OT-ish - Bible banned in school

[Burkhard]

file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363

[Burkhard]

On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 1:45:41 PM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:
> file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)

oops, double pasted this by accident, this one should work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Unintended consequences, perhaps, but only for people who claim to love
the Bible but have little knowledge of what it contains and how it
relates to books they want to ban.


--
athel -- biochemist, not a physicist, but detector of crackpots

[broger...@gmail.com]

I think a lot of the religious freedom laws and court rulings that the MAGA movement likes right now are full of unintended consequences that they may not like.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Hopefully this becomes more common as another thumb in the eye to MAGAts.
The Tanakh (especially the Torah part) is a horrible book, especially for
children, and has caused great damage to the world. The Christian bible is
marginally better, especially if Revelation is ignored. But it isn’t. See
Tim Lahaye’s popular Left Behind series.

Ironically the GQP types are focusing on the wrong target as “groomers” as
this often enough applies to pastors and priests. The whole targeting
LGBTQ…++ people thing harkens back to McCarthyism. Desantis himself muddies
the waters by using the “cultural Marxism” canard.

https://youtu.be/C5-2PN3UvTg

In actuality this is a sophisticated form of dog-whistling manipulation,
capitalizing on the “works” of pseudo-intellectuals like James Lindsay and
Christopher Rufo. Rufo is more overtly involved in Desantis’ game plan:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/24/chris-rufo-desantis-anti-woke-00088578

Texas Man explains:
https://youtu.be/z3We2hZt2hU

IMO this strategy as applied by Desantis borrows heavily from Carl Schmitt
and reeks of quasi-fascist authoritarianism:
https://theconversation.com/carl-schmitt-nazi-era-philosopher-who-wrote-blueprint-for-new-authoritarianism-59835

*“Schmitt argues that effective states need a truly sovereign leader who is
not shackled by constitutions, laws and treaties. A truly sovereign
president who will cut through red tape and take whatever action is
necessary.”

[…]

“The rule of law is an obstacle to be overcome – not a principle to be
embraced. And many voters agree: they want political leaders who are
getting results, not talking to lawyers.

But the price for this Schmittian sovereignty is high: it needs the
executive to control the legislature, the courts and often the media.”

Desantis has the Florida legislature eating out of his hand. They accepted
his version of gerrymandering, made it so he can run for President as
governor, and stopped access to his travel records among a laundry list of
other travesties.

Plus: “Schmitt’s second big idea is that politics is fundamentally about
the distinction between friends and enemies. Liberal democracies are
hypocritical, says Schmitt. They have constitutions and laws that pretend
to treat everybody equally, but this is a sham. All states are based on a
distinction between “them” and “us”, between “friend” and “enemy”. A nation
needs to constantly remind itself of its enemies to ensure its own
survival.”

Hence the “war on woke” and recent legislation targeting ChiComs via
Chinese living in Florida reminiscent of the “yellow peril” days and
restrictive covenants.

More Schmittian Othering:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/30/ron-desantis-fox-news-interview-destroy-leftism

[RonO]

On 6/3/2023 7:43 AM, Burkhard wrote:
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363

Your link did not work. Is this the article?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65794363

Ron Okimoto

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 05:43:07 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>:

>file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363
>

Unintended result? :-)

"404 Page cannot be found"
>

--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 05:55:41 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>:

>On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 1:45:41?PM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:
>> file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
>
>oops, double pasted this by accident, this one should work
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363
>

Aha! OK; ignore my previous. :-)

That said, there's no intended good that cannot be twisted
to support its inverse.

[jillery]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 05:55:41 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 1:45:41?PM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:
>> file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
>
>oops, double pasted this by accident, this one should work
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363

A classic petard hoist. In that sense, it's not off-topic, since
pseudoskeptics regularly fail to apply their own arbitrary rules to
themselves.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[RonO]

On 6/3/2023 12:32 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 05:43:07 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by Burkhard
> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>:
>
>> file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363
>>
> Unintended result? :-)
>
> "404 Page cannot be found"
>>
>

This thread was unusual in that I made the same comment, and my comment
showed up immediately on my reader, and only later did Burkhard's
correction and subsequent posts show up, time stamped as occurring
before I posted. Just the weird way things propagate on the internet.

Ron Okimoto

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 11:17:15 -0500, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by RonO <roki...@cox.net>:

Yep.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 10:40:41 AM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 1:45:41 PM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:
> >> file under "law of unintended consequences" :o)
> >
> > oops, double pasted this by accident, this one should work
> > https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363
> >
> Hopefully this becomes more common as another thumb in the eye to MAGAts.
> The Tanakh (especially the Torah part) is a horrible book,

You seem to be supporting the "unintended consequence" here,
as well as giving a highly biased judgment on the Bible.

Except for its mythical nature up through the Tower of Babel incident,
the Torah (pentateuch) includes a highly unvarnished account of life in the days it covers.
There are also several moments where it rises to a lofty view of morality.
This especially true in the case of a ruler whose guest, Abram, tells him that
his wife Sarah is his sister, and is told by God that he will die for wanting to
commit adultery. This ruler successfully argues against God, "Will you slay the innocent?...
With a clean conscience I have done this."

There is also a story that is one of the great dramas of high literature,
whose central figure is Joseph, son of Jacob, involving
Jacob himself as one of the main actors. Joseph comes across first
as an insufferable jerk in telling his dreams to his brothers.
Most of the brothers over-react, resolving to kill him. Reuben
dissuades them, but even so, he is sold to a caravan as a slave.

It's a long story, and there are many moving moments when Joseph, now
a high official in Pharaoh's government, sees his brothers again.
The climax comes when Joseph, whom they hadn't recognized,
reveals himself, resulting in an unforgettable scene of reconciliation.

> especially for children, and has caused great damage to the world.

The Utah law is much ado about very little. When I was in Catholic elementary
school, we were treated to simplified Bible stories that left out
the sexual parts and much of the violence that the law is aimed at.
Even the Catholic high school I attended didn't dwell on the sorts
of details that the law is meant to ban.

>The Christian bible is
> marginally better, especially if Revelation is ignored. But it isn’t. See
> Tim Lahaye’s popular Left Behind series.

The irony is that a literal reading of Exodus 20: 5-6 indicates that these
apocalyptic days are more than a dozen millennia in the future.

"I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."
-- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=EXODUS%2020&version=NIV

We've got a long way to go before a thousand generations will have passed
since the ten commandments [this being part of the second commandment
by the Exodus numbering] were made public at the foot of Mount Sinai.


At this point your theme changed abruptly. At this time I only have one
comment to make on what you wrote: the very next comment.

> Ironically the GQP types are focusing on the wrong target as “groomers” as
> this often enough applies to pastors and priests.

The tense should be past, since the last two decades have seen
an unprecedented clampdown in the Roman Catholic Church on grooming.
Public schools and other denominations and religions [Orthodox Jews
are not exempt] would do well to imitate the Virtus training that has
been mandatory in all this time.

And then there is Disney, the elephant in your room: how often
is "often enough" for them, by your standards?


<snip>


Peter Nyikos