HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lhsux@swingset.bae.bellcore.com (Lorne Schachter)
Subject: Re: Child abuse ordered by G-d
Organization: Bell Communications Research
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 16:35:19 GMT

In article <1993Jan25.154032.25642@gboro.rowan.edu>, kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie) writes:
|> 
|> We have been discussing the OT Law.  I wrote that, by the standards I have
|> available, the OT law is unreasonably harsh.
|> 
|> ...
|> 
|> Judaism, for example, assumes that the Torah is divinely authored; one of
|> the basic commandments of Judaism is to honor one's parents.  Parents are
|> considered representatives of the Creator.
|> 
|> A rebellious son, who denies his reponsibility to his parents and declares
|> his rejection of the source of life has, by this standard, forfeited his
|> right to life.
|> 
First, you cannot read the Written Law with its explanation, the Oral Law.
The Gemarah, in Sanhedrin, discusses the whole issue of Ben Soreh u'Moreh,
the rebellious son and gives particulars as to what it would take to
be executed for that offense.  Suffice to say, no one was ever executed
for it.

As far as the Spanish Expulsion goes, even the Christian Bible does not
say anywhere that it is a Divine command to kill non-believers.	 Therefore,
Ferdinand and Isabella were taking into their own hands a decision that
they had no right to make.  That is what makes it completely
objectionable.

					Lorne Schachter
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee)
Subject: Re: Simple Question
Organization: Royal Roads Military College, Victoria, B.C.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:10:07 GMT


In article <1993Jan22.032036.19118@nuscc.nus.sg>, cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan) writes:
|> Can someone enlighten me on this question:
|> 
|> If God exists and God is All Powerful and All Loving, why does
|> He allow sufferings to exist.  Why did He create humankind with
|> the propensity for Greed, Hatred and Delusions and allow us to
|> murder and harm each other?
|> 
|> Thanks
|> 
|> C. M. Tan
|> 

To answer your first question:

God gave mankind dominion of the earth to use and to abuse as he saw fit.
The earth would be left to man's care until Jesus' second coming.  God will
not interfere in the way we do things, even if it is self-destructive.  God
allows these things to happen because He promised to give man the reins of
control on this earth.  And we're not doing too good.

And for your second question:

Mankind has a nasty propensity towards violence and mayhem; this is a 
consequence of our sinful nature.  God did not originally design us to
commit sin but we chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.  Since
that time, all men are tainted with sin and the carnal desire to keep on
sinning.  We kill and harm each other because we choose to.  But keep
in mind that we are also capable of much good.  The only way to overcome
our sinful nature is salvation through Jesus Christ.

Sure, God knows that we are sinful but He wouldn't be a loving God if He
left us to destroy ourselves.  That is why He has given us His Son Jesus
Christ so that we may be saved from our sins.  And before this world goes
to ashes, Jesus will return to save those who follow Him.

God be with you.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism,alt.pagan
From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: In need of a label...
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<fYbE737@quack.sac.ca.us> <12496@spark.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 25 Jan 1993 18:22:09 UTC

In article <12496@spark.ed.ac.uk> 
iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <fYbE737@quack.sac.ca.us> 
pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan19.031126.43622@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> 
>>jws5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JUSTIN WINSLOW SOLONYNKA) writes:
>>>Labels are dangerous when they are given to others without
>>>consent.  But I'm having trouble giving _myself_ one.
>>Why bother? You know who you are, that is the label. Worlds above and
>>worlds below, no *one* in the world like you! You are that you are!
>So just because there is no one in the world like me, I should avoid
>giving people (limited) quantities of information about myself?  Odd.

You said it, not I.

>>>If a person believes that there is a spiritual realm in all
>>>humans, a realm he likes to call "god", but does not accept
>>>the Judeo-Christian God, what in the world is he?
>>A person. Ideally an authentic person. Or perhaps Human Being is a
>>better label, with emphasis on Being.
>Curiouser and curiouser.  What a strange way to respond to what looks
>like an honest and serious question.

Perhaps you were expecting - a label? Why? What non- "strange way" do
you propose to answer this question?

>>Why do we label ourselves?
>>[...] For fear of individualitity.
>I couldn't disagree more strongly with this idea.  I can give myself
>oodles of labels which reflect various facts about me, such as my sex,
>temperament, hair colour, age, nationality, occupation or attitude
>towards various trends in science, philosophy and religion.  All of
>this is only in order to tell people something about myself in a word
>or two.  Fear of individual[it]ity (which is something I've never
>experienced anyway) has nothing to do with it.

You've *never* had a fear of individuality, a fear of being different, a
fear of not belonging? Did you sleep through your teen years?
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:27669 talk.politics.misc:70032
From: merlyn@digibd.digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy)
Subject: Re: The Health of a Great Nation....
Organization: DigiBoard, Incorporated, Eden Prairie,MN
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 02:07:21 GMT

jburrill@boi.hp.com (Jim Burrill) writes:
...
>QUESTION: Why does the education lobby so oppose to the teaching of our    
>nation's Christian Heritage?  The example is that of George Washington. There
>is a stained glass window in the Chapel of the United States Senate in
>Washington, D.C. depicting Washington kneeling in prayer before battle. It is
>titled "Washington's Gethsemane". Another example is that of the Ten
>Commandments on the wall in the Supreme court chambers. Yet, in public school
>textbooks, these are never mentioned. Why is that?

Tom Paine's less-than-friendly views on religion and Thomas Jefferson's
rewrite of the bible (with all the miracles removed) aren't mentioned either.
Now, is this due to opposition to our nation's nonchristian heritage?
Or could it be there are more important things to talk about, like Adams'
sedition act, or Marbury vs. Madison?

What's the point about mentioning the 10 Commandments on the SC walls,
anyway?  Why is this any more significant than, say, the one-eyed
pyramid on our dollar bills being Masonic symbols?

---
Merlyn LeRoy
From: nichael@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: VERIFYING CHRISTIANITY #1
Date: 28 Jan 93 18:30:23 GMT
Reply-To: ncramer@bbn.com
Organization: BBN, Interzone Office
NNTP-Posting-Host: kariba.bbn.com
In-reply-to: RBNXHS@rohvm1.rohmhaas.com's message of 27 Jan 93 19:05:41 GMT

RBNXHS@rohvm1.rohmhaas.com writes:
   I have a short comment to make about Frank's statement that there are
   some 24633 manuscripts extant for the New Testament alone.
      Mark did you ever ponder about the fact that NONE of these two are
      alike.

More importantly, this number is --at the very least-- extreme misleading.

This figure includes every single manuscript in every single
translation (i.e. Latin, Syriac, Gothic, etc. etc. etc.) in every
single format (i.e. lectionaries, fragments, non-biblical quotation
etc) down to the 19th[!]  century; i.e. copies of copies of copies of
copies of ...

Furthermore, the only _relevant_ set of manuscripts are those in
Greek, of which there are about 5000 in total.

Likewise, this number also includes fragments, lectionaries, etc.
Moreover, most of these are of quite late date.

In particular we only have a hundred or so manuscripts from the first
four centuries after Jesus.  And again the overwhelming majority of
these are fragments, some containing no more than a few letters of
Greek.

Finally only a 2 or 3 of _these_ manuscripts contain _anything_ close
to the entire NT, and these come from the 4th century.


(This has been gone over repeatedly, but what the heck.  One doesn't
get to correct a four-orders-of-magnitude error every day.  ;)
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:27558 alt.pagan:15864 alt.folklore.urban:34823
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Peace Symbol
From: comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:12:41 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

gj156879@alfred.carleton.ca ( gj student 156879) writes:

>It is sort of neat that the peace symbol is an upside down rune from
>norse mythology.  The rune, (picture a peace symbol upside down)
>represents the horns of an elk.  It's the "defence" rune, I believe.
>[He said, being too lazy to go across the room and look it up...]

I don't know what you think runes were, but they were in fact letters,
representing sounds, not concepts (such as defence).  Nor were they pictures
of creatures.  Some were derived from Roman letters (such as the rune for
F), others made up.  They were originally notched into the 90-degree edge of a
block of wood rather than on a flat surface (though later they were carved
onto flat surfaces -- the famous runestones of Scandinavia -- which
controlled their geometric shapes.  Later generations that could not read
them may well have infused the, to them, mysterious shapes with ideographic
meanings and reinterpreted them as pictures, but certainly there was no such
intention on the part of the inventors.  Their invention was stimulated by
Roman writing, amongst the then-pagan proto-Norse.

jj

John Thayer Jensen                      64 9 373 7599 ext. 7543
Commerce Computer Services              64 9 373 7437 (FAX)
Auckland University                     jt.jensen@auckland.ac.nz
Private Bag 92019
AUCKLAND
New Zealand
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.messianic
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 19:32:55 -0500 
From: Steven Timm <st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Daniel's Prophecy and the 360 day year (was Re: Length of years)

An important thing to remember in the counting of years, prophetic or
otherwise, is that since at least the time Daniel's prophecies originated
all the various methods of counting years have stayed constant relative
to each other.  Lunar calendars adjust so that the holy month always
comes at about the same time of year.  (Jewish New Year is never found
in July, for instance).  And Publius himself notes that the Babylonians
probably had some adjustment to their 360 day calendar to keep it current
with the seasons.  

For all these reasons and more, it seems most straightforward to just
count calendar years when dealing with prophetic years (and I believe 
he and I agree that the "seventy weeks" of Daniel represent seventy 
weeks of years.)  If you start in 457 BC when the decree was given
to restore and build Jerusalem, the last week ends in 34AD because
there is no zero year.

Steve Timm

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: ivaliote@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus )
Subject: Re: Buddhism - A religion of atheists?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 06:45:20 GMT

cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan) writes:
>Notice that Spiritual development (instead of Faith) is strongly
>emphasized in Buddhism and NOWHERE in its Central Doctrine was the word
>"God" even mentioned.  Buddhism is probably the only religion in the
>world where the believe in God is not encouraged.  It is also probably
>the only religion where followers are encouraged to scrutinize its
>teachings and blind faith is frowned upon.  Hence, it was able to avoid
>the dogmatism, Holy Wars and other evils that plagued all other
>religions.
I would include Taoism and Confucianism as well in this list, since they
deify no man and call for no mision from an arbitrary God.

>It is one of very few religions with no conflicts with
>Science, even though it is much older than Christianity and Islam.
>Indeed, Buddhism has more *positive* impact on modern psychology, for
>example, than any religion has on any field of science.
Quite true.

>Einstein once said, "If there is any religion that would cope with
>modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism ..... [Buddhism] has the
>characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the
>future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it
>covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a
>religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and
>spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
I still include Tao, but I agree with him and you on this.

>He must have been as impressed with Buddhism as I am.

______________
Matt Ivaliotes				a.k.a. Lotus
ivaliote@ux1				lotus@uiuc 
NextMail to: 				mci41087@sumter
Bitnet mail to:				IVALIOTE@uiucvmd
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism,soc.culture.jewish
From: joakimr@ifi.uio.no (Joakim Ruud)
Subject: Re: Child abuse ordered by G-d
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:01:29 GMT
Originator: joakimr@hymir.ifi.uio.no


Why is it that everybody are writing "G-d", rather than "God" ?

Why the dash ?
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:17:34 EST
From: <MVS104@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: God's contract with man through Jesus Christ

In article <iiPXXB1w165w@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca>, yadallee@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca
(Dave Shariff Yadallee) says:
>
>Here is the simplest way to receive salvation!!

Shucks, I thought it would be a differential equation or something. :)

>Go to God and ask for mercy for all the sins that you have committed
>throughout
>your life.    Then ask God to take you in, via Christ, i.e. admit that Christ
>is YOUR Saviour!

A few questions:
1) Where is god? You say 'go to god,' as if he's hanging out in my room
   or something. I haven't seen him there. So where, then?
2) Since I haven't found him yet, how can I ask forgiveness of something
   I'm not sure exists? Oh, did you forget, you have to believe first?
   Note that this makes no sense...
3) Since I haven't found Christ either (should I check phone booths or
   broom closets or somesuch?) how can I just admit that someone I
   haven't even seen is my 'saviour'?

Essentially you're asking people to believe with no proof at all,
and (what do you know!) as it was, is now, and will be, it's nonsense.

Martin Schulte
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: storrs@eos.ncsu.edu (JERRY STORRS)
Subject: Re: Christian pro-choice
Originator: storrs@c20002-121rd.che.ncsu.edu
Reply-To: storrs@eos.ncsu.edu (JERRY STORRS)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Project Eos
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 21:07:23 GMT





|>Is there anyone on here who is pro-choice who has neither had an abortion,
|>paid for one, or encouraged someone else to have one?
|>
|>Link Hudson.
|>
|>

Link...Yes...(my wife and ) I are pro-choice but have not had, paid for, or
encouraged an abortion.  We both feel that the matter of morality is between
God and the individual.  Not the US legal system.  If someone has made the
decision to have an abortion, that is a matter of their relationship with God.
As far as my household is concerned, and with a relative who has had an abortion
(no, it was not discussed or known about before the fact) we do not believe that
abortion is the correct decision no matter what the circumstances.  But we do
not judge others for their misdeeds.  Nor do we judge others for what they do in
the world (the people running/working the clinics).  We do not like the acts 
they do; however, that has nothing to do with my attitude towards them 
personally.  Judge not lest ye be judged.

Many Christians (I can feel the 'flames' already) have lost sight of the 
teachings of Jesus.  "Love one another" does not include "Love one another, 
except for those who would even consider doing wrong".

I would rather pray that people considering a morally wrong act (be it abortion,
murder, stealing, cheating on tests, etc.) would make the decision that God
would have them make.  As an afternote: I would never (as many people seem to)
presume to be able tell people what God has decided for THEM.

Thanks for asking the question.

					May the Lord bless you and keep you,
							JLS
===============================================================================
Jerry L. Storrs, System/Network Manager || "Are you listening for thunder
Dept of Chemical Engineering, NCSU      ||   while He is whispering your name?"
   storrs@che.ncsu.edu (preferred)      || 
   storrs@eos.ncsu.edu                  ||                 Michael Card
                          <><           ||                
===============================================================================
Any statement made is the explicit belief of the writer and not the employer.
-- 

===============================================================================
Jerry L. Storrs, System/Network Manager || "... I bring you good news of great
Dept of Chemical Engineering, NCSU      || joy that will be for all the people.
   storrs@che.ncsu.edu (preferred)      || Today in the town of David a Savior
   storrs@eos.ncsu.edu                  || has been born to you; he is Christ.
                                        || the Lord."         
                          <><           ||                Luke 2:..10-11
===============================================================================
Any statement made is the explicit belief of the writer and not the employer.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers (was Re: An Abortion Argument that has nothing to do with OT and NT)
Organization: Rescorla for himself.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:56:54 GMT

In article <C17y1K.2Gr@athena.cs.uga.edu> hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) writes:
>In article <1993Jan20.220448.28774@cs.yale.edu> rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>>>>Actually, you won't find Christ condemning either homosexuality
>>>>     or abortion (even though this act was somewhat prevalent at
>>>>     the time-- funny, isn't it?).
>>>I don't really have any info. on abortion among Jews in the 1st century,
>>>but I do know that the Jewish leadership knew that homosexual acts were
>>>sins.  Jesus did not specifically mention the topic in the record we
>>>have inthe gospels.  But he does condemn "porneia" the general term
>>>for homosexuality.
>>Porneia means "sexual immorality."
>Exactly.  But, according to what I have read, it included homosexuality,
>as well as incest and adultery.
As far as I can tell, exactly what is included in "porneia" is rather
unclear. It seems rather a matter of opinion whether homosexuality
is sexual immorality.

It seems to me, in fact, that your argument rests upon showing
that to be the case.
-Ekr


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Rescorla, DoD#431 (Nighthawk S)              rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu
Former chemist now CM400 mechanic                 ekr@eitech.com(preferred)
                        Don't believe anything you hear.
From: skinner@sp94.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Diatribe against Rushdie (was: Jihad in Islam)
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:07:29 GMT
Reply-To: g-skinner@uiuc.edu
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development

In article <1993Jan26.184930.14707@kth.se> d89-gsk@nada.kth.se (Gani Skepi) writes:

>If I write a book claiming [strongly offensive claim about a relative
>of Mr. Butler's removed -- gms]. But she is dead and thus can't defend
>herself against these sick accusations.  And you tell me to prove it
>and I answer:"It is *only* fiction, don't take it personal!" Would you
>then say "well you are right and I think you have the right to have
>this view and write a book expressing it" or would you tell me to stop
>selling the crap and publicly say that the thing I did was wrong??

I suspect Mr. Butler would do neither of these.  Quite likely he would
simply ignore the book, just as he is likely to ignore the impassioned
rant of which the above is but a small excerpt.  It's possible he
would choose some civilized variation of the latter response, perhaps
pursuing a lawsuit against the author of the book.

I can say with some confidence he would at no time threaten the life
of the author.


                                  Gregg Skinner
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:27309 alt.atheism:26860 soc.culture.jewish:25919
From: tom@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM (Tom Albrecht)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism,soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Child abuse ordered by G-d
Date: 22 Jan 93 20:51:24 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: Unisys, Applied Technology, Malvern, PA

In article <1993Jan22.152210.10238@gboro.rowan.edu> kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Norman Conquest) writes:
>
>Earlier, I wrote about the OT Law and the prescription of stoning, saying
>"there are several places where this punishment is recommended for crimes
>that are no more than trivial".

What I hear you saying is that either these commandments are of strictly
human origin (and flawed from your perspective), or that God was being
petty with He gave them.

-- 
Tom Albrecht
From: rlg@omni (Randy garrett)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.origins
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Date: 22 Jan 1993 20:55:05 GMT
Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: omni.ida.org
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

: }Science cannot prove anything!  That's right!  All it can do
: }is disprove things.

Hmm, if you can't prove anything, how can you disprove anything?

: }
: }Evolution is not "just a theory."  It is a fact.  It has been
: }observed, it has been duplicated in the laboratory, and the
: }evidence is astoundingly consistent.

Your "Evolution is not "just a theory."  It is a fact."
statement would seem to be in disagreement with your statement:

"Science cannot prove anything!"


Could you reconcile the two?  Also, if we mean by evolution
the changing of one species into another, then evolution 
has certainly NOT been observed, other than, arguable, in the
fossil record and certainly not in the laboratory.  If, by
evolution you mean changes WITHIN a species, then you are
certainly right -- just look at all the variations of dogs.
However, they're still dogs; that is, they produce fertile
offspring only when mating with other individuals that we
classify with dogs.

If evolution had been clearly and unequivocally demonstrated in
a laboratory setting, this would be big news.

Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by evolution of software 
viruses, unless, again you mean minor adaptations.  If you
have more information or a reference, I'd certainly be interested.

Thanks,

Randy G.

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers (was Re: An Abortion Argument that has nothing to do with OT and NT)
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 22:40:58 GMT

In article <16B5E1208D.I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de> I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau) writes:
>So what, Paul is a prototype Fascist if there ever was one.

What does Paul have to say about specific government types?

>Anyway, the case with agape has not been settled.
>Ie, the question is open if it refers to sexual practices of
>Jesus and his disciples. Note that they were all male at the
>end.

Agape is also described as the kind of love we have for God, a Spirit.  
Maybe you insinuated the above because the English word "love" can have 
sexual connotations.  

>And I can show you passages in the bible which say that it is better not to be
>born, and being aborted counts as being better off, too. (Kohelet)
>   Benedikt

And many of these speak of miscarriages in the same way they speak of the
death of a grown man.  

If you take a verse of Ecclesiastes out of context, you can get the wrong
idea.  Qoheleth argues many sides of the same issues, and it all leads up
to the last few sentences of the book.

Link Hudson.