Dead Sea Scrolls To Go Digital On Internet 324
mernil writes to mention that the Dead Sea Scrolls are headed for the internet. The Israel Antiquities Authority, custodians of the scrolls, plan on digitizing the 900 fragments to make them available to the public via the internet. Unfortunately they are claiming the project will take somewhere in the neighborhood of two years to complete.
Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Rational Christian, I am excited about this material being released. Debates will be much more entertaining and edifying, with some good old material to validate certain arguments and invalidate others.
Regardless of your Religious background, the dead sea scrolls are very important and to have them readily available for those who speak the language is exciting for many reasons.
2 Years though, at least this shows you how seriously people take preserving historical documents like this.
My big concern is over the principle that once these are made publicly digitally available, they will be easily tampered with. How are we going to be able to validate the good copies from the publicly tampered ones? From a technical standpoint is there anyway to protect things like this so the average Jo knows which is real and which is not?
Re:Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
My big concern is over the principle that once these are made publicly digitally available, they will be easily tampered with. How are we going to be able to validate the good copies from the publicly tampered ones? From a technical standpoint is there anyway to protect things like this so the average Jo knows which is real and which is not?
Ummm... as if it was more difficult when they were *not* on the net? Now you can just claim it says something else, in the future you have to do a pretty good photoshop job on it. And in any case, maybe like with all other information getting it from a source you trust?
infighting over "first publication" (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing it was more professional jealously rather than some "secret revelation invalidating Christianity or Judiasm" that caused the delay.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Religious text is different from fairy tales. fairy tales could be a subset of the text where say a fictional story is used to illustrate a point. However for the most part most of the religious texts are attempts to keep historical records thousands of years ago.
A large meteor hits and destroys your city, that must be God striking down the sinners. As a guy who was just banished from the city survived and saw the destruction, he gets to make the details.
A merchant dealing with livestock builds himself a boat for easier trading with other cities. Luckally enough survived a food that covered the visible landmass. Whiping out thousands of people. It must of been God flooding the entire earth and his livestock and his wife and kids are whats left of the animal population. He survives so he can make the story.
Religious Texts do offer a good historical perspective if you read them with the fact that they have been translated many times, passed by word of mouth for a longer time. Truth = Beauty Art = Beauty so Artistic alterations have been placed it to make it easier to remember and pass on. Adding a few more lessons here and there... So when reading them many of the facts are right however the moral of the story has been changed.
Fairy tales are ficion just to prove the point. Religious Documents are the best history we have for the time.
Re:Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you really say that? Since when does the validity of a particular religious belief have anything to do with the relevance of a 2000-year-old document? You don't have to share the beliefs of the writers of it to understand that this is an immensely important piece of history.
While you're at it, why don't you take a ball peen hammer to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel since it contains religious thought. Or perhaps make it your life's work to erase any remnant of the works of William Blake since he was apparently a Christian.
It think that this is why many look at hostile agnostics and atheists and see people who are just as irrational as the religious folks that they seem to hate so much.
Re:Edifying (Score:1, Insightful)
Yea just like moral atheist... (Hey you started it)
Re:Edifying (Score:2, Insightful)
That mean your less irrational. Not rational.
There really isn't anything rational in Christianity.
I'd like to see some solid premises and reason that applies to an act of blind faith.
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
These may be the oldest fairy tales on the net when the project is complete.
You can at least the following genres among the fragments: Poetry, wisdom, legal code, historical narrative, genealogy, myth/fable, prophetic writing, construction schematics, census, apocalypse/vision.
Re:Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
So now are we going to get a bunch of jokes on how it takes 2 years to have good 'fakes' made?
Nobody I'm aware of is claiming the Dead Sea Scrolls are not ancient documents.
As a Rational Christian, I am excited about this material being released.
Why? The Dead Sea Scrolls really say nothing, at least nothing positive, about Christianity. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain copies of some Old Testament works and works related to the Essenes, a Jewish Zealot group that vaguely resembled Christianity in some ways. If anything, the Dead Sea Scrolls weaken the arguments of orthodox Christianity by demonstrating that Christians were influenced by other Jewish reform movements as much as (or more) than Jesus.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are of enormous importance to Jews as they contain the oldest know copies of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament). But for the most part, the copies of the Torah in the DSS strictly conform to the current translations of the Torah.
Regardless of your Religious background, the dead sea scrolls are very important
I'm not sure why Hindus, Jains, Budhists, Taoists, Native Americans, Neopagans, etc. should care.
2 Years though, at least this shows you how seriously people take preserving historical documents like this.
It's more likely due to he massive egos and arguments surrounding the DSS, and archeology in general. To this day, over 60 years since their discovery, not all of the DSS have been published.
Re:Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
The most amusing part of this, to me at least, is that YOU are also not supposed to judge. No one is, because it isn't a smart thing to do.
Say what you want, but Christ was a pretty bright guy. It is really pretty hard to find fault in the basic tenants of his message. Certainly there are numerous examples of humans behaving as humans do and labeling it with a religion named after him, but this has little impact on the actual message itself.
I can see why you might resent Christians. I resent a handful myself. I cannot, however, understand how you would bear such ill will towards the epitome of a good person.
Oh wait, you're trolling. Oh, well never mind then. Sorry about that...
Re:Edifying (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when does the validity of a particular religious belief have anything to do with the relevance of a 2000-year-old document?
Did you really say that? Christianity is ENTIRELY based on the testimony recorded in early Christian texts and the teachings of early Church fathers. If you invalidate early Christian texts, you invalidate Christianity. Much the same is true of Judaism.
Christians tend to attribute psychotic hatred and irrationality to anyone who says "Christianity is nonsense" because it clashes so strongly with their point of view.
Atheists are not talking about smashing the Sistine Chapel, burning the books of William Blake, or killing modern "Christian rock" stars. Find me some quotes or news accounts. You will find people who attack religious art (like Michelangelo's David). They're all religious nuts, who find any depiction of religious figures sinful.
Re:Edifying (Score:3, Insightful)
You're talking about a religion that has had its primary texts re-written countless times over the centuries, already.
You should try reading a little less Dan Brown and a little more actual scholarship. There is certainly debate about the actual origins of the biblical text - whether, for example, the gospels represent mostly eyewitness accounts or are just a written version of oral traditions that circulated for decades in the early church. But there is very little dispute about the fact that the text as we have it today differs little from the original.
Re:They aren't paper (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately they are claiming the project will take somewhere in the neighborhood of two years to complete.
Why will it take two years? Part of the problem is because they aren't made of paper. One of them is made of copper, [wikipedia.org] and most of them are made of parchament, [wikipedia.org] which is much more difficult to work with. Especially considering the age.
My reaction to reading that it will take two years was: DAMN THAT'S FAST!
These are fragments of documents, not full scrolls. And there are what, thousands of fragments? They ought to be handled in clean-room conditions (don't know if they will be). They are extremely fragile. Anyone who damages them will suffer the ire of thousands upon millions of people. Since any manipulation runs risk of damage, presumably you want to ensure that it gets done right the first time. That means lots of logistical planning, test scans on simulated documents, training, etc. At least that's what it would mean if someone who knows what they're doing is in charge. Two years? If they had said ten years, I'd have been impressed.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Any error, addition or omission would have been corrected immediately.
If any geek arose to tell the story of Star Wars and claimed that Obi Wan said "Tashi Station, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany" they would be flamed, flogged and their geek card would be confiscated. It was in the writing that things broke down because for most of human history most of the humans couldn't read but they could all talk and listen.
rationale for atheism (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the rationale for atheism?
Inasmuch as the scientific method is concerned, the presumption of a controlling intelligence eliminates the need for some categories of investigation, which ultimately inhibits progress.
For example, if you ask, "why does a person get sick?" and one answers "because God wills it, either as a punishment for sin or as a test of faith." You have eliminated the incentive to investigate into things like bacteria, the immune system, and so on.
By beginning with the premise that there is no controlling intelligence, and that there is some kind of underlying mechanism behind all observable phenomena, you preserve the incentive to formulate hypothesis and test them. Of course, many of the hypotheses will still be wrong, but the process of testing them is what yields the understanding we need to improve our lives.
So, scientifically speaking, atheism is the most useful assumption for maximizing our efforts at perusing knowledge.
On a more personal level, agnosticism is more logically "safe" than atheism. Though many consider that the assertion of the non-existence of an entity for which no demonstrative test can be devised is more well-founded than the assertion of the existence of said entity...logically this is still just a variant of the "ad ignorantium" [wikipedia.org] fallacy. It is clear that where no test can be formulated *either way,* the only warranted conclusion is no conclusion at all. "I don't know if God exists, and I won't know until we can cook up some definitive tests" is the most logically sound response to questions of the ontological status of the divine.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Citation [questia.com]
Re:so what does it mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not actually how it's used in the Bible.
To quote James 2-19, Demons have this sort of faith but they're not welcomed by God: http://net.bible.org/passage.php?search=Jas%202:18-19&passage=Jas%202:18-19 [bible.org]
It's actually not how it's used most often in real life. Simply put, faith means trust.
Let's assume you're married but it could equally be applied in other close relationships.
* Do you have faith in your wife?
* Are you faithful to her?
* If you close your eyes and fall backwards towards you wife, do you have faith that your wife will at least try to stop you from falling?
* If she says or does something that hurt you, do you still have faith in *her* or do you immediately assume the worst about her?
* If your wife were to try something new that she has no experience in, but you've seen that she's fantastic at improvising, so you have faith that she'll succeed?
On the flip side, if your parents tell you "I have faith that you will win the basket ball game" but you see them betting on the other team, do they really trust you?
> So, "faith in God" in the common senses could imply that one believes he exists, as described, without evidence (an arguably irrational position)
True, it is arguable, which in simple terms means, debatable. Ferocious former Atheist, Anthony Flew (credited for the "Invisible Gardener" parable outlining how stupid believers in God were), switched to Deism (the God of Einstein, Spinoza, Plato, Einstein, and Darwin) precisely because he determined that it was a more rational explanation of the universe and all that there is in it than Atheism.
None of these people are stupid. They looked at the evidence....all the evidence. Granted, there isn't a single piece of evidence that shows God's existence, but the bulk of it tells you that he's there.
It's no different in real life. Getting back to the wife analogy, *why* would you have faith in her? If you give any single situation to prove your point, I could just as easily argue that your interpretation is wrong. However, if you give the sum total of all your experiences, you can build a credible case.
Anyway, here's a question to ponder. Assume that the universe and everything in it is pure matter caught in a cause and effect chain. Essentially pure materialism. You are essentially a bag of marbles held together by natural forces caught in a causal chain that fully determines every move you make. A chair or a rock is no different....you're just composed of different atoms and are configured in different ways, but ultimately, everything is just a bag of causal marbles.
If you truly believe in pure materialism, you must accept the following:
a) There is no difference between you and a chair. What you perceive as life is just an illusion.
b) There is no fundamental difference between breaking your legs and breaking a chair's legs or smashing you to death or smashing a chair to pieces. All you're doing is breaking a few bonds and rearranging the configuration of atoms.
c) All atoms in your body get replaced every decade, so there is nothing that defines who you are other than your overall appearance and even that changes with time. Ultimately, *you* don't exist.
c) There is no such thing as free will....just atoms caught in a causal chain. Evangelical Atheists are thus wasting their time trying to convince anyone, but then again they can't help it, so there's no problem.
d) A consequence of all the above is Humanism or other morality has no foundation in pure materialism and it's actually pretty arrogant to be a Humanist because why are human's more valuable than chairs or rats? If you expand goal of humanism to reduce the total amount of suffering in the world (whatever "suffering" means in materialistic terms),wouldn't it make more sense to sterilize all humans so that animals might flourish in a hundred or so years?
e) Knowledge is irrelevant. What is kno
Re:so what does it mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you've answered your own question:
Leave religion completely aside for a moment and ask yourelf what you meant last time you said you had faith in someone. If you are anything like me, you meant that you trusted them to deliver on what they had promised, and you trusted them to do that because of past personal experience with them, or perhaps a testimonial of them from someone else that you trust. Whatever it was, it almost certainly was based on some reason, and almost certainly was not just a shot in the dark.
For me, this is a pretty good definition of faith when applied to Christianity and God. The problem with this definition is as you say that it doesn't really correspond with the common use of the word when applied to religion, a use which has become completely divorced from the meaning I've described above and has come to mean something blind, irrational.
I'm not sure whether anything can be done about this, apart from patient explanation like I've tried here.
Re:Edifying (Score:4, Insightful)
So if you are wrong once, then you are always wrong? This is the type of thinking that gives fundamentalist Christians a bad name. Of course its possible to respect Jesus as a great teacher and leader without buying into the whole Christian mythology surrounding him. Muslims do, and so do a lot of athiests.
Re:Edifying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow! (Score:1, Insightful)
Your trouble is related to the fact that the fanatics get all the bad press... and this leads to you becoming a fanatic yourself:
I guess religious freedom is one step, atleast it doesn't force one religion on everyone, the next step should probably be to forbid all kinds of religion, atleast as long as it tries to control people.
How is this not repeating the very same offense of your targeted enemy?