I used to have a cat who would take out birds (big or small), snakes, lizards, rabbits... and would even scare away large dogs, and I mean German Shepherds were afraid of him. [It wouldn't have surprised me if he had of taken down an Emu either... but, he probably was never that greedy as to want to eat one].
I was living in the country at the time, and it was always good to know the rabbits at least got eaten rather than run over and lef on the side of the road [as was the case of most rabbits in the area].
Pebble bed reactors can fail in other ways. [Such as what happened in Germany shortly after Chenobyl]
I'm yet to see a reactor design that is flawless. Not that I'm Anti-Nuclear for energy so much as I'm distrussful of the 'people factor' involved. I mean, Chenobyl happened because they were cutting corners, etc, and most 'accidents' I've read about were either due to cutting corners [I'm thinking of the half dozen Japanese who got steamed alive about a year or more ago because they were inspecting Rusted pipes that the reactors owners had ignored], or because of human error [either through the 'I don't care factor' or just being plain overwork].
But, if anyone builds a reactor near me, I'd probably move to another city or at least a LONG way away. Not that we need any here [though John Howard wants to build one here], because we generate enough electricty from solar, wind and gas. [No coal generators in our area]. But the Aussie Federal Government wants to plonk a reactor here where it's not needed. Plus they're testing some energy system off shore that uses the water pressure and tides to generate electricty (when they put the prototype out there a while ago, they said it would only take a couple of them to generate enough electrity to power Perth... though I've heard nothing about it since the big hoo har they made on the News).
But, my distrust of Nuclear power is a basic distrust of Government and Corporate entities who are likely to cut corners and run reactors in unsafe ways. Governments usually understand little of technology things they sign off on, and I wouldn't put it past a greedy big corporation to pay their way through with a cheap unsafe design. [Not that I don't think there will be safe designs submitted, but if I know Government, they usually go for expensive and unworkable, or cheap and nasty].
'getting their sweaty hands on a Mozart original,'
lol touching an original with ones hands would get a person banned for life. They make you wear cotton gloves [if they even let you touch the document].
There is already some OCR software which is trying to put musical scores into other formats. I'm not sure how many of them are any good though. I'll wait for them to become affordable before I start forking out hard earned cash for expensive prototypes of them though.:-)
Anyway, even with a Logical statement the 'If' in an 'If Then' statement still implies that we don't know 'if' A exists. That's why we use those sort of statements, so that the program/computer can analyse if A exists [or the value of A etc] and then follow the program path according to the result for A. But, I accept your explanation that you didn't express yourself too well. We all do that every now and then.
'Not so if they copy from a 19th century published version. Do you really think this practice is uncommon?'
Yes, I think the practice is uncommon in the sense that the company has to at least PRETEND that they accessed multiple sources, which still means paying someone to at least Pretend to look at sourced documents.
I only know of one case [not a manuscript case, but the case of a TV commercial], where they got permission to use a song, but couldn't get permission to use the original artists recording of the song. As such they hired studio musicians to re-do the song exactly the same, but after the session they discovered that the song had been played slightly too fast by the studio musicians and didn't fit the commercial. They'd run out of money and therefore couldn't afford to pay everyone to come back, so they just inserted the original song into the commercial. When they were accused of using the original artists recording of the song, [and were expecting a nasty lawsuit] they just produced the receipts proving they'd hired engineers, studio musicians etc and said it was the music from that session. The lawyers couldn't prove it wasn't form those sessions, so the lawsuit was dropped.
Because I know publishers have to something similar to this, if a publisher was to be accused of just COPYING a manuscript from public domain, (even if they had done so), they'd at least have receipts etc to prove they'd paid someone to source documents on which to base their version. [Or at least put in a note that it is a public domain version, in which case anyone would be able to copy it]. It's not worth the hassle to the publisher, so I'd say if they were to pay someone to do the job, then they would expect that person would be doing it. [After all, if some of the documents are kept in Museums an private libraries etc, they'd have to have some form of proof that the person being paid had gone to the museum or private library.]
But, like I said, when they do just COPY csomething from Public Domain, they usually have it cited on the page. [I guess some of the less honest publishers might include that citation in an appendix or something where some people don't look, but it'd have to be there in the publication].
As for the future, yeah, I'm hoping there is enough quality documents in public domain for musicians to use. But, if a pubisher still goes to the trouble of putting together a manuscript based on new information or new source documents, then I would expect they would get some sort payment for the time and effort they would put into it. Whether you or I or anyone else buy their copy or use public domain versions is our choice. To me, it would depend on how much better the new manuscript they produce would be. If it just adds a footnote like: 'In this section Dowlands manuscipt does not include a trill'
Or something like that, then it probably isn't worth me buying the new copy, so I'd still use a Public Domain copy. Something small and trivial like that, to me at least, is something I can remember anyway.
Repeatition is used for emphasis. The Bible was not written as a scientific document, it was written as a religious document, and should be interpreted as such. Repeatition is often used in writings from this period. In the case of Genesis, it's not trying to explain HOW things came into being, but WHY in a religious sense.
Repeatition would be expected, especially if the original source has come from a poetic-verbal background, where the learning is passed from one priest to another by way of memorising poems. This method uses a lot of repeatition. This way, things don't get forgotten, even if the poems get a little garbled over time.
So the entire emphasis that is being done in Genesis is that the earth came about because of Gods will, rather than any other explanation from other religious groups. [Such as the group iHitchhikers guide who believed the Universe was sneezed out, to use a comical example].
It's also one of the reason a lot of the non-Fundy Christians don't feel that Evolution is a threat, as the Genesis 1 list which included the order that everything was created is actually in agreement with the order that evolution/the fossil records place them. Plus, like I meantioned, it's not trying to answer the HOW of creation, just the WHY of creation. They're answering two very different questions.
If we look at it in terms of something else, such as cheese making, science would answer the How question as to how cheese was made, [ie the scientific processes used], where as the 'Why do we have this sort of cheese?' type question would be answered by the 'well, that's the sort of cheese the factory makes around here.'
In the case of the two questions from Genesis and Science we cold phrase them as
Genesis Q: 'Why do we exist the way we are?', Genesis A: 'Because God made us this way'
Science Q: 'How did we come to exist?', Science A: 'Evolution'.
First of all -
I said "As Z34107 has pointed out, YOU CAN GO AND GET copies of the manuscript which is in public domain."
You said 'Again i repeat: you can also get fully arranged musical scores from the 19th century for said works. And they are not under copyright!'
As I pointed out to you in my first post YOU'RE REPEATING WHAT WE'VE SAID! There are free copies out there! To QUOTE myself from my last comment: 'As per a previous comment I made, there are other PUBLISHED COPYRIGHT FREE versions of Mozarts works.' We say there are copies of the manuscript in public domain and you turn round and say (Repeating basically what we've said)that you can get the manuscripts from public domain! We're talking about the same FRIGGin' documents which I made perfectly CLEAR in my first post! I never refered to the manusctipts as 'The Original', you've added that your own understanding. (Yes, Z34107 used the term 'Original', but from what others in the thread have said, and as I pointed out, Many people have spoken about the 'public domain' copies previously.)
So Z34107 and I tell you to go get copies in public domain and you turn around and tell us 'why should you when you can get copies from public domain'... Stop telling us we're wrong and then repeating what we said as the solution!
'Publishers are leeches that live off other people's works.'
Well, some people can self publish. But, the publishers normally have better distribution networks. In Mozarts day publishers paid very little to creators, that's why they bought in laws for Royalties and copyrights on the actual works so that the creator gets paid better and when a publishers contract runs out the creator can take their work to a different publisher or self pulish their works. The laws from Mozarts day and ours have changed a lot with most creators getting a better slice of the pie. As for the publishers not doing much, in Mozarts day it was even harder to put together a manuscript.
As I KEEP REPEATING TO YOU, You can go get a Copyright Freeversion of these works and NOT pay the publishers of the new works. No one is FORCING you to BUY their copies. BUT, if you do want their version then you can pay for it.
No one is forcing you to BUY the music, you can get it for free, that's what Z34107 and I have told you... of course, you'll probably counteract this by once again just repeating back to us the advice we gave you! BUT, like I've said, if it is the PUBLISHERS version you want, then you can pay for it. ONCE AGAIN, I will tell you, it is your choice.
'They got rich and yet negleted their main artists some real source of income which in turn could well have made them live a little longer.'
Mozart actually was quite well off. Yes, the original publishers were rip off merchants, these aren't the same as todays publishers. You've been watchin 'Amadeus' too much. Fact is, Mozart earned a Good income and was what would have been considered 'Middle Class' by todays standards. [I think from memory they estitmate he would have been earning about US$50,000 a year or something]. As for the publishers becoming rich, like I said perviously, that's why Copyright etc for creators was bought in, to ensure that the Creators get rewarded for producing something quite good.
In Mozarts day, the only way to get things published was by going to a publisher or mastering typesetting etc, and I doubt Mozart was willing to master typesetting, so having Publishers do all that for him was the only way. BUT, like I keep telling YOU, there is copies of his work in PUBLIC DOMAIN, so you can go and get them and not pay for the modern publisher.
Are publishers middle men? NO, as they do actually put work into producing the hard copies etc you can buy. You get the physical BOOK that they produced, so it's not like you're not getting something material that they didn't produce. As such, they should get rewarded for that w
Actually, the version you just quoted STILL doesn't say that God did it then and there. All it is stating is that God created them out of the ground. I could say something similar, like,
I planted vegetables in the ground and ate them for dinner.
The sentence comes with what is called Implication. From your own knowledge & the context you already know enough to assume I didn't plant the vegetables one day and then eat them the same day. So reading the Bible in context with your sentence you should know enough that if it was already stated that God created the animals before he had created Adam that the writer isn't trying to tell us that God created the animals again, but it more an emphasis on the fact that God created the animals.
Of course, implication leads to lots of arguments and humour, as the sentence I made about the vegetables could have someone pretending that I had in fact put the vegetables into the ground and then dug them up and ate them for dinner.
We [or most of us], use implication everyday in most of our normal conversations, and usually it goes by without a batting of an eyelid.
Bible 2.0?:-) lol There are lots of different translations into English for the Bible. As some people will tell you, sometimes it's good to sit around with seven different versions in order to get the meaning of the translations. Otherwise, learning about 78 differente ancient languages is another way to help!:-) [Though Hebrew, Kone Greek and Aramaic might be easier than learning all of them].:-)
I would say it was an assumption that the intersection of Christian and Athiest is the null set, I'd say that was pretty well established by the fact that the 'supernatural' parts of Christian belief are very much part of it.
After all, there are Muslims who call themselves 'followers of Christ' and study his teachings, but if you were to refer to them as Christians you'd be in for a rather large arguement.
Of course, as you understand [as you've raised the question as to what Christianity is], the boundaries have blurred a lot in modern times with many people calling themselves Christian and basically choosing to follow the bits they want and disregarding other things Jesus said. I would say previously Christianity was pretty well defined [ie it includes all the supernatural content], and most Christians, and those opposed to Christianity pretty much still run under the well defined concept of Christianity.
So, I'd probably be finding myself refering to the 'Society of Friends' as more of a 'Followers of Christ' group rather than a 'Christian' group as I think there is enough evidence to conclude that the 'Christian' definition and the 'Followers of Christ' definition can pretty well be separated by those who are 'Followers' and are offended by being labeled 'Christian'.
Of course, the other question I feel you raise is, what was Jesus actually trying to achieve, a group which fit into the 'Christian' definition [complete with the supernatural elements], or a group who should have been closer to the Society of Friends [ie 'Followers of Christ']. A question which will probably be disputed as long as there are 'Christians' and 'Followers of Christ' as two seperate groups.
I think it was Michael White [I might be wrong], who summed up something similar by saying,
'If people couldn't follow rules which were written on stone, then how can we do what's right with hearts of stone.'
Actually, to throw a spanner amongst the pigeons, there is a section in the New Testament where some people asked Jesus about divorce, because it was written in the OT that if a man's wife displeases him he could write them a letter of divorce. Jesus said that was put in by Moses as he knew the Israelites hearts were so hard.
So, it is possible that a large part of what is written in Leviticus is NOT from God, but from Moses. [I'm not using this to say that the Bible isn't the Word of God, because it can be argued that God allowed this to be put in]. But, it does answer the question between supposed contradictions between Jesus teachings and those of Leviticus. I would say that the bits of the OT Bible where it says God said this, or God said that are the bits where you beleive that God said it, while the bits which are just, 'Don't do this and don't do that' you look at and see if it makes sense or if it might just be because people weren't ready for the hard lessons of being 'nice' to people they hate.
I'm just chucking it in the air as a possiblity. So, I'll probably get flamed by some who think I should interpret everything in the Bible as 100% coming out of God's mouth, but some people can twist things an awful lot. I remember one guy who told me the Bible said that God was dead. The passage he was refering to was where it said, 'The fool says in his heart, "God is Dead".' Technically, the guy was right, but it was REALLY out of context.
So, it is entirely possible to reconcile a LOT of what was written in the OT by Jesus arguement that that teaching came from Moses and NOT God. In which case, a LOT of the Fundies might be in trouble.
Like I said, this is just a possiblity. People can argue whether to re-interpret the OT according to this or not, I'm just throwing a possibility out there for people to consider.
There goes my Day Job as a temple postitute... [actually, I have to keep that day job, Microsoft is flying me to Sydney in two months... so, guess I have to keep prostituting myself for at least two months].:-)
Actually, there are members fo the 'Society of Friends' [aka Quakers] who are Athiests, so it could be disputed if they could be considered a Christian group or not anymore, though they certainly started as a Christian group. I think it would be safe to say that they're slowly losing their religion but not their beliefs. [With 'beliefs' not refering to their belief in Jesus or God, but in reference to their general Pacifism etc that the are well known for].
So, judging Christian beliefs from what a member of the Society of Friends believes could be a poor test.
'The nature of the holy trinity and the belief that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine were hammered out by a bunch of leaders of various christian sects, and some members of the roman government, at the council of Nicea.'
The Holy Trinity and belief in Jesus being both fully human and fully divine were put together at the council of Nicea is a statement of what Christians believed. The Holy Trinity isn't too difficult to understand, people just like to pretend it is. These things were put together as statements in order to counter act groups like the Gnostics who were basically making things up. The nature of Jesus and the Holy Trinity are based on what is being taught in the documents that the Church beleived were cannonical. For example, in Titus 2:13 Jesus gets refered to as the Great God. Here is a LITERAL translation from the Kone Greek:
expecting the blessed hope and appearance of the glory of the great God and Saviour of us Christ Jesus.
I can give you the Greek as well if you like. BUT, the point is, that the passage [and several others in the Bible] refer to Jesus as God. So, obviously the belief of the early Christians from BEFORE Nicea was that Jesus was God. Whether you believe this or not personally, is not my point, but obviously the concept of the Holy Trinity and Jesus Humanity and Diety being one were a belief of the early Christians, even if they didn't have terms for them. After all, just because we humans invented a term to encapsulate a concept doesn't mean the belief didn't exist before a term to descibe the concept, which is basically what you are eluding too with your comment claiming the belief was HAMMERED OUT at Nicea. The belief was already there. All Nicea did was give it a name. Considering that some of the external [Non-Biblical] references to him Prior to Nicea als claimed the Christians believed Jesus to be God, shows that the concept was well and truly in existence Before Nicea.
'No historians of the day confirm his existence - the only writings we have which support it are those which are contained within the bible.'
Well, the New Testament makes up 27 books which mention him, which you dismiss outright.
If you look at the evidence EXTERNAL to the Bible we can include some Pro-Christian Documents from the Church fathers, Polycarp, Eusebius, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Justin, Origen etc and HEAPS more.
Also, include those documents of people opposed to Christianity and you have:
Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Flavius Josephus, Suetonius, Plinius Secondus (aka Pliny the Younger), Tertullian, Thallus the Samaritan, Phlegon, The Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion, Justin Martyr, The Jewish Talmuds (which include mentions of Jesus in Tol'doth Yeshu, Babylonian Talmud and others), and more.
Sure, some of those are as much as 100 years later, but some are very close to Jesus time.
Now of course, IF you ignore all THOSE, then your statement might be correct.
As most modern Historians will tell you, the people who wrote the above documents that I mention, even those who were OPPOSED to Jesus STILL treat him as an historical figure who actually existed. At no time did they doubt his existence. There is a possibility that Jesus has been mentioned in more writings which have disappeared over the years, especially if there were only a few text which were seldom copied.
Considering that they have documents which have been carbon dated to ~50 AD concerning Jesus, which is less than 20 years after his execution, it is pretty reasonable to conclude that he actually existed.
'But if he was human, then he must necessarily have sinned.'
Purely nothing but your own opinion. No supportive evidence.
'Some of us have faith in what we have seen'
You have also proven you have faith in what you have not seen. [ie your unsupported opinion that Jesus must have sinned]. Whether you beleive he was human or not, you have no evidence of hi
You're going to have trouble typing my password, as it's 6.4 characters long. The first six characters are 'passwo' The.4 consists of 'r' and 'd' type in such a way as to only use 0.2 of each.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Hackers 2 is kept on a secret super computer somewhere. Only way to view it is to hack the Gibson. :-)
'intrinsically incredibly bright'
:-)
:-)
Sounds like they dug up one of my old report cards from school. Now look where I've ended up!
I just hope those Galaxies or blackholes [or whatever they are] have a better career than me!
'I want multiplayer solitaire with voice chat.'
:-)
I already have that, the voices in my head tell me so.
I used to have a cat who would take out birds (big or small), snakes, lizards, rabbits ... and would even scare away large dogs, and I mean German Shepherds were afraid of him. [It wouldn't have surprised me if he had of taken down an Emu either ... but, he probably was never that greedy as to want to eat one].
I was living in the country at the time, and it was always good to know the rabbits at least got eaten rather than run over and lef on the side of the road [as was the case of most rabbits in the area].
If the owl hadn't of got him, Bush would have with his war on Terriers! :-)
Pebble bed reactors can fail in other ways. [Such as what happened in Germany shortly after Chenobyl]
... though I've heard nothing about it since the big hoo har they made on the News).
I'm yet to see a reactor design that is flawless. Not that I'm Anti-Nuclear for energy so much as I'm distrussful of the 'people factor' involved. I mean, Chenobyl happened because they were cutting corners, etc, and most 'accidents' I've read about were either due to cutting corners [I'm thinking of the half dozen Japanese who got steamed alive about a year or more ago because they were inspecting Rusted pipes that the reactors owners had ignored], or because of human error [either through the 'I don't care factor' or just being plain overwork].
But, if anyone builds a reactor near me, I'd probably move to another city or at least a LONG way away. Not that we need any here [though John Howard wants to build one here], because we generate enough electricty from solar, wind and gas. [No coal generators in our area]. But the Aussie Federal Government wants to plonk a reactor here where it's not needed. Plus they're testing some energy system off shore that uses the water pressure and tides to generate electricty (when they put the prototype out there a while ago, they said it would only take a couple of them to generate enough electrity to power Perth
But, my distrust of Nuclear power is a basic distrust of Government and Corporate entities who are likely to cut corners and run reactors in unsafe ways. Governments usually understand little of technology things they sign off on, and I wouldn't put it past a greedy big corporation to pay their way through with a cheap unsafe design. [Not that I don't think there will be safe designs submitted, but if I know Government, they usually go for expensive and unworkable, or cheap and nasty].
If we get enough junk up there, can we make a Dyson Sphere? :-)
'once they hit daylight that is.'
What is this 'daylight' thing you speak of young man? Do you mean that Stalone Movie? It's the only thing I can recall that uses the term.
How does this differ from Einsteins Bagel shaped Universe?
'My bulging typing fingers and keen google-foo are testament to that.'
You wouldnt' have that problem if you'd invented the Fingerlong like I have.
'getting their sweaty hands on a Mozart original,'
:-)
lol touching an original with ones hands would get a person banned for life. They make you wear cotton gloves [if they even let you touch the document].
There is already some OCR software which is trying to put musical scores into other formats. I'm not sure how many of them are any good though. I'll wait for them to become affordable before I start forking out hard earned cash for expensive prototypes of them though.
I think we're on the same page now [I hope].
Anyway, even with a Logical statement the 'If' in an 'If Then' statement still implies that we don't know 'if' A exists. That's why we use those sort of statements, so that the program/computer can analyse if A exists [or the value of A etc] and then follow the program path according to the result for A. But, I accept your explanation that you didn't express yourself too well. We all do that every now and then.
'Not so if they copy from a 19th century published version. Do you really think this practice is uncommon?'
Yes, I think the practice is uncommon in the sense that the company has to at least PRETEND that they accessed multiple sources, which still means paying someone to at least Pretend to look at sourced documents.
I only know of one case [not a manuscript case, but the case of a TV commercial], where they got permission to use a song, but couldn't get permission to use the original artists recording of the song. As such they hired studio musicians to re-do the song exactly the same, but after the session they discovered that the song had been played slightly too fast by the studio musicians and didn't fit the commercial. They'd run out of money and therefore couldn't afford to pay everyone to come back, so they just inserted the original song into the commercial. When they were accused of using the original artists recording of the song, [and were expecting a nasty lawsuit] they just produced the receipts proving they'd hired engineers, studio musicians etc and said it was the music from that session. The lawyers couldn't prove it wasn't form those sessions, so the lawsuit was dropped.
Because I know publishers have to something similar to this, if a publisher was to be accused of just COPYING a manuscript from public domain, (even if they had done so), they'd at least have receipts etc to prove they'd paid someone to source documents on which to base their version. [Or at least put in a note that it is a public domain version, in which case anyone would be able to copy it]. It's not worth the hassle to the publisher, so I'd say if they were to pay someone to do the job, then they would expect that person would be doing it. [After all, if some of the documents are kept in Museums an private libraries etc, they'd have to have some form of proof that the person being paid had gone to the museum or private library.]
But, like I said, when they do just COPY csomething from Public Domain, they usually have it cited on the page. [I guess some of the less honest publishers might include that citation in an appendix or something where some people don't look, but it'd have to be there in the publication].
As for the future, yeah, I'm hoping there is enough quality documents in public domain for musicians to use. But, if a pubisher still goes to the trouble of putting together a manuscript based on new information or new source documents, then I would expect they would get some sort payment for the time and effort they would put into it. Whether you or I or anyone else buy their copy or use public domain versions is our choice. To me, it would depend on how much better the new manuscript they produce would be. If it just adds a footnote like:
'In this section Dowlands manuscipt does not include a trill'
Or something like that, then it probably isn't worth me buying the new copy, so I'd still use a Public Domain copy. Something small and trivial like that, to me at least, is something I can remember anyway.
Repeatition is used for emphasis. The Bible was not written as a scientific document, it was written as a religious document, and should be interpreted as such. Repeatition is often used in writings from this period. In the case of Genesis, it's not trying to explain HOW things came into being, but WHY in a religious sense.
Repeatition would be expected, especially if the original source has come from a poetic-verbal background, where the learning is passed from one priest to another by way of memorising poems. This method uses a lot of repeatition. This way, things don't get forgotten, even if the poems get a little garbled over time.
So the entire emphasis that is being done in Genesis is that the earth came about because of Gods will, rather than any other explanation from other religious groups. [Such as the group iHitchhikers guide who believed the Universe was sneezed out, to use a comical example].
It's also one of the reason a lot of the non-Fundy Christians don't feel that Evolution is a threat, as the Genesis 1 list which included the order that everything was created is actually in agreement with the order that evolution/the fossil records place them. Plus, like I meantioned, it's not trying to answer the HOW of creation, just the WHY of creation. They're answering two very different questions.
If we look at it in terms of something else, such as cheese making, science would answer the How question as to how cheese was made, [ie the scientific processes used], where as the 'Why do we have this sort of cheese?' type question would be answered by the 'well, that's the sort of cheese the factory makes around here.'
In the case of the two questions from Genesis and Science we cold phrase them as
Genesis Q: 'Why do we exist the way we are?', Genesis A: 'Because God made us this way'
Science Q: 'How did we come to exist?', Science A: 'Evolution'.
Hope that makes sense.
First of all - I said "As Z34107 has pointed out, YOU CAN GO AND GET copies of the manuscript which is in public domain."
... Stop telling us we're wrong and then repeating what we said as the solution!
... of course, you'll probably counteract this by once again just repeating back to us the advice we gave you! BUT, like I've said, if it is the PUBLISHERS version you want, then you can pay for it. ONCE AGAIN, I will tell you, it is your choice.
You said 'Again i repeat: you can also get fully arranged musical scores from the 19th century for said works. And they are not under copyright!'
As I pointed out to you in my first post YOU'RE REPEATING WHAT WE'VE SAID! There are free copies out there! To QUOTE myself from my last comment:
'As per a previous comment I made, there are other PUBLISHED COPYRIGHT FREE versions of Mozarts works.'
We say there are copies of the manuscript in public domain and you turn round and say (Repeating basically what we've said)that you can get the manuscripts from public domain! We're talking about the same FRIGGin' documents which I made perfectly CLEAR in my first post! I never refered to the manusctipts as 'The Original', you've added that your own understanding. (Yes, Z34107 used the term 'Original', but from what others in the thread have said, and as I pointed out, Many people have spoken about the 'public domain' copies previously.)
So Z34107 and I tell you to go get copies in public domain and you turn around and tell us 'why should you when you can get copies from public domain'
'Publishers are leeches that live off other people's works.'
Well, some people can self publish. But, the publishers normally have better distribution networks. In Mozarts day publishers paid very little to creators, that's why they bought in laws for Royalties and copyrights on the actual works so that the creator gets paid better and when a publishers contract runs out the creator can take their work to a different publisher or self pulish their works. The laws from Mozarts day and ours have changed a lot with most creators getting a better slice of the pie. As for the publishers not doing much, in Mozarts day it was even harder to put together a manuscript.
As I KEEP REPEATING TO YOU, You can go get a Copyright Freeversion of these works and NOT pay the publishers of the new works. No one is FORCING you to BUY their copies. BUT, if you do want their version then you can pay for it.
No one is forcing you to BUY the music, you can get it for free, that's what Z34107 and I have told you
'They got rich and yet negleted their main artists some real source of income which in turn could well have made them live a little longer.'
Mozart actually was quite well off. Yes, the original publishers were rip off merchants, these aren't the same as todays publishers. You've been watchin 'Amadeus' too much. Fact is, Mozart earned a Good income and was what would have been considered 'Middle Class' by todays standards. [I think from memory they estitmate he would have been earning about US$50,000 a year or something]. As for the publishers becoming rich, like I said perviously, that's why Copyright etc for creators was bought in, to ensure that the Creators get rewarded for producing something quite good.
In Mozarts day, the only way to get things published was by going to a publisher or mastering typesetting etc, and I doubt Mozart was willing to master typesetting, so having Publishers do all that for him was the only way. BUT, like I keep telling YOU, there is copies of his work in PUBLIC DOMAIN, so you can go and get them and not pay for the modern publisher.
Are publishers middle men? NO, as they do actually put work into producing the hard copies etc you can buy. You get the physical BOOK that they produced, so it's not like you're not getting something material that they didn't produce. As such, they should get rewarded for that w
Actually, the version you just quoted STILL doesn't say that God did it then and there. All it is stating is that God created them out of the ground. I could say something similar, like,
:-) lol There are lots of different translations into English for the Bible. As some people will tell you, sometimes it's good to sit around with seven different versions in order to get the meaning of the translations. Otherwise, learning about 78 differente ancient languages is another way to help! :-) [Though Hebrew, Kone Greek and Aramaic might be easier than learning all of them]. :-)
I planted vegetables in the ground and ate them for dinner.
The sentence comes with what is called Implication. From your own knowledge & the context you already know enough to assume I didn't plant the vegetables one day and then eat them the same day. So reading the Bible in context with your sentence you should know enough that if it was already stated that God created the animals before he had created Adam that the writer isn't trying to tell us that God created the animals again, but it more an emphasis on the fact that God created the animals.
Of course, implication leads to lots of arguments and humour, as the sentence I made about the vegetables could have someone pretending that I had in fact put the vegetables into the ground and then dug them up and ate them for dinner.
We [or most of us], use implication everyday in most of our normal conversations, and usually it goes by without a batting of an eyelid.
Bible 2.0?
You bring up a good point.
I would say it was an assumption that the intersection of Christian and Athiest is the null set, I'd say that was pretty well established by the fact that the 'supernatural' parts of Christian belief are very much part of it.
After all, there are Muslims who call themselves 'followers of Christ' and study his teachings, but if you were to refer to them as Christians you'd be in for a rather large arguement.
Of course, as you understand [as you've raised the question as to what Christianity is], the boundaries have blurred a lot in modern times with many people calling themselves Christian and basically choosing to follow the bits they want and disregarding other things Jesus said. I would say previously Christianity was pretty well defined [ie it includes all the supernatural content], and most Christians, and those opposed to Christianity pretty much still run under the well defined concept of Christianity.
So, I'd probably be finding myself refering to the 'Society of Friends' as more of a 'Followers of Christ' group rather than a 'Christian' group as I think there is enough evidence to conclude that the 'Christian' definition and the 'Followers of Christ' definition can pretty well be separated by those who are 'Followers' and are offended by being labeled 'Christian'.
Of course, the other question I feel you raise is, what was Jesus actually trying to achieve, a group which fit into the 'Christian' definition [complete with the supernatural elements], or a group who should have been closer to the Society of Friends [ie 'Followers of Christ']. A question which will probably be disputed as long as there are 'Christians' and 'Followers of Christ' as two seperate groups.
I think it was Michael White [I might be wrong], who summed up something similar by saying,
'If people couldn't follow rules which were written on stone, then how can we do what's right with hearts of stone.'
Actually, to throw a spanner amongst the pigeons, there is a section in the New Testament where some people asked Jesus about divorce, because it was written in the OT that if a man's wife displeases him he could write them a letter of divorce. Jesus said that was put in by Moses as he knew the Israelites hearts were so hard.
So, it is possible that a large part of what is written in Leviticus is NOT from God, but from Moses. [I'm not using this to say that the Bible isn't the Word of God, because it can be argued that God allowed this to be put in]. But, it does answer the question between supposed contradictions between Jesus teachings and those of Leviticus. I would say that the bits of the OT Bible where it says God said this, or God said that are the bits where you beleive that God said it, while the bits which are just, 'Don't do this and don't do that' you look at and see if it makes sense or if it might just be because people weren't ready for the hard lessons of being 'nice' to people they hate.
I'm just chucking it in the air as a possiblity. So, I'll probably get flamed by some who think I should interpret everything in the Bible as 100% coming out of God's mouth, but some people can twist things an awful lot. I remember one guy who told me the Bible said that God was dead. The passage he was refering to was where it said, 'The fool says in his heart, "God is Dead".' Technically, the guy was right, but it was REALLY out of context.
So, it is entirely possible to reconcile a LOT of what was written in the OT by Jesus arguement that that teaching came from Moses and NOT God. In which case, a LOT of the Fundies might be in trouble.
Like I said, this is just a possiblity. People can argue whether to re-interpret the OT according to this or not, I'm just throwing a possibility out there for people to consider.
There goes my Day Job as a temple postitute ... [actually, I have to keep that day job, Microsoft is flying me to Sydney in two months ... so, guess I have to keep prostituting myself for at least two months]. :-)
Actually, there are members fo the 'Society of Friends' [aka Quakers] who are Athiests, so it could be disputed if they could be considered a Christian group or not anymore, though they certainly started as a Christian group. I think it would be safe to say that they're slowly losing their religion but not their beliefs. [With 'beliefs' not refering to their belief in Jesus or God, but in reference to their general Pacifism etc that the are well known for].
So, judging Christian beliefs from what a member of the Society of Friends believes could be a poor test.
'The nature of the holy trinity and the belief that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine were hammered out by a bunch of leaders of various christian sects, and some members of the roman government, at the council of Nicea.'
The Holy Trinity and belief in Jesus being both fully human and fully divine were put together at the council of Nicea is a statement of what Christians believed. The Holy Trinity isn't too difficult to understand, people just like to pretend it is. These things were put together as statements in order to counter act groups like the Gnostics who were basically making things up. The nature of Jesus and the Holy Trinity are based on what is being taught in the documents that the Church beleived were cannonical. For example, in Titus 2:13 Jesus gets refered to as the Great God. Here is a LITERAL translation from the Kone Greek:
expecting the blessed hope and appearance of the glory of the great God and Saviour of us Christ Jesus.
I can give you the Greek as well if you like. BUT, the point is, that the passage [and several others in the Bible] refer to Jesus as God. So, obviously the belief of the early Christians from BEFORE Nicea was that Jesus was God. Whether you believe this or not personally, is not my point, but obviously the concept of the Holy Trinity and Jesus Humanity and Diety being one were a belief of the early Christians, even if they didn't have terms for them. After all, just because we humans invented a term to encapsulate a concept doesn't mean the belief didn't exist before a term to descibe the concept, which is basically what you are eluding too with your comment claiming the belief was HAMMERED OUT at Nicea. The belief was already there. All Nicea did was give it a name. Considering that some of the external [Non-Biblical] references to him Prior to Nicea als claimed the Christians believed Jesus to be God, shows that the concept was well and truly in existence Before Nicea.
'No historians of the day confirm his existence - the only writings we have which support it are those which are contained within the bible.'
Well, the New Testament makes up 27 books which mention him, which you dismiss outright.
If you look at the evidence EXTERNAL to the Bible we can include some Pro-Christian Documents from the Church fathers, Polycarp, Eusebius, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Justin, Origen etc and HEAPS more.
Also, include those documents of people opposed to Christianity and you have:
Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Flavius Josephus, Suetonius, Plinius Secondus (aka Pliny the Younger), Tertullian, Thallus the Samaritan, Phlegon, The Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion, Justin Martyr, The Jewish Talmuds (which include mentions of Jesus in Tol'doth Yeshu, Babylonian Talmud and others), and more.
Sure, some of those are as much as 100 years later, but some are very close to Jesus time.
Now of course, IF you ignore all THOSE, then your statement might be correct.
As most modern Historians will tell you, the people who wrote the above documents that I mention, even those who were OPPOSED to Jesus STILL treat him as an historical figure who actually existed. At no time did they doubt his existence. There is a possibility that Jesus has been mentioned in more writings which have disappeared over the years, especially if there were only a few text which were seldom copied.
Considering that they have documents which have been carbon dated to ~50 AD concerning Jesus, which is less than 20 years after his execution, it is pretty reasonable to conclude that he actually existed.
'But if he was human, then he must necessarily have sinned.'
Purely nothing but your own opinion. No supportive evidence.
'Some of us have faith in what we have seen'
You have also proven you have faith in what you have not seen. [ie your unsupported opinion that Jesus must have sinned]. Whether you beleive he was human or not, you have no evidence of hi
'handheld pointing device that works in mid-air.'
:-)
I use a stick for that. Can wave it about all over the mid air space. Also helps wake people up when you bash it against a desk or white board.
'discards it and drives into walls.'
:-)
That's a feature. Live with it!
'their precious federation is now gone and has become a rough and tumble place with enemies everywhere....'
Time to send in Zap Brannigan!
You're going to have trouble typing my password, as it's 6.4 characters long. The first six characters are 'passwo' The .4 consists of 'r' and 'd' type in such a way as to only use 0.2 of each. :-)