To all those who have contributed, and even those who have 'ripped into' me :) thanx for being a vital part of our democratic process.

Ringtail, *pat* it doesn't cancel itself out. But some peoples statements tend to show up as rather shakey under close scrutiny.

Robert, glad u have heard some of Campolo's stuff, next time Grace Pettigrew shows up, tell her my descriptions of people are believable :).

Yes, some of Tony's stuff is heart wrenching, and shows just how things can pan out when one gives ones-self to aid or helping underpriveliged countries. I remember an old man who had a horrible ulcer on his ear oozing fluid, at a remote village of Borneo, and he asked if I can help ? There was zero I could do, no medicines, no training in that area, and in my heart I knew that soon he would die from it, as the infection had reached the bone. You tend to become not less compassionate, but less impacted by tragedy because you just cannot do ANYthing about it sometimes.

Aslan has some points that should be noted by the 'its all how you interpret it' mob, key point "What did the author intend".

You're all precious, even Kenny has value :) not much of what he says does, but HE does :)

PHILO:

According to Thorstein Veblen (c.1919) societies rapidly modernising from a feudal base trend towards Fascism. Veblen cited Germany and Japan, as examples. Moreover, in the case of Japan, Japan needed oil to establish an Asian Co-prosperity zone. Germany suffered under the burden of WWI reparations. Poverty, followership, ambition and a sense of racial superiority were some of the prime movers. To see a poverty-religion didactic one could look at England versus Ireland.

ALL, ESPECIALLY DAVID AND FIONA

The Good Book is a good book, but it is not infallible. Look at Michelangelo’s, “Moses”. You will note the statue has horns, because, at the time, the translation of the Bible, said Moses had horns. Later studies reveal what was meant is “rays of light”. Probably, not a big issue; but what if a word like “Iesous” or “Messias” was mistranslated. This is why one should use multiple sources to confirm or refute (Popper) events. Moreover, given there are many Bibles and many, many more Gospels: Which Bible…? Which Gospels…? (Some these "selections" have already been for us and by very human editors.)

As shown above, the renowned historian, Edward Gibbon, posits an alternative cause to Jesus’ mission. Is Gibbon right? I don’t known. However, I would suspect he cross- verified his data and read many books, including original source material.

I see at least four Gods in the Bible: the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, Jesus of the Gospels, and, a Pauline Jesus. I think each would rate differently on Kolberg’s Scale of Moral Development.

My observation of those who believe in verbal negotiations to solve conflict or war; it seems they fail to communicate understanding or concession. It has become obvious that conflict or different world views are not solved by words alone.

PHILO:

It has been said that "object of war is peace ... peace on one's own terms": i.e., to faciltate a change favourable to the instigator. Peace or appeasement will not prevail over a strong will forge change.

Chamberlain had no chance in changing Hilter's mind. Albeit, it was England that actually declared war. In a nuclear war, with the prospect of Mutually Assured Distruction, no-one's post-war agenda can be achieved.

I fear we have wandered from the topic?

Sorry Ringtail - you failed to worked it out.

You need to read more carefully. Relativism is wrong. Absolutes exist. This can be easily demonstrated by noting that the statement "Everything is relative" is part of everything, yet it is an absolute statement. Ergo, everything is not relative and absolutes exist.

This means that Fiona's or anyone else's relativistic rantings are automatically wrong.

RObert,

Fiona is not merely setting a *personal* boundary for herself - she is setting a boundary for Boaz_David as well, and telling him what he should and shouldn't do. Therefore, she violates her own relativistic stance. She is indeed imposing her will on Boaz_David and I'm not using any semantic tricks to show this (if you disagree, show me which 'tricks').

You said: "I've come across plenty of fools who believe in the christian god (and plenty who don't). Quoting a verse of the bible does not make it so."

This is another example of you distorting what I said. I never claimed that all fools are exclusively atheist, nor did I argue for the truth of this verse (although I do happen to think it is true). I merely quoted it as an example of a clear Biblical statement which can only be interpreted in one way.

Oliver,

You ask: which Bible? The Biblical text is the most reliable ancient document in existence by many orders of magnitude. Regarding the New Testament, we have approx 5500 partial and complete Greek manuscripts plus 12000+ Latin manuscripts, not to mention all the other ancient versions. In fact, even if we had not a single actual manuscript we could reconstruct the entire Bible from quotations from the church fathers. When all this documentary evidence is examined, the number of variants is relatively small and many are simple differences in spelling and obvious copying mistakes.

No serious scholar - even a non-Christian one - would doubt the reliability of the Biblical text.

Amen to that Aslan !

Most of the critical voices of the reliability of the Scriptures appear to have gleaned their opinions from either populist writings or 60 minutes.

Oliver, I can see your aiming at serious input, so I draw your attention to what Aslan says re scripture, the 'many gospels' thing should be considered in the light of some very easy to check history.

As for Peace/War, negotiate/appease etc.

Well the main problem here is that the intigators of war usually are doing it for very clearly defined goals "You have it, but I want it, so I'm going to take it".
This is what happens when populations expand, resources dwindle and we find 'they' have what 'we' need, and the usual course of action is to 'take' for 'my mob'. The invasions and expansions of the Saxons in Brittain is illuminating, how each side simply understood the world in terms of its own group, and all others were simply 'in the way' of the other groups manifest destiny (i.e. to have the nicer farmland currently inhabited by the other group, the celts) how 'just' it was when the Normans came back and kicked saxon butt, aided of course by some Celts of Brittainly who's memories were not dulled by a few generations.