I'm not sure how he discerned you having moral failing from your reply. But then again GIA tends to use buzzwords and ambiguous semantics to defend his position, so this shouldn't surprise me.
Also, anyone who thinks April should be warm has never lived above the snow line. In some states you were lucky to see grass by mid-April.
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
I'm not sure how he discerned you having moral failing from your reply. But then again GIA tends to use buzzwords and ambiguous semantics to defend his position, so this shouldn't surprise me.Also, anyone who thinks April should be warm has never lived above the snow line. In some states you were lucky to see grass by mid-April.
He probably believes that morals are given to humans from god. That means he most likely believes that atheists are also immoral.
He maybe a Gnostic Christian, but he is still a Christian.
Originally posted by Stealth MooseWhere I live (NYC), April is the Winter-Spring transition month. Usually, once we get passed the first week of April, then the chance of snow drops precipitously.
Also, anyone who thinks April should be warm has never lived above the snow line. In some states you were lucky to see grass by mid-April.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
He probably believes that morals are given to humans from god. That means he most likely believes that atheists are also immoral.He maybe a Gnostic Christian, but he is still a Christian.
Good point.
Originally posted by Mindship
Where I live (NYC), April is the Winter-Spring transition month. Usually, once we get passed the first week of April, then the chance of snow drops precipitously.
NYC is more coastal, but I lived around the Great Lakes and once in the forests of Maine, so I've seen snow just melting well into the third week of April as a norm. It was not unusual to have a first snow before Halloween.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Some.The whole "animals behave bizarrely when compromised/imprisoned/etcetera by man" theme, for starters.
mmm
You're slower to attack today than you've been in the past ... what gives?
Not sure how this proves all instances of animal homosexuality are man-made/man-forced, but I'm sure you have a blue deck card to dodge all that.
Regarding my 'attack posture', it's easy to get bored when people consistently ignore my arguments and direct points and then nitpick little stuff from the side. People being you, in case that wasn't clear enough. There's a big huge reply on the previous page which you've deftly ignored, yet again.
Let's recap:
1. Your assertion appears to be that homosexuality is unnatural. I expect you to back this up with something other than animals in captivity youtube videos.
2. Your assertion that natural principles make up belief systems. You have dodged this like it's radioactive.
3. You have asked others their religion, but refused to tell us yours, even though you seem to white-knight Christians and their tired old arguments.
4. Your assertion that the Creation story is anything but fake/allegory begs for proof or at least a rational argument.
Start with those four simple things. I can try for a pictogram if that is all too complicated.
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Not sure how this proves all instances of animal homosexuality are man-made/man-forced, but I'm sure you have a blue deck card to dodge all that.
Seriously not sure why you think any "dodging" is required.
Show me where I ever anywhere said "all instances of animal homosexuality are man-made/man-forced".
Willing to bet quite a bit of money you won't be able to produce a quote like that from me from any page preceding.
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Regarding my 'attack posture', it's easy to get bored when people consistently ignore my arguments and direct points and then nitpick little stuff from the side. People being you, in case that wasn't clear enough. There's a big huge reply on the previous page which you've deftly ignored, yet again.
Yeah, I notice you responded to my mention of you using a text wall of questions with TWO text walls of questions, each bigger than the one mentioned.
I'm a little surprised you didn't respond with three this time.
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
3. You have asked others their religion, but refused to tell us yours, even though you seem to white-knight Christians and their tired old arguments.
"Us"? When have you yourself directly asked me a question like that?
Not that I'd pay such a question much attention, mind you.
Not with the degree of projection you seem to be engaging in.
You've got me pegged as a Southern Christian Conservative, I'm guessing?
Nearly exactly like the boogey men and women you've suggested comprise your own family?
Well, as far as "Southern" goes, I was born and raised in Michigan, and I live here, still.
For "Christian", I can't accurately recall having been inside a church in years.
"Conservative"?
I voted for Obama.
Twice.
Any of that square with your funhouse distorted image of me?
On the other hand, it's actually you apparently view Fox regularly ...
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
I don't know. None of the Fox girls do anything for me. They need a little more upstairs ...
... even as Shake admitted it directly:
Originally posted by Mindship
Actually, I watch Fox news on a regular basis ...
Fox has the best looking ... women ...
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Wow! that's exactly the same reason I watch Fox news. And I thought it was just me. 😮
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=523822&pagenumber=2
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
2. Your assertion that natural principles make up belief systems. You have dodged this like it's radioactive.
Actually, I haven't.
There's a reason Stephen Covey was mentioned by me earlier in this thread.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Seriously not sure why you think any "dodging" is required.Show me where I ever anywhere [b]said
"all instances of animal homosexuality are man-made/man-forced".Willing to bet quite a bit of money you won't be able to produce a quote like that from me from any page preceding.[/b]
This is amusing considering further down you accuse me of projecting...
But I'm not going to let you slip the noose this time. Specifically, I indicated, as a related argument to your 'natural principles belief system' assertion, that natural arguments normally are used to justify homophobia/anti-gay whatever, and posted the image of the gay animals to illustrate how stupid that was, since animals can be gay too.
You directly attempted to refute me by indicating that it was not 'natural', starting a different semantic argument on what is or isn't natural, and then provided an instance of elephants being institutionally gay because they were crowded in by humans.
Just because you didn't say "homosexuality is against natural law" doesn't mean I can't infer it from your repeated attempts to imply as much. My stance was clear; homosexuality IS natural, and the idea that it is somehow not natural begs for proof. You then rose to the occasion, but now you're pretending like I'm attacking a straw man.
Smooth, but not that smooth.
Yeah, I notice you responded to my mention of you using a text wall of questions with TWO text walls of questions, each bigger than the one mentioned.I'm a little surprised you didn't respond with three this time.
Given your history of ignoring and dodging even the most direct of points, I sometimes forget that I'm wasting a lot of my time with big replies. Somehow, you can read and absorb all these quotes vaguely related to our discussions, but you can't handle my larger-than-normal posts.
I know, I'll do what you do:
"Maybe we have a language barrier here"
That barrier being your closed mind, and my words bouncing off.
"Us"? When have you yourself directly asked me a question like that?
I'm not inclined to be your KMC search. This question has been raised. You've dodged it yet again.
Not that I'd pay such a question much attention, mind you.Not with the degree of projection you seem to be engaging in.
Oh I see. So you said it; it must be true. Interesting.
Spoiler:
Dodged again.
You've got me pegged as a Southern Christian Conservative, I'm guessing?
No, there are conservative religious types all over the place, in every state.
Nearly exactly like the boogey men and women you've suggested comprise your own family?
Comprise? Perhaps you can educate me on when I said my family is 'comprised' of southern religious individuals? I recall saying my mother's side (my mother's mother to be more specific) had some Methodists and I was raised in that religion, but not my father's side nor my mother's father etc. 1/8th of my heritage is 'southern'. You seem to be reaching here.
Well, as far as "Southern" goes, I was born and raised in Michigan, and I live here, still.
Really? And you implied that April's shouldn't be cold and non-sunny, as I recall? I mean, in Michigan, the snow was barely melting in mid-April. And no, I don't mean the U.P.; I mean Downriver, Metro-Detroit, or even west near Grand Rapids, etc. I was born and raised there too, fancy that.
For "Christian", I can't accurately recall having been inside a church in years.
So you just advocate religious arguments out of... spite? So you're trolling, is that what you're saying?
"Conservative"?I voted for Obama.
Twice.
I'm not sure how this absolves you of your implicit argument that homosexuality is a sin and the Creation story is NOT an allegory or myth and that the diet of Genesis adheres to 'natural principles', but let me know when you can stick to those points and make it less about us.
Any of that square with your funhouse distorted image of me?
I had you pegged for a dishonest misleading troll, so yeah, you're confirming it splendidly.
On the other hand, it's actually you apparently view Fox regularly ...... even as Shake admitted it directly:
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=523822&pagenumber=2
Go-go red herring.
Actually, I haven't.There's a reason [b]Stephen Covey
was mentioned by me earlier in this thread. [/B]
I'm not going to read his book so I can understand what you've asserted in direct response to what other people have stated in this forum. If you have any faith at all in this position, I expect you to defend it with your own knowledge and words. If you can't do that, I expect you to be honest enough to admit as much and stop antagonizing. But you can't seem to do that.
Because as you've revealed finally, you're just here to troll.
And I'm done feeding you.
Originally posted by bluewaterriderYes, I think that ancient near-eastern stories do contain the same types of symbolic elements I alluded to. The idea of characters or elements that represent a particular ideal or concept, for example, can be found in ancient Mesopotamian accounts like the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest existing fragments of which are dated to ~1800 BC.
Good challenge.Might require some serious research to counter effectively.
Reflexive answer: Everything listed above is a product of Western Literature, which follows Eastern and Judaic writings by several centuries.
Western writers write fiction with the concepts you mention in mind. Deliberate and easy to see in some cases. Mention of George Orwell, for instance, reminded me of the opening to his anti-Utopian novel, 1984:
"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ..."
Meaningless to the beginning high school student.
Packed with meaning for a reader experienced with literature.April is springtime. Era of warmth, blooming, rebirth.
So ... why is it cold?Clocks were striking ... thirteen?
What kind of clock could this be?
Thirteen is noted as an unlucky number.
It is also ... military time.Perfectly in sync with the overall premise of 1984.
For the world of 1984 has so long dealt with death, and misery, and war that the landscape itself has become desolate and barren, and people have lost nearly every trace of basic humanity. Constant, ceaseless war on every level of life and its horrible effects. Suggested from the very first sentence.
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I don't know Eastern or Judaic writings on any level comparable to my knowledge of Western literature. Do you find the same devices we developed in the last 400 years (everything mentioned except Aesop's fables is 1614 or later, and, from what I understand, most of what we call Aesop's fables were actually written by people other than Aesop withing the last 4 centuries as well) used by Middle East people living thousands of years before us?
Did formal history books as we know them today even exist back then?
What name did they go by?The only people I can think of who could answer such questions at the moment would be Rabbinical scholars, or ancient Middle East researchers.
(I imagine there are websites for this sort of thing, of course.)
In that story, you have the contrast between an idyllic natural existence vs the glories and brutalities of civilization. Enkidu is considered to symbolize man in his most innocent and natural state, until he undergoes a civilizing transformation via a sexual encounter with a woman. After this transition he no longer represents man in his idyllic natural state. The animals he once knew now flee from him, his natural abilities and instincts are decreased, and he is said to now have a new found wisdom and is clothed. This is somewhat similar to Adam and Eve, humanity's representatives in the story of Eden, who at first are at peace with nature and innocent to corrupting influences but later learn about moral choice and are clothed and forced to toil the feilds to eke out a temporary existence.
The means by which they learn about moral choice is by eating the fruit of a symbolic tree which embodies that lesson. It could really be a magic tree, or it could be that it was the prospect of disobedience itself which alluded them to their own free will to disobey God and thus their accountability to freely make the right choices and conform to his will. I think the message of the story actually becomes somewhat incoherent when you imagine that it literally was a magic tree that gave them the knowledge of good and evil. How can they be held morally accountable for a decision made prior to the possession of moral knowledge?
Interestingly, with regard to their condemnation to a life of labor, there are also parallels to this in other Mesopotamian accounts, albiet with a completely different moral message. In the Enuma Elish it is said that man was created for the expressed purpose of toiling the fields to free the gods from menial labor. In Genesis, the inverse of this is true. Man was originally created to want for nothing and only through their own disobediance were they condemned to such a fate. Both accounts seek to explain the harsh nature of reality. In the Mesopotamian account, the gods are capricious and amoral and thus they are essentially to blame for this state of affairs. In Genesis, however, God is good and his original creation was "very good" and thus there needs to be an explanation for why things are the way they are. This comes in the form of humanity's free will and capacity to disobey God.
If you have some time on your hands I would check out lectures 3 and 4 from this course on the Hebrew Bible. The entire series is good but these 2 lectures in particular give a good overview of this topic.
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145#sessions
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
... you implied that April's shouldn't be cold and non-sunny, as I recall? I mean, in Michigan, the snow was barely melting in mid-April. And no, I don't mean the U.P.; I mean Downriver, Metro-Detroit, or even west near Grand Rapids, etc. I was born and raised there too, fancy that.... let me know when you can stick to those points and make it less about us.
I had you pegged for a dishonest misleading troll ...
😕
Your way to make it "less about us" is to call me a "dishonest misleading troll"?
What exactly would you say if you wanted to make it MORE about us?
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However much you would like to deny it, Moose, there ARE language difficulties between us.
"Closed-mindedness"?
You reveal this nearly every time you post.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take the present example of "warm April".
You treated it as if I were describing the real month of April.
I was not.
Had you actually been reading my words carefully, you would have realized this:
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Western writers write fiction with the concepts you mention in mind. Deliberate and easy to see in some cases. Mention of George Orwell, for instance, reminded me of the opening to his anti-Utopian novel, 1984:"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ..."
Meaningless to the beginning high school student.
Packed with meaning for a reader experienced with literature.April is springtime. Era of warmth, blooming, rebirth.
So ... why is it cold?Clocks were striking ... thirteen?
What kind of clock could this be?
Thirteen is noted as an unlucky number.
It is also ... military time.Perfectly in sync with the overall premise of 1984.
For the world of 1984 has so long dealt with death, and misery, and war that the landscape itself has become desolate and barren, and people have lost nearly every trace of basic humanity. Constant, ceaseless war on every level of life and its horrible effects. Suggested from the very first sentence ...
There's a vast difference between what happens in our reality and what happens in the "reality" of conventional Western literature, Moose.
If you were to do something even as simple as Google that opening 1984 line, you'd be given one of the following pages as a hit, underscoring that point:
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John Mullan's ten of the best: Aprils
From Chaucer, through Orwell and Larkin to Plath, John Mullan finds a range of views on the cruellest month
The Guardian, Friday 13 April 2012 17.55 EDT
"Over the Land Is April" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Below the mountains, the winter is over and the songs of spring begin.
"Over the land is April, / Over my heart a rose; / Over the high, brown mountain / The sound of singing goes."
Stevenson's lyric takes April as a metaphor of amorous awakening.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot dump their dull husbands (temporarily) for spring in a castle on the Italian Riviera.
When Mrs Wilkins wakes on her first morning,
"All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet."
The blossom and fragrance revive the two women ...
"April Aubade" by Sylvia Plath
Plath's early poem celebrates the month for reborn love ...
"The Waste Land" by TS Eliot
The opening line,
"April is the cruelest month / breeding lilacs out of the dead land...
rings a sour change ...
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The month is important to one of fiction's most resonant opening sentences.
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
This spring brings no returning warmth or new life, just a "vile wind" ...
"An April Sunday Brings the Snow" by Philip Larkin
An unseasonal chill hovers over Larkin's unpublished poem ...
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
One of Yates's ruthless strokes in this study of a decaying marriage is in the naming of the idealizing, deluded wife ... April Wheeler ...
JM
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/13/john-mullan-ten-best-aprils
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
... anyone who thinks April should be warm has never lived above the snow line. In some states you were lucky to see grass by mid-April.
'Nother note on this. Besides ignoring that I was speaking of conventionally Western literary April, you failed to consider that there are regional differences to account for if you DO decide to strawman my point and take it from the literal standpoint.
Mindship pointed out as much:
Originally posted by Mindship
Where I live (NYC), April is the Winter-Spring transition month. Usually, once we get passed the first week of April, then the chance of snow drops precipitously.
You adjusted, with a reasonable enough response:
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
NYC is more coastal, but I lived around the Great Lakes and once in the forests of Maine, so I've seen snow just melting well into the third week of April as a norm.
What you fail to realize is that the author of 1984, George Orwell, was an England English, not Midwestern American English, author.
London in the United Kingdom, to be exact.
Thus, HE was ALSO from a reasonably coastal place, even as New York City.
And that, again, is considering the literal regional reality of England.
Re-examine one of the selections from that same article I linked you to a moment ago. How is England regarded in literature?
"Home Thoughts from Abroad" by Robert Browning
The poet wakes up one April morning in Italy and thinks of a milder climate.
"Oh to be in England now that April's there."
An exile appreciates what those in England hardly notice, that
"the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf / Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, / While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough / In England – now!"
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/13/john-mullan-ten-best-aprils
Originally posted by Bentley
So we're discussing weather in literature now? Let me get my books!
I suppose that was weather and climate in general, whether literary OR literal.
To meet Moose on the level he was trying to take the conversation, I discussed it from both perspectives INCLUDING real world.
In fact, I was actually debating whether to support the point of regional differences in a country, regardless of his stance, with the historical real world case of Italy, at least from what I could find excerpted from a favorite long ago read named Ethnic America.
Would that I could find a complete and free online version of this book.
I remember it as a fascinating read ...
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Geography and North-South Disparities
November 19, 2011
Books like Guns, Germs, and Steel and The Botany of Desire, and discoveries like the impact of infectious disease on IQ and climate shifts on the fall of Rome, have shown what a huge role geography and environment play in shaping development and the course of history. Stanford economist Thomas Sowell describes this phenomenon at work in modern Italy, showing how socioeconomic and other disparities between North and South that are often attributed to behavioral or biological factors actually have deep roots in the lay of the land.
Arable land is both scarce and scattered in southern Italy, leading to many isolated settlements — contributing in turn to the linguistic and other cultural differences. Moreover, there are very few long navigable rivers to facilitate trade and communication. Such modern means of travel or communication as broadcasting, railroads, and airlines were of course not yet in existence, or were not yet significant in southern Italy, when the massive immigration to America was taking place. Even in the middle of the twentieth century, however, geographical isolation was still extreme in some southern Italians villages.
[…]
The climate and terrain of southern Italy contributed to its poverty. While the temperatures are relatively mild, rainfall is both low and concentrated in only a few months. The growing season is dry — "drought may endure for six months or more." When the rains finally come, they are torrential, causing erosion. The dryness during the growing season in turn limits the use of fertilizers. The impermeability of much of the hilly soil facilitates rapid water runoff when it does rain, and the deforestation of southern Italy's once heavily wooded areas adds to both erosion and the collection of water in stagnant pools, breeding malaria. Italy has been the most malarial country in Europe, and southern Italy more so than the rest of the country. In addition to the direct suffering and death caused by malaria, disease also exacted an economic toll. Because the most fertile lowlands were also the most malarial, peasants and agricultural workers lived up on hillsides in order to be away from the malaria-bearing mosquitoes at night, when they bite. This in turn meant that much of the day was spent going to and from home and work — often miles apart — instead of actually working.
While much of southern Italy is hilly and mountainous, the highlands are at just the wrong height for agricultural purposes. They are too high and rugged to be good cropland and too low to collect snow, which would melt and give a slow, steady runoff of water during the spring. In addition to lacking these advantages common in some other European countries, Italy also does not have its sod broken up by nature through successive freezes and thaws during the winter. The southern Italian farmer must perform the vital function of breaking up the soil entirely by his own efforts and that of his animals pulling the plow.
Italy's natural deficiencies are both agricultural and industrial. About three quarters of the land area of Italy consists of mountains and hills. Only about half of the land is arable, and most of that is in northern Italy. In the south, the mountains "reach so close to the sea that arable land is limited to mountain villages, high plateaus, or coastal plains" — the latter being generally "very narrow." Italy is also lacking in both the quantity and quality of coal and iron ore needed for producing iron and steel — a mainstay of modern industry.
History has added to the problems created by nature. Southern Italy was long a battleground for contending empires and dynasties, which fought back and forth across the Italian peninsula for centuries, going back at least as far as the Roman Empire. For two centuries during the Middle Ages, invasions were "frequent and almost annual." At various times, southern Italy was conquered by a variety of foreigners, including the Lombards, the Arabs, and the Normans. Massacres, pillage, rape, and enslavement were the common fate of the population.
[…]
Northern Italy has been better treated by both nature and man. The rain falls in the spring and summer, when it is needed for agriculture. It has "several rivers, whose waters are kept at a relatively steady level by melting Alpine snows," and those "provide considerable water and power for agriculture and industry." In addition, northern Italy has "a system of irrigation that has been nowhere excelled and rarely approached" — at least during the era of massive immigration to America. Northern Italian agriculture has been described as "luxuriant under cultivation," yielding "a notable variety of crops." Deforestation and other natural and man-made evils of the south were less prevalent in the north.
Thomas Sowell. Ethnic America: A History. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
http://italianthro.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
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http://books.google.com/books?id=M2GfO8IOq8cC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=%22thomas+sowell%22+%22northern+italy%22+%22ethnic+america%22&source=bl&ots=z8whUbRE8e&sig=1I5nzpuQMfWWdQ-Zy1r63Zo0VcA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A5bwUqngCerQyAHH3YG4Aw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20sowell%22%20%22northern%20italy%22%20%22ethnic%20america%22&f=false