[Janice D. Soderling]

Re #25

Answer: They expect the U.S. to pay for it, for them, like beggars with their hands out. Same thing with the UN— we pay much of the burden so that all of those poor countries can remain members, stay in nice hotels, eat like kings, and spit in our faces. I am paying for that.
(…)
To whom does one assign responsibility to?

To whom indeed. There is a famous question that has endured down passing millennia. "Am I my brother's keeper? "

I am an atheist, but I know the answer.

Today's news seems to be about that Palestinian camp in Damascus where for generations happy little campers and their parents have "stayed in nice hotels, dined like kings, and spit in our collective faces". Now that ISIS has moved in, those kids will have to go out and look for a paying job.

That'll teach 'em, the little moochers.

[Charlie Southerland]

Michael, that is my point exactly. You and others don't like folks like myself spouting Gomer Pylish religion around the place while at the same time to some greater or lessor extent, you take up your Global Warming cross and make that your religion. I can't do anything about a God I can't see. I surely can't control Him if he exists. It is the strangest thing to me that you and others believe that you can control and satisfy—dare I say worship, your man-made god. Global warming, climate change, is a religion to bow to, pay tithes to, make donations to, get taxed for.

If global warming is man caused, it would be much more simple to do away with man so that there would be no causation. When the earth finally heals, no one will be around to notice. Perfect.

Poverty is universal, Janice. ( Jesus said it first) So is displacement. Governments are responsible for it. The super wealthy aren't gonna' give up their money to anyone. The middle class does, voluntarily and un-voluntarily. Palestinians would have a state today if they weren't so adamant on Israel's destruction. And they would win 'right of return' too.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Charlie, this story about Mary anointing Jesus feet is related in two places in the gospels, the one you quote from Mark and also in St. John 12.8.

The former states that it was in reply to: "some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her." After which Judas goes to the high priests to betray Jesus.

But the latter reports that it was Judas Iscariot, already with the silver in a bag on his person, who complained: 4. Then said one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6. This he has said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."

This "the poor always" has been used by the pious for centuries to ignore the plight of the poor, in fact to make them suffer for being poor.

But how do you reconcile the fact that the reports are so contradictory that in one case it is a number of folks who are asking (in latter times it was the trustees of the poorhouses and the refugee camps) while in the other it was specifically the bad guy Judas.

For my part, I doubt that the historical Jesus ever said it.

Coincidentally I wrote a paper in Swedish on the Gospel of St. Mark about ten years ago to compensate for not attending a seminar in my Comparative Literature class. So I am primed for this question. I won't bore you with the contents of the entire paper, but here are some pertinent bits.

The Gospel of St. Mark was written some sixty or seventy years after the death of the historical Christ. It is included as the second book in the New Testament but most critical assessments regard it as being the first of the four that was written. Scholars in antiquity and all extant manuscripts name Mark as the author. The oldest reference is Papias (200 years Common Era) who says that Mark was an interpreter for Peter and that he wrote his version in Rome based on what Peter had told him. Most researchers concede the Marcan priority, and conclude that Matthew and Luke more or less copied Mark to create their versions. Some also hold that Matthew and Luke drew from an hypothetical document known as Q.

The literary relationship of the first three gospels are known as "the synoptic problem" because the first three—known as the synoptics—are similar (the so-called triple tradition) but in strong contrast to John.

The phenomena that demand clarification in the synoptic problem are:

1) Ninety percent of Mark's 661 verses are (often ipsis verbis) in either Matthew (more than 600) or Luke (350) or both.
2) Mark text arrangement is followed by the other two.
3. When the words are given verbatim, Matthew and Luke are seldom in agreement, but one of them uses Mark's text.
4) When there is no parallel text in Mark (roughly 200 verses), the corresponding texts in Matthew and Luke are similar.

According to the earliest Greek manuscript and the earliest writings of the patriarchs, the Gospel of St. Mark ends abruptly after chapter 16, verse 8. Several manuscripts have different endings and both the English and Swedish versions have 12 additional verses. (And since Easter is just around the corner, I will tell you that verse 9 and following are about the resurrection and ascension.)

To further confuse the issue, in 1958 in the ancient monastery Mar Saba was found a copy of a letter and a copy of the Marcan gospel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Saba_letter

All these confounding issues aside, what we do know is that the gospel had a long history before it was written down and was based on an oral tradition several generations after Christ's crucifixion. And it has gone through many translations. I found it interesting that the Swedish and KJV English versions have radically different styles. And now both have been turned into modern versions and any critical thinker must ask: What did Jesus really say about the poor?

Well, one thing he supposedly said, (Mark 10.21.) was:

21 "Then Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest,. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thus hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross and follow me.
22. And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

Now you get a reward for reading all this, Charlie. Don't cheat. If you haven't really read it all, your screen will crack.

The Swede Joe Hill was executed one hundred years ago this year. Like the historic Christ he was executed on trumped-charge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ236CwhlPw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUR2PDTptO0

Happy Easter, Charlie.

[Charlie Southerland]

Janice, you crack me up. I do believe that Jesus actually said it, but to fortify my position and defense of it— not self-piosity (not a word) Jesus speaks of the more serious lack of wealth in Matthew, Chapter 5, also known as the Sermon on the Mount, more specifically, the Beatitudes, which I have all kinds of trouble obeying. He says: Blessed are the poor in spirit. It is a profound statement which covers pretty much everyone. I don't think he was talking about self-help courses there. All the lost will ever have is what they attain in this life. The "you can't take it with you" saying is apt. So the lost are just as truly poor as the poorest beggar who ever lived. I think what Jesus was doing in Mark was setting the whole thing up so that it would be undeniable that He alone could make a man rich {in spirit} {alive spiritually} and make the poor, who are truly poor in possession and spirit, able to obtain faith, which as you know, is a dangerous thing. It levels the playing field, because in the end, we (the redeemed) win. Judas had a predetermined role to play and obviously, appropriately held the bag. (was left holding the bag) Since he was never a true believer, he was truly bereft in the end, where the Pharisees buried him in Potter's field. paying for it with the sellout. Most intellectuals that I know are not Christians, neither are many rich people. They find no need of God. God is viewed as an unnecessary crutch for weak-minded people.

I am not aware of serious Bible scholars dissing Mark. Mark's approach has always seemed a little strange to me though.

You too, Janice.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Charlie Southerland

I can't do anything about a God I can't see. I surely can't control Him if he exists.

Charlie, my friend, you may need to deepen your thinking. All relations are meant to be reciprocal. No exceptions. That's the whole point of having covenants: they are agreements, as the lawyers say, between parties. And every phrase has a corollary. If "as above, so below" is true, then "as below, so above" must also be true. That's why we do the rituals so carefully. How we do them affects things in the other realm. It's not just earth that needs restoring.

That's why we try to rectify the world, it's why we write poems and build houses and measure our words carefully. Yes, things fall apart, constantly, the vessels break, over and over, and it's up to us to remake them, and put evil back in the containers. Even though we know they're going to break again. It's what we do. It's why we're here.

That's why I love the story of the Lamed Vavniks so much. Milton was wrong: poetry doesn't exist to justify the ways of God to man. It exists to give the Lamed Vavniks arguments and indisputable evidence.

And that's why it's so sad that you, Charlie, yes, you, personally, my friend, are so willing to justify, explain away, and ignore evil and evil collective actions. It undermines their case. If God gathered them together this morning, they'd have many good arguments for why he shouldn't just go ahead and destroy the world. But he might reply "Look how many do evil, and deny they're doing it! Look how many just try to explain it away! And look how sure of themselves they are as they do it!"

Do the Lamed Vavniks exist? It's a nice story, but who can say? Besides, what the hell do I know? But if they do, shouldn't we be trying to give them evidence to bolster their case?

Best,

Bill

[Brian Allgar]

Charlie, your proposition seems to be: "We can't do anything about global warming, so let's stop wasting time and money trying."

Well, first of all, that's a false premise. There's a lot we can do, beginning with cutting the vast quantity of man-made emissions - something the planet has never had to try to cope with in its 4.5 billion years of existence until the last hundred years or so. Yes, the planet goes through, and recovers from, natural cycles. This is a totally unnatural one.

But your argument, by extension, could be carried into other fields:

"We'll never eradicate starvation among children in the third world, so let's stop wasting time and money trying to feed them."

"We'll never wipe out disease, so let's stop wasting time and money on medical research."

"We'll never stop people committing crimes, so let's stop wasting time and money on police forces, law courts and prisons."

I hope you don't actually believe any of those things. I also hope that enough people of good will and good sense will be able to act in time to ensure that there will still be a planet where people can continue to starve, get sick, and shoot their neighbours.

[Charlie Southerland]

To whom shall we assign blame?

For the most part of six-thousand years, men were relegated to burning wood, which came from trees, for heat during winter and for cooking fuel. When men began to settle down and farm the land, they cleared the land of trees to raise their crops. When more land was needed for fuel and more land was required for civilization to dare I say, flourish, they cleared more and more land, which became an ever intrusive and pervasive cycle. I believe that we can agree on that.

For the better part of six-thousand years, the world's population has polluted the atmosphere with wood smoke and particulates. It has been continuous and pervasive. In fact, it had become common.

For the better part of six-thousand years, men started fires to chase and herd buffalo and all sorts of other beasts around the world because they didn't have the capability or intelligence to kill for food any other way.

Certainly, this has had an affect on the planet. It contributed to the creeping of deserts in Africa, China, Australia, and the United States. There are vast areas of deforested areas in South America, Europe, and Russia. Some Pacific Islands are bare because of it.

Nearly all of these intentional actions were man-caused. Kings and rulers and organized governments have authorized these actions for nearly six-thousand years, more than enough time as civilization has exploded to have completely fouled the atmosphere and kill every living thing, block out the sun, raise the seas, make the poles inhospitable. We surely should all be dead from this abuse.

If you throw in all the destructive wars and conflicts over six-thousand years, not to mention pestilence and disease, how has Mankind ever stood a chance?

If you add natural disasters into the mix, it is an even more dire situation. Yes?

Nowadays, people build eco-friendly cars, houses, boats, farms, war-making weapons meant to kill but not destroy the environment. (neutron bombs) But it takes resources to manufacture those things. It takes digging great holes in the ground and drilling deeper holes in the ground to accomplish these goals.

Corporations and governments play shell games with labor forces when called to account for these improvements in ecology. They move their work forces about like playing a game of checkers whack changes the fortunes of one region to the benefit of other regions.

It has always been a zero sum game. One example is ethanol for fuel. Another is electric car batteries. Those are simple examples. There are aplenty more.

In other words, progress only tries to keep up with the demand of the living. It is, in and of itself, a cycle.

Why are we all, all 71/4 billion of us not dead from the stacked deck of progress?

Progressives do not seek an end to global warming. They seek finances to overcome the loss of profit because of it.

Why are we so naive?

Well more than half of the world lives/exists in abject poverty. They are not thinking about global warming. They are thinking about their next meal, their next fuel for keeping warm, enough money for illness or old age if they are fortunate to live that long.

There is truly not enough money collectively in the world to ensure that 31/2 billion people are taken care of. Furthermore, there is no intention of the wealthy and wealthy governments to do so.

Why do we continue to fool ourselves?

Why do we pretend to care?

Who is it that has inspired such folly?

I know, but I ain't sayin'.

[Michael Cantor]

Bill - of course the Lamed Vavniks exist. What is more surprising is that, of the 36 worldwide, I believe we have three or four
here on the Sphere. Just look around.

Brian - the three questions you raise are both valid and scary. The fact is that there are an appreciable number of U.S. legislators - particularly on the individual State level - and a lesser but still significant number of citizens who might answer:

1) Yup!

2) Not exactly, but we should focus on diseases that are more prevalent among those who can pay for the treatment.

3) Absolutely not. America has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, and that - and the guns so many of us own - are what keeps this great nation safe. Furthermore, since so many of our prisons are privately owned - are profit making ventures - it provides a real boost to the economy.

Getting anything done about global warming - or anything else that doesn't involve the military (what is it that we spend - more than the next ten countries combined?) or anything more complicated than a game of checkers - is extraordinarily difficult. It didn't used to be. I was around for WWII and the aftermath, and saw what a nation could do when its leaders - all of its leaders, on both sides of the aisle - were men of vision and courage. It is, unfortunately, a very different world today.

[Brian Allgar]

Charlie, I had forgotten that, despite all the incontrovertible evidence, you are a "six-thousand year" mantra man.

I hereby promise to make no further attempt to engage you in rational discourse.

[Charlie Southerland]

Brian,

Rational discourse is a two way street. I used what I know to be recorded history, not speculative fiction. Harrrumph. There is no mantra position here. I was trying to be accurate, not colorful.