March 2009 Screwballs

[Darth Ovious]

Anti-screwball to Mountain Man for this.

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=125668

Angeldragon made a comment that he knew Tassman from another site. Tassman then complained to the mods for having to suffer such an "injustice" and then said that he would wait for the moderators to take swift action.

Mountain Man then came along, took the relevent posts and then moved them and created a new thread in the psychotherapy room and titled it who is Tassman?



Needless to say I was in stitches

[The Curtmudgeon]

Screwie nom for "a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior" for her theory that the Essenes, supposed writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, never existed at all.

Here's the full article; but here's the punch line:

Yahoo News

Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus and that his faulty reporting was passed on as fact throughout the centuries....

James Charlesworth, director of the Dead Sea Scrolls project at Princeton Theological Seminary and an expert on Josephus, ... contends that at least eight scholars in antiquity refer to the Essenes. One proof of Essene authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he says, is the large number of inkpots found by archaeologists at Qumran.

But Elior claims says these ancient historians, namely Philo and Pliny the Elder, either borrowed from each other or retailed second-hand stories as fact. "Pliny the Elder describes the Essenes as 'choosing the company of date palms' beside the Dead Sea. We know Pliny was a great reader, but he probably never visited Israel," she says.

Elior is braced for more criticism of her theory. "Usually my opponents have only read Josephus and the other classical references to the Essenes," she says. "They should read the Dead Sea Scrolls - all 39 volumes. The proof is there."
[emphasis added]

© source where applicable

Another idiot who thinks a Ph.D. in underwater basketweaving means "I know everything there is to know about everything."

The (my money's on Charlesworth, and he won't even need best-two-out-of-three-falls to pin her) Curtmudgeon

[Truth be Told]

John strikes again with the same level of dishonest stupidity he tried to pull when having became a public embarrassment to himself for his sockpuppet site:

John W. Loftus said...
BTW akakiwibear, since you've joined this abusive and obnoxious blog you are banned from DC. Them's the rules.

And TruthBeTold, where do you ever find me specifically stating that this blog of yours is a place where I won't respond? Provide evidence or own up to the fact that you cannot read.

Must be the "alzheimers" again, as MetaKnight once said a while back. Here's John's utter refutation to that bogus "I've got more hairs on my chest than you do!" challenge, and it's right here: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...d-that-is.html

Here's the quote John asked for, but probably won't accept:
.

...I figure it won't do any good to respond because if they couldn't think critically in their first post they won't be able to do so a second time...

Well Holding, should we consider banning John? I mean, he's so hung up on spamming our blog fueled by his frustration that he seeks to go on a banning craze if he sees anyone making any contributive efforts to our site, in any context. So I'll leave it to a democratic vote, but maybe DJ needs a little more self-esteem wreckage if he gets blocked from commenting on a site that criticizes him.

Ooooh boy....if that were to happen, how much would you be willing to bet that John will make a huge huff about at DC, and that his braindead followers will miss the inconsistency?

[mig_killer2]

I'm gonna have to nominate Richard Carrier today. Someone has yet to realize that when studying the Gospels and reconstructing the historical Jesus, we analyze individual pericopae, not the documents as a whole.

Looks like Carrier's methodology is ~80 years out of date

As to (ii) [that defending the resurrection does not need us to trust the Gospels as generally reliable historical accounts], defending the resurrection requires establishing a number of premises, including the reliability of the Gospel accounts, and the viability of miraculous explanations of ordinary evidence, and the authenticity, meaning, and reliability of passages in the epistles, and so on, and is therefore larger in scope, not narrower. The historical reliability of the Gospels focuses solely on the Gospels and the evidence within them (and from the field of history) as to whether we can trust what they say, which is necessarily narrower in scope than any argument that requires first establishing that we can trust what they say. As to (i), if the Gospels are not generally reliable, then everything they say is under a pall of suspicion, which entails we can't trust what they say about their most contentious claims, and the resurrection is exactly such, therefore it is not logically possible to make "a case for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection" without "the Gospels' being generally reliable" (unless he intends to make that case without ever appealing to the Gospels, which is unlikely).

[Andius]

Another screwball nomination to Barack Obama for having his head up his arse and stating that the economy is "not as serious as we think it is."

I'm voting for impeachment before his first term is up if there ever is one.

That's it, were doomed.

a tad of topic no?

[Truth be Told]

a tad of topic no?

People thought Bush was stupid while in office, but I don't think any one could have made a statement quite as idiotic as this.

The reason why Obama is spouting off like this is for political convenience, and he's not even doing a good job of that while as president. He doesn't know or understand the major laybacks, policy alterations, and so on that is occuring on a nationwide and global scale. This is an insult to the most powerful country in the world, yet we were stupid enough to vote for him (well, I wasn't anyway).

[BronzeArcher]

then we get to this wonderful issue of expecting some backwater Roman province to produce scores of literature from a 95-95% illiterate population.

then

The literacy rate of Rome, to the best of my knowledge, is not universally agreed upon by historians, however I do believe, though I certainly am not a historian and have nothing but my memory and a half hour google search to back up, that most rates are between 5-20% fully literate, and as much as 3 times the number for semi-literate.

However, lets just say that the literacy rate really was 5% as you claimed. Firstly you yourself claimed that 500 people saw Jesus with the whole resurrection shmeal. Note: actually, someone else said this. 5% of that would be 25 people. Then we have the families and close friends of the 500 people, at the very least 2000 more people, giving us 100 more literates to add to our list.

then we have that whole event when jesus feads a thousand (or was it 2000?) people with scraps of bread and fish, so another 100 people to add to our list. We can safely assume that at least 500 people saw jesus when he did the whole flipping of carts over at the temple in jerusalem. so 25 more literates... and the close friends and families of the people in this paragraph, at least 4000 more people. and hence 200 more literates.

This gives us a grand total of 450 literate people including some very angry government officials.

Now, if 450 literate people saw a dead person come back to life, or fead masses with air, you can certainly expect most of them to write about it. You can also expect people to respond to this, or write letters back inquireing more about this jesus fellow.

go go power rangers

I criticized him for making an ecological fallacy and apparently he doesn't know what that is, despite claiming to understand stats

[jpholding]

Well Holding, should we consider banning John?

Not at all. We need to keep him going so we have a nice collection of his comments that we can use, maybe for a John Loftus Mental Breakdown Collection.

I say no ban. He's his own worst enemy when he is allowed to speak as he pleases.

[jpholding]

then
go go power rangers

I criticized him for making an ecological fallacy and apparently he doesn't know what that is, despite claiming to understand stats

That's nom Platinum....

[MarcusAndreas]

Screwball to [x]Huffy[x] of the Ultimate-Guitar.com forums for this statement:

I never understood Christianity.
A religion that is essentially based on stories about an invisible man that made the universe and a magic zombie that could walk on water and got nailed to a cross.

Well, s/he is VERY correct when she says she never understood Christianity...

[Giorno Giovanna]

Screwball to [x]Huffy[x] of the Ultimate-Guitar.com forums for this statement:

Well, s/he is VERY correct when she says she never understood Christianity...

These guys always give me a good laugh.

[Manwë Súlimo]

How do these guys define "zombie"? Jesus in the Christian sense was neither the walking dead nor brain-eating nor infected with a virus that increased his aggressive instincts, a la "21 Days Later".

Either this idiot misunderstands the meaning of the word, he misunderstand the doctrines of Christianity, or is just a raving jackass.

Or perhaps all three.

[aikidoka]

Not at all. We need to keep him going so we have a nice collection of his comments that we can use, maybe for a John Loftus Mental Breakdown Collection.

I say no ban. He's his own worst enemy when he is allowed to speak as he pleases.

Yes, there needs to be a place where his comments can be seen without the hassle of having to get a screen shot to get around his later scrubbing of his own idiocy.

[Sparko]

Normative thinks that Hypostasis is an ENGLISH word and that it was used first in the 1500's as a medical term.

BTW, Re:

Here is a letter from AD 375 discussing the term Hypostasis and the greek term ousia.

4. The non-identity of hypostasis and ousia is, I take it, suggested even by our western brethren, where, from a suspicion of the inadequacy of their own language, they have given the word ousia in the Greek, to the end that any possible difference of meaning might be preserved in the clear and unconfounded distinction of terms. If you ask me to state shortly my own view, I shall state that ousia has the same relation to hypostasis as the common has to the particular. Every one of us both shares in existence by the common term of essence (ousia) and by his own properties is such an one and such an one. n the same manner, in the matter in question, the term ousia is common, like goodness, or Godhead, or any similar attribute; while hypostasis is contemplated in the special property of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the power to sanctify. If then they describe the Persons as being without hypostasis, 2819 the statement is per se absurd; but if they concede that the Persons exist in real hypostasis, as they acknowledge, let them so reckon them that the principle of the homoousion may be preserved in the unity of the Godhead, and that the doctrine preached may be the recognition of true religion, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the perfect and complete hypostasis of each of the Persons named.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/...87.htm#fn_2808

Year of publication: Between 1923 and 1963, inclusive.

You really need to carefully examine your resources.

Do you suppose theologians borrowed the term hypostasis as the agreed upon translation of the original Greek word that previously had been translated as basis, foundation; single substance by then?

Again, when your doctor tells you that your great aunt is suffering from hypostasis, what language is he or she using?

But, I guess you are smarter than the Encyclopedia Britannica who wrote the following:

Etymology of the English word hypostasis

The English word hypostasisderived from the Late Latin word hypostasis (basis, foundation; single substance)derived from the Greek word upostasis, ὑπόστασις derived from the Greek word hupo, ὑπό (under, beneath, underneath)
derived from the Greek word stasis, στάσις (a standing (properly, the act); (by analogy) position (existence); by implication, a popular uprising; figuratively, controversy)derived from the Greek word histanaiderived from the Proto-Indo-European root *stā-

derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *stā-


derived from the Greek word hupostasis, ὑπόστασις (a setting under (support); concretely, essence, or abstractly, assurance (objectively or subjectively))derived from the Greek word huphistasthaiderived from the Greek word hupo, ὑπό (under, beneath, underneath)
derived from the Greek word histasthai

derived from the Greek word huphisthanai



Date

The earliest known usage of hypostasis in English dates from the 16th century

So, it is not ME who is saying the ENGLISH word hypostasis' first known usage is in the 16th Century. Take it up with Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Notice the first sentence of the etymological reference. It says "The English word hypostasis..."

Merriam Webster says:

hypostasis

One entry found.



Main Entry:hy·pos·ta·sis Pronunciation: \hī-ˈpäs-tə-səs\ Function:noun Inflected Form(s):plural hy·pos·ta·ses \-ˌsēz\ Etymology:Late Latin, substance, sediment, from Greek, support, foundation, substance, sediment, from hyphistasthai to stand under, support, from hypo- + histasthai to be standing — more at standDate:1590 1 a: something that settles at the bottom of a fluid b: the settling of blood in the dependent parts of an organ or body2: person 33 a: the substance or essential nature of an individual b: something that is hypostatized4 [New Latin, from Late Latin] : failure of a gene to produce its usual effect when coupled with another gene that is epistatic toward it
— hy·po·stat·ic \ˌhī-pə-ˈsta-tik\ adjective
— hy·po·stat·i·cal·ly \-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypostasis

that it's origin is 1590.

So, I guess that BOTH Encyclopedia Brittanica AND Websters are wrong?

We'll let readers decide who is correct:. Merriam Webster and Encyclopedia Brittanica or your on-line Wikipedia-type "references."

BTW, I just have to emphasize that I am finding these legitimate references in ENGLISH dictionaries.

Are you still sticking to your contention that hypostasis is NOT an English word?


NORM

[BronzeArcher]

That's nom Platinum....

What does nom mean? It also didn't occur to the guy that 'Jesus flipping over tables' would have drew a significantly higher proportion of literates, but we're not allowed to expect competency.