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Source: (consider it) Thread: The Bible and Useful Information
Crœsos
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# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?

I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.

Wine itself is largely germ free, but that doesn't make it a good antiseptic.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Zach82
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None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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Gramps49
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Why didn't God tell us cowpox could be used to stop small pox?

Because God wanted us to use our brains?

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Palimpsest
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?

I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.

Wine itself is largely germ free, but that doesn't make it a good antiseptic.
But it probably is a lot better than water from the spring in a herding culture...
Olive oil can still be bought in small medicinal bottles in a drugstore.

While the Talmud has medical ethics and treament commentary perhaps what you're looking for is the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook [Smile]

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orfeo

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# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.

I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.

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Justinian
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, there is some specific practical instruction in the Bible, but for the most part it does focus more on relationships-- to one another and to God.

The trouble is that on my reading the relationship advice for dealing with each other is normally good ('Slaves, obey your masters'). But I want my relationship with the God as presented in the bible to consist of one thing. A restraining order. The relationship as presented is abusive of the "Honey, why did you have to make me hit you" victim-blaming sort. With God being the serial abuser (if that isn't obvious).

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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.

I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.
I wouldn't quite go with "dual purpose." I agree with Zach that the biblical information about cleanliness and purity is given for purely spiritual and ritual purposes.

That the purity laws may have been helpful to an ancient people crossing a wilderness in terms of hygiene, sanitation and avoiding disease, may be true, but that is not why it was given. We don't know how many of those hygienic practices they would have already known.

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that they were physically more healthy than their contemporaries, or that they even thought in those terms. As framed in the Bible the issue is entirely about practices that please God and keep them from being "unclean" - a concept that is clearly both physical and spiritual to them.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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ken
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quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
But it probably is a lot better than water from the spring in a herding culture...

If that's what it was about then God would have given the Hebrews the laws the Mongols had. Death penalty for shitting upstream of the camp.

Anyway there are plenty of places in Britain today where drinking water is taken unprocessed from hillsides grazed by vast herds of sheep and deer. And comes out of the tap brown. No unusual health problems there (no-one mention Mad Cow Disease...)

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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orfeo

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# 13878

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This is turning into a quite fascinating conversation.

I would have thought it was pretty well fundamental that God knows a heck of a lot more than us, and also pretty fundamental that sometimes he tells us to do things without immediately explaining the full reasons for doing it. Heck, one only need look at Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac to get the latter.

It's also quite obvious that GOD knew about germs even if the Israelites didn't. And even if he couldn't explain the whole concept to them yet, as they were lacking microscopes.

So it seems perfectly sensible to me that God could have had multiple reasons for a 'purity' rule.

The alternative is to suggest that God cares about ritual purity but, despite knowing about germs, doesn't really give a shit about whether or not his chosen people get sick from doing unclean things, and that it's just sheer chance that some of his ritual purity rules happened to have a second effect.

A proposition I find damned odd, frankly.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The alternative is to suggest that God cares about ritual purity but, despite knowing about germs, doesn't really give a shit about whether or not his chosen people get sick from doing unclean things, and that it's just sheer chance that some of his ritual purity rules happened to have a second effect.

Yes, that says it pretty well. [Biased]

It's not quite "sheer chance" but it's close. The purity laws involved acts that symbolized spiritual virtues, but the symbolism did not involve a direct one-to-one relationship with physical purity. Pigs are not actually much more unclean than sheep.

But if God wanted to give instructions about avoiding disease and healthy diets He has done a bad job.

The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.

Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness, and that it is acheived by the development and spread of spiritual information. This information has its origin in God through a very few recorded revelations, and it is then spread and received by a long term process that involves human free will and cooperation.

By comparison, the issue of whether some ancient people is getting sick by doing unclean things, just as people worldwide were also getting sick from doing the same unclean things, is unimportant. What is important is the apparent autonomy of God's creation.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Lamb Chopped
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Picking up on minor tangents--Pigs are more unclean than sheep in certain cultures. Namely, the ones where they are allowed to eat human refuse, tainted meat, and so forth. You'll notice that there's a pattern of scavenging animals being unclean (off the food list) for the Israelites, however majestic a particular one may be. (I was surprised to find the eagle off limits until I thought about its eating habits)

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness

Maybe, but you can't have either spiritual wellbeing or happiness if you've died because of an easily-avoidable illness that your perfect omnipotent God decided it wasn't important to warn you about.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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orfeo

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# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.

I'm sorry, did we just throw away the first 39 books of the Bible?!?

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.

I'm sorry, did we just throw away the first 39 books of the Bible?!?
Not at all. The "chosen people" stand for all good people, those who love and obey God. It's just the version of this idea that would work in an ancient culture.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness

Maybe, but you can't have either spiritual wellbeing or happiness if you've died because of an easily-avoidable illness that your perfect omnipotent God decided it wasn't important to warn you about.
Luckily they didn't all die. But what would be the point of warning them and not the Egyptians or Canaanites?

I don't think that avoiding disease was high on God's priority list. Which is not to say that it isn't an important benefit of increasing information - especially since survival is a key element in maintaining the human race. [Biased]

The essential idea, though, is that information is God's tool. Information is what changes everything. It's important for us to have a theory about how it all works.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Marvin the Martian

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# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.

Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?

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Hail Gallaxhar

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balaam

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quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
Nothing about how to light a fire or put a roof over your head,

Why should it need to. The Bible mentions fires being lit, I think I remember one or two mentions of buildings in there as well.

The skills were already out there, there was no need to write down a bronze age or iron age set of building instructions as these were handed down by work of mouth, taught to apprentices or in another book.

No instructions about wound cleaning does not mean God wants us to get infections. The cleaning and binding of wounds is yet again something that is mentioned. If you have a wound and know how to clean and bind it you do, or else you find someone who can. If someone else has a wound you treat it, take them to someone who can or bring the medic to them. It comes under "Love your neighbour as you love yourself." Jesus went further and extended it to those we don't like.

Back to fires and roofs: If you are a builder, you build a house, with a roof, for yourself, you build houses for others and you teach others how to build. If you know how to light fires you light a fire for yourself and teach others how to light fires.

I can't understand why these sort of instructions need to be written in the Bible.

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Last ever sig ...

blog

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.

Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Yes, not so lucky for them.

Yes, there was a lot of collateral damage.

No, they weren't irrelevant. Every individual who has ever lived is precious in God's eyes.

The point, though, is long-term improvement based on increasing knowledge, accomplished with apparent autonomy.

In this effort it is the principles that are most important. Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Zach82
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.

I do, but modern concepts of sanitation could not have been one of them because the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about germs. I, personally, do not sign up for this idea that God dictated the Bible, and the prophets, acting as God's secretaries, meekly wrote down passages they had no understanding of. Neither do the vast majority of scripture scholars today.

Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.

Maybe we could assemble a short list right here. I've always thought that the "disease prevention advice" theory was pretty thin.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Zach82
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# 3208

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I missed the edit window:

Think about ritual purity this way. The horrible truth is that the counter top you make a sandwich on usually has far more germs on it than the toilet seat. All the same, toilet seats are seen as filthy even when they are cleaner than counter tops. Unclean is the not same as dirty. Uncleanliness is about taint, unhygienic is about germs.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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sebby
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Surely to view the bible, or any other volume of 'sacred' writing for that matter, as a text book is an example of eisegetical folly.

Rushing to its pages to find a cure for bunions, or even whether we should have nuclear power, is exactly the sort of approach that gives fuel to the arguments of Dawkins, Hitchens and the like.

Perhaps this illustrates once again the sad divorce there has been in so many places between the university and the pulpit.

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sebhyatt

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Beeswax Altar
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.

Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Actually, Freddy is wrong. They all died. Some lived at most a few decades longer than others but not a one of them is still alive today. The Bible mentions only two people who avoided death. Even Jesus died. God promises us that we can overcome death not avoid it. Ultimately, Christianity isn't all that compatible with materialism.

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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

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Zach82
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# 3208

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Very true, Sebby. We live in an age when everyone is supposed to have equally valid insights into theology- and having an education in theology and the Scriptures is seen as no particular qualification.

In other matters, I think the rampant speculation about food laws is a perfect example of where people go wrong. The fact is there is absolutely no evidence that pork and shellfish are any more "dirty" than any other meat. Anyone that says pigs are filthy but eats chicken has not seen a pig or a chicken in his life. Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork. That's just the science, but just see the smug look on the faces of people when they inform you that they don't eat pork before biting into their chicken nuggets.

The fact is, the Levitical food laws are not at all unusual or restrictive. Serve an American or British person dog meat or insects and see what happens. Americans limit themselves almost exclusively to chicken, beef, and pork (with occasional doses of turkey), and even have strict rules about what part of those animals they will eat- most Americans are mortified by the thought of eating offal. French people will eat horse flesh, but Americans think that is horrible.

Every culture has rules about what one can eat and food one should avoid, and for the most part is has nothing to do with health. The difference with the Old Testament is that the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon, and codified these rules in to a ritual law in order to maintain their identity in a foreign culture.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.

Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Actually, Freddy is wrong. They all died....
Ultimately, Christianity isn't all that compatible with materialism.

Great! Ha-ha! That says it all. [Overused] [Killing me] [Overused]

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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LeRoc

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# 3216

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quote:
Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
No, they weren't irrelevant. Every individual who has ever lived is precious in God's eyes.

Not precious enough for Him to tell humanity how to cure their diseases though, right?

quote:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.
Then what is?

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Zach82
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# 3208

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.
Evidence?

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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Beeswax Altar
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The purpose of divine revelation is to reveal the divine.

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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Zach82: Evidence?
Sorry, I don't believe your assertion about chicken vs. pork meat, but it isn't important enough for me to do research about it.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Zach82
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# 3208

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Zach82: Evidence?
Sorry, I don't believe your assertion about chicken vs. pork meat, but it isn't important enough for me to do research about it.
Always a pleasure, LeRoc. [Roll Eyes]

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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Freddy
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# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.

Then what is?
To fulfil the purposes inherent in the Divine Love. They are:
  • To have something outside of Himself to love.
  • To be freely joined with it.
  • To make it happy.
The point is eternal happiness, peace on earth and in heaven. It's only a long difficult process because of the necessity of autonomy and freedom for it to be meaningful.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.
Evidence?
Chinese people eat a lot more pork and a lot more chicken than Jews do. And there are a lot more of them.

--------------------
Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Lamb Chopped
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# 5528

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.

Maybe we could assemble a short list right here. I've always thought that the "disease prevention advice" theory was pretty thin.
Some of them do in fact do that stuff-- but as i see it, the real function of the ritual law was to establish a coherent, unified culture for a group of deculturized former slaves who would otherwise have kept broken bits of their old Egyptian masters' culture-- probably the most debased bits-- and struggled for ages on how to define themselves as a separate unified nation with a dominant orientation toward YHWH and nobody else.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.

I do, but modern concepts of sanitation could not have been one of them because the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about germs. I, personally, do not sign up for this idea that God dictated the Bible, and the prophets, acting as God's secretaries, meekly wrote down passages they had no understanding of. Neither do the vast majority of scripture scholars today.

Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.

Ah well, if your view is that it's not God giving the commandments then I entirely agree with your reasoning.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.

Then what is?
To fulfil the purposes inherent in the Divine Love. They are:
  • To have something outside of Himself to love.
  • To be freely joined with it.
  • To make it happy.

The point is eternal happiness, peace on earth and in heaven. It's only a long difficult process because of the necessity of autonomy and freedom for it to be meaningful.

God is a hippy.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
God is a hippy.

A hippy who is all about useful information.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged



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