Moses Wins

[Dardedar]

DAR are you fast enough "on your feet" to respond to Moses with whatever he brings up?

DAR
Damn straight. The day a fundie can out duel Doug or I, or both together, is the day we better hang up the gloves.
Incidentally, Doug has formally debated Moses in my house and we have a video (DVD) of it. Now Moses does know his Bible very well, after all, this is his life and he lives and breathes this stuff. For me it is just an amusing hobby, one of many, and for several years now I have been rather bored with the Bible and the religiously insane. And Moses definitely has some mental problems. But he's not stupid. He can make shit up on the fly and he is a fast talker but the bottomline is that his positions are indefensible and require an extensive hardcore fundie foundational perspective and all of the profound bullshit that implies. So in a group situation, his positions are so extreme that many of the fundies will run from him and are made more ameniable to mine. It's quite an interesting situation to observe.

BARB
Luke is Greek, so it's not surprising he didn't get the parallel connection.

DAR
All of the NT was written Greek, The idea of Matthew having been written in Hebrew has been discarded by scholars. As I remember, Matthew was especially ignorant on matters requiring a good knowledge of Hebrew and the Jewish culture in general.
Do you have a copy of my book Barbara?

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I have a copy of your book (which I need to return, since you loaned it to me, I didn't buy it). I knew the new testament books were all written in Greek, but that didn't necessarily mean all the writers were Greek. It was the intelligensia's language of choice, especially amongst the Romans (who saved their own language for things like engineering and posted laws), and by the time the new testament books were actually written the power focus of Christianity had shifted from Jerusalem to Rome. In fact, the lack of knowledge about Hebrew and Jewish culture points to a Roman writing in Greek. (W didn't make up his disdain for all things Middle East - it has a long and dishonorable history, especially in Christianity.)

I don't know "chapter and verse" well enough to fight a verbal dual with Moses. (You're right, he's a nutcase. Just Wednesday he told a passing sorority girl she was evil, because all sorority girls are evil. Now I've had unpleasant experiences with the "entitlement mentality" of greeks of both genders, but this clown apparently can't tell the difference between a party sorority and a service sorority.) I know what I want to say is in there, but finding it timely is another matter. (I could do an email one, since it would give me time to look things up before I resonded.) You will definitely need to bring your whistle, though. Otherwise he'll spew BS and blow his whistle when you rebutt.

[Dardedar]

Just Wednesday he told a passing sorority girl she was evil, because all sorority girls are evil.

DAR
He used to call them all sluts and whores. What a great mascot for Christianity this fellow is.
The whistle thing. That's why I would like to get all of the observers involved. If everyone has a list of questions for Moses it would be pretty ridiculous for him to just be blowing his whistle all of the time and not letting anyone speak or respond. We can provide the ammo, and the back up. All people need to do is bring their brain, some critical thinking skills and a sense of humor. It's a wonderful training session in religious fanaticism.

D.

[Doug]

All people need to do is bring their brain, some critical thinking skills and a sense of humor.

DOUG
Is that fair? Moe doesn't have any of those.

[Dardedar]

Is that fair? Moe doesn't have any of those.

DAR
No it isn't fair. That's where the sense of humor comes in. That is, if you have the tolerance for watching someone, deservedly so, suffer.

BARB
I don't know "chapter and verse" well enough to fight a verbal dual with Moses.

DAR
No need for that. Your making it out to be way harder than it is. I don't know more than ten scriptures that I can cite chapter and verse. I don't waste brain cells on such things. And actually, there may not even be a lot I would disagree with him on regarding the Bible. Fundie interpretations are often more honest than liberal ones. Especially with Moses because there is no biblical insanity that he is going to run from or make excuses for, like the liberals often do. He takes it at it's word. But this makes him vulnerable to all of the timeless criticisms of fundism.

Here are a few of the top of my head:

a) The world is 10,000 years old? Oh really.... why is there all of this evidence that it is billions of years old (introduce our old earth tract).

b) You believe in Noah and the flood? That's neat. 85% of Australia's flowers and mammals are exclusive to that continent. How did Noah get those animals from Australia on his boat and how did he manage to get them carefully put back? Oh, and the polar bears too....

c) Did he bring termites on his wooden boat? There are over 2,200 species of termites and over 1 million species of beetles. How did he do it?

d) In the Bible Jesus says those who believe in him and come later will be able to do greater wonders than he did. What can Gary "Moses" do?

etc.

Just listen to his claims and then ask him to back them up. It's pretty simple really because if you ask the right questions he can't answer them without looking like a fool. And he's pretty good at that without any assistance.

D.

[Dardedar]

DAR
Oh, it would be good to video tape such interactions with Moses so other people can enjoy this later (highlights at a meeting perhaps). Now I am quite sure that he doesn't like that and will protest. Does anyone know what the law is regarding video taping someone, outside in public, against their will? Of course we couldn't publish sell or broadcast such material without permission, but I am just talking about recording it. I don't think that would be something that he could stop or have legal grounds to stop.

D.

[Betsy]

I'm pretty sure he couldn't do anything to stop you from filming him. (That's a great idea) After all, he's outside speaking publicly and therefore making himself a public figure. There's nothing to stop you from taking pictures and printing them in the newspaper or filming him and putting it on the news, so there isn't any reason why you/we couldn't film him and play it wherever he wants. It might be different if he were inside and unaware you were filming him, or you had to pay to hear him speak, or he was on his own private property, or something like that....

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Sometimes I'm sorry I'm a 1st Amendment freedom fighter - One of our very nice, caring grad students had words with Moses an hour or so ago and when she left, he loudly commented, "A lesbian just walked by" - I guess we're supposed to be grateful he didn't call her a slut.