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From: arndt@lymph.dec.com
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Net Dunce Award, Proudly Claimed by - Mike Huybensz!!
Message-ID: <5483@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Mon, 22-Sep-86 23:03:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.5483
Posted: Mon Sep 22 23:03:59 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 00:54:49 EDT
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Lines: 156

Way to go Mike!  What a gutsy guy.  Rich Rosen is history!

Single handedly you performed a frontal lobodomy on yourself on the nets -
without anesthesia (though some wags would insist you had taken care of that
a long time ago).

So for your reply to my "A Fig for 'what's his name", you get the "Dunce of the
Nets Award!"

(Er . . . Mike, I'm starting to get mail asking how much I'm paying you to act
the Net Toad and if I'm writing your scripts.  We've got to stop meeting like 
this.)

But leave us review the award-winning selection.  (I've advised everyone I know
to sell their Cybermation stock!)

You start off with a real grabber, "Ken Arndt launches into yet another frenzy
of fuzzy thinking!" - and then precede to drool all over yourself.

(Of course I get mail from confused persons like the guy from Berkeley - who
will remain nameless and he is NOT a homosexual - who accuse me of 'attacking'
you and Tim Sevener, for example in my recent piece "I Agree!")

You will recall I researched and explained the account of Jesus 'cursing' the
fig tree.  Jesus finding no fruit on the tree even though Mark in his account
says it was not time for figs, 'curses' the tree and the next day it is dead.
The explanation being he was looking for the edible 'prefig' fruit which when
there was none meant there would also be no figs, etc.  

You reply, "The tree might have been knocked down, ripped up, or girdled for
all the text says."  Wow!  I said you and Tim walk around the nets with your
mental flys open.  You really drop the ole kimono here guy.

This is the classic argument from silence - which falls of its own weight.
Worthless!  Worse than worthless - silly.  Reminds me of being on guard duty
and approached and questioned by a young officer and asked what I would do
if attacked by a tank, to which the regulation reply is, "Why I'd shoot it
with my arty piece sir."  "And where would you get the artillery piece (they
always go along with it - especially the young ones)?  "The same place you
got your tank sir!"  

What you are really saying here, besides "look at how silly I can be in public"
is that Mark and Matthew are either lying about what happened or couldn't tell
the difference between a tree fallen down and one standing up, etc.  I think 
your clear anti-miracle bias (unreasonable in a 20th C. science educated man) 
is showing and showing that it has softened your brain.  Both accounts clearly
state that the tree died because Jesus 'cursed' it.  They were surprised when
they found it dead the next day - because it wasn't or hadn't been any of the
things you suggest above, or sat on by an elephant or eaten by a giant fig
tree fly.  

Not only that but I would refer you to common 'rules of evidence' when 
considering eyewitness accounts of events.  As are used in courts of law.
You have no doubt heard the phrase, "Beyond a reasonable doubt."  Allow me
to quote from Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by
the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Law, Frederick D. Linn & Co.,
1881.  (That's right, 1881!  I own a copy - photocopy - ha ha)  Greenleaf
was a famous lawyer and law school teacher who 'wrote the book' on rules of
evidence and was challenged by a student to consider the testimony of the
four Gospels about the life of Jesus from the standpoint of his own rules.
He, a Jew, became a Christian and wrote this book.)

But back to 'a reasonable doubt'.  Greenleaf says, "It should be observed that
the subject of inquiry is a matter of fact, and not of abstract mathematical
truth.  The latter alone is susceptible of that high degree of proof, usually
termed demonstration, which excludes the possibility of error, and which
therefore may reasonably be required in support of every mathematical deduction.
But the proof of matters of fact rests upon moral evidence alone; . . .  The
error of the sceptic consists in . . . demanding demonstrative evidence 
concerning things which are not susceptible of any other than moral evidence
alone, and of which the utmost that can be said is, THAT THERE IS NO REASONABLE
DOUBT ABOUT THEIR TRUTH." (italics mine) pp23-24.

Your comments about 'fallen trees' etc are unreasonable!

What about the 'evidence' given by Mark and Matthew?  Greenleaf goes on to
say (about their entire books), "In the absense of circumstances which generate
suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is 
shown; the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector.  This
rule serves to show the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have
ever been treated by infidels (that's you Mike); an injustice silently 
acquiesced in even by Christians; in requiring the Christian affirmatively,
and by positive evidence, ALIUNDE, to extablish the credibility of his witnesses
above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered (how many
times Mike have we heard the 'infidel' rabble cry, "Who ELSE says so?"), and
on permitting the testimony of a single profane writer, alone and 
uncorroborated, to outweigh that of any single Christian."  pp25-26.

He goes on to say how 'contradictions' so often cited are merely the
expected differences of testimony one hears when two persons describe their
memory of the same events.  And he cites several famous - to his day - examples.
Also, the Bible is not ONE witness, but the record of MANY!!  How empty the
statement, "But who else?".  What they are really saying is, "Produce someone
who doesn't believe it happened to say it did."  Since there are not eye
witness accounts surviving that say it didn't happen - yea I know, the naughty
Christians burned them all with their texts!

But back to your award winning posting.  You say I explained " . . . how 
JC (nice touch) could have seen that there were no figs developing on that
tree, - even though if there were any they wouldn't be ready."  Mike, Mike,
I said (as a recent poster corrected you) that to tell a fig tree wouldn't
bear fruit all you had to see was that it didn't bear the 'pre-fruit' which
was what they were looking to eat in the first place.  Just like a farmer
today would say if we don't get blooms we don't get no apples!  Or do you
correct the logic of modern farmers too?

As for your statement that when I said cursing the death of an infant was
similar to that of Jesus cursing the tree, it wan't because such cursing 
doesn't cause an infant to die - well I just don't know WHAT to make of
that!!!  WHO WOULD CURSE THE DEATH OF AN INFANT TO CAUSE IT TO DIE???
Your exact words after I said, "The way you or I might curse the death
of an infant" were, "Not at all.  Cursing the death of an infant doesn't
cause death."  It should have been clear to all except the most extreme
anti-Christian net bigot that the similarity lay in the rejection of
the fruitlessness of the tree and the dying of the infant!  Not in the
RESULT of the cursing.  In fact I made a point that our cursing HAS no
effect other than to show our lack of character. 

Sounds like you are skipping injections again, Mike.  Again, my point of course,
which your rabid bias will not let you see, was that Jesus cursed the tree
because it should not have been barren the way you or I would curse the
death of an infant BECAUSE it should not have died!  When faced with death
Jesus DID do something about it!  He overruled it!

Egad, do we have to go on??  (there's more)  Someone else spoke to your point
of conjecture that if the tree was barren one year it might bear the next 
which demonstrates a "wanton destruction" of the tree you say - which by
the way misses the point that it didn't bear THEN when it was needed
and so was not as it 'should' have been and was worthy of 'cursing'.

Your sign off line from Gilbert and Sullivan shows that you have a book of
quotes under your desk but not that you are literate.  The account we are
looking at in Matthew and Mark is not "brimming with such poetical emotion"
but rather falls, as I have shown above, under normal 'rules of evidence'
of the type we deal with every day in our courts.  Your quote in the sign
off line speaks FOR the rules of evidence in this case!

Look Mike, I don't really enjoy slappin' a little kid around like this any
more.  But you (and your nitwit HASA buddies) keep MOCKING my Christian
beliefs and acting as if you really have something rational to say.  I don't
mind if you are doing it just for fun over a beer at the end of a day.  Be
glad to sit down with you and swap barbs and cream pies.  And I feel I could
actually learn things from you guys (and gals) as most of you (you included
too Mike) are not really stupid people - just bigots!

Well, this has gotten rather long and I have to get back to the getting
the kids into bed - Mom has given up!  They listen to me.

Hope you don't mind me shooting back at you Mike.  I do enjoy reading your
postings.  And by Satan, I'll look you up and phone you one of these days!
Be warned!  Maybe we can have that beer.

Keep chargin'

Ken Arndt