OT Science versus religion: Is compromise impossible?

It is hard to believe there are still places like Dover, Pennsylvania.

The following link was sent to me by a friend in Canada.

You could either laugh or cry at it...

http://www.thebentinel.com/041201-a...lue-for-pi.html

Those of you with children might take it as a "heads up"...

Pete.

steve.t wrote:
>
> It would seem that going from Hebrew to Latin (Vulgate) to English
> doesn't produce any translation errors ;-)   (I'm going to go now. I
> will only start a serious flame war if I continue with kicking the
> "holy" Latin...).

Actually, German was one of the intermediaries in getting to English.

The Martin Luther translation is responsible for the word "Jehovah,"
consisting of consonats from one Hebrew word (YHWH) and the vowels from
another Hebrew word (ADONAI).

This yields the Germanic word "Yahowah" which, when automatically
transcribed into English becomes (Y=J, W=V) "Jehovah." Moses didn't use the
word; Jesus didn't know what it meant either.

The important thing to remember when dealing with the Bible (or the
Constitution) is this: It doesn't matter what the text says - what IS
important is what the text means. Often God (or the "Founding Fathers")
didn't say what they meant or mean what they said.

JerryMouse wrote:
> steve.t wrote:
> 
>
>
> Actually, German was one of the intermediaries in getting to English.
>
> The Martin Luther translation is responsible for the word "Jehovah,"
> consisting of consonats from one Hebrew word (YHWH) and the vowels from
> another Hebrew word (ADONAI).
>
> This yields the Germanic word "Yahowah" which, when automatically
> transcribed into English becomes (Y=J, W=V) "Jehovah." Moses didn't use th
e
> word; Jesus didn't know what it meant either.
>
> The important thing to remember when dealing with the Bible (or the
> Constitution) is this: It doesn't matter what the text says - what IS
> important is what the text means. Often God (or the "Founding Fathers")
> didn't say what they meant or mean what they said.
>
>

Interestingly enough, the origin of the word "ain't" which ain't in the
dictionary, is from the same source ... roughly translated as "that
which is not".

Donald

JerryMouse wrote:
>
>
> The important thing to remember when dealing with the Bible (or the
> Constitution) is this: It doesn't matter what the text says - what IS
> important is what the text means. Often God (or the "Founding Fathers")
> didn't say what they meant or mean what they said.

Sorry, can't agree.  The ONLY objective thing that exists is in fact the
text.  We may well disagree as to its meaning but we must not dismiss it
on the grounds that it doesn't say what was meant, or doesn't mean what
it says.

A couple of homely examples: our railway association is sometimes a
fractious bunch.  Once the president insisted that although the bylaws
said that there are "Nine" members of the executive, it actually meant
"seven" since only seven titles were given.  Another time another
president said that the "three-quarters" of the vote needed to approve a
given expenditure was wrong since an amendment had been passed but not
published to change it to a simple majority.

The point is, of course, that in human intercourse and the devices that
control it, we must go by what they say; not by what somebody says they
mean.  People being what they are, there is no possible way of letting
unwritten alternatives rule.  (And don't bother assailing me with
"ambiguity" and "alternative interpretations".  I know!  People are
imperfect).  We can thrash out interpretations and make things
increasingly clear.  But we must agree.  That's why majority rule was
invented: to stop demagogues implementing what they want on the grounds
that the Constitution, or the Bible, doesn't actually mean what it says
or says what it means.

Think about what the US Constitution actually says about the right to
bear arms, as opposed to what it's usually taken to mean, and you'll get
my drift.

PL

In article <10re7uu9kotq24b@news.supernews.com>,
JerryMouse <nospam@bisusa.com> wrote:

[snip]

>The important thing to remember when dealing with the Bible (or the
>Constitution) is this: It doesn't matter what the text says - what IS
>important is what the text means. Often God (or the "Founding Fathers")
>didn't say what they meant or mean what they said.

Meaning is the result of interpretation; such a thing as an omnipotent,
omnipresent and omniscient divinity would, I expect, take great care in
communicating its desires to finite, frail, fickle and fractious human
beings capable of interpreting words to suit their own ends.

DD

Donald Tees wrote:

> JerryMouse wrote:
> 
>
> Interestingly enough, the origin of the word "ain't" which ain't in
> the dictionary, is from the same source ... roughly translated as
> "that which is not".
>
> Donald
>
Which dictionary are you looking at Donald, one printed in Toronto :-)
It appears in my Concise Oxford - cross referring you to 'Be'. You don't
watch this TV stuff, but when PBS showed the BBC (?) TV series 'The
Pallisers" about mid-century Victorians, it was "Qhuite proper' to use
the word ain't.

Gershwin "It ain't necessarily so......" - It isn't necessarily so....."
"I ain't going there......."                     - "I'm not going
there......"


Jimmy

James J. Gavan wrote:
> Donald Tees wrote:
>
> Which dictionary are you looking at Donald, one printed in Toronto :-)
> It appears in my Concise Oxford - cross referring you to 'Be'. You don't
> watch this TV stuff, but when PBS showed the BBC (?) TV series 'The
> Pallisers" about mid-century Victorians, it was "Qhuite proper' to use
> the word ain't.
>
> Gershwin "It ain't necessarily so......" - It isn't necessarily so....."
> "I ain't going there......."                     - "I'm not going
> there......"
>

You have me there Jimmy.  I was refering to the one we used in
high-school 40 years ago.  Long out of print, and probably a trivial
distionary even then. Hell, aren't we suppose to use *compilers* to
check dictionaries?

Donald

In article <31cge3F38hd7vU1@individual.net>,
Pete Dashwood <dashwood@enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>It is hard to believe there are still places like Dover, Pennsylvania.
>
>The following link was sent to me by a friend in Canada.
>
>You could either laugh or cry at it...
>
>http://www.thebentinel.com/041201-a...lue-for-pi.html
>
>Those of you with children might take it as a "heads up"...

Ummmmm... Mr Dashwood, you *did* notice the heading which read '-- Clean,
family-friendly news satire and parody -- ', didn't you?  Did you notice
headlines like 'E-Books Blamed for Global Warming Increase' and 'Everybody
Resigns From Everything' (datelined 'Everywhere')?

DD

I think they "got" you.  Check out the site's home page:
"Rock-solid reporting -- with a twist!
-- Clean, family-friendly news satire and parody --  "

It seems to be something like The Onion, where the articles are made up.

 
It is hard to believe there are still places like Dover, Pennsylvania.

The following link was sent to me by a friend in Canada.

You could either laugh or cry at it...

http://www.thebentinel.com/041201-a...lue-for-pi.html

Those of you with children might take it as a "heads up"...

Pete.

With great pleasure and thoughts of my grammer school grammer teacher I
offer the following from Merriam-Webster Online (www.m-w.com):

One entry found for ain't.

Main Entry:  ain't
Pronunciation:  'Ant
Etymology: contraction of are not
1 : am not : are not : is not
2 : have not : has not
3 : do not : does not : did not -- used in some varieties of Black
English
usage Although widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the
habitual speech of the less educated, ain't in senses 1 and 2 is
flourishing in American English. It is used in both speech and writing
to catch attention and to gain emphasis <the wackiness of movies, once
so deliciously amusing, ain't funny anymore -- Richard Schickel> <I am
telling you--there ain't going to be any blackmail -- R. M. Nixon>. It
is used especially in journalistic prose as part of a consistently
informal style <the creative process ain't easy -- Mike Royko>. This
informal ain't is commonly distinguished from habitual ain't by its
frequent occurrence in fixed constructions and phrases <well--class it
ain't -- Cleveland Amory> <for money? say it ain't so, Jimmy! -- Andy
Rooney> <you ain't seen nothing yet> <that ain't hay> <two out of three
ain't bad> <if it ain't broke, don't fix it>. In fiction ain't is used
for purposes of characterization; in familiar correspondence it tends to
be the mark of a warm personal friendship. It is also used for metrical
reasons in popular songs <Ain't She Sweet> <It Ain't Necessarily So>.
Our evidence shows British use to be much the same as American.
--




In article <bjFtd.26936$l%5.1180814@news20.bellglobal.com>,
Donald Tees <donald_tees@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> JerryMouse wrote: 
>
> Interestingly enough, the origin of the word "ain't" which ain't in the
> dictionary, is from the same source ... roughly translated as "that
> which is not".
>
> Donald
>