Re: Making money from Java


"Judson McClendon" <judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mkAof.31296$Y72.29808@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <charles.stevens@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> And that brings up the subject: Which uncontrivertable and
>> universally-accepted authority gave *you* the right to decide and
>> decree
>> *for others* who is, and who is not, a real Christian? It is one
>> thing to
>> *opine*, based on your understanding of Scripture and your
>> understanding of
>> a particular point; it is quite another to presume that your personal
>> understanding (and what you have been taught) is the Only Possible Way
>> to
>> read Scripture.
>
> And I might ask, what authority gave you the right to post any advice to
> anyone on anything? Duh! We all speak from what we know. We share our
> knowledge and what we think with others on a wide variety of subjects. It
> happens that I have been studying the Bible in a very serious way for over
> 30 years. Whether you agree with me or not, I believe that qualifies me to
> express more than a neophyte's opinion on these issues. :-)

From what I've seen on this newsgroup, when Chuck says something about
COBOL, he usually qualifies it with "According to such and such standards
document, this is the semantics of that statement, but note that
implementors occasionally deviate from the standard." This is in contrast to
"the Only Possible Way". I don't think Chuck is accusuing you of being a
neophyte with respect to the bible. Rather, I believe he is saying that
there is no reason to believe your interpretation is more "correct" or
"valid" than all other interpretations that have been put forward by others.

[snip]
>
> I understand that Christians throughout the last 2000 years have been
> persecuted and killed for simply sharing with others what Jesus said.
> Jesus Himself was crucified, and He was perfect. Jesus made it very clear
> that if the Master is persecuted, so will His followers.

I'm not sure what these sentences have to do with what follows ...

> You think I should wait until no one is going to disagree with me before
> stating things that I know from long and dilligent study are the truth?

... but just to provide a balanced view, non-Christians have also been
persecuted and killed for simply sharing with others that they don't believe
the same things as others. There was an CNN article on this, posted December
8th, 2005:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/12/08/creationism.professor.ap/index.html

Professor Paul Mirecki was planning on teaching a course entitled
"Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other
Religious Mythologies".

<quote>
On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries
after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men
referred to the creationism course. Law enforcement officials were
investigating.
</quote>

To be fair, Mirecki did send out an e-mail in which he did some
name-calling:

<quote>
A recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization referred
to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course describing
intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat
face." Mirecki apologized for those comments.
</quote>

Obviously, I do not approve of Mirecki's e-mail, but I do not feel it
warranted a physical beating. Mirecki does not like religious-conservative
people. Fine. While perhaps prejudicial, he is entitled to his opinion.

<quote, from Slashdot
ref="http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170687&cid=14225378";>
If you look at Mirecki's areas of expertise his irritation with
fundamentalists becomes all the more understandable. His areas areas are
Ancient Mediterranean Religion, Early Christianity, and Coptic Papyrology.
That means that he knows a lot about about religion in the area in which
Christianity developed about the origins of Christianity, and about branches
of Christianity that either died out (e.g. gnosticism) or have followed a
rather different course from the one that led to fundamentalism (e.g. Coptic
Christianity). For someone with this background, the belief of
fundamentalists that their interpretation of the particular compilation of
texts that they consider holy is God's Truth must seem particularly crazy. I
can't speak for him, but I bet that to him fundamentalists seem ignorant,
naive, and arrogant even if one looks just at the religious texts and their
interpretation, without concerning oneself with the conflict between
fundamentalist beliefs and science.
</quote>

There's also this account, from someone claiming to be a student of the
professor:

<quote
ref="http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170687&cid=14225669";>
As someone who is both interested in dismissing the conspiracy theories and
was enrolled in the cancelled class, I think it is time to post some real
information.

First, Paul Mirecki is a well-respected scholar in the field of
Christianity. He is regularly chosen as the lecturer for the week that
covers the Old Testament of the Bible in an Honors Western Civilization I
course. Mirecki's personal beliefs regarding religion never came up in that
lecture - he stuck to the facts. My experiences echo those of nearly every
student who has taken a course taught by him. In his 20+ years as head of
the Religious Studies department, Mirecki's scholarship and teaching have
been praised by scholars and students alike.

Second, the email in question was sent via a Yahoo listserv to members of
the KU Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMAA). While the
group may be a part of KU, it is about as disconnected from the everyday
processes of the University as can be. Student groups are funded through the
KU Student Senate, which means the University's own democratic processes
(which include plenty of Christians as voters) elected a body of individuals
who sanctioned funding of SOMAA. The Christian individual who released the
one paragraph of the email had no business doing so. The released text was
taken out of any context (the vast majority of the message had nothing to do
with the class in question). In addition, complaining about SOMAA being
anti-Christian is akin to me joining the listserv for any of the multiple
Christian student groups and then whining when they mention God or Jesus in
their emails.

Third, the Kansas legislature has a history of trying to destroy the
University of Kansas. Several years ago, a state legislator claimed a
student came to her and accused the professor of a popular Human Sexuality
course of promoting pedofilia among other things. After much hubub and
threats from the state, it came out that the 'student' was actually an aide
of the legislator in question, had been encouraged to falsify her claims,
and an investigation by the University found zero evidence to back the
claims. Keep in mind here folks that we have more than one legislator
without so much as a high school diploma. A prominent representative from
wealthy Johnson County has vocally voiced her opposition to the 19th
Amendment and women's suffrage. The conservative majority in our state
legislature is uneducated, inept, and scary - only our governer is keeping
things from getting too out of control.

And finally, the beating is real. I notice one of the sources often cited
for inconsitencies in stories is www.kansan.com . That is the online version
of our student newspaper, and I would shudder to think that The Kansan would
be used as a serious resource. The journalists on our newspaper staff have
difficulties differentiating between their/there/they're, much less getting
their facts straight on a criminal investigation. Please, if you're going to
cite a Lawrence paper, at least go with something more reputable like the
Journal World. After visiting with several faculty members of the Religious
Studies department, they all gave similar accounts of Mirecki's injuries.
Sorry to say, but I trust the accounts of professors with whom I have
developed personal friendships over CNN journalists who probably did not
even know where Lawrence was before this whole incident occurred.
</quote>

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that all fundamentalists (nor all Christians)
are violent, or that the action of these two reflects on religion as a
whole. I'm just saying don't think Christians are alone in being persecuted
for their beliefs.

And then there are these statistics, which don't have a citation, so they
may be questionable, but the "Percentage of American presidents who
self-identify as Christian" sounds accurate to me.

<quote
href="http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170687&cid=14225666";>
Some facts

Percentage of the U.S. population who self-identify as Christian: %82

Percentage of Senators = 89%

Percentage of Representatives = 90%

Percentage of Supreme Court Justices = %78

Percentage of Presidents = %100

Percentage of Current Governors = 94%

Christmas = Federal Holiday

and I can go on and on.

Poor little Christians. So very, very oppressed.
</quote>

- Oliver


.

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