Critical race theory (11 Viewers)

[DaveXA]

Frankly, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to the Critical Race Theory curriculum. What is it, where does it come from, and is it legitimate? Has anyone here read it and maybe give a quick summary?

If this has been covered in another thread, then I missed it.

 

[bird]

Well, I wouldn't go that far, we suffered a lot of casualties advancing on the western front, but yeah, the Soviets did a lot of the heavy lifting for sure.

I can’t remember the book. It may have been one by Andrew Bacevich but the upshot, iirc, is that the Soviets lost more people in one week than the U.S. lost in the entire pacific theatre. I grant that Stalin was a whack job but we would never have been successful in Europe or at best it would have taken a heck of a long time and many multiples more lives if the Soviets hadn’t collapsed the Eastern Front.

There aren’t nearly enough, imo, of our fellow citizens that know about what the Soviets did.

 

[Saintman2884]

A lot to digest there, but that's what happens when you have ancient stories written by peasants understood for you, and believe what is said in fictitious and/or erroneous texts of dubious origins. Goes without saying I don't believe any of it, but in any case:

Genesis itself doesn't say much about Nimrod (6-7 passages), other than his genealogy, that he was a mighty warrior and hunter, and tersely describes his kingdom... which (side note) being that he was the grandson of Noah and first generation born after the flood, how many people could have possibly been born of incestuous relations in one generation that Nimrod's kingdom included Babylon, Uruk, Akkad, Kalneh, Nineveh, Rehoboth, and how could Caleh have been a great city?

As for the story of Babel, there is more to it than just the tower.

Genesis 11:1-7
11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

The text is very clear. It says Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, not just the tower (there's something to be said about a timeless, spaceless metaphysical being who's supposedly everywhere "coming down" from anything to see anything... I digress). It is also very clear that the tower itself was not the issue, but the things people could achieve if they worked together was.

In the end, Yahweh failed. Babylon's moniker is the Cradle of Civilization; we not only have multiple towers that reach the heavens, but we have reached other planets and peered beyond our galaxy; and more importantly, we now speak the language of science, which makes our possibilities endless.

I don't think Nimrod's intentions were solely altruistic nor was he some benevolent, kind, conscientious ruler. In fact, in many extra-canonical Biblical Apocryphal texts, he's portrayed as a authoritian/totalitarian tyrant who has this major, seriously megalmaniacal delusion that he, like God, can create and destroy life at will, like God or Yahweh can. You really think, in the context of that Tower of Babel story, slaves weren't forcibly conscripted to build these vanity projects knowing what Bronze Age archaeologists, cultural anthropologists have discovered and revealed about daily life, haves and have nots, the ruthless corrupt power structure/hierarchies that made up Mesopotamia and ancient Akkadian city-states of that period. You assume everyone in that story was happily and voluntarily enjoying building that city, and ziggarut and that large sections or significant portions of the city werent being oppressed or enslaved and when you have a ruler who thinks he's some sort of diety-incarnate, and who openly says he wants to invade Heaven and conquer Yahweh's kingdom, how does that make him some rational, pragmatic, sensible leader?

The language of science speaks many different dialects and can indeed accomplish innumerable wonders, but I don't necessarily see it as this golden dagger aimed at destroying belief in God or ridiculing those that do. If you read St. Anselm Natural Theology, it makes a lot of sense, IMHO, about God, the wonders of science and its role in the universe and why there doesn't have to be this perpetual animosity/disdain for belief. I can just as much believe in the theory of Darwinian Evolution and hard physics and believe in a God and not have to shimmer around, afraid or scared to admit to colleagues that I'm a believer out of concerns or fears I'll be black balled by what they think. Just because I believe in a God doesn't mean automatically a few hard arse types should assume that I'm like those Christian fundamentalists who believe climate change isn't real or that we have to make plans to rapidly adapt to greener, more-sustainable renewable energy sources or that our planet doesn't have an endless treasure trove of natural resources.

Besides, most of the stories encapsulated in the Torah or Jewish Old Testament were re-written, codified, and catalogued in the 6th-5th centuries BCE during and after the Babylonian exile. There were actually three different versions of the Book of Daniel written before the Jerusalem version we know of today was chosen to be the authentic one(there's a Apocryphal alternative version called Bel and the Dragon where Daniel is presented as much more assertive, forceful type of individual who goes out of his way to show the Babylonians their chief god Marduk, or Bel, doesn't exist and when he finally shows up the priestly cult, he's thrown into the lion's den as punishment and survives.) These re-edited, re-catalogued texts were not presided over by uneducated peasants, but by highly intelligent, literate rabbinical scholars. Same thing with the Septungint where ancient Jewish Bible was translated into Greek in Ptolemiac Egypt in 2nd century B.C.E.

 

[bird]

I don't think Nimrod's intentions were solely altruistic nor was he some benevolent, kind, conscientious ruler. In fact, in many extra-canonical Biblical Apocryphal texts, he's portrayed as a authoritian/totalitarian tyrant who has this major, seriously megalmaniacal delusion that he, like God, can create and destroy life at will, like God or Yahweh can. You really think, in the context of that Tower of Babel story, slaves weren't forcibly conscripted to build these vanity projects knowing what Bronze Age archaeologists, cultural anthropologists have discovered and revealed about daily life, haves and have nots, the ruthless corrupt power structure/hierarchies that made up Mesopotamia and ancient Akkadian city-states of that period. You assume everyone in that story was happily and voluntarily enjoying building that city, and ziggarut and that large sections or significant portions of the city werent being oppressed or enslaved and when you have a ruler who thinks he's some sort of diety-incarnate, and who openly says he wants to invade Heaven and conquer Yahweh's kingdom, how does that make him some rational, pragmatic, sensible leader?

The language of science speaks many different dialects and can indeed accomplish innumerable wonders, but I don't necessarily see it as this golden dagger aimed at destroying belief in God or ridiculing those that do. If you read St. Anselm Natural Theology, it makes a lot of sense, IMHO, about God, the wonders of science and its role in the universe and why there doesn't have to be this perpetual animosity/disdain for belief. I can just as much believe in the theory of Darwinian Evolution and hard physics and believe in a God and not have to shimmer around, afraid or scared to admit to colleagues that I'm a believer out of concerns or fears I'll be black balled by what they think. Just because I believe in a God doesn't mean automatically a few hard arse types should assume that I'm like those Christian fundamentalists who believe climate change isn't real or that we have to make plans to rapidly adapt to greener, more-sustainable renewable energy sources or that our planet doesn't have an endless treasure trove of natural resources.

Besides, most of the stories encapsulated in the Torah or Jewish Old Testament were re-written, codified, and catalogued in the 6th-5th centuries BCE during and after the Babylonian exile. There were actually three different versions of the Book of Daniel written before the Jerusalem version we know of today was chosen to be the authentic one(there's a Apocryphal alternative version called Bel and the Dragon where Daniel is presented as much more assertive, forceful type of individual who goes out of his way to show the Babylonians their chief god Marduk, or Bel, doesn't exist and when he finally shows up the priestly cult, he's thrown into the lion's den as punishment and survives.) These re-edited, re-catalogued texts were not presided over by uneducated peasants, but by highly intelligent, literate rabbinical scholars. Same thing with the Septungint where ancient Jewish Bible was translated into Greek in Ptolemiac Egypt in 2nd century B.C.E.

Let us speak of assumptions: Pilate was not a namby-pamby wimp concerned about one wandering laborer turned rabbi. He quite willingly had hundreds or more Jews killed. One more was unimportant. As for tribunal in front of the Sanhedrin? Extremely unlikely that it occurred because it likely violated Mosaic Law and if there anything they were concerned about it was the law.

Theology is a human construct. There is no such thing as natural theology.

 

[DaveXA]

I can’t remember the book. It may have been one by Andrew Bacevich but the upshot, iirc, is that the Soviets lost more people in one week than the U.S. lost in the entire pacific theatre. I grant that Stalin was a whack job but we would never have been successful in Europe or at best it would have taken a heck of a long time and many multiples more lives if the Soviets hadn’t collapsed the Eastern Front.

There aren’t nearly enough, imo, of our fellow citizens that know about what the Soviets did.

Agreed, I've read a book about that several years ago. It's pretty fascinating, and horrific at the same time. Hitler was stupid thinking he could push the eastern front in the dead of winter. That was a horrific tactical blunder. I'll never understand why he thought that was a good idea.

 

[Saintman2884]

Let us speak of assumptions: Pilate was not a namby-pamby wimp concerned about one wandering laborer turned rabbi. He quite willingly had hundreds or more Jews killed. One more was unimportant. As for tribunal in front of the Sanhedrin? Extremely unlikely that it occurred because it likely violated Mosaic Law and if there anything they were concerned about it was the law.

Theology is a human construct. There is no such thing as natural theology.

Politics and societal/hierarchical structures are also human constructs, too. And have you even read St. Anselm's natural theology? Its essential premise is that God is the three O's-omnipresent, omniscient, and omniaware. That the natural world exists within all its boundless wonders, but that God or any all-powerful exists above and beyond the boundaries of science, of natural law.

If you read one of the Gospels, I can't remember which one, some of the Sanhedrin rabbis did oppose and point out the illegalities of trying Christ in sort of a kangaroo court sort of trial proceeding, but High Priest Caiphas was also terrified that if he didnt find a way to remove one more nagging, bothersome Jewish zealot rabbi, the Romans and Pilate might start cracking down on their very generous allowances of religious tolerance of Jewish religious practices and customs and make life for most 1st century C.E. more a living hell then it was already. If that meant bending or breaking the rules to preserve their hard-won remaining Jewish religious customs and rituals, and meant sacrificing one radical Galilean zealot rabbi to save a lot more devout Jewish lives, so be it. There was an incident that occured several years earlier before Christ's execution, recorded by Josephus, where Pilate supposedly gathered to hear some complaints from Jewish Sanhedrin about Roman administrators trying to infiltrate their religious customs, Pilate had Roman soldiers gather among the crowd, wearing tunics and hidden swords in and among the Jewish crowds, and on his command, had these same centurions cut down and massacre a large, gathered assembly of Jews and then dragged Sanhedrin members to view the dead massacred Jewish bodies to warn them not to cross him or governing Roman administrative apparatus again.

I agree about Pilate. He was a very violent, harsh Roman procurator but he also gained a reputation for being too cruel, even for Roman standards and the Jewish Sanhedrin knew that his benefactor, a high-ranking Pretorian Guard, had been arrested and killing by Emperor Tiberius on Capri on accusations of treason a few years before Christ's arrest. So, naturally all of this Pretorian prefects appointees were viewed with suspicion. I agree with you that Pilate was not the indecisive, vascillating, doubtful procurator that the Gospels depicted him as, that narrative was drastically and massively rearranged to present the occupying Romans as less culpible and unwillingly, albeit reluctant executioners of Christ because early Christian communities lived under Roman ruler and you don't convert many Romans by making them the primary villains, they just transferred that role to the Jewish Sanhedrin and angry Jewish mobs who shouted for his crucifixion.

But, just as an added to extra incentitive, I do believe its plausible that the leading a Jewish Sanhedrin priests used or slyly reminded to Pilate they knew his dirty little secret to make sure he was as brutally efficient in getting rid of of one more radical Jewish zealot they hated. A quid pro quo, perhaps.

 

[Saintamaniac]

Many posts veering off topic. The topic is CRT, what it is, where it came from and is it legitimate. The bible and religion has nothing to do with it.

 

[Saintman2884]

Agreed, I've read a book about that several years ago. It's pretty fascinating, and horrific at the same time. Hitler was stupid thinking he could push the eastern front in the dead of winter. That was a horrific tactical blunder. I'll never understand why he thought that was a good idea.

That's because Operation Barbaroosa and the military tactical objectives encompassing it weren't comprised from rational political thinking. It derived from Hitler and Nazi racial Volkish idealogy that Russian Slavic-speaking ethnicities, nations, Poles, Hungarians, Estonians, Latvians were untermenschs(inferior-people) racially and ethnically inferior, and that the enormous Russian Eurasian landmass should be right fully conquered and resettled by racially, biologically superior German settlers or ethnic Baltic German communities who'd lived in Baltic states, or comprised large minorities in eastern Poland, or Ukraine going by centuries. It was all dually comprised in two long-stemming German GrossDeutschland pan-German nationalist theories, Weltenshuang (worldview) and Leibenstraum (living space) dating back to the late 19th century. That Germany had too many people living in too small of a geographically-sized nation and needed more living space in the East.

That was partly one of the idealogical reasons surrounding Hitler's motivation and the Wehrmacht high command mindset in invading the Soviet Union. Also, Hitler viewed the Soviet Union as the epicenter of "Jewish-Bolshevism"---many Nazi and even other far-right idealogues viewed or associated Judaism and Communism as being inseparable and that Communism was an invention, just like capitalism before it created by shadowy Jewish cabals who used puppet non-Jewish idealogues and intellectuals as their mouth pieces while they sit back and watch the carnage explode.

Historians call this pseudo-scientific, distorted view of history " Jewish world conspiracy " and it has its origins in the 1894 book written by a Czarist secret agent (and former Russian Orthodox priest) in Paris called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Far-right, anti-Semitic groups worldwide still publish and propagate this pathetic crap, Dave, even today.

 

[SystemShock]

I don't think Nimrod's intentions were solely altruistic nor was he some benevolent, kind, conscientious ruler. In fact, in many extra-canonical Biblical Apocryphal texts, he's portrayed as a authoritian/totalitarian tyrant who has this major, seriously megalmaniacal delusion that he, like God, can create and destroy life at will, like God or Yahweh can.

I don't think Nimrod existed, and don't give much credence to texts of dubious origins.

You really think, in the context of that Tower of Babel story, slaves weren't forcibly conscripted to build these vanity projects knowing what Bronze Age archaeologists, cultural anthropologists have discovered and revealed about daily life, haves and have nots, the ruthless corrupt power structure/hierarchies that made up Mesopotamia and ancient Akkadian city-states of that period.

Yahweh had no issue with slavery. Heck, he told his people how to acquire them and from who. Even how much the slaves could be beaten.

You assume

You really need to stop doing that. I assume nothing of what you posted.

everyone in that story was happily and voluntarily enjoying building that city, and ziggarut and that large sections or significant portions of the city werent being oppressed or enslaved and when you have a ruler who thinks he's some sort of diety-incarnate, and who openly says he wants to invade Heaven and conquer Yahweh's kingdom, how does that make him some rational, pragmatic, sensible leader?

The language of science speaks many different dialects

The "language" of science is one.

If you read St. Anselm Natural Theology, it makes a lot of sense, IMHO, about God, the wonders of science and its role in the universe and why there doesn't have to be this perpetual animosity/disdain for belief.

That is going to depend on the belief. Do you feel disdain or animosity towards QAnon? Or do you think it is a respectable set of beliefs? How about Heaven's Gate? Scientology? The Tooth Fairy if you are over 8 years old?

I can just as much believe in the theory of Darwinian Evolution and hard physics and believe in a God and not have to shimmer around,

A god, maybe, but not the Abrahamic one.

Besides, most of the stories encapsulated in the Torah or Jewish Old Testament were re-written, codified, and catalogued in the 6th-5th centuries BCE

Which should tell you something about the stories.

 

[SystemShock]

Many posts veering off topic. The topic is CRT, what it is, where it came from and is it legitimate. The bible and religion has nothing to do with it.

To me, the topic is one of those "no shirt, Sherlock" topics. We are tribal by nature and we are biased towards our tribe... not a big epiphany there. That our tribalism plays a role in how we view other tribes (or races, for that matter), again, not a big discovery. That race is not based in biology... biology already told you. As alluded in my first post on this thread, just another pseudo-academic label - in my view - that is easy to attack.

As for bringing a Bible to a CRT fight -which for the record, I didn't bring it first- if we go by the definition of CRT, then there is a lot in the Bible that says how other tribes, races, and religions are viewed or should be viewed, and how justice is doled out differently depending who you are. The germane example to go with the CRT topic is the Abrahamic law on slavery: the Bible tells you that you can only enslave people of your tribe for 7 years (but there is an exception to the rule, you can trick them to stay slaves longer); in contrast, you can buy people from other tribes as slaves forever, and they'd be property your children and your children's children can inherit.

 

[Saintman2884]

I don't think Nimrod existed, and don't give much credence to texts of dubious origins.

Yahweh had no issue with slavery. Heck, he told his people how to acquire them and from who. Even how much the slaves could be beaten.

You really need to stop doing that. I assume nothing of what you posted.

The "language" of science is one.

That is going to depend on the belief. Do you feel disdain or animosity towards QAnon? Or do you think it is a respectable set of beliefs? How about Heaven's Gate? Scientology? The Tooth Fairy if you are over 8 years old?

A god, maybe, but not the Abrahamic one.


Which should tell you something about the stories.
[/QUOTE]
Have you even read or know about Anselm's Natural Theology or its main tenets? St. Anselm is considered one of the most well-read, well-known medieval forms of philosophy? In the same or similar vein as Occam's Razor or Occam's Broom or Thomas Aquinas? Aquinas was the one who helped legitimize the works, ideas, scientific ideas and logical notions of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle after centuries of neglect to a medieval European scholastic audiences? The Tooth fairy or Q'Anon? You seriously want me to believe their teachings or those fairy tales are equivalent to Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, or Occam's teachings or Copernicus? Try doing a little research yourself before making those insulting comparisons? Please, philosophy, graduate students hell even political science/philosophy majors have to read their most famous works in colleges all over the world and YOU compare it to QANON?

Scientology is a bad, mishmash of plagiarized esoteric philosophy L. Ron Hubbard mostly picked up from late 19th century/early 20th century magician/author/occult practicioner Aleister Crowley and repackaged in Dianetics.

That I suppose you're familiar with the early Gnostics? They believed the God of the old and New Testaments werent the same diety and that the God who created man and woman were the result of an evil, cruel lesser diety?

If thats the case with the 6th century B.C.E Jewish translations of early Jewish/Isrealite folk traditions, oral stories, then I suppose the same contempt should be viewed towards the Septungint or the Gospel of Judas? If there's evidence they came from dubious sources or unreliable authors, classicists, theologians, or Biblical theologians are wasting their time even investigating it or traveling to Switzerland to view these rare historical finds?
Do you also believe the Dead Sea Scrolls came from entirely dubious, unreliable sources and lack credibility somehow? Your language and rhetoric sometimes gives me those impressions.

 

[barbar]

Slavery in the US should be treated with the same level of disgust as the holocaust.

We do not have a true depiction of what happened during that time.

Do any of us really believe that plantation owners wasted resources feeding disabled children born to their slaves? What do farmers do with sick or disabled livestock?

There are undoubtedly mass graves all over the South.

My wife took a Louisiana history course at UNO and the professor actually taught them that slaves were treated well, were highly paid(considering they had no education), and that most of them were happy with their life and loved their owners, they were free to come and go as they please, etc......hahaha. Such garbage. And that was 1999. She actually would tell people for years that slavery wasn't as bad as they make it sound.

I had never heard of critical race theory until like 2 weeks ago. I don't fully understand it, but certainly the whitewashed version of history that is taught in many places is not helping anything.

 

[bird]

Politics and societal/hierarchical structures are also human constructs, too. And have you even read St. Anselm's natural theology? Its essential premise is that God is the three O's-omnipresent, omniscient, and omniaware. That the natural world exists within all its boundless wonders, but that God or any all-powerful exists above and beyond the boundaries of science, of natural law.

If you read one of the Gospels, I can't remember which one, some of the Sanhedrin rabbis did oppose and point out the illegalities of trying Christ in sort of a kangaroo court sort of trial proceeding, but High Priest Caiphas was also terrified that if he didnt find a way to remove one more nagging, bothersome Jewish zealot rabbi, the Romans and Pilate might start cracking down on their very generous allowances of religious tolerance of Jewish religious practices and customs and make life for most 1st century C.E. more a living hell then it was already. If that meant bending or breaking the rules to preserve their hard-won remaining Jewish religious customs and rituals, and meant sacrificing one radical Galilean zealot rabbi to save a lot more devout Jewish lives, so be it. There was an incident that occured several years earlier before Christ's execution, recorded by Josephus, where Pilate supposedly gathered to hear some complaints from Jewish Sanhedrin about Roman administrators trying to infiltrate their religious customs, Pilate had Roman soldiers gather among the crowd, wearing tunics and hidden swords in and among the Jewish crowds, and on his command, had these same centurions cut down and massacre a large, gathered assembly of Jews and then dragged Sanhedrin members to view the dead massacred Jewish bodies to warn them not to cross him or governing Roman administrative apparatus again.

I agree about Pilate. He was a very violent, harsh Roman procurator but he also gained a reputation for being too cruel, even for Roman standards and the Jewish Sanhedrin knew that his benefactor, a high-ranking Pretorian Guard, had been arrested and killing by Emperor Tiberius on Capri on accusations of treason a few years before Christ's arrest. So, naturally all of this Pretorian prefects appointees were viewed with suspicion. I agree with you that Pilate was not the indecisive, vascillating, doubtful procurator that the Gospels depicted him as, that narrative was drastically and massively rearranged to present the occupying Romans as less culpible and unwillingly, albeit reluctant executioners of Christ because early Christian communities lived under Roman ruler and you don't convert many Romans by making them the primary villains, they just transferred that role to the Jewish Sanhedrin and angry Jewish mobs who shouted for his crucifixion.

But, just as an added to extra incentitive, I do believe its plausible that the leading a Jewish Sanhedrin priests used or slyly reminded to Pilate they knew his dirty little secret to make sure he was as brutally efficient in getting rid of of one more radical Jewish zealot they hated. A quid pro quo, perhaps.

The problem with St. Anselm’s book is that it’s base premise is an unprovable assertion.

As for Pilate and the Sanhedrin? There was no need for a quid pro quo. He didn’t care what the Sanhedrin thought. The charge against the Christ was insurrection Against Rome. The crowds never chanted crucify him, they never said that his blood was on their heads and the heads of their children.

 

[SystemShock]

Have you even read or know about Anselm's Natural Theology or its main tenets? St. Anselm is considered one of the most well-read, well-known medieval forms of philosophy? In the same or similar vein as Occam's Razor or Occam's Broom or Thomas Aquinas? Aquinas was the one who helped legitimize the works, ideas, scientific ideas and logical notions of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle after centuries of neglect to a medieval European scholastic audiences? The Tooth fairy or Q'Anon? You seriously want me to believe their teachings or those fairy tales are equivalent to Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, or Occam's teachings or Copernicus? Try doing a little research yourself before making those insulting comparisons? Please, philosophy, graduate students hell even political science/philosophy majors have to read their most famous works in colleges all over the world and YOU compare it to QANON?

Well, the tooth fairly doesn't teach anything, but we were discussing beliefs, not teachings. As for QAnon, it is a radical Christian movement, making extraordinary claims of a Satan worshiping cabal, that God sent Trump who is the stubborn king of the west of the prophesy, etc.. So no need for research there.

As for Aquinas, I don't hold him in high regard as some great thinker, nor give him the credit you give him.

And to touch on the OP's topic: Aquinas justified the Inquisition and the execution of non-Christians - in this case, I am drawing a parallel between race and belief. His idea of mercy was to give heretics the chance to recant their non-belief, but if they didn't, then he thought they should be put to death. You touch up on plagiarism below, and Aquinas' most famous argument is the Kalam with nicer, more extensive words.

So, no, I don't hold anything Aquinas said about virtue or reasoning in high regard.

Scientology is a bad, mishmash of plagiarized esoteric philosophy

So is the story of Jesus, the account of the flood, etc, but that doesn't stop you from believing those stories. As for Scientology, or even Mormon, at least we know who wrote the book.

That I suppose you're familiar with the early Gnostics? They believed the God of the old and New Testaments werent the same diety and that the God who created man and woman were the result of an evil, cruel lesser diety?

And?

If thats the case with the 6th century B.C.E Jewish translations of early Jewish/Isrealite folk traditions, oral stories, then I suppose the same contempt should be viewed towards the Septungint or the Gospel of Judas? If there's evidence they came from dubious sources or unreliable authors, classicists, theologians, or Biblical theologians are wasting their time even investigating it or traveling to Switzerland to view these rare historical finds?

It's their time; they can use it anyway they see fit. There is historical value to ancient documents, but because an ancient document has historical value, it doesn't mean what the document claims is fact. The Popol Vu has great historical significance, but very few people believe Itzamná created the universe.

Do you also believe the Dead Sea Scrolls came from entirely dubious, unreliable sources and lack credibility somehow?

Well, let's see... in a nutshell: documents found by Bedouins in caves on the West bank just as Israel was being forcibly established. Originally 7 fragments were discovered, but then fragments started popping everywhere (up to 900+ today, I think?). The Bedouins who found them promptly started selling them to collectors. It wasn't until an Act was signed that Israel recovered some of those fragments. When 3rd party sources have tested fragments, they have been proven to be forgeries, most notably the fragments owned by the Museum of the Bible in D.C. , which were acquired from 4 different sources, yet testing proved the fragments were the exact same type of forgery.

So you tell me.

 

[bird]

Veered off-topic? Not entirely. The entire Euro-centric concept of civilization has Christianity as one of its underpinnings. We have heard excuses such as the slaves were taught Christianity so slavery was good for them. Utter bullschlitz. Slavery was monetary in nature as well as groupism in nature. The Africans were "savages" and therefore sub-human. And don't let us forget the "White Man's Burden." Hiostory is loaded with one group claiming some innate superiority over other groups. What utter nonsense.

 

[MT15]

This thread makes some valid points:

 

[Optimus Prime]

I've been thinking about this quit a bit lately

I'll post more later

this was from last year - NSFW

 

[Farb]

I think it is 100% garbage. Most everyone else does too.

I know, I will let you all collect yourselves. I know I threw you guys for a loop!

Y'all have a good Memorial Day weekend. Remember those brave men and women that gave all in defense of the best country this world has ever seen and so others may also live free (ish).

 

[barbar]

I've been thinking about this quit a bit lately

I'll post more later

this was from last year - NSFW

I watched this earlier today.

Holy. Crap.

What Lee Atwood said in the 80's about the Republican agenda tells you all you need to know. He said the quiet part right out loud. Unbelievable.