Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cargille@astroatc.uucp (Allan Cargille) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Halloween, a rebuttal Message-ID: Date: 5 Oct 89 04:17:13 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Astronautics Technology Cntr, Madison, WI Lines: 52 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article rbq@iforgetmyname.lbp.harris.com (Robert Quattlebaum) writes: >This depends, of course, on your perception of the word 'derived'. If it >smells of evil, has been tainted by the world, or otherwise is not from >God then I believe that it must be from Satan. After all, a scan of Romans >(I forget the exact reference) will show you that whatever is not from >faith is sin (pretty much an exact quote). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hello all. I am starting to read this group again after a long departure largely because the newsgroup didn't seem to be productive. Not to pick on Robert, but as a step toward productive dialogue, discussion, and exchange of information I would like to ask for exact scriptural references in postings. Anybody can say, "doesn't it say somewhere in the bible that ..." I think it would be a healthy exercise both for investigating one's own faith more closely and being able to communicate it more effectively to others. I would even invite a standard from our moderator that all biblical quotes must contain specific references OR clearly attempt to be summary phrases of what God did in the broad sweeping scheme of things. Are we really so sloppy in our own faith? Or isn't it worth the effort of being exact when we are explaining some facet of Christianity? Just an idea. allan -- C. Allan Cargille "MadTown" (Madison), Wisconsin cargille@cs.wisc.edu `I give you a new commandment: love one another...' If not us, who? Let's build a better world. [There's a lot to be said for this advice. I often ask for clarification if I see something in a posting that I think people won't understand. However there are a number of reasons for not supplying exact references to the Bible. Many of readers are likely to post at work, with no concordance handy. So I think it's being pedantic to require references to passages that no one should have any trouble identifying. Furthermore, in some cases you want to refer to what isn't just a single passage, but to a general conclusion that one draws from a number of them. Of course you should be able to supply specific passages for this. But to require people to do so always seems like requiring mathematicians to do all proofs at the level of detailed used in high school geometry proofs. Nevertheless, I think you are right that people should where possible supply references. I have to say that I don't know quite what passage the article you quoted had in mind. By the way, it was fairly common for theologians, particularly in the first few centuries, to quote Scripture from memory, and get it only approximately right. Indeed Heb 2:6 introduces a quotation from Psalms 8:4-6 as follows: "It has been testified somewhere". And the quotation leaves out half of one of the verses. --clh]