had I known FX and Richard were
taking their comments seriously, or if Richard had not used FX's
confusion as an excuse to snipe at me.
Jonathan Ellis
David Chapman wrote in message ...
>You're also evidently not au fait with the careful gradiations of
>insults to intelligence in English. "Twit" is right down at the bottom
>in terms of insult-level, along with "berk", "nerk" and "divvy".
Correct, as far as I know, in three cases out of four.
However, in case you didn't know, "berk" may be somewhat more
insulting than you may realise, if what I have heard is correct. I have
heard it reported on the radio that "berk" was an abbreviation derived
from rhyming slang - "Berkely Hunt". [1]
Jonathan.
[1] (Yes, I know that the first word is, in fact, generally pronounced
"Barkley" these days. Perhaps there was a time when it wasn't.)
Axel Kielhorn
> * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
> It's perfectly /possible/ for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
> the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly /possible/ for the atoms
> in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
> a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
> likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
It is called "In Vitro Fertilization".
Very godless, unless you call the man in white God. But Doc will usually
do.
Axel
--
"The music 's no good without you." (Cher)
"The music would be much better without You." (Axel)
(Yes, I am talking to my wireless,
and no I don't need another therapist.)
Nanny Ogg
(Andrew Gray) writes:
Well, thinking back that was probably from someone who was extracting the urine
while passing the UL on........ ;-)
Nanny Ogg
>Beldin <Bel...@ValeOfAldur.Alg> writes:
>
>> I'm not entirely sure about the later life of Mary, but
>> the Catholic Church have (within the last 200 years)
>> decided that Mary was herself the result of a virgin
>> birth ...
>
>No. The "Immaculate Conception" of Mary occurred through normal means[1].
>What the term refers to is that Mary was conceived without original
>sin, thus is an appropriate vessel to bear the son of God in later in
>life.
Ah, thanks for clarifying this point. I learnt about the Immaculate Conception
from `Frost in May', an autobiographical novel about the experiences of a
Catholic girl at a convent school around the turn of the century, so it was
hard to tell whether the `without original sin' bit was actually meant to
include `without sex'. I stand corrected on my earlier post. ;-)
Suzi
news:B85A9A6D.4E35%miche...@klijmij.net...
[Snip]
> nl.fan.pratchett? de.fan.pratchett?
[Snip]
You could try de.alt.fan.pratchett as that actually exists :-)
Suzi
Michel
Suzi, I'll have to thank you for causing a smile on my face. However,
shortly after reading de.alt.fan.pratchett I realised my German is at the
level of a 1-year-old...
But I believe that my English is good enough to read and write in this group
:-)
Michel
Ailbhe Leamy
(on Thu, 03 Jan 2002 16:06:08 GMT):
If it helps, none of the RC priests and nuns I've known have been this
irrational, afaik. That includes two of my aunts, which kind of raises
the number of RC clergy one knows.
A.
--
Ailbhe's homepage: http://ailbhe.ossifrage.net/
* People I know sell craftwork online:
* Custom knot- & bead-work: http://www.gordiandesigns.com/
* Handpainted glassware & canvas: http://designs.ladykayla.org/
Ailbhe Leamy
(on Thu, 3 Jan 2002 19:55:07 -0000):
> You're also evidently not au fait with the careful gradiations of
> insults to intelligence in English. "Twit" is right down at the bottom
> in terms of insult-level, along with "berk", "nerk" and "divvy".
"Gradation".
Also, it's correct to quote or italicise (depending on a number of
things, like availability of italic type and house style) the titles of
works such as films, books, plays, etc. Possibly you don't have to for
little things like song titles, though.
Peter Ellis
>Michel <miche...@klijmij.net> wrote:
>>
>> nl.fan.pratchett? de.fan.pratchett?
>
>You could try de.alt.fan.pratchett as that actually exists :-)
I *really* hope the intention isn't to suggest that this newsgroup is only
or indeed primarily for English speakers, and that speakers of other
languages should go to their "own" groups.
This group is *not* "an English-speaking group". No group "speaks" any
language, since a group is not a sentient being with a tongue, vocal cords
or even a keyboard.
Furthermore, this particular group is in a worldwide hierarchy, the alt.*
hierarchy. Not the uk, de, nl, au or sh hierarchies.
The current lingua franca [1] is indeed English, but this is more by
accident of history than by any wondrous fiat from above. I welcome each
and every foreign-language post I see here, and I'm continually astounded
by the courtesy of our various non-English contributors in learning and
using my own native language. I couldn't even swear blind that English is
the native tongue for more than about 2/3 of the posters to the group, let
alone the lurkers, which given that Terry himself is English is a
remarkable tribute to the worldwide popularity of his books.
As such, tolerance and mutual good will should be extended by and to all
sides -- given that Francois was obviously confused by David's post, he'd
have done better to clarify himself without throwing in a pointless "you
twits". Yes, of course it's a mild comment, but such subtleties of rudery
are *also* likely to be lost on those whose native language is not
English. Thus, Francois was *absolutely* right to point out that in an
international forum, it is incumbent upon the poster to take due care to
maintain clarity; and also to *without reproach* set things straight when
they're caught out by some accident of international grammar or spelling.
Regardless, it certainly doesn't merit a thread ten posts deep of
recrimination and counter-recrimination, and even more does not merit a
"sod off home if you can't speak English", which is how the post I'm
following-up (and its parents) appears to come across.
Peter
[1] Irony absolutely intentional.
Richard Bos
> Richard Bos <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote
> (on Thu, 03 Jan 2002 16:06:08 GMT):
>
> > Does it? Hm. Odd. I've never heard of this before except when referring
> > to some kind of oddball extremists. Honestly didn't know the RC church
> > still held to this - I'd have put it beyond even the pope to be this
> > irrational.
>
> If it helps, none of the RC priests and nuns I've known have been this
> irrational, afaik. That includes two of my aunts, which kind of raises
> the number of RC clergy one knows.
Which explains why I didn't know about it, I think. In fact, I've
frequently noticed that Roman Catholics, including many, though not all,
church functionaries, tend to be a lot more sensible in such matters
than the Roman Catholic Church as a body.
Richard
Ailbhe Leamy
(on Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:08:30 +1030):
> > As far as the protestants taking Christianity back to the bible - whatever
> > that may mean - this has been achieved through some very dodgy exegesis
> > based on the work of a handful of men. This is why for 2000 years most
>
> Protestant churches encourage /anyone/ to interpret Scripture and
> reach their own conclusions (which doesn't mean we denigrate good
> Biblical scholarship, btw). Protestant beliefs are not intrinsically
> tied to anyone's work, although of course the work of a few people
> provided the momentum for the movement. By removing binds to human and
> organisational authorities and encouraging individuals to think for
> themselves, it's inevitable that Protestantism should bring
> Christianity back to the Bible, because the Bible is the common
> reference point for all of Protestant diversity.
Depends which Protestants, IME.
A.
There are lots of them, you know. Lots and lots.
Michel
> On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Suzi wrote:
>> Michel <miche...@klijmij.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> nl.fan.pratchett? de.fan.pratchett?
>>
>> You could try de.alt.fan.pratchett as that actually exists :-)
>
> I *really* hope the intention isn't to suggest that this newsgroup is only
> or indeed primarily for English speakers, and that speakers of other
> languages should go to their "own" groups.
>
I hope it comforts you and other readers that the suggestion of nl/de groups
was a bit ironical, to point out that this is an international group. I
think Suzi's reply was in the same spirit (at least I interpreted it in that
way, not as "sod of you furrin twit"). I agree with the rest of your post.
Should it ever happen that this will become a British/English only
newsgroup, I shall disguise myself as Michael Klymy and pretend I'm a
cockney, guv'. :-)
Oh and happy new year to those I haven't said it to...
Michel
Suzi
news:Pine.SOL.4.33.020104...@yellow.csi.cam.ac.uk...
[Snip uncalled for diatribe]
> Regardless, it certainly doesn't merit a thread ten posts deep of
> recrimination and counter-recrimination, and even more does not merit
> a "sod off home if you can't speak English", which is how the post
> I'm following-up (and its parents) appears to come across.
Not to the poster who was actually being followed up to though... who
would appear to actually have not suffered a similar SOH failure to the
one shown above :-(
Suzi
mule
> Regardless, it certainly doesn't merit a thread ten posts deep of
> recrimination and counter-recrimination, and even more does not merit a
> "sod off home if you can't speak English", which is how the post I'm
> following-up (and its parents) appears to come across.
Maybe you missed a smiley?
mule
--
"jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule"
Bob Dylan
Flesh-eating dragon
> > Protestant churches encourage /anyone/ to interpret Scripture and
> > reach their own conclusions (which doesn't mean we denigrate good
>
> Depends which Protestants, IME.
Oh, I agree with *that*. It's like generalising about afp. However,
one can generalise about Protestants as compared with Catholics in the
same way that one can generalise about afp compared to ... [no best
terminator - choose your own].
> A.
> There are lots of them, you know. Lots and lots.
Me in Uniting Church, being union of methodists, presbyterians and
congregetionalists. IMO it's among the best if you want a church that
encourages people to think for themselves and essentially provides an
environment and community to help nurture one's personal spiritual
growth. I've certainly been to other churches (e.g. Baptist) where the
theology seemed much more stifled and unnaturally uniform.
Adrian.
Peter Ellis
>>
>> ... which is how the post
>> I'm following-up (and its parents) appears to come across.
>
>Not to the poster who was actually being followed up to though... who
>would appear to actually have not suffered a similar SOH failure to the
>one shown above :-(
Suzi, I said "appears" for a reason. *I* know you're not trying to tell
people to sod off, but I thought someone needed to stand up and make the
point that this *isn't* an "English-speaking group", there being no such
thing in a worldwide hierarchy.
Also, and I quote from your grandparent article:
>
>This *is* an English speaking group, and therefore it should be assumed
>that English *is* the default language being used. People who have those
>sorts of major difficulties with normal English grammar should perhaps
>try a group which corresponds in their native tongue?
I've quoted it in full, no selective quotes here. The first clause is
simply wrong [1], the second is a patronising poke [2] and the final
sentence is pretty unequivocal. No smiley on it, and no hint that it's
intended "humorously".
Those who don't actually know you (let alone those without English as a
native tongue) would have a hard time interpreting that other than as a
"sod off if you don't have good enough English"
I thought I should clarify your benign intentions and voice my earnest
hope that people *don't* start posting such sentiments in earnest.
Peter
[1] See above. English is the main language on the group, but it is
utterly wrong to assert that that makes the group "English", or that
English *should* be the only language used. Not that I'm accusing you of
saying that, but it's a point that IMO needs to be made.
[2] This arose out of a confusion over the capitalisation of "Dogma".
However, Francois was obviously well aware that the post was in English,
so suggesting that he was not (which is the implication of your "it should
be assumed that") is simply rude.
Flesh-eating dragon
> [2] This arose out of a confusion over the capitalisation of "Dogma".
> However, Francois was obviously well aware that the post was in English,
> so suggesting that he was not (which is the implication of your "it should
> be assumed that") is simply rude.
It isn't really a language issue at all in this case.
Anyone, whether a native English speaker or not, who has not heard of
some film called _Dogma_ (i.e. a substantial majority I'd bet), would
probably interpret David's original post the way I did. Dogma = dogma.
David should have had the foresight to realise this, but apparently
didn't. Oh well, let's move on.
As for "twit", there may be fiercer insults known to man, but it's
still _far_ too rude to be acceptable on Usenet IMNSHO.
Adrian.
phil...@see.signature.uk
>Strictly speaking, I don't think the Bible specifies whether his siblings were
>younger or older, so technically I think they could have been Joseph's children
>from a previous marriage (though I may very well have missed something there -
>it's a while since I read that bit of the Bible).
They *could* have been, but since most marriages were contracted between
persons who were single with the hopes off offspring <G>, it's unlikely.
The one 'duty' on a Jewish man (as I understand it) was to marry and
produce at least one heir. If Joseph had already done this and was a
widower, it is unlikely he would have been considered as a husband for
Mary by her parents (inheritance laws, etc).
>A more subtle, but I think more profound, problem with the theory of Mary's
>perpetual virginity is the wording of Matthew 1:24 - 5. `He took his wife, but
>knew her not until she had borne a son'.
>
>Now, if Matthew had wanted to convey that Mary had _never_ had sex with her
>husband, he could have just as easily written `knew her not for the time of
>their lives together' or some such. I'd say that the `until she had borne a
>son' phrasing carries the pretty clear implication that, once she had borne a
>son, he did `know' her in the Biblical sense.
Well, quite - see above <G>. Look at the story of Ruth and Boaz. Her
(their) first son together doing things the usual way was regarded as
the heir to her late husband's estate/name/etc. After that any other
children inherited from Boaz. This was a good way of ensuring that a
noble man's line did not die out. So Joseph was more or less honour
bound by Jewish law to raise up sons and daughters that were fully his!
NOT enjoying his wife's....ahem....company would have been extremely
frowned upon! Staying celibate during her pregnancy had precedent from
Nazarite vows when the child conceived was deemed 'holy' to the Lord
(see Samson).
Philippa
mule
> As for "twit", there may be fiercer insults known to man, but it's
> still _far_ too rude to be acceptable on Usenet IMNSHO.
Pull the other one.
David Chapman
news:a12voo$6dj$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> David Chapman wrote in message ...
>
> >You're also evidently not au fait with the careful gradiations of
> >insults to intelligence in English. "Twit" is right down at the bottom
> >in terms of insult-level, along with "berk", "nerk" and "divvy".
>
>
> Correct, as far as I know, in three cases out of four.
> However, in case you didn't know, "berk" may be somewhat more
> insulting than you may realise, if what I have heard is correct. I have
> heard it reported on the radio that "berk" was an abbreviation derived
> from rhyming slang - "Berkely Hunt". [1]
That's interesting. OTOH, IMHO the use of the word has
changed sufficiently to legitimately place it where I did - just
as "bollocks" has become a swear word when it used to mean
something else.
David Chapman
news:slrna3b1lf...@loquacious.ossifrage.net...
> David Chapman <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote
> (on Thu, 3 Jan 2002 19:55:07 -0000):
>
> > You're also evidently not au fait with the careful gradiations of
> > insults to intelligence in English. "Twit" is right down at the bottom
> > in terms of insult-level, along with "berk", "nerk" and "divvy".
>
> "Gradation".
Ficking typos...
>
> Also, it's correct to quote or italicise (depending on a number of
> things, like availability of italic type and house style) the titles of
> works such as films, books, plays, etc. Possibly you don't have to for
> little things like song titles, though.
<shrug>
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
Uh-oh... please calm down, everybody! I suffered from a case of Bad
Day (TM) yesterday, just happened to have read 4 "French-bashing"
posts at the same time (1), and also wanted to point out that :
1. In Afp, Correctly Grammatically Speaking Not Mandatory Is,
2. there is quite a few furiners in the NG, so if you don't wish to be
misunderstood, you should be as unambiguous as possible,
3. if somebody tells me "... and also by the Church", I will
understand that the capital letter of Church means that he refers to
his own church. When you wrote "... and also in Dogma", even if I'd
known of the film you referred to, I'd have thought you were referring
to the dogma of your own church, which explains the misunderstanding.
I certainly did not wish to agress you by my first post, which missed
a smiley at the end, 'cause I was writing it while compiling, and did
not take the pain to reread it (kids, don't try this at home!).
Thanks for the people who jumped in to defend Richard and me, but
there's no need to escalate to a flame war on such a silly subject!
Cheers,
FiX
(1) excerpts:
>and
>would probably come up with a punishment which they regarded as no
>punishment at all, but which they knew the French would regard as a
>punishment, and so the French would not realise that the Irish were having a
>joke at their expense.
>
2 in one post
>>Actually, that's Duisenberg, and he is Dutch. And a major pain in the
>>ass for the French :)
>
> (and it gives
>someone else a chance to annoy the French, who should never be trusted
>to run a central bank, unless an Italian is the only other choice).
and last but not least:
>I was referring to hygene in food shops. One of my work colleagues went on
>holiday to France in the summer, and had some interesting things to say on
>the subject when she returned - considerably thinner, as she had not been
>able to bring herself to eat anything there after seeing the shops.
This one almost got back a flame... it's based on hearsay, on gross
generalization and just plain insulting "Know that French Are Pigs"
troll. Which is why I wouldn't reply to it yesterday...
François-Xavier de Montgolfier
wrote:
[snip]
>I've quoted it in full, no selective quotes here. The first clause is
>simply wrong [1], the second is a patronising poke [2] and the final
>sentence is pretty unequivocal. No smiley on it, and no hint that it's
>intended "humorously".
>
uhhh... as I already acknowldeged in an ealier post (well, five minute
ealier), I was overreacting in my first post (the one which caused
this thread), due to a Bad Day Syndrom (TM) (lost most of my day's
work due to Word not being able to handle network failure properly(and
it was a technical specifications too, the programmer's bane)).
IM(oh so)HO, answering to a near-flame with a tongue in cheek reply
is a valid use of bandwidth..
>Those who don't actually know you (let alone those without English as a
>native tongue) would have a hard time interpreting that other than as a
>"sod off if you don't have good enough English"
Not if they've lurked here for a time... the only people who might
reasonnably misunderstand Suzi's post are fisrt-time lurker, IMO...
>I thought I should clarify your benign intentions and voice my earnest
>hope that people *don't* start posting such sentiments in earnest.
>Peter
FiX
Speaker-to-Customers
"François-Xavier de Montgolfier" wrote ...
(Snip)
> Uh-oh... please calm down, everybody! I suffered from a case of Bad
> Day (TM) yesterday, just happened to have read 4 "French-bashing"
> posts at the same time (1), and also wanted to point out that :
> 1. In Afp, Correctly Grammatically Speaking Not Mandatory Is,
> 2. there is quite a few furiners in the NG, so if you don't wish to be
> misunderstood, you should be as unambiguous as possible,
Something I obviously failed to do, as you have picked out two examples of
"French-bashing" which were actually me having an affectionate go at two
other nationalities, the Irish and the English.
> Cheers,
>
> FiX
>
> (1) excerpts:
> >and
> >would probably come up with a punishment which they regarded as no
> >punishment at all, but which they knew the French would regard as a
> >punishment, and so the French would not realise that the Irish were
having a
> >joke at their expense.
That particular joke was aimed at the Irish. The French feature in it only
as the straight man (the perfectly normal member of a comic double act,
there to accentuate the eccentricity of the funny member).
(Snip)
> and last but not least:
> >I was referring to hygene in food shops. One of my work colleagues went
on
> >holiday to France in the summer, and had some interesting things to say
on
> >the subject when she returned - considerably thinner, as she had not been
> >able to bring herself to eat anything there after seeing the shops.
>
> This one almost got back a flame... it's based on hearsay, on gross
> generalization and just plain insulting "Know that French Are Pigs"
> troll. Which is why I wouldn't reply to it yesterday...
And yet it was the English I was really getting at, not the French at all.
I regard the food hygiene regulations in question as arrant stupidity, and
don't blame the French for ignoring some of them. My targets were the
English bureaucrats who enforce such rules with obsessive over-zealousness.
In my next post on the subject I revealed the true nature of the
infringements which had so shocked my colleague; raw and cooked meat on the
same shelf! The horror! (I had better put a smiley here, which I don't
usually use as emoticons are not part of my writing style, but otherwise
you'll probably take me seriously again) ;-)
Paul Speaker-to-Customers
"Bother!" said Pooh. "The French army is marching on its stomach, which
spoils my idea of selling them 125,000 pairs of boots."
David Chapman
message news:3c35f409...@news.net.oleane.com...
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002 23:48:16 -0000, "David Chapman"
> <evil...@madasafish.com> wrote:
>
> >"Supermouse" <Super...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> >news:M4ewz7A4...@ntlworld.com...
> >> In article <u38t9mi...@corp.supernews.com>, David Chapman
> >> <evil...@madasafish.com> writes
> >> >
> >> >I was referring to the film by Kevin Smith, you twits. That's why I
> >> >capitalised it - proper noun status and all that jazz.
> >>
> >> I think this sentence, and indeed, the whole post, would have benefited
> >> from the omission of the 'you twits' phrase, which I can only see as an
> >> attack on posters, personally, instead of on what the posters wrote.
> >
> >It would have been absent had I known FX and Richard were
> >taking their comments seriously, or if Richard had not used FX's
> >confusion as an excuse to snipe at me.
>
> Uh-oh... please calm down, everybody! I suffered from a case of Bad
> Day (TM) yesterday, just happened to have read 4 "French-bashing"
> posts at the same time (1), and also wanted to point out that :
> 1. In Afp, Correctly Grammatically Speaking Not Mandatory Is,
Well, I suppose not - if you don't want your posts to be read, or to
be woefully misinterpreted when they are.
> 2. there is quite a few furiners in the NG, so if you don't wish to be
> misunderstood, you should be as unambiguous as possible,
Damn right - which is why you should speak in English. <thrrrp>
> 3. if somebody tells me "... and also by the Church", I will
> understand that the capital letter of Church means that he refers to
> his own church. When you wrote "... and also in Dogma", even if I'd
> known of the film you referred to, I'd have thought you were referring
> to the dogma of your own church, which explains the misunderstanding.
I know what you thought, FX, I'm just wondering *why*. You don't
capitalise "dogma" in that context yourself - so why did you assume
the context was the same but the usage different rather than consider I
might have meant the word in a different context to that of simple
dogmatics?
>
> I certainly did not wish to agress you by my first post, which missed
> a smiley at the end, 'cause I was writing it while compiling, and did
> not take the pain to reread it (kids, don't try this at home!).
You didn't "aggress" me, FX.
Michel
> (Snip)
>
>> and last but not least:
>>> I was referring to hygene in food shops. One of my work colleagues went
> on
>>> holiday to France in the summer, and had some interesting things to say
> on
>>> the subject when she returned - considerably thinner, as she had not been
>>> able to bring herself to eat anything there after seeing the shops.
>>
>> This one almost got back a flame... it's based on hearsay, on gross
>> generalization and just plain insulting "Know that French Are Pigs"
>> troll. Which is why I wouldn't reply to it yesterday...
>
> And yet it was the English I was really getting at, not the French at all.
> I regard the food hygiene regulations in question as arrant stupidity, and
> don't blame the French for ignoring some of them. My targets were the
> English bureaucrats who enforce such rules with obsessive over-zealousness.
>
> In my next post on the subject I revealed the true nature of the
> infringements which had so shocked my colleague; raw and cooked meat on the
> same shelf! The horror! (I had better put a smiley here, which I don't
> usually use as emoticons are not part of my writing style, but otherwise
> you'll probably take me seriously again) ;-)
Well, in a more serious manner: raw and cooked meat on the same shelf
(unless several meters apart) can cause bacterial infections, such as
salmonella, AFAIK.
On a lighter note: I remember a tv-program where a dutch cook (Pierre Wind,
for the cloggies, man famous for his liquorice soup and other weird recipes)
showed some of the regulations. One of them was that for different kinds of
foodstuff (fish, meat, vegetables, cooked meat) a different cutting board
had to be used - all in their own colour. looked very silly and not a lot of
cooks actually knew the right colors.
But, to comfort FX: I know France as a country full of good food and plenty
of good wines to drink with the good food. Ah, Bordeaux, summer 2000, eating
canard [1], salmon, pate de foie gras...red wine...and who cares about
hygiene regulations then?
Michel
[1] Donald Duck for Merkian readers.
Ailbhe Leamy
(on Fri, 4 Jan 2002 21:24:45 -0000):
>
> "François-Xavier de Montgolfier" wrote ...
> (Snip)
> > Uh-oh... please calm down, everybody! I suffered from a case of Bad
> > Day (TM) yesterday, just happened to have read 4 "French-bashing"
> > posts at the same time (1), and also wanted to point out that :
> Something I obviously failed to do, as you have picked out two examples of
> "French-bashing" which were actually me having an affectionate go at two
> other nationalities, the Irish and the English.
FWIW, I (Irish) read both those posts as decidedly "French-bashing";
the go at the Irish was definitely opaque to me, and there was no
indication that you thought there was anything wrong with the
regulations being ignored.
A.
Speaker-to-Customers
"Ailbhe Leamy" wrote ...
> Speaker-to-Customers wrote
> >
> > "François-Xavier de Montgolfier" wrote ...
> > (Snip)
> > > Uh-oh... please calm down, everybody! I suffered from a case of Bad
> > > Day (TM) yesterday, just happened to have read 4 "French-bashing"
> > > posts at the same time (1), and also wanted to point out that :
>
> > Something I obviously failed to do, as you have picked out two examples
of
> > "French-bashing" which were actually me having an affectionate go at
two
> > other nationalities, the Irish and the English.
>
> FWIW, I (Irish) read both those posts as decidedly "French-bashing";
> the go at the Irish was definitely opaque to me, and there was no
> indication that you thought there was anything wrong with the
> regulations being ignored.
I don't think you said what you meant to say there. I would read "there was
no indication that you thought there was anything wrong with the regulations
being ignored" as meaning that you agree with me that it was not
"French-bashing".
If you did say what you meant, and what you say does not mean what I would
take it to mean, then this is yet another example of linguistic differences
causing confusion.
However it definitely started off as a dig at the Irish, with a suggestion
that being forced to drink Guinness was a suitably Irish punishment for
something that no-one would really regard as a crime. The French got
dragged into it by accident, when Tina Hall took that particular suggestion
seriously, and I tried to explain the idea behind the joke to her; I picked
the French as the other nationality in the explanation only because wine and
Guinness are so different.
I may have made a poor job of the explanation, but that is because I was
thinking primarily of sausages, hemlock, and Oxo cubes* at the time and my
mind was not really on Guinness.
Paul Speaker-to-Customers
* Sausage and hemlock casserole; take 500 grammes of sausage, grill, then
chop into sections 20 mm in length. Fry one chopped onion, add sausage
pieces, and two peeled and chopped tomatoes. Stir, pour in half a litre of
Guinness, crumble in an Oxo cube, add pepper and hemlock, and bring to the
boil briefly. Simmer for 12 minutes. Then dispose of it, as it is deadly
poisonous.
Ailbhe Leamy
(on Sat, 5 Jan 2002 01:42:06 -0000):
> "Ailbhe Leamy" wrote ...
> > FWIW, I (Irish) read both those posts as decidedly
> > "French-bashing"; the go at the Irish was definitely opaque to me,
> > and there was no indication that you thought there was anything
> > wrong with the regulations being ignored.
>
> I don't think you said what you meant to say there. I would read
> "there was no indication that you thought there was anything wrong
> with the regulations being ignored" as meaning that you agree with me
> that it was not "French-bashing".
Well, it might have been clear from context, and apparently it was,
since you seem to have understood that your initial reading wasn't what
I meant to say...
> If you did say what you meant, and what you say does not mean what I would
> take it to mean, then this is yet another example of linguistic differences
> causing confusion.
My sentence was ambiguous. I meant "no indication that you thought that
the regulations, which were being ignored, were wrong". Better now?
Alec Cawley
> * Even in a godless universe, a virgin birth of sorts could happen.
> It's perfectly possible for a man's semen to quantum leap in from
> the next room, and furthermore it's perfectly possible for the atoms
> in a woman's bedsheets to all quantum leap into the configuration of
> a man's semen and then to take it from there... None of this is very
> likely, but it's a fun idea to think about. <sef>
And apparently has happened, in the one allegedly recorded case of virgin
birth. A young girl had the misfortune to be born without a vagina - which,
apparently, happens, and seems to ensure virginity. However, she was still
able to provide some pleasure for her boyfriend by other means - and had
just done so when a jealous ex-boyfriend stabbed her in the stomach. The
semen was able to enter through the wound, making her pregnant, without the
benefit of sex.
--
@lec Šawley
Gideon Hallett
> "Jonathan Ellis" <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
> message news:a12voo$6dj$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
>>
>> David Chapman wrote in message ...
<snip>
>> Correct, as far as I know, in three cases out of four.
>> However, in case you didn't know, "berk" may be somewhat
>> more
>> insulting than you may realise, if what I have heard is correct.
>> I have heard it reported on the radio that "berk" was an
>> abbreviation derived from rhyming slang - "Berkely Hunt". [1]
>
> That's interesting. OTOH, IMHO the use of the word has
> changed sufficiently to legitimately place it where I did - just
> as "bollocks" has become a swear word when it used to mean
> something else.
To someone who doesn't speak the language particularly well, the
distinctions are somewhat spurious, since they don't *know* how
severe the various terms used are.
Point to anyone who speaks English as a second language who could
tell you that calling someone an 'elephant'[1] is more insulting
than calling them a 'ratbag'.
WRT this incident, might I restate RFC1855 for the 'n'th time?:
"A good rule of thumb: Be conservative in what you send and
liberal in what you receive."
Oh; and to be excruciatingly precise, 'bollocks' is an obscenity,
not a swearword. Swearwords are specifically blasphemous.
For example: gad, egad, gosh, golly, gadzooks, drat, zounds,
oddsbodikins, 'sblood, jiminy, gee, gee whiz, jeepers, cripes,
criminy, lawks, lor, lumme, deuce, heck, darned, shucks - all of
these are swearwords, and thus usage of them is (allegedly) a
direct insult to God, unlike words like fuck, bollocks and tosser,
which are merely crude obscenities.
Gideon.
[1] What does 'Elephant and Castle' rhyme with?
Suzi
Speaker-to-Customers <oct...@mcb.net> wibbled...
[Snip]
> In my next post on the subject I revealed the true nature of the
> infringements which had so shocked my colleague; raw and cooked meat on the
> same shelf! The horror!
[Snip]
In which case I would join them in being horrified... putting raw meats
with cooked meats is one of the best ways to pass bacterial infections
around going - fine if you don't mind having every meat-related bug
going getting into your digestive system, but if you're as stringent
about separation of cooked and raw meats as we are in the UK then you'll
have no tolerance for such bad hygeine standards and will end up with
"jippy tummy" as a result.
Suzi
Suzi
Johnson <da...@usa.net> wibbled...
> "Flesh-eating dragon" <morgan...@netyp.com.au> writes:
>
> > I've certainly been to other churches (e.g. Baptist) where the
> > theology seemed much more stifled and unnaturally uniform.
>
[Snip]
> So in that sense, Baptists are the least stifled and least uniform!
> That's why both Jerry Fallwell and Bill Clinton can both call
> themselves Baptists.
[Snip]
I think you'll find a *big* difference between what someone in the USA
would regard as "Baptist" and what other places in the world would
regard as "Baptist" (for example, in the UK it differs even between
England and Wales).
Suzi
Speaker-to-Customers
"Suzi" wrote ...
> Speaker-to-Customers wibbled...
>
> [Snip]
> > In my next post on the subject I revealed the true nature of the
> > infringements which had so shocked my colleague; raw and cooked meat on
the
> > same shelf! The horror!
> [Snip]
>
> In which case I would join them in being horrified... putting raw meats
> with cooked meats is one of the best ways to pass bacterial infections
> around going - fine if you don't mind having every meat-related bug
> going getting into your digestive system, but if you're as stringent
> about separation of cooked and raw meats as we are in the UK then you'll
> have no tolerance for such bad hygeine standards and will end up with
> "jippy tummy" as a result.
Only if you buy and eat the cooked meat. If you buy the raw meat, cook it
thoroughly, and eat it, you will kill any bacteria and suffer no ill effects
whatsoever.
When I was a child in England in the 1950s and early 60s, and in Malawi in
the late 60s, none of this food hygiene stuff had ever been heard of. There
was virtually no food poisoning, because people a) came into contact with
enough bacteria to build up resistance to infection, or b) cooked their food
thoroughly.
Food poisoning is nature's way of telling you that meat is best served well
done.
Paul Speaker-to-Customers
--
"Bother!" said Pooh. "I went to the Elves for counsel, and they said both
'No' and 'Yes'."
Brian Howlett
[snip]
>
> [1] What does 'Elephant and Castle' rhyme with?
>
In case this isn't a rhetorical question, I believe 'tis rhyming slang
for "arsehole". You need to have a particularly strange way of
pronouncing "arsehole" to get it to actually rhyme, though...
--
Brian Howlett
-----------------------------------------------
Engaging "getting the hell out of here" mode...
David Chapman
news:a1835n$6ud$1...@library.lspace.org...
>
> "Suzi" wrote ...
> > Speaker-to-Customers wibbled...
> >
> > [Snip]
> > > In my next post on the subject I revealed the true nature of the
> > > infringements which had so shocked my colleague; raw and cooked meat
on
> the
> > > same shelf! The horror!
> > [Snip]
> >
> > In which case I would join them in being horrified... putting raw meats
> > with cooked meats is one of the best ways to pass bacterial infections
> > around going - fine if you don't mind having every meat-related bug
> > going getting into your digestive system, but if you're as stringent
> > about separation of cooked and raw meats as we are in the UK then you'll
> > have no tolerance for such bad hygeine standards and will end up with
> > "jippy tummy" as a result.
>
> Only if you buy and eat the cooked meat. If you buy the raw meat, cook it
> thoroughly, and eat it, you will kill any bacteria and suffer no ill
effects
> whatsoever.
I don't believe this is a recommendation...