John Cuthber

Slightly more so than you may think. "The man in the European parliament who was seen grimacing and covering his face with his palm as Nigel Farage launched into a tirade against MEPs whom he accused of never having done “a proper job” in their lives has been revealed to be the Lithuanian EU commissioner for health and food safety, a trained cardiac surgeon. Vytenis Andriukaitis, who was born in a Soviet gulag on the edge of the Arctic Ocean and started his political career with the underground Social Democrat movement, has written a blogpost in which he reveals his thoughts during Farage’s speech." From http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/eu-health-commissioner-explains-farage-facepalm-vytenis-andriukaitis

So, no actual comment on the facts then?

It hardly matters. We know that there are errors in the OT. We also know that it tells you what to do. So, for example the error that's been pointed out in Genesis isn't telling you to do anything (It is failing to tell you what happened. It couldn't sensibly be thought of as a law- it's just another mistake. But the requirements in the OT that you should, for example, kill cheeky children- are law and, according to the NT they still stand. Of course, because they don't say since exactly which laws are unchanging, they haven't excluded any so the assumption is that He meant all of them. The closest it gets it to refer to them as "the law"- in the singular- and thus to imply they are one unified set.

See you shortly then.

He quit as leader of the (joke) party UKIP. However he is still a Member of the European parliament and will continue to be paid very well to do nothing much. It rather suggests he's treating this as a scam or a game. Here's some footage of him making a twit of himself.

Well, OK yes. I am insisting that this ""For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."" actually means what it says, rather than, for example, "please leave an extra pint today milkman". But I'm only insisting on that because the alternative is silly. A more reasonable claim would be that, since the book says "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." that's what it means. It means nothing will change in the laws. You, on the other hand seem to be insisting that it does not say what it actually says. At that point you can take the view that it means anything and, once again, it is thereby robbed of any value and might as well be discarded. So, should I chuck it because it's morally wrong- because it condones slavery or should I chuck it because it doesn't say whether it does or not, or should I chuck it because it's impossible to tell what it means? Take your pick. It's still not worth keeping. No. It will be interpreted in different ways because it is inconsistent and/ or badly written.

Not at all, It isn't closed minded to consider the evidence- at length- as I have and come to a conclusion. It's not a pretence; there is evidence. The NT says that it is the same as the OT. It's not my insistence, it's the NT's insistence. Of course, it might be wrong, but if it's wrong then that rather supports my idea that we should discard it as a source of ethics or information. If, on the other hand, you believe it, then you have to believe the bit where it says that the OT still stands and that slavery is not merely acceptable, but a requirement. Take your pick, you either chuck out both books, or you accept that Christianity condones slavery.

So, if it was true then people should behave in the way that people should behave anyway. It seems that we can't tell if you are right and it doesn't matter anyway. Incidentally, you seem to be making some unsupported assessments of probability there. There's no reason to suppose that "the chance is so big "; it's just some idea you dreamed up.

I'm not the one pretending that it has any merit. I'm certainly not saying it's fact. I'm pointing out that it does not say what lot of Christians would like to pretend that it says. If they take it as fact then they can't get away from the fact that it says all those things like "slavery is good". If it is treated as factual then it's a despicable guide to behaviour. If it's fiction then it's not a guide at all. It ought to be ignored lock stock, and barrel.

I presume you are not able to answer the question: Can we tell? And the tacit question If we can't tell then can it matter?

" try explaining time in less than 800,000 words." No, I won't- because that would be another irrelevance you have introduced. " if the bible had a title like 'How to be content with your lot' written by John Steinbeck, we'd see eye to eye. " If it was then few would have read it and it would never have been used as a "justification" for racism, slaver and so on. "It seems we are missing each others point, " Well to me you seem to be deliberately missing it. Moontan man said "I am curious, between murder, rape, genocide, slavery, sex slavery, sex slavery of underage girls, bigotry, pillage, and the portrayal of God as a jealous vindictive monster what do you think there is to learn? " You said "I'm curious as to the verses in the NT that suggest any of that, care to provide one?" and I pointed out that the answer is Matthew 5 18 ​and your rather silly response was that Matthew 5:17 doesn't say that. Well so what? Nobody said it did. It's about something else. My point is that you can't claim that the NT changes anything- because it quotes Jesus as saying that nothing will ever change. So it says the OT is still the law- with all the nasty stuff that Moontanman described.

It's possible that we are all in some "magical" way the same person. Can we tell? If we can't tell then it can't matter.

Way to go on missing the point there. I presume you are hoping nobody noticed. It's actually an interesting question. It's like trying to assign either truth or falsehood to the statement "Bilbo Baggins said "what have I got in my pocket?" Obviously, he didn't say anything because he didn't exist. But if you said that in a pub quiz, you wouldn't get the points. I accept that I should have said that it is reported that he said that- or it's equivalent- and I did point out earlier that it's a translation. But, as I said, the interesting question is why do you keep ignoring the fact that the relevant part of the scripture "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." is quite clear; the laws stay forever. Re "What about turning the other cheek or love thy nieghbour," Good question; what about them? They are both small aspects of the agreed sensible course (several millennia earlier than Matthew) that you should do unto others... So there's nothing( as far as I can tell) in either testament that really adds to that. So it's something like 800,000 words longer than it needs to be.

We tried a badly regulated militia. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/21/michael-sandford-trump-rally-assassination-las-vegas

OK That's the second time you have deliberately not looked at the right line from the Bible. And once again I wonder why you thik we wouldn't notice. The one that says (as I put it) "the old rules are here to stay" is this one "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." or, if you prefer the older translation " For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." rather than the irrelevant line that you keep insisting on. It's pretty clear that He says the old laws are here to stay forever. Pointing out that some other line says something irrelevant doesn't change that. Also re "do to others as you would have them do to you.". Well, I can't say Matthew didn't say it. But he certainly wasn't the first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Antiquity and it never did tally with rape and slavery as being "good things". The Bible as, as you say,a book of its time. It's time is past. We should stop paying it any attention. The only good bit in it is the "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" and it copied that bit from somewhere else without the decency to attribute the quote. So, even when it gets something right, it still manages to do wrong. Actually, not only do we know that they are the words of men, but we know which men wrote it, and when and where. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea Did your preacher not tell you that? You might want to ask why.

Is that as valid as the nonsense about DNA and GPS?

"There was cadaver odour detected in the garden near the window (as I understand it ATM). So why would there be a cadaver in the garden? " Dead rat?

It's remarkable that if you get a lot of hydrogen, and wait long enough, some of it starts to wonder where it came from.

I'm saying your point of view is inconsistent. There is no issue of "interpretation" of the bit where Christ says "the old rules are here to stay". That's what he said. Why not throw out both books and start from scratch without the nonsense?

It's terrifying, but it's brilliant.

Have you noticed that only one side of the argument has actual evidence?

"Or, the main verb might be near the beginning (e.g. "he is running" vs "is he running")." Isn't the main verb there "running"? ​I think it's the auxiliary verb that's moved. The whole discussion is starting to remind me of an old joke. A linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right"

It is,and it's also just as well that he implied that English was distinct from other languages don't do this. "In some languages you don't know until the end of the sentence." But actually, English is one of those languages where you don't know until the end of the sentence. ​Ironically, it's difficult to tell if the "In some languages you don't know until the end of the sentence." was an implication is that English is not one of those languages for exactly the same reason that it's difficult to tell if some sentences are questions - there's no intonation.

What does a break in have to do with it? Keys to holiday homes are going to be owned temporarily by lots of people- anyone of those could have copied it. Lack of a break in has nothing much to do with lack of an intruder. Also see http://businesstech.co.za/news/general/72826/gimmicks-that-took-south-africans-for-a-ride/ "How can you link a DNA sample to a person's current location through the GPS? " You can't. It's fake.

" So, you are saying Christ got it wrong. He said he was here to fulfil the laws, but you say that's impossible. You seem to be arguing against yourself. Then they screwed up royally. The OT tells you that rape and slavery are OK. The NT tells you that the first one was right and that not a jot or a tittle of it will ever change.