Scaramouche, Scaramouche


There's a line from the first made Star Wars movie which has always stuck with me. It went something like: "Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?"

I suggest an alternaive, more appropriate to the prequels I still haven't seen: "Who is wasting their time more? The idiot on youtube or the one who tries to correct him?"

To help you answer this vital question, here are three youtubic 'debates' from my inbox:


On Objectivism

Chaaarge: I think the philosophy itself makes plenty of sense. The alternative to life is death, so if we want to truly live, we must hold life as our moral standard, therefore, things promoting life are good, and sacrifice is bad. This makes altruism evil. Seems logical to me

Kapitano: Interesting how randians can never explain themselves without redefining words as they go - and then pointing to the new definitions as proof of their argument.

Chaaarge: what are the words I have redefined?

Kapitano: Life, death, promote, sacrifice, altruism and evil.


On Science:

zico739: I acknowledge scientific data, long as it does not contradict to the Bible.

Kapitano: According to the bible, the ratio of diameter to circumference of a circular wall is exactly three.

You therefore deny all geometry, and therefore engineering, astronomy...and the mathematics involved in designing the computer where you typed that comment. Congratulations, your comment denies its own existence.

zico739: whats so right about the bible and what does the bible say about the ratio of a diameter..

Kapitano: 2 Chronicles 4:2

Zeta739: there is nothing in the bible that explain oure excistens

Kapitano: Um...the book of Genesis?


On Theology:

onceuponapriori: I believe in the virgin birth, provisionally.

Kapitano: Surely you know about the Alma/Betulah/Parthenos problem? That the Hebrew word for 'young woman' was mistranslated into the Greek for 'virgin'. It's on every christian theology syllabus worth the name - and it's always instructive to watch students' reactions to it.

strugglinalong: The Alma/Betulah/Parthenos "problem" has never been a forefront issue because we have no documents to suggest that Hebrew scribes ever dicredited or debated Parthenos.

Kapitano: You seem to be confusing Hebrew scribes with Greek translators centuries later.

strugglinalong: The real issue is the inclusion in the lineage of Mark and Luke. This particular "problem" is anything but.

Kapitano: *Matthew* and Luke actually. And it's two problems - the incompatibility of two lineages, and the questions of why Joesph's lineage should matter at all if he wasn't Jesus's father.

strugglinalong: No, the Septuigent was in distribution some 200 years before the birth of Jesus. It's original scribes were Hebrew scribes, not Greek translators. The obvious error I made above was to site Mark in stead of Matthew. No, the contention stands. The Alma/Parthenos "problem" is no real problem at all.

Kapitano: The word 'Septuagint' (note spelling) was a koine Greek translation of what we now call the Old Testament. The translation issues of Mary's virginhood are obviously of the New Testament - whose translations of terms from Hebrew to Greek (eg Meshiah > Christos) may or may not reflect errors fossilised from the Septuagint.

strugglinalong: teh Hebrew alma and betulah mean young lady, as in not mariied (virgin)

Kapitano: So two words each have always the same three meanings? Amazing.

strugglinalong: the Greek Septuigent was clearly in circulation some 200 to 250 years before Christ

Kapitano: You evidently think this is relevant, and contested.

strugglinalong: The area of question (not concern) is why Matthew and Luke add the narrative. Your argument needs to be abandoned.

Kapitano: Obviously it should concern you, because it entails a contradiction at the heart of christology.


I hope things are clearer now.

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