Monday, January 17, 2011
Some of the stupidest things you ever hears?
William: That Aquinas would actually write a poem: "How can we live in harmony unless we realize that we are all madly in love with the same God?" - That is in print but it is a spurious quotation. Someone insists that Aquinas had deep Sufi influences and hence that little poem.
No one could POSSIBLY be a credible scientist or mathematician UNLESS they are Atheist because people who believe they have "an invisible friend" are not "logical."
Someone insisted that technically the planet Earth is "weightless" since it cannot be under the influence of it's own gravity.
The concept of the Earth's weight does not serve us well. To have weight the Earth would have to be sitting on a surface attracting it at one gravity. Instead we must refer to the mass of the Earth. The mass of the Earth is 6 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kilograms (6x1024 kilograms or 1.3x1025 pounds)
One supposed "Christian" insists that the "miracle" of the feeding of the 5,000 was because the people were all hiding food and Jesus made them stop being selfish and share. It is absurd for a Christian to believe this for if it is impossible to do a multiplication of loaves then how could Jesus raise the dead and if that is impossible then why bother being Christian? Also, Jesus scolded the multitudes for following him saying "you follow me because I gave you food." Plus a big point was made of counting all the leftovers. Now the Bible says "God cannot lie" and Jesus says "If it were not so I would have told you" so for a Christian to believe that Jesus would perpetrate a hoax makes no sense. Plus, the disciple of prophet Elijah, Elisha, - 2 Kings 4:42-44
A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left over.'" Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
In Elisha's case, 20 loaves were multiplied to accommodate 100 men. Christ multiplied 5 loaves and 2 little fish to feed 5,000 men, besides women and children! In both instances, the loaves were made from barley.
A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left over.'" Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
In Elisha's case, 20 loaves were multiplied to accommodate 100 men. Christ multiplied 5 loaves and 2 little fish to feed 5,000 men, besides women and children! In both instances, the loaves were made from barley.
Dawn: after world war 1 Keynes wanted the winning nations to forgive or lower the debt of Germany but the greedy bastard wilson wouldnt, and the reason he wouldnt is because the greedy nastards here inamerica wanted their revenge in GOLD. see europe had already left the gold standard and we hadnt. they already had fiat currencies but we demanded GOLD.
He predicted world war 2 and he was right and as usual the greedy bastards didnt care just like they still dont, they care about nothing BUT their bank accounts. as you WELL know the reasons for world war 2 were economic, and thats because of us. because the american people were just as greedy as the asshat president and they get what they deserve when he created a federal reserve system that doesnt give a rats ass about us any more than we cared about the germans. the germans blamed the Jews and there you have the cause of your holcaust a financial one. laugh if you will but the jokes on you, dont take my word for it look for yourself, your INdian friend was right.now explain to him how we have the only land in the world caqpable of feeding the world and yet we pay farmers NOT to grow while there are starving children and people dying from unclean drinking water. why americans cant afford healthcare Karmas a bitch and america is getting it all back right now. and BTW Germany JUST paid off the debt a few months ago
William:
The whole point about that Aquinas "poem" is that NO ONE in the 12th century would have thought or spoken about "everyone living in harmony" or thought in terms of "being madly in love with God" ... such notions are only in very recent times. Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologica (in Latin) and it is a rigorously logical work with no room for poetic romance.
Aquinas was born about 20 years after Moses Maimonides died. There are some who speculate that Aquinas was inspired to do for Christianity what Maimonides (Rambam) achieved for Judaism : His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law. In the Yeshiva world he is known as "Hanesher Hagadol" (the great eagle) in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah, particularly on account of the manner in which his Mishneh Torah is elucidated by Chaim Soloveitchik.
One of my greatest moments of enlightenment came about 10 years ago when I was thinking about invading space aliens with powerful weapons of destruction and suddenly I realized that ANY SPECIES which develops such powers will destroy itself unless it learns gentleness and peacefulness and respect for all life forms.
Maimonides introduction to the Guide For The Perplexed makes it clear that he addresses only a small minority of Jews who are prepared to undertake his teachings, so Maimonides was not addressing ALL Jews and was CERTAINLY not addressing non-Jews or the entire world
I dont imagine people began to think about world unity or world peace until the 20th century and the World Wars. Obviously George Washington was an isolationist in his farewell address. In fact, listen to the French national anthem and you will hear a verse about "spilling the unclean blood of our enemy."
People give all sorts of "new age" spins to ancient things. One very nice fellow I know says that Hasidic Jews do not wear a neck-tie because it would separate "the head from the heart" but that is rubbish. Everyone knows that in the time of Baal Shem Tov neck-ties were unknown and the Hasidics dress as in those times just like Muslims imitate manners and styles of 7th century Mecca. I doubt that anyone in the middle ages really thought about the head as the seat of the brains and thinking that it should not be separated from the heart. Pascal did say that "the heart has reasons of which reason knowns nothing."
I may be wrong and someone may find some fairly ancient text which speaks of the unity of mankind or universal love and brotherhood. I do suppose there are passages in the Old Testament prophets that speak of some future time where all nations shall be at peace.
There is an ancient notion of Tikkun Olam which for the Greeks is Apokatastasis or a renewing of the world; a new world. I rather imagine most of the world through the ages ignored such passages, certainly during the Crusades and the Inquisition. I think they only thought of world unity in terms of world conquest by force.
