WTH is the Mentat asking you about the IX facility?
Watching your video, it seems the game is moving somewhat slower for you than it is for me, yet I think the time it computes for me is larger than that difference, considerably so. I haven't timed it yet, but I think the game is computing time elapsed at level completion ~1.5-2 times greater than real time for me.
It would seem we're using versions which differ considerably, or the way we're running it causing the game to react differently?
Back when I used to play this on my 3x86, I recall that when it reported a missile was fired at me, I had a couple of seconds before it would reach my base. Now however, as it's being reported, it already hits (meaning the audio playing speed is constant but the game speed outpaces it).
Truncated wrote:
Edit: Test complete! Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are exactly as strong as Harkonnen troopers, firing as often, dealing as much damage and having as much health. This was tested by editing scenario.pak to put Sardaukar and Fremen troopers in the first Harkonnen level.
And how do we know the game doesn't change stats on a per level basis?
I don't have any hard evidence for that in Dune II, but I know for a fact Westwood did that in various Command & Conquer games.
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Pokota wrote:
What was your time? I got six minutes just focusing on the harvesting, and that's without micromanaging the harvesters.
I don't recall, but it was nowhere near 6 minutes. I don't know how the heck you pulled that off.
It takes me 7 minutes to beat the first level where only 1000 credits need to be acquired.
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Truncated wrote:
About mission 2, I think it should be tested if an immediate attack with the starting units could work. Harkonnen Quads and Troopers versus Atreides Trikes and Soldiers, you could bring a Harvester to crush the Soldiers after building two structures and perhaps keep the screen only on your own units so the enemy units fire less often.
I tried that earlier today.
I used the Harvester to A) crush enemy foot soldiers B) distract the vehicles and pull them away from defending against those about to attacking their buildings.
I had the Quads drive around to attack from behind with no resistance along with some troopers.
As a (near) immediate rush, it doesn't work. However, adding a handful of extra troopers from the WOR, it does work. The question is though, once that point is reached, perhaps it's better to just go for the spice collection goal? I did not time it both ways.
Edit:
Under 1.0, this may work, as there's one less building at the start, and they can't create new buildings, I didn't test with 1.0 though.
Edit 2:
I just tried this again with a slightly different strategy. I gathered my quads and troopers together, and drove close a harvester to get their units to follow and attack it into an ambush. From there, the AI kept firing on my harvester while my units took out their vehicles pretty quickly, and they didn't even destroy my harvester.
From there, I had my harvester run over foot soldiers, while my units attacked the buildings. So it can work from an initial rush, although it was somewhat time consuming to blow up those buildings with so few weak units. A TAS I'm sure would do it quicker than I did, but I'm still not sure that's faster than just harvesting...
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Just FYI about the maps I posted, they're from v1.0. v1.01 adds a Construction Yard to the second level for the enemy team. AFAIK, they did not change the maps in any version after v1.01 except in a later demo version they put out in which they intentionally made the computer weaker.
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Pokota wrote:
E: Nach, can you look in OpenDune at the house definitions for Fremen and Sardaukar?
That's actually the first thing I checked. Nothing jumps out at me there as being some kind of multiplier for shooting speed or hitpoints.
The Sardaukar troopers though have a different picture for them, so the game is definitely seeing them as unique.
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Truncated wrote:
That test is very impressive. You have control over the building's health through a script or something? Perhaps you could check if Sardaukar/Fremen troopers have higher health or other stats than other house's troopers? The mentats suggest this but I haven't found anything in the source pointing to that being the case.
I just played the entire game as Ordos. I can say that in the final level the Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are significantly harder to kill (without squishing them) than the Harkonnen ones. It seems the Fremen are stronger than the Sardaukar.
Unfortunately all the UI shows is some bar with no indication of actual HP or armor stats or something else to indicate why they last longer.
Edit:
According to the player's guide, the Sardukar are stronger than regular troopers because their rearm time is almost half of the other troopers, so they shoot much faster. It also says Fremen troopers have double the hitpoints.
I don't see it in the Open Dune source code anywhere, but from actual play, it seems to be accurate (or very close to being accurate).
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Things I know of:
- You don't always want to power up, as sometimes when you do, you move slower. Even if the game says to power up, you often want to ignore it.
- You can kill Cell with Goku's bomb attack if you charge it up with multiple beans.
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Aqfaq wrote:
Thanks for delivering some in-depth literary analysis, Nach. That is always interesting.
You're quite welcome, but all I did was just quote the various commentators who have elucidated the important points long ago. Nearly every major commentary on Genesis besides explanation will provide charts of during what ages the key personalities lived and point out the cross reference to Jubilees or Major-Genesis which explains these passages more plainly than Genesis itself does.
Aqfaq wrote:
Nach wrote:
Shoot whoever wrote your translation.
Something pussycat never understood: Why would the most powerful being in existence use the crappiest possible human-invented medium — a medium that is known to be fallible by anyone who ever tried writing or reading anything — to deliver the most important message imaginable?
The Bible says that the medium for conveying its various message was spoken words. You can thank humans for writing it down, copying it, miscopying it, "correcting" it, censoring it, and mistranslating it.
Look how humans messed up the rest of everything else on the planet, why should these words be any different?
Aqfaq wrote:
so let's just praise our favorite copy of our favorite version of our favorite parchment that tells us God doesn't have to make sense and let's also shoot the stupid versions of our most favorite scholars and shoot the intelligent versions of our least favorite scholars.
The only person you have to blame for not understanding the Bible is yourself. If you wanted to understand it, you could go learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and not rely on translations for everything. Even if you don't want to learn new languages, there are plenty of readily available commentaries in English which would point out things easily missed in translation, or cross reference to the same topic in other books which provide additional information.
If you believe in free will, and you take an edition which is commonly known to be severely flawed and have the hubris to think you can make heads or tales out of ancient works without any kind of assistance, whose fault is it when you misunderstand it?
If you just want a superficial idea of what's in the Bible, by all means, just grab the easiest English translation you can get a hold of and read it. But if you want to really understand it (or believe in it religiously), then you need to get a hold of the most accurate editions available, dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, legal works of context, historical works of context, and today - search engines, so you can start getting a picture of the setting it was conveyed in and cross reference like mad.
Josephus writes that in his day, everyone knew the entire contents of the Bible by heart, could cross reference it themselves, and all studied the accepted explanations of the text as passed down from their parents. If one ever hopes to understand it as much as the people who lived it, one has no choice but to acquire and learn all the material I just mentioned. It's also precisely what every serious biblical scholar has been doing for the past thousand years.
Now that being said, shoot the translators for not placing warning labels prominently on their books as to how inaccurate they are.
(It's a metaphor - shoot the messenger)
Aqfaq wrote:
No, no, no, I am not a narcissist, even though the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder in non-clinical populations has been shown to be at least 1%
I don't know half of what you're saying, but if you'd like a narcissistic response to your above question, I could easily provide you with one:
The most powerful being provided you with a lousy translation because he likes me, and wanted to give me the opportunity to set you straight.
(The above is an adaptation of a quote from a commentary on Judges-Kings which I doubt anyone here is going to get, but I find it funny nonetheless.)
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Nach wrote:
Not disagreeing with your definition of fairy tales or old and contemporary connotations, but is it even sane to say that the Bible in its entirety is entirely such? Is it sane to say David never existed? That no one named Jeremiah every went around preaching surrender?
I never said any of that.
That wasn't directed at you, I was agreeing with what you were saying, it was for others reading it and may take either side of the fairy tale debate.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Nach wrote:
How do you even look at the book of Proverbs and call it a "fairy tale"? To do so requires a complete lack of reading comprehension, as the book doesn't even contain tales.
I think here you're being a touch pedantic. Yes, the Book of Proverbs contains no tales. So what? My claim was that the Bible is "more or less" a fairy tale. Some parts fitting more than others.
Same as above.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
However, I think you're being much too quick to skewer fairy tales as mere flights of fancy devoid of serious content.
I don't think that, I'm just addressing the most popular contemporary connotation thereof (and using your wording to do so).
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
This is absolutely false. If anything working hours have been increasing, not decreasing, over the course of civilization
I'm not referring to work hours, I'm referring to a set day once every seven days on a continual cycle where people do not go to their job.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first 3 all discuss work hours, and the last is the only one which remotely resembles the Israelite Sabbath.
The ancient custom there on Wikipedia is talking about a superstition on not working during certain days of the moon cycle, because those days were believed to amount to nothing. Any work performed on those days of the month would somehow become undone.
The Israelite Sabbath is indeed connected to this concept, however, unlike it, it consists of a continual cycle unconnected to planetary phases somehow influencing nature (astrology, pagan superstition).
Today the concept of a "weekend" is a thing which is nearly universal and everyone gets behind. The concept as is comes from the Bible.
To further backup this point, I've read works of history from authors living in Greece or Egypt some 2000+ years ago who upon visiting Israel found their "once a week holiday" to be peculiar and mad. I don't remember offhand which works these are, but if need be, I can try to hunt through my books for the various quotes.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Also "greedy" or "destitute?" What about "motivated" or "impassioned?"
Most highly motivated people I know refuse to go to their office on the weekend. Your mileage may vary.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
For the first, you're assuming that the idea behind the saying somehow originated with and is unique to the Bible.
I'm not, I don't even think the proverbs of the book of Proverbs originated with the Bible or are unique to it. A close examination of the book of Proverbs shows how its not even connected to the Isralite religion or the nation thereof. It even mentions proverbs of people like King Lemuel who isn't an Isralite King.
I'm stressing how ideas that are in the Bible which may be unique to Isralite thought or unique to the region (but not specifically the Isralites themselves) spread throughout most of the world in thanks to the Bible.
Even if these ideas are in the Ugartic texts, epics of Danel or Gilgamesh, or anything else you might find in ANET, these works were not responsible for spreading their concepts elsewhere, the books are virtually unknown. Meanwhile you'll be hard-pressed to find a single town in the modern world which doesn't have a few copies of the Bible.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
I would argue that the works of Shakespeare is far more ubiquitous in our language compared to the Bible.
I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote regarding this, and perhaps Shakespeare has more influence and more copies spread in the English world. Now go to South America, is Shakespeare as well known as the Bible?
The Bible has not (yet) conquered the far east, but for the west as a whole, I doubt you'd find another collection of books that has had more influence than it.
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Aqfaq wrote:
ars4326 wrote:
The Midianite women, along with Balaam, caused the children of Israel to trespass against God; which in turn, brought about a plague.
What was the plague like?
It's not defined, it just mentions that thousands of people died.
Aqfaq wrote:
What caused it exactly?
According to the causal effect as discussed in Numbers and Deut, it was the sin of the Isralites who lusted after the women and worshiped their gods.
Aqfaq wrote:
Sorry, if I misunderstand something, but isn't killing also sin?
No. Premeditated murder is sin. Executions are common throughout the Bible, and often mandated as avoidance of sin.
Aqfaq wrote:
Doesn't God and The Moses Raiders already permit sin by killing children among other people? How does it make sense to sinfully kill the women in order to avoid sinfully loving them?
Nothing wrong with just loving them, see above answers.
Aqfaq wrote:
Also, why didn't God just destroy the women? Was God not able to kill them himself? Makes so much sense that I am starting to believe in an omnipotent God.
Where in the Bible do you see God getting involved to kill people other than when there was no other people around who capable of doing the job?
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Pokota wrote:
Nach, I, uh, didn't mention Babel/the division of languages/the Jaredites.
The name Peleg means division. By mentioning Peleg, you mention the division. The Bible even points out the pun in his name here. Nearly every name in Genesis is some kind of pun (and the ones we think aren't probably are, but in Phoenician or Akkadian so we no longer recognize them).
The Bible sometimes mentions the puns, for example, Reuben because the Lord saw, Simeon because the Lord heard. These are the actual meaning of the words that make up their name, and all this is completely lost in translation. Often, the Bible does not mention the play on words explicitly (and the translations will rarely point them out). Adam's second son - Able - literally means nothing/worthless. The Bible doesn't even mention that was his name, or anyone named him that, or the reason for it. But in Hebrew, it's quite obvious what it means, and quite apparent that is what his life amounted to, the second son was nothing.
Pokota wrote:
Just the flood and the upheaval of the whole face of the land (Babel happens a generation or two after Peleg if I'm reading Genesis correctly).
Shoot whoever wrote your translation.
10:25 - And unto Eber (literally - other side / across) were born two sons; the name of the one was Peleg (literally - split/division); for in his days the land was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan (literally - he was little/younger).
26-29 mentions the sons of Joktan.
30 - And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest toward Sephar, unto the mountain of Kedem (literally - east).
31 - 32 - These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and of these were the nations divided in the land (meaning: spread out through the lands) after the flood.
1 - 2 - And the whole land was of one language and of agreeable ideas. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from Kedem, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 onwards - Story of the dispersal and confusion of languages.
Note a couple of key points: In Peleg's lifetime some kind of division went on. It's not explicitly written here in Genesis what that division was. His family lived on Kedem mountain. His family later left Kedem mountain which is when the division of languages/nations occurs. The closing in 31-32 of the genealogy mentions that these people were the divided nations and languages, meaning 1-2's discussion of a united language is prior to the closing of the genealogy just mentioned.
Now let's see the second genealogy regarding Peleg:
18-19 - And Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu. And Peleg lived after he begot Reu two hundred and nine years (209), and begot sons and daughters.
20 - And Reu lived two and thirty years (32), and begot Serug.
22 - And Serug lived thirty years (30), and begot Nahor.
24 - And Nahor lived nine and twenty years (29), and begot Terah.
26 - And Terah lived seventy years (70), and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
209 - (32 + 30 + 29 + 70 = 161) = 48.
This means Peleg was alive until Abram was ~48 and which was 5 generations later.
Now it doesn't explicitly say what division occurred during Peleg's lifetime exactly, but it probably means the division it mentions immediately after. Based on the timeline Genesis provides, the story in Shinar definitely occurred in his lifetime.
The book of Jubilees makes this point explicit.
Jubilees 8:8 - And in the sixth year she bore him a son, and he called his name Peleg; for in the days when he was born the children of Noah began to divide the earth amongst themselves: for this reason he called his name Peleg. - Meaning at the beginning of his life, everyone was together and united, and by the end, the aforementioned story unfolded.
Pokota wrote:
Though I'm interested in seeing how the measurements of the ark spell out the word Tongue.
Noah's vessel is said to be 30x300x50. In Hebrew shorthand, letters double as numbers. These numbers spell out לשנ which means tongue.
As the actual dimensions of the vessel have no significance on the story, its usage must be symbolic. Genesis and Exodus is loaded with symbolism everywhere. The measurements for the Tabernacle and other things are all like this. Another example, the Hebrew word for year - שנה is also the number 355 which is the length of the typical year in Ancient Israel's lunar calendar. The origin of the word is probably derived from the number of days therein.
When I mention the symbolism everywhere, it's rather extreme. As one example, every single paragraph/chapter in Genesis has its keyword/concept mentioned exactly 7 times. However, you won't notice it in your translations of Genesis because:
A) The keywords are not translated uniformly so you cannot easily notice them.
B) The division of Genesis today is from Archbishop Stephen Langton, who was annoyed that his Greek and Latin translations of Genesis (and the other books) lacked chapters, and instead of just copying the original paragraph and chapter breaks which still exist in most Hebrew copies of the books today, he moronically made up his own.
The translations today are downright terrible and inexcusable. Even if they were reasonable, without a running commentary to tie various points together, or point out certain things, most of it is just *whoosh*.
If you want a decent translation of Genesis with original paragraphs / chapters, I recommend this. The translation isn't perfect, but it's the best I've seen, and alongside Langton's idiocy, it also includes the original divisions in the text (amongst others as well). It also includes the Hebrew alongside, which if you're willing to learn it, is the closest you're going to get to the original text of Genesis.
I can also recommend thiscommentary which continually points out much of the symbolism which is commonly lost in translation, and also provides a lot of background for much of the material so you don't have to read it in a confusing vacuum.
Pokota wrote:
It was actually a tactic of Christianity in general (and especially proto-catholicism) to subvert local faiths by saying "We have a feast day during Saturnalia/The Day of the Dead/The First Full Moon of Spring, and we honor so-and-so during that feast. We're not so different!."
Some say the origins of the Israelite religion was similar, which is why there is much discussion about animal sacrifices which was popular back then, even though the Prophets make it clear that such activities have no inherent value.
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openMSX0.12.0 has been released.
Yet again, a significant amount of changes have been made.
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nfq wrote:
Yeah, I agree about the grey zones. But my point was that the mind naturally polarizes and divides the infinity of reality to simplify it, to understand it, and to be able to talk about it and so on.
Yes, but as people get older, in many things, they start to see more of a spectrum.
nfq wrote:
It doesn't seem to disappear more when people become get older, because even in politics for example, there is a polarity of conservatism and liberalism, and religious people also think pretty black and white.
Again you are correct, many people are polarized on various topics, yet are able to see the spectrum elsewhere.
nfq wrote:
Even here you can see the polarity of people who think black and white and people who think in a spectrum.
Again correct, and it's what I'm trying to argue against doing. The Bible should not be looked at in a polarized fashion. The Bible being the only series of books to survive mostly intact and with wide dispersal with material over 3000 years old is due to its ability to express things persuasively in a way which speaks truths to people and doesn't require polarization across the board.
Reading these books solely in a polarizing fashion is failing to notice what millions (billions?) prior to us have.
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Pokota wrote:
The thing about the biblical story of Noah and the Flood is that, after the flood story we get Peleg, in whose days the whole face of the earth was changed. So yeah, plate tectonics kinda mess with that as well.
It's funny you should mention that. The Bible's stories can be understood in various ways, and their juxtaposition can be historically linked or thematically linked to drive a point home.
The back to back stories of Noah and the Dispersal / Languages are actually two examples of extremes. One story is about every man for himself or every family for themselves. The story of the city and tower that follow is about many people working together for some undesirable end. The two couldn't be more opposite. Many of the opposites are also merely hinted to and completely lost in translation. For example, the measurements of the ark spell out the word Tongue (metaphor: Language), the following story discusses many Tongues (metaphor: Languages).
The Bible rejects the people of both those stories (extremists), and follows it up with a role model Abraham who traveled from place to place, helped others, rejected personal gain, turned his back on his family if it led to fighting, but came to their rescue in times of need, dug wells for the public, signed peace treaties, and overall aimed for a balance in life.
There can be historical truths in all these stories, but looking at the big picture, the Bible is preaching lifestyle and behavior, not history.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
To play Devil's Advocate, perhaps literally in this case, he said that they were fairy tales. Although fairy tales are considered to be pedestrian, fanciful and not worthy of serious consideration in modern times. You can bet that they contained truths, factual data, and some historical accuracy. They contained important lessons and morals and they functioned as a cultural repository to European pagans and medieval Christians much in the same way that the Bible does and still do to those who believe it.
Not disagreeing with your definition of fairy tales or old and contemporary connotations, but is it even sane to say that the Bible in its entirety is entirely such? Is it sane to say David never existed? That no one named Jeremiah every went around preaching surrender?
How do you even look at the book of Proverbs and call it a "fairy tale"? To do so requires a complete lack of reading comprehension, as the book doesn't even contain tales.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The major difference between the two is that the Bible "won" the battle of the mind viruses and is taken much more seriously now than fairy tales are. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss fairy tales as mere flights of fancy, they do have important historical and cultural content that is not easily accessible through other means.
Again, a point which I have tried stressing over and over, the Bible is not one single book with one literary style. It's multiple books with different viewpoints and different literary styles within. I would be quite quick to proffer some of the books are mere flights of fancy devoid of serious content which are tagging along for the ride alongside the others.
This is a strong point, as different religious groups / biblical scholars accept or reject various books or parts thereof, or ignore them. As examples: Song of Songs, Wisdom of Ben Sira, Jubilees, Revelation, Mormon. To paint all these books and the others with one single brush is naive.
Pokota wrote:
The bible won the battle of the mind viruses because the roman emperors *consults notes* definitely as early as Constantine but possibly earlier wanted to harness the power of this new Christianity cult, only it backfired on them and Christianity ate the pagan (read: non-Abrahamic) religions of the Mediterranean.
You're looking at things on a superficial expressed belief system or conformance with rituals. The Bible won the battle of minds in its pervasive ideas that people don't even realize they were ever consciously conforming with.
As an example, the fourth article of the ten articles (commonly mistranslated as ten commandments) is that people should work for six days and take off one day a week from their job. In the western world, only the destitute and the greedy work all seven days a week. Most people take off for the weekend. This concept was sheer lunacy millenia ago, yet today in large parts of the world is nearly universal.
If you start looking at the ideas beneath the surface, you see that society as a whole now conforms with most of them. This even pervades to ideas and expressions people use without even realizing it. Take "don't put all your eggs in one basket" or "the writing is on the wall", both are biblical concepts, yet even Atheists use them.
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nfq wrote:
Nach wrote:
Personally I wouldn't respect someone convinced of either extreme, but for some reason when it comes to religion, most people seem to be fully polarized.
Yeah, just like magnets are polarized, and humans are polarized into two sexes, so does the human mind also polarize into extremities, so that they can battle against each other, and show who is right and wrong, so that they unify more and more, because both of them were both right and wrong, in some areas.
Yes, there are duality in many things, male and female, night and day, smooth and extra chunky. However, it is the way of the child to only see black and white, as one gets older, they start noticing more and more areas of grey.
Some people are not exactly male or female. There are times that exist like twilight which isn't necessarily just night or day. Peanut butter exists in other compositions than the two aforementioned.
We can say killing is wrong. How about killing a crying baby when a family is being chased by a large pack of wolves so they aren't noticed and saving the rest of them? How about when a group of people is trapped with little air somewhere, can they kill a few people so the rest have enough air to breath so they can succeed in having enough time to dig themselves out? If a city is under siege due to one person they're protecting, can they kill that person to save everyone else? (2 Samuel 20:1-2, 14b-22)
nfq wrote:
There are two sane approaches which are non-extremist.
A) The story of Noah is based on some historical flood which flooded the "known world" (some area of Mesopotamia / Babylonia), with some guy and his family getting on some kind of boat with his family, of which the Bible is adapting for its own needs.
B) The story is a fairy tale to teach some specific ideas about human behavior.
Maybe your two "sane approaches" are a bit of a simplified polarization :P I think there are a lot more sane approaches.
They're two examples of non-extreme positions which find some kind of truth of the story in the Bible without taking an absurd extremist stance on it. You're welcome to enumerate others.
nfq wrote:
I would say that it's completely reasonable that the whole earth could flood. For example, if the axis tilted to 90 degrees, the poles would melt, and there would be a global flood. I've read that something similar to that caused the global flood...s in the past.
Is it normal for the Earth's axis to tilt 90 degrees?
Can someone really get all animals from vastly different habitats from all over the Earth to get onto some kind of relatively small sea vessel and live there for a year?
But again, this is not the point, is the story of Noah in the Bible there to each us mere history? Does it honestly matter whether that story or some version of it really occurred or not?
Or rather, is the Bible coming to teach us that stealing is wrong, not caring for others is wrong.
Or maybe it's trying to convey an idea that natural disasters can wipe out whole communities in an instant, destroying everything they've worked towards, and people should be lawful abiding citizens, work together, and not spend their lives aiming solely for personal benefits that can vanish in an instant and have no lasting value?
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Warp wrote:
Consider how much respect would you give to someone saying that the Bible is nothing but a fairy tale.
I wonder if someone making such a remark would realize how many books and literary techniques the Bible consists of. To say and really believe that the Bible does not contain any sort of truths, factual data, or any sort of historical accuracy whatsoever is equivalent in its naivete and nearsightedness to someone who believes every word of the Bible is as it seems at face value without metaphor, parables, or fairy tales. Neither extreme is a sane position to take.
Personally I wouldn't respect someone convinced of either extreme, but for some reason when it comes to religion, most people seem to be fully polarized.
Take the story of Noah as an example, the majority of people will say:
A) It's utter baloney as there's no way what is describes could have happened, or they'll cite Mesopotamian or Babylonian literature which is familiar with the overall story but with a significant amount of differences.
B) Every word in the Bible regarding Noah is historical fact and occurred exactly as described in its most extreme explanation, where the entire world was flooded, and miniature animals of every known species were on an ark and blah blah blah.
There are two sane approaches which are non-extremist.
A) The story of Noah is based on some historical flood which flooded the "known world" (some area of Mesopotamia / Babylonia), with some guy and his family getting on some kind of boat with his family, of which the Bible is adapting for its own needs.
B) The story is a fairy tale to teach some specific ideas about human behavior.
"Believing" in the Bible does not mean one should turn off their brain. In fact, the Bible's continual commentary on the worthlessness of magic, or its nonacceptance of various superstitions or not even considering the possibility that statues may represent real powers somewhere and aren't just meaningless rocks, shows how much it wants its readers to look at life with a discerning mind and not just accepting the status quo or preexisting beliefs.
Believing in the Bible does not mean you need to believe every story of David in Samuel is historical fact. Just because there may be some fairy tales in their about national heroes or leaders doesn't mean one should take the opposite approach and think they never existed. The truth is whether David existed or not, or whether all the stories about him are true or not is entirely besides the point, if you think that's the key point of why they're there, you missed the boat.
To drive the point home, the book of Leviticus and elsewhere mentions animal sacrifices over and over and how/when people must offer such sacrifices. Yet look at the words of Samuel, Hosea, Isaiah, or Jeremiah who rebuke the people for believing that animal sacrifices have any inherent value. They tell their listeners that bringing many sacrifices completely misses the point. Man's objective is to consider how their actions affect others and they should improve themselves, not walk around thinking they can influence the divine with silly rituals or they can do and act as they please if only they have a lot of sheep or doves on hand.
At the end of the day, much of the Bible is open to interpretation. The Bible does not necessitate a belief in a flat or round Earth. The Bible does not necessitate a belief for or against various theories of Evolution. The Bible does not necessitate a belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or Sun around the Earth, or both of them around some floating body of water. Due to the Bible's rich usage of metaphors and perspective writing (which most so-called believers completely fail to understand or notice), practically any position on most topics can be read into the Bible. Someone even wrote a book convincingly explaining how the Bible does not require any beliefs whatsoever, not even a belief in God.
Trying to claim a certain scientific theory is true or false based on the Bible, or learning a scientific theory out of the Bible is misusing the wonderful book you have in front of you. The Bible is about a quest for a sustainable life style built upon personal betterment with a running commentary on things that worked and things that did not throughout history and trying to understand the human condition. The only thing the Bible really demands of its readers is to pay attention to their surroundings and some history to learn from, care about others, and aim to improve. Using the Bible as a means to bash others for running and studying experiments or burn them at the stake for doing so is an utter perversion of the overall message it is conveying. The amount of people here claiming some approach is mandated by the Bible to understanding the mechanics and science of the universe makes me want to vomit.
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Not sure what happened, but such things can be tracked and manually updated on Wiki: SystemTVCControl
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Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
If that's your only source, then yes, the Bible nowhere says to stone a drunkard.
I said "unruly drunkard".
Yes, which is an unquantified statement, which is not what the passage of the rebellious child is referring to.
Warp wrote:
Meaning, the person has to be these 3 things, and to the extent that the parents feel the child is completely out of control and deserves this punishment.
Oh, well, if it's all three of those things, then it's morally acceptable to punish him with death by stoning.
Maybe it is?
Both words at the end of the passage are rare in the Bible, and it's unclear what their precise definition is. The first word is used elsewhere in regards to wasting resources, the latter is not attested in the same form to my knowledge (although I'll double check that later). The word for alcoholic drunk as we think of it uses a different word when the concept appears in Samuel, and the word there has the same root as the word for alcoholic beverages, unlike the word in this passage.
The two oldest translations of the Bible into other languages are Greek and Aramaic. The Greek reading has "eats and drinks in excess" (not even sure if it means wine), the Aramaic has "steals meat and drinks much wine". I would also add that historically due to contaminated water, in the time and place of the Aramaic translation, it was common to add wine to water to make it safer to drink.
While glutton and drunk appear to be technically accurate, the intention seems to be closer to that of someone who is taking food/drink for themselves more than they need, and causing others to lack. If unlike today, food and drink is a more difficult resource to come by, and a person is harming others by stealing it or using more communal food than they should despite much protest, maybe one does have to kill them so others can survive. What would you do if you were stuck in such a situation?
I'd also add that you're reading this as implying the child MUST be killed. Many others have already noted that a few times the Bible says that a death sentence MUST be enforced, for example Numbers 35:31-32: "Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses; but one witness shall not testify against any person that he die. Moreover ye shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer, that is guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death." (this in fact goes on to stress 4 times the person needs to be killed)
This may then imply that unless the Bible explicitly says otherwise (take no ransom, show no mercy, destroy the evil from your midst) the intention is not that we must kill the person. Rather the verse's intention is that we try other options first, and then perhaps only kill them as a last resort. Other places in the Bible do show at times various death penalties are enforced, yet indeed there are cases where the Bible mentions for a particular case that the death penalty was not enforced, without condemning the lack of a death penalty.
Various historical sources particularly on this passage mention that no parent in Israel has ever taken their child to receive this punishment. Which if true, it would mean this passage was only ever a deterrent against certain behavior.
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Aqfaq wrote:
Nach wrote:
why humans MUST be this way on an intellectual level.
What makes you think humans MUST be this way in the first place? They don't.
I didn't say they have to, but the Bible is giving an answer to that for those that ask it, which is the intent of the parable you quoted, and not to provide commands to subjugate women or wherever you were trying to lead it.
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Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
Where does the Bible say one should be stoned for being a drunkard?
Deuteronomy 21:18-21: "If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."
(Notice who makes the judgment. Not judges, not priests. The parents, and the elders of the town.)
If that's your only source, then yes, the Bible nowhere says to stone a drunkard.
This person here is a rule breaker, a glutton, and a drunkard. Not one of them individually.
You are correct that the parents have to make the decision here. Even if someone is a rule breaker and a glutton and a drunkard, if the parents don't feel a problem with it, this person isn't being stoned. Meaning, the person has to be these 3 things, and to the extent that the parents feel the child is completely out of control and deserves this punishment.
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That is why on a mechanical level, not why humans MUST be this way on an intellectual level.
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Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
Indeed the Bible is violent, whoever thinks otherwise hasn't read it. However, nearly every violent section provides moral justification for doing so.
Bisqwit wrote:
Who decides morals?
Need I say more?
Extremist Muslims also believe that imposing sharia law, forcing dhimmis to pay jizya, stoning adulterers, and so on, is morally right.
Not disagreeing with you on an internal level, but on an external applies to the rest of the world level, does the Bible say one must kill other nations for not serving the God of the Bible? Does the Qur'an say one must kill other nations for not serving the God of the Qur'an?
When the Bible says to go annihilate some other nation, that other nation is always mentioned along with moral justifications that still make sense to us. Unless you're telling me you feel that it's not morally reprehensible to perform child scarifies, mass castrations, cannibalism, and that any people as a whole performing such should be left alone.
Warp wrote:
The point is still: It's a bit hypocritical to accuse the Islam (or any other religion for that matter) of immoral atrocities, when Christianity has such atrocities in its holy book as well. All religions defend their own holy book in the same way, and condemn other religions in the same way.
I'm not condemning Islam for Sharia Law, every point I made here was regarding relationship with treatment towards other religions.
Warp wrote:
One thing that makes modern Christians better than extremist Muslims is that they filter the Bible's commands through a secular morality filter, and thus they don't eg. stone people to death for being unruly drunkards
Where does the Bible say one should be stoned for being a drunkard?
Warp wrote:
or think that slavery is acceptable.
Plenty find slavery to be acceptable, and is very much still in practice.
Warp wrote:
Extremist Muslims do not, which is why they still keep stoning and killing people even today.
Christians today still have a death penalty in various countries.
You may dislike it, but it is not something that society as a whole has condemned, and many of all kinds of religions find it morally just.
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Aqfaq wrote:
Nach wrote:
If the Qur'an says somewhere that it limits its applicable scope to one area, say Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with you that they're very similar. However, to the best of my knowledge, the Quran does not limit its scope to one location and one set of people, and does convey a message leading towards world domination.
Oh-yes! I actually know something about this one. You're partly right and partly wrong, Nach. According to moderate Muslims (the vast majority of them), some parts of the Quran don't apply anymore. So, it is not about place. It is about time. Just like you say something in the Bible is applicable to a certain region only, Muslims think certain parts of the Quran applied at a different time. It seems that you had the common misunderstanding about the Islamic "world domination" doctrine. (It is a cheap straw man and you should get rid of it.)
I hear what you're saying, and I'm not disagreeing with it. But is this the plain meaning of the Qur'an? Or is this the meaning of liberal interpretation?
To put differently, what is the correct interpretation, are the moderates correct or are the "extremists" correct?
Aqfaq wrote:
Nach wrote:
To conclude, I don't see the Bible sending out a message "go forth and kill the infidels".
The vast majority of Muslims don't see that kind of message applying anymore in the Quran either.
Does the Qur'an explicitly limit its message to time or place?
In regards to the Bible, it is quite explicitly limiting ideas to place and to particular peoples. Further, every "evil" nation mentioned in the Bible no longer exists, making any command in the bible to go annihilate some specified nation a moot point now.
Is the Qur'an explicit in this sense, or are various "followers" reading into it what they want to? Are the points of the Qur'an now moot, or does it appear a violent vision for today to be an understanding just as reliable as the more moderate one?
Aqfaq wrote:
When you talk about people who go and kill infidels you are the same kind of person who talks about Christians who suicide bomb abortion clinics. It is not hard to see how reading the Bible can give you that option.
I'd very much like to see where the Bible allows for suicide or for attacking abortion clinics. Any sources you provide would be much appreciated.
Aqfaq wrote:
As a side note, from all the various religious strangers I've met, Muslims seemed to be the most hospitable ones. Probably by chance, though.
I doubt it's by chance. Abraham and his direct family in the Bible is listed as the paragons of hospitality. Such is repeated in the Qur'an too. Those claiming decent from Abraham and adhering to his ideals usually find hospitality to be a key trait to have.
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Aqfaq wrote:
Genesis 2:18 --> The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
That's a mistranslation.
A more accurate English translation would be: It is not good for man to exist alone, I will make another against him.
The first confusing word at the end there is referencing what is later known as a "wife", and therefore commonly translated as a "helper" or "companion", but it most correctly just means "another". The translation "helper" is also popular because that would convey a meaning directly opposed to the word following, of which there is much exegesis about the dual nature of humans. The word itself can also be seen as a combination of two other words which means "strong willed" and "foreign". Make of that what you will.
The second difficult word there throughout the bible is used to mean "against" and generally refers to an enemy. However it can also mean "opposite" in the positional sense. The word has also taken on the meaning of "corresponding to", which may or may not fit in here.
"helper suitable" however, is twisting and imposing its own meaning onto the verse.
Aqfaq wrote:
Genesis 3:16 --> To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
Are you disagreeing that women have pain in childbirth?
Are you disagreeing that for most of history in most places, the men have indeed ruled over the women?
Both statements in this verse are factual, whether we like it or not. Whether this verse was written or not you have to ask yourself, why is the world this way? The "answer" provided in context here is that all women were punished because the prototype woman forced her husband to die. In measure for measure, the alternative to immortality now carries with it pain as punishment for needing to switch to this system, and whereas the woman forced her man around, now the man will force the woman around.
Looked at from another light, this verse is not condoning pain or rulership, both of those are bad things, which is why they are listed as punishments. Being that Genesis portrays this as it does, it's clarifying that neither of these things are ideals.
Also note the recipient here, God is not telling the man he must ensure his woman is in pain during childbirth, or that he should rule over his wife. The recipient is the woman where she is being told the facts of the world as they are (will be).
Pokota wrote:
As much as the Bible tries to convey a utopian lifestyle
Are we reading the same Bible? All throughout the old and new testaments there's something horribly wrong about society.
That there is something wrong with society has absolutely nothing to do with conveying a utopian lifestyle.
The laws and prophesies in the Bible mention that keeping the law and its spirit will lead to a tranquil secure utopia for every single person within it. This is the lifestyle the Bible is promoting and wants people to aim for. The truth is, there is no considerable amount of time where any society kept the laws and its spirit, or had a utopia.
I would also point out that half your examples of bad societies precede the Bible's mentioning of a utopian vision and aren't the recipients of this vision.
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Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
To counter your above point, did you ever notice how the first few books of the Bible (the most significant part of the old testament) limit those extermination laws to the land of Canaan and its surroundings?
Extermination of people (and in some cases even taking people as spoils of war) doesn't become somehow more morally acceptable if it happens only within a region.
Be that as it may, you can no longer equate the two, they are of an entirely different scope.
Warp wrote:
The point is: Christians who point accusingly at the Quran for being violent are whitewashing or even ignoring atrocities in the Bible.
Indeed the Bible is violent, whoever thinks otherwise hasn't read it. However, nearly every violent section provides moral justification for doing so. Rarely does the Bible use religious justification for killing another.
Warp wrote:
Maybe some self-awareness ought to be in place.
Ever noticed how the Bible is loaded constantly with critique for its own people and characters? More so than any other book I've seen with its own set of "heroes".
Bisqwit wrote:
This is the category of dilemma faced by Israel, and by God of Israel (even if not literally so), when they took out the Cananites, if I read Nach's post correctly.
I believe you did. But further as I mentioned, the Bible mentions again and again that the Canaanites committed evils, man against man, and it's not referring to religious evils. None of us can appreciate what that means exactly, we didn't live back then, we don't have a full picture of what they practiced, although there are a few gruesome hints here and there. It's easy for us to sit in our armchairs and condemn actions people did way back when, but who knows what we ourselves would do in the same scenario. Maybe if we saw with our own eyes what the Canaanites were doing, we'd find it necessary to go and kill them too.
Take a look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is what happened to them moral? Was it okay? What would people 5000 years from now be saying about it?
Warp, back to your point about spoils of war, indeed the Bible talks about that in a few places. But then look at the "Bible in Practice" in Joshua and the fall of Jericho, there the military commander severely punished a man for taking spoils. Elsewhere Moses and Samuel vastly chastise other leaders for taking spoils as well. A closer look at the places where it condemns spoils and the places where it promotes spoils (Elisha in Kings), it seems to say that when wiping out a group on moral grounds, spoils should not be taken, but when fighting and winning a war of self-defense spoils of war can be taken.
As Bisqwit said if you think something is morally reprehensible in the Bible, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you're fully understanding the situation of what you're reading.
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