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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/08/2006 : 05:40:02 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by InsultMohammed
I've used the cannibalism assault on more than one occasion. It wasn't to show that christians were cannibals, it was to show that their god would actually threaten them with some twisted punishments.
As far as bashing only the fundamentalist xians, I think there is a fairly good reason for this. I've met some intelligent xians who would always agree with me that religion should not pressure government. That morals based on religious teachings do not belong in law or in schools. They've agreed that religion in any form has no place in science class. There's little to bash here. Sure, we still see them as a bit insane for believing this stuff at all, but, I can't bring myself to actually attack them with bible verses when their silly beliefs don't impact my life.
Now, the fundies, they are a different story. They try to control the lives of everyone around them. They interpret their bibles in the ways that best suit their agendas. They try to force religion into schools, into the government, and into our personal lives. These are the people we retaliate against the most. It's not that we fear a debate with intellectuals, it's that we generally end up agreeing with them on the important stuff.
On topic, have you guys heard about Hufu?
Yes, I've read about hufu. Supposed to be pretty tasty, but I'd hesitate to try it, for health reasons, if nothing else.
Sometime last year, I read that some Fijians were dying of a brain disease contacted by eating human brains. I've a hospital appointment this morning, but later I'll look around and see if I can find something on it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 03/08/2006 07:36:46 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 07:08:58 [Permalink]
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Found it, or at least one like it. quote:
Unfortunately for the weak of heart, we're all descended from cannibals. Recent genetic studies revealed that almost all humans have genes designed to provide immunity to certain diseases which can only be transmitted by eating human brains.
Based on what we know of recent tribal practices, it's generally thought that cannibalism was not treated like a night out at "Red Lobster," at least not within the time frame of the last 4,000 to 6,000 years. Instead, it usually was a spiritual ritual. In some cases, the bodies of enemies were consumed in order to absorb the enemies' strength; in other cases, the bodies of ancestors and relatives were consumed so that they would live on in the diners.
One of the most recent discoveries of active cannibalism practice was the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, which was only discovered by Westerners in the 20th century. The Fores had turned to cannibalism only recently, to compensate for the meager sources of protein on the Pacific island where they lived. Woman and children ate brains for protein, while the men of the tribe caught their own small game. This was working out OK for them until a bizarre brain disease struck the tribe and created devastating casualties and eventually led to the abandonment of the practice.
It's from the Rotten Library, a pretty good resource in spite of the name.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 07:17:35 [Permalink]
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| The disease is called kuru or laughing sickness. It is a prion disease like BSE. The Fore didn't kill people for food, but they ate their own dead (not letting scarce protein go to waste). |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 07:33:40 [Permalink]
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Wow, cool!
Now I want to taste hufu... |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 07:42:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
...I read that some Fijians were dying of a brain disease contacted by eating human brains. I've a hospital appointment this morning, ...
 Worried?
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 07:59:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
quote:
Originally posted by InsultMohammed
I've used the cannibalism assault on more than one occasion. It wasn't to show that christians were cannibals, it was to show that their god would actually threaten them with some twisted punishments.
As far as bashing only the fundamentalist xians, I think there is a fairly good reason for this. I've met some intelligent xians who would always agree with me that religion should not pressure government. That morals based on religious teachings do not belong in law or in schools. They've agreed that religion in any form has no place in science class. There's little to bash here. Sure, we still see them as a bit insane for believing this stuff at all, but, I can't bring myself to actually attack them with bible verses when their silly beliefs don't impact my life.
Now, the fundies, they are a different story. They try to control the lives of everyone around them. They interpret their bibles in the ways that best suit their agendas. They try to force religion into schools, into the government, and into our personal lives. These are the people we retaliate against the most. It's not that we fear a debate with intellectuals, it's that we generally end up agreeing with them on the important stuff.
On topic, have you guys heard about Hufu?
Yes, I've read about hufu. Supposed to be pretty tasty, but I'd hesitate to try it, for health reasons, if nothing else.
Sometime last year, I read that some Fijians were dying of a brain disease contacted by eating human brains. I've a hospital appointment this morning, but later I'll look around and see if I can find something on it.
If you need search terms, try Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or human spongiform encephalopathy.
I think you are talking about a portion of this article.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs180/en/
Other human TSEs include kuru in Papua New Guinea, which is believed to be transmitted in the course of funerary rituals. During these rituals, family members who were preparing the body for burial were exposed, or may even have consumed the brain tissues of people who had died from kuru. Gerstmann-Sträussler-Schenker (GSS) syndrome (occurring in persons with an apparent hereditary predisposition) and fatal insomnia (which occurs in familial and sporadic forms) are the other known human TSEs. CJD is the most common of all the human TSEs and is the disease most commonly mistaken for vCJD. - from the article
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 08:14:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
quote:
Originally posted by filthy
...I read that some Fijians were dying of a brain disease contacted by eating human brains. I've a hospital appointment this morning, ...
Worried?
Nah. I cancled the appointmant. If they don't find it, I ain't got it.
Thanks for the links, Val. I'll check them out.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 03/08/2006 08:17:47 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 11:47:10 [Permalink]
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beskeptical wrote: quote:
Actually, Marf, I can't find much in the Bible that really says anything like what most Christians claim is in there.
That's because most Christians, at least in the first world, do not interpret the Bible literally, most do not regard it as an infallible or flawless document, and do not use it as a moral guide. Those who do should be ridiculed for they are dangerous.
Zandore wrote: quote:
No the point of this thread is to show that the Bible is not the "perfect word of God".
So the point of this thread was to point out what is obvious not only to non-Christians, but to most Christians?
quote:
When it not interpreted literally then who is to say what verse means what?
Biblical scholars devote their careers to studying the languages and historical contexts of the Bible. That helps figure out what a lot of it means. However, may I point out to you again that most Christians do not just blindly wave the Bible with this jaws agape and their tongues hanging out. There is certainly a huge minority in America and other parts of the world who have bought the naïve and blatantly self-contradictory interpretations of certain Evangelicals, but if you are going to make an argument against them, many approaches are far more sophisticated that simply pointing out a bunch of scriptural passages that out of context call for something even Jews at the time didn't do or even necessarily believe. quote:
I was a Christian at one time.....
So was I. Your point?
BigPapaSmurf wrote: quote:
Maybe they deserve a good bashing, else God might sick a bear on the 42 childen to be slaughtered for calling a prophet baldy.
So all Christians deserve a good bashing. Oh come on. Apparently you've bought into the fundamentalist rhetoric that their kind of Christianity is the only kind.
Christianity has never been a single, united faith. Christians were arguing about all sorts of (many major) points of theology right from the start. A good number of them also right from the start put faith in some basic ideas (that there was one God and Jesus was the Messiah, etc) but they promoted and applied reason and science to all other aspects of life, even ethics. In her history of Doubt, Jennifer Hecht talks about early Christians who celebrated reason and logic as a gift from God that was meant to be applied to science, politics and ethics. They only suspended reason for their faith in God and Jesus as a way to explain the origin of all things and the problem of evil – but Hecht says nothing about those Christians suspending it in order to accept the Bible as literal and perfect truth.
And there are plenty of Christians who do this today. Hell, it is well documented that the Humanist philosophy has Christian roots! Just read Episcopalian Bishop John Spong's best-selling book “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism” if you want to get a grasp of how liberal and humanistic Christians use the Bible.
So while fundamentalists do deserve a good bashing any time, |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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zandore
New Member
21 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 12:07:55 [Permalink]
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marfknox wrote:
quote:
Zandore wrote:
quote:
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No the point of this thread is to show that the Bible is not the "perfect word of God".
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So the point of this thread was to point out what is obvious not only to non-Christians, but to most Christians?
Yes to point out to all the truth of the Bible.
marfknox wrote:
quote:
quote:
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When it not interpreted literally then who is to say what verse means what?
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Biblical scholars devote their careers to studying the languages and historical contexts of the Bible. That helps figure out what a lot of it means. However, may I point out to you again that most Christians do not just blindly wave the Bible with this jaws agape and their tongues hanging out. There is certainly a huge minority in America and other parts of the world who have bought the naïve and blatantly self-contradictory interpretations of certain Evangelicals, but if you are going to make an argument against them, many approaches are far more sophisticated that simply pointing out a bunch of scriptural passages that out of context call for something even Jews at the time didn't do or even necessarily believe.
And again I ask you who is to say what was the Bible intended to say 2,000+ years ago. The Bible scholars you talk of.....were they alive back then?
Sorry Beskeptigal my bad |
"No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.
Annie Wood Besant (1847-1933)" |
| Edited by - zandore on 03/09/2006 05:18:19 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 18:15:37 [Permalink]
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Hey zandore, beskeptical didn't write that stuff. I did.
zandore wrote: quote:
And again I ask you who is to say what was the Bible intended to say 2,000+ years ago. The Bible scholars you talk of.....were they alive back then?
You are taking this line of thought to a silly extreme. We know plenty of things from ancient times. We have writings from Aristotle and Plato, numerous versions of vaious Jewish and Christian scriptures, not to mention historical, business and literary documents of all sorts from numerous different cultures(you know, Egypt, China...). Of course it isn't nearly as well documented as things from recent times, and much is distorted, but that's why historians do cross-checks with other documents and archeological finds, and nobody studying ancient cultures who has any integrity claims something as "fact" unless it is extremely well supported.
To suggest that one has to live in the time that they study to make any intelligent claims about it is absurd. Of course a Biblical scholar has a much better idea of what the scriptures originally meant than the average reader. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 20:21:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by zandore
The Bible scholars you talk of.....were they alive back then?
Spoken just like a biblical fundamentalist: "nobody was alive 200,000 years ago to witness the evolution of modern human beings, so therefore, nobody really knows." Obviously, zandore, you've taken the "logic" of the literalists to heart, even if you disagree with them. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2006 : 21:06:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
144!
288.
That's too gross !
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2006 : 02:44:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Hey zandore, beskeptical didn't write that stuff. I did.
So Zan, could you please correct your post? Thanks. |
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