So am I getting old? I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students? Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMSo am I getting old? I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students? Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
I would say you can ask to be called whatever you like. You'll probably do better if you correct it in the same way that you would correct someone who was mispronouncing your name-you're not issuing a rebuke, you are just assuming that the person would like to address you correctly but doesn't know your preferences.
The culture on this has changed, so I think if you find yourself irked that people keep doing it, you will keep finding yourself irked. It's one of those rules that no one else has any more, like insisting that "decimate" can only be used to indicate that one-tenth of something has been destroyed. There are some underlying assumptions there that I think no longer hold, such as that using a title indicates respect (you can see that that's not always true by the way the New York Times refers to murderers by title, e.g. "Mr. Manson," "Mr. Bundy," and so on), and that concomitantly failing to use a title indicates lack of respect, etc. Or that there are universals in polite behavior, regardless of social norms.
Of course some people do enjoy being irked. Indeed I think some of us have an underlying feeling that "Everything is wrong," and look for things to attach it to. One acquaintance of mine is infuriated whenever he sees a hyphen used when it properly should be an n-dash. One of my professors fulminated on every possible occasion about the use of "since" to mean "because." A friend insists that playing music in cars is a barbarian practice. And so on. Of course I have my own private opinions about which contemporary habits are egregious. I think for the sake of one's blood pressure, it's best to try to accept that things are the way they are, and in the monstrous heap of things wrong with the world, these are not really very important.
My attitude toward first names stems from this exchange in "Citizen Kane":
Walter Parks Thatcher: You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher.
Kane: You're too old to be called anything else.
Quote from: little bongo on September 14, 2023, 06:32:14 AMMy attitude toward first names stems from this exchange in "Citizen Kane":
Walter Parks Thatcher: You're too old to be calling me Mr. Thatcher.
Kane: You're too old to be called anything else.
Where I live, there's a longstanding tendency to address people of a certain age as Mr./Miss [first name.] It's understood to be the respectful way to address elders. I'm now increasingly being addressed as Mr. [first name.] Which I guess tells me something about how others are coming to perceive me as I move into late middle age. I'm fine with it.
We've all got pet linguistic peeves. I have a good number of my own that I won't get into here. I try not to let myself get annoyed at all of them, or correct people over them. Better to save that sort of thing for substantive issues where registering disagreement really matters. Contemporary society is already too full of people who scold and hector everybody in sight to want to join in their number.
I would find it weird for anyone other than an undergraduate to call me by my last name, and even with them I don't really care. Then again, I do originate from the Wild West.
The older I get, the less I can if someone uses "Dr." or "Professor". Just show up to class and pay attention.
Quote from: waterboy on September 14, 2023, 10:29:28 AMThe older I get, the less I can if someone uses "Dr." or "Professor". Just show up to class and pay attention.
I cared more as a young professor, not so much because I wanted students to show me respect, but rather because I was not that much older than them and I wanted to create distance. Now that I'm older (not old, mind you!) and tenured I don't care at all, although my department is pretty formal about these things and students rarely, if ever, call me by my first name - some staff even call me Dr. Sun_Worshiper, even when I tell them it is fine to just call me by my first name.
Students would occasionally ask me publicly, say from when I was 40, how they should address me. I never liked being addressed by my first name. So I would respond: Call me Dismalist! Just last name; no regalia.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMthe young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
You and I are within two years of the same age, and yet you remind me of my parents, both of whom were born in the 1930s. They both took issue with this particular social construct and would agree with you. Interesting.
The thing of it is, you can't enforce this anyplace but in the classroom or, if you are the boss, at the office. You cannot force someone to use a title, and you cannot force them not to "become peeved" if you don't invite them to use your first name. You have no real control over that----although, I imagine most people would honor your desire to be called "Dr. Sixteen" if you explained yourself.
Personally, I am a very informal person, and I've told my students from my first day of student teaching that I was fine if they called me by my first name----some academics resent this sort of informality in the classroom because they feel it weakens their own standing. I don't buy it, but whatever. The interesting thing is that students were comfortable calling me "Wahoo" and being basically chummy right up until I turned 40-ish, then I became "Dr. Redux" and students became much more respectful and formal. I never discuss my age with students, so it wasn't anything I said, I think it was just the natural progression that changed students' approach to me.
My advice would be to let it go. You can ask the kids to call you "Dr. Kay" or "Mr. 16," and they probably will, but things will be awkward from then on (and they will think you are "snooty"). It's just better to relax and think of anyone over the age of majority as an adult (and imagine the kids currently in the Marines or the Army Rangers---should they be diminished to calling you by a title?).
One further data point. I did a BA in the States, and all my profs were "Dr. Smith" or "Professor Smith." Then I went to do a second BA and subsequently a PhD at Oxbridge. There all my profs were "Malcolm" and "Jane" and so on to grad and undergrad alike.
Old man yells at cloud. Film at 11. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ-LivK4-78&ab_channel=Aquatron8)
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMSo am I getting old? [....] I am 55[....]
To be honest, I am somewhat surprised by how
young you are. I had envisioned you as being at least 70, based on this and previous posts. I think rather than old, you are actually old-fashioned. I do not mean this in a judgemental way--although I tend not to share many of your (in my view) somewhat stodgy perspectives of social interaction.
I admit I have some of my own. I think it is wrong to wear white shoes after labor day. I believe that handwritten notes should be written in cursive, preferably with a fountain pen. I believe that business letters (which I only in living memory stopped writing on IBM selectric and addressing to "Dear Sirs") should be signed in blue ink. I prefer to read a newspaper in printed form. I prefer to use a car with a standard transmission. I like to write checks to pay my bills and deposit my money at with a cashier inside a bank. I still use "whom" as accusative pronoun (and know what that means). Disinterested does not mean bored but without a material interest. I like to wear a watch even though I have a cell phone. &c &c.
At the same time, I realize that social norms do change (I have learnt to use "they" as a singular pronoun) and I generally have more important stuff to do than complain that it is no longer 1995 (or 1965). I also realize that sometimes social norms change for the better (see the disuse of "Dear Sirs").
In terms of names, my general view is that, based on travel in different countries, there is a wide variety of formality, and sometimes excess formality is perceived as just as rude as informality. In Spanish, the use of "usted" can be a sign of respect, or it can be seen as a sign of disrespect, depending on the country and the person. I would not even dare to figure out how to use second and third person in French, especially with women, based on what I learnt in my one semester of French. My Dean is friend and former member of my department, and so he knows that if I am referring to him as Dr. Dean, then I am either being facetious or I am angry at some official decision he has made (or writing an official letter).
On your specific question, it seems to me that there is now a general practice that anybody from about mid 20s through 60s (that is, from university graduation age through retirement age) is on a first-name basis in a professional situation except perhaps in formal situations. How to talk to children and elderly people depends on your relationship with them. I would not complain to anybody for a lack of respect, because that seems to be the quickest way to loose whatever respect you still have.
I find it jarring when someone with whom I'm not familiar uses my first name. But then again, I don't really like the sound of my first name itself. "It's not even a real name," according to one popular sitcom.
That said, most people struggle to pronounce my last name. They've likely never encountered someone with it either. So I assume that anyone who uses my first name decides to do so because they're afraid of mispronouncing my last name into something vulgar.
Quote from: RatGuy on September 15, 2023, 05:54:13 AMI find it jarring when someone with whom I'm not familiar uses my first name. But then again, I don't really like the sound of my first name itself. "It's not even a real name," according to one popular sitcom.
That said, most people struggle to pronounce my last name. They've likely never encountered someone with it either. So I assume that anyone who uses my first name decides to do so because they're afraid of mispronouncing my last name into something vulgar.
Sounds awkward.
That's the nice thing about having a first and last name that are both very common. There's little question on people's part about how your names are pronounced. The down side is that there are lots of others that have your exact name, and you may occasionally be confused with them. I have on a couple of occasions had to prove to officialdom that I was not somebody with the same name
and date of birth who was in trouble with the law in another state!
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMSo am I getting old? I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students? Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
I'm older than you, and I rarely use Honorific-LastName to refer to anyone. Maybe in some unique circumstances? My doctor, the college president, some high-ranking political official...
I taught business where first names are very common in the office, even with high-level people. So I had students address me by my first name so they could get used to it. And, because by the time I started teaching as a 30-something I had never been addressed as Miss, Mrs, Ms or anything of the sort. Some preferred to use my last name and that was fine.
We did have a raging debate a few years ago at my Community College Academic Senate. Because we are a CC, depending on the field, faculty come from a range of academic backgrounds, from AA/AS degrees to PhDs. As a Senate it was agreed years ago to not use academic titles in a theme of egalitarianism.
Several women of color objected when a set of minutes was amended by a white man (a PhD himself) to remove "Doctor" from their names when he noticed the lack of consistency with standard practice. I know him and genuinely believe he wasn't thinking about gender/racial lines, just "oops, we don't usually do this."
They were upset because they had earned those titles, and needed them in the working world to be accorded the social and professional respect that didn't come naturally to women of color. Still, others with Master's degrees and below felt a bit dissed, that their contributions would not be as respected if some got to be called "Doctor X" and everyone else was just "X."
Not sure how it was finally settled. I think it was agreed that everyone could choose how they were noted in the roster and minutes. We had a "Ms Bob" who had served in years past and she was the only one who had an honorific... and all was okay with that.
As for me, having an EdD, I feel rather diffident about using my academic title. Yeah, I know, it's not a "real" PhD and 2 of my sisters are MDs.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMSo am I getting old? I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students? Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
Sounds like you should move to Germany. Everyone is Frau or Herr last name there, or Doktor Frau / Herr last name. In Canada, I've always been called by my first name, by clerks, secretaries, physicians, professors, colleagues, subordinates, peers, superiors, etc. It was so weird in Germany, after my PhD was completed, my family physician told me I could address him by his first name, and he could address me by mine, whereas before he was Doktor Lastname or Herr Doktor and I was Frau Mylastname.
Quote from: MarathonRunner on September 15, 2023, 07:50:10 PMQuote from: kaysixteen on September 13, 2023, 10:34:28 PMSo am I getting old? I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students? Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.
Sounds like you should move to Germany. Everyone is Frau or Herr last name there, or Doktor Frau / Herr last name. In Canada, I've always been called by my first name, by clerks, secretaries, physicians, professors, colleagues, subordinates, peers, superiors, etc. It was so weird in Germany, after my PhD was completed, my family physician told me I could address him by his first name, and he could address me by mine, whereas before he was Doktor Lastname or Herr Doktor and I was Frau Mylastname.
Or Japan. Honorifics are the norm there, even within families. Only quite close friends call each other by given name with no honorific such as -san, -chan, or -kun. And people only use the latter two honorifics on those that most Americans would be fine with addressing on a first-name basis.
Two spaces after the period, damnit.
Call me Ishmael.
I'm over 65, so I'm a bit older than Kay. I'd prefer undergrads use Dr. or Professor, but I've never corrected anyone who uses Mr. or Secundem. I would feel arrogant. Other faculty, staff, trades people at the house, dental hygienists, pharmacy clerks, etc. - Secundem is fine.
The only other time I get Dr. is from other faculty when we occasionally pass each other in the hallway and greet each other with How are you Dr. Artem? Fine Dr. Scientist, how are you? And those greetings are done firmly tongue in cheek.
Kay, I think you are fighting a lost cause. What Tim Gunn from Project Runway used to refer to as "the ongoing slobification of America."
Thanks to all-- random observations:
1) Last week, two separate doc practices had secretaries call me up and leave needed messages, one addressing me as 'Mr. Sixteen', and the other'Kay'. I do not make MDs call me 'doctor', of course, and am really cognizant of just how difficult a relationship many MDs obviously have with PhD patients, but I confess openly that I never want to be addressed as 'Kay' by receptionists. It is infantilizing, and this is just not an issue I am willing to surrender my *thinking* on (I never actually correct one who is speaking with me and does address me as 'Kay', however, just admitting only to looking at her in such a way as to hopefully induce her to consider that her attitude is inappropriate.
2) It goes without saying that I have no plans ever to let students so address me, either. And them I will correct.
3) About 6 years ago I hired a professional career counselor (retired business prof who was close to 70 then) and paid him a boatload of money to help me bring my resume and cover letters up to post-80s modern standards (it surprised me how different he thought this was), and one of the things he got me to do was dump 'Dear Sir' (feminist academics had already gotten me to dump 'Dear Madam' in the 00s). I guess I saw his point, and of course I did it, but dagnabbit, I myself like being addressed as 'sir' (which, interestingly, I get addressed as much more often at WM nowadays than I did when I started there, in '06), and it surprised me that the the biz professor thought doing so would perhaps offend some male cover letter recipients. When I get job related correspondence sent to me, I admit I cannot recall when the last time 'Sir' appeared, and usually it comes just as 'Dear Kay', sometimes with nickname versions of my name, and sometimes I get letters addressed to 'Dear Kay Sixteen', which do look as though they had been written by bill collectors. Who thinks this is professional, let alone polite?
Just curious, Kay (not trying to get you to surrender anything), is the differential job title?
If, for instance, you ran into a vice president of the AAA auto club, could they call you "Kay?"
Or a district manager at MetLife, for instance---what could they call you?
Would you give your "look" to you mechanic? A bartender? A police officer?
Again, just curious about the demarcation between address and infantilization?
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 18, 2023, 05:15:39 PM3) About 6 years ago I hired a professional career counselor (retired business prof who was close to 70 then) and paid him a boatload of money to help me bring my resume and cover letters up to post-80s modern standards (it surprised me how different he thought this was), and one of the things he got me to do was dump 'Dear Sir' (feminist academics had already gotten me to dump 'Dear Madam' in the 00s). I guess I saw his point, and of course I did it, but dagnabbit, I myself like being addressed as 'sir' (which, interestingly, I get addressed as much more often at WM nowadays than I did when I started there, in '06), and it surprised me that the the biz professor thought doing so would perhaps offend some male cover letter recipients. When I get job related correspondence sent to me, I admit I cannot recall when the last time 'Sir' appeared, and usually it comes just as 'Dear Kay', sometimes with nickname versions of my name, and sometimes I get letters addressed to 'Dear Kay Sixteen', which do look as though they had been written by bill collectors. Who thinks this is professional, let alone polite?
Some thoughts:
I was taught: when writing somebody whose name you know, you address this person by title last name (Dr. Smith, Mr. Jones, Ms. Adams) and end the letter, Yours, Sincerely. You only write a letter to Dear Sir (or Dear Sir or Madam, or To Whom it May Concern) if you did not know the name of the person you were writing (and end the letter, Yours, Faithfully). (In either case, you sign with a blue fountain pen.) Hence, writing "Dear Sir" to somebody whose name you know is, well, a sign of disrespect. The only time it is appropriate to use Sir to refer to somebody whose name you know is when you are writing somebody who has been knighted, in which case the correct form is to use Sir First name. I have not written many letters to knights, however, so there may be more protocol involved than I remember.
You may be called "sir" now at Walmart more than 16 years ago because you look older and "sir" in contemporary usage is often a polite way of saying old person.(Or people are afraid of your facial tattoos and do not want to upset you.)
I actually have trouble remembering the last time I have had any real correspondence sent to me that was not a bill or a letter from the IRS. I cannot recall ever getting a letter in response to a job application directed to "Dear Sir". The last written letter, on department stationary, that I got in response to a job application was at least a decade ago. Since my name was known to the person writing (since I applied for the job), I usually got addressed as Dear Dr. Jay, or Dear Professor Jay. In fact the last time I got any correspondence addressed to "Dear Sir" was when I was living in Britain, more than 20 years ago. And these were usually not welcome letters.
I admit I still do recall the lessons in letter-writing in the 4th grade, in an (admittedly tony) Boston suburb, back in 1976, and for anything that would be classed as properly to be within the 'business' letter category, 'Dear Sir', 'Dear Madam', or 'Dear Sir or Madam', was mandatory. As to whether to expect that some stranger I met in a nonprofessional context addresses me with a title or 'Sir', I admit as well that this is largely a function of a) the age of the speaker, and/or b) the role of the speaker. IOW, if you are a 20yo doc office receptionist, just because you know my first name is 'Kay', you do not get to use it.
Key, I and many others have said this before, and I'll say it just once more, out of care for a fellow human who seems to be experiencing a lot of unnecessary suffering of his own creation:
Social norms change. They always have and always will. You can go through life, as you apparently are, in a perpetual state of being aggrieved and offended by that. Or you can choose to let it go and focus on more important things. What might change for you if you chose to let your grievances go? What moments of positive connection with other people might you find? What opportunities might it open for you? You only have one life, why spend it consumed with things like this?
I suspect many if not most of you would adjust to my life circumstances no better, and in most cases much worse, than I have. The life of a satisfied college professor, happily ensconced in a community and a job where you would simply never have to encounter and regularly experience that which I deal with essentially daily, are essentially in different universes. I do not want to brag about myself, but I think I have dealt with these things as best as possible.
That does not mean I have to like these trends, no. Nor will I. I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for you, Kay my man, if you are offended by a 20-yo office receptionist using your first name. I mean, come on---you and I are the same age. You did not grow up on a manor in Edwardian England. We live in a society that prides itself on egalitarianism (in theory and politico-speak, anyway); the receptionist is simply using our current norms. However, as always, you do you. You're gonna be upset more than you should, but hey, live your beliefs---you've more or less said you're going to suffer umbrage anyway (so why are you asking for our opinions?).
For the record, I worked several late shifts at convenience stores when I was younger, and I dealt with the dregs of society and drunken yuppies on a nightly basis, a couple of incidents actually resulting in me physically escorting unwanted patrons from the premises and in one instance an actual brawl. I also hauled sheetrock with several of the hardest individuals I have even known, both ex-cons, who had, shall we say, interesting opinions about life. So, again, I am a little hesitant to feel too sorry for you having to deal with people sporting tattoos.
But this was an interesting question:
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
I suppose I would speak to the student privately and ask them to at least cover the tattoos while in class, and I would probably speak to my chair and inform them that I have a potentially problematic situation in the classroom. However, I am not sure I would do much else. Our current culture wars have almost anyone who has a really repugnant viewpoint screaming about their First Amendment rights----and they are probably right. I am not sure that there is anything that CAN be done about a kid with offensive tattoos.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
I've encountered these tats, and others far more offensive, Every. Single. Semester. since I've been teaching (i.e., Fall 1997). My approach is to respectfully ask all students on the first day of class to dress and present themselves in a professional manner, including dressing and speaking in ways so as not to offend or to embarrass themselves or others, and to cover up any ink that others might find offensive. (The ones with those tats know exactly who they are and what the tats in question are and why they offend; it's often why they got them in the first place.)
My general rule is:
if you wouldn't want your granny or your 4-year-old niece or nephew to see or hear it, we don't need to see or hear it either, so cover it up or knock it off. I've yet to have any student give me more than token resistance to that or continue to display such things in my classrooms. (Baseball caps, sweatshirts, and such can cover a lot; students also do a pretty good job of calling each other out when needed.) If problems persist, I deal with them calmly, one-on-one: I hear the student out, explain my position, and while we can agree to disagree, the classroom is not the place to get into a war of wills.
There are so many more important things to focus on in this life than somebody's tattoos, clothes, or how they address me. If I go through life looking for things to be offended by, I'll never run out of grievances, but what a miserable way to live.
Well, I won't go as far as to "feel sorry" for K16--pretty sure he wouldn't want that, anyway. And my personal feelings about how I'm addressed (or not addressed) don't jibe with his. However, I think I understand what he will and won't put up with--his situation (roughly speaking--K16 can correct me if I'm off), that is, preparing for an academic life, succeeding in obtaining terminal degrees and other necessary certifications, and then winding up in a place where you have to say "Pardon me [sir or ma'am]" to the customer with the questionable symbols shaved into their hair and clean up the drug paraphernalia, blood, and vomit from the rest rooms... that really could have happened to any of us. (Could still happen to me sometime after I turn 60 and possibly get retrenched or decommissioned or made redundant.) It's a situation you have to meet and accept in one way or another, and K16 has found his way. "Miserable" or not, I think we all search for some sort of meaning and dignity in our lot. Sometimes that's a simple as a "Mr." or a "Dr." when a younger person addresses us.
Quote from: little bongo on September 29, 2023, 09:51:14 AMpreparing for an academic life, succeeding in obtaining terminal degrees and other necessary certifications, and then winding up in a place where you have to say "Pardon me [sir or ma'am]".... It's a situation you have to meet and accept in one way or another, and K16 has found his way. "Miserable" or not, I think we all search for some sort of meaning and dignity in our lot.
This is me, man, the boat I find myself in. I'm dreading starting over and have the excuse that I am doing final edits on some creative writing and working as I post on a book contract for a monograph----but soon enough I can no longer use these as excuses.
I get my friend K16.
I do, however, gently suggest that the world will never meet our ideological beliefs, that is the route to madness.
I agree that writing "Dear Sir" when you know the person's name is peculiar and not following the rules. If you know their name, you should always use their name. Otherwise it looks as if you are trying to imitate a form letter.
The use of "Sir" and "Mr." and so on is really about demarcating status, isn't it? That's why Kay (or Mr. Sixteen, or Sir) would like a receptionist (lower in status) to address him as "Mr. Sixteen," but the doctor (equal or higher status) can call him "Kay."
The other former model was about how well you knew the person — kind of like the use of "vous" and "tu" in French. So friends could call say "Kay," but, say, business acquaintances would say "Mr. Sixteen." I don't think this one has been in force since the 1930s or so.
The advantages of sticking to an outdated system is that one can claim the moral high ground and victim status at the same time. "I'm only doing what's right, and people criticize me for it!" Thus I knew a guy in England who insisted on referring to all modern prices in guineas and shillings. He was very proud of sticking to what's "traditional and right," and took umbrage at those who rolled their eyes. And of course those who feel they are not accorded the respect they deserve will tend to insist on being addressed by a title, however much the modern age has moved on. I remember a duchess in a documentary complaining that online drop-down forms (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., etc.) rarely included an option suitable for a duchess. The Oxbridge drop-down menus do still include those, along with "Lord High" and "HRH" and a lot of other very amusing options.
Quote from: AmLitHist on September 28, 2023, 01:55:21 PMQuote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
I've encountered these tats, and others far more offensive, Every. Single. Semester. since I've been teaching (i.e., Fall 1997). My approach is to respectfully ask all students on the first day of class to dress and present themselves in a professional manner, including dressing and speaking in ways so as not to offend or to embarrass themselves or others, and to cover up any ink that others might find offensive. (The ones with those tats know exactly who they are and what the tats in question are and why they offend; it's often why they got them in the first place.)
My general rule is: if you wouldn't want your granny or your 4-year-old niece or nephew to see or hear it, we don't need to see or hear it either, so cover it up or knock it off. I've yet to have any student give me more than token resistance to that or continue to display such things in my classrooms. (Baseball caps, sweatshirts, and such can cover a lot; students also do a pretty good job of calling each other out when needed.) If problems persist, I deal with them calmly, one-on-one: I hear the student out, explain my position, and while we can agree to disagree, the classroom is not the place to get into a war of wills.
There are so many more important things to focus on in this life than somebody's tattoos, clothes, or how they address me. If I go through life looking for things to be offended by, I'll never run out of grievances, but what a miserable way to live.
Huh, I can't say this is something I've ever had to deal with. I mean I'm not examining student tattoos closely, but I've never noticed anything that's a problem.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI suspect many if not most of you would adjust to my life circumstances no better, and in most cases much worse, than I have. The life of a satisfied college professor, happily ensconced in a community and a job where you would simply never have to encounter and regularly experience that which I deal with essentially daily, are essentially in different universes. I do not want to brag about myself, but I think I have dealt with these things as best as possible.
I have to say I do not understand this. It appears to be a non sequitur. From what I understand from this, KaySixteen is unhappy with his life circumstances. Without knowing the details, all I can say is fair enough, and sincerely wish that things work out better for him. However, I do not see what this has to do with being addressed by his first name by receptionists. While it may be true that I live in a different universe than KaySixteen, I have known people who have experienced truly horrible life circumstances--deaths, illnesses, redundancies, jail time, divorces, you name it--and nobody has insisted on following an outdated social norm because of this. I am not a religious person, but I do like the underlying theme of the serenity prayer, and I hope I have the wisdom to know that I cannot change social norms regarding names.
On the other hand, people of once-elevated circumstances who experience a loss of status do often insist on people following outdated social norms because it constructs a fiction of not having lost status. I am not sure if this is the case with Kay Sixteen, though.
I sincerely get that it is annoying that people do stuff that you were raised to believe is
maleducato. I honestly believe that the world would be a better place if people still wrote in cursive using fountain pens. And I miss getting letters in the mail. And I think that a suit is sometimes better than "business casual." But I also realize that life is what it is and there is no percentage in wishing I lived 100 years. (And I also realize that there are many good things that have come in the last 100 years.)
I also note that sometimes signs of respect can also be signs of, well, less respect. I recently witnessed a mother and her young child. For most of the time, the mother addressed her child with the informal "tú". When the child started throwing a tantrum, she switched to the formal "usted" in chastising the child. Another person I know does this with their spouse--using the formal sense when they are angry. My point is that being referred to as "mister" can mean many things, not all of them positive.
QuoteThat does not mean I have to like these trends, no. Nor will I. I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
Again, I find this a non sequitur. Perhaps KaySixteen believes that every day, in every way, things are getting worse and worse. In which case the conflation of having a receptionist use his first name is and an apparent Nazis in his class makes sense. Otherwise, I do not see what one has to do with each other--using Christian names is the camel's nose, leading to Nazi students? If the tattooed student referred to him as Professor Sixteen, would that be better? I just don't understand the conflation.
I have had several debates on this forum with Dr. Sixteen, and this goes much deeper than names. It seems he was raised in a very traditional and religious setting and wants to impose his moral values and standards on society across the board.
To me, it seems he has somehow travelled through time from 1800's puritan USA and is struggling to adjust to the future, ranging from names, LGBT rights, racial interactions, drug policy, and even technology (see the cable thread).
I can see how it would be hard being raised with such values and trying to navigate the outside world, but you can't expect the world to bend to your culture. It would make for a tough go.
Quote from: jerseyjay on September 29, 2023, 06:11:57 PMI sincerely get that it is annoying that people do stuff that you were raised to believe is maleducato. I honestly believe that the world would be a better place if people still wrote in cursive using fountain pens. And I miss getting letters in the mail. And I think that a suit is sometimes better than "business casual." But I also realize that life is what it is and there is no percentage in wishing I lived 100 years. (And I also realize that there are many good things that have come in the last 100 years.)
These are also all examples of things that you could do if you wanted to, but which would be bizarre to expect others to do. You can send letters in the mail, in cursive, written with a fountain pen. I often wear a coat and tie to class, because I think it's flattering on me, I enjoy wearing tailored clothes and it makes me feel good. (Also men's sport coats have so many pockets!) These things might make us seem old fashioned, but at best it will come across as charming, and at worst nobody cares.
What doesn't really work is being angry and taking personal offense that other people aren't doing these things. If Kay wants to call students by honorifics, he can go ahead and do so. If I'm being honest, I do think the casualization of America is a bad thing, I do judge people who show up at airports in their pajamas and I think there are a lot of people out there who aren't doing themselves any favors with how they dress. However, these are the kind of boring opinions, I bore friends and family members with till they lose patience and tell me to stop. I don't take it as a sign of personal disrespect when students wear workout clothes to class or get angry that tenure track colleagues don't dress as formally as I do.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI suspect many if not most of you would adjust to my life circumstances no better, and in most cases much worse, than I have. The life of a satisfied college professor, happily ensconced in a community and a job where you would simply never have to encounter and regularly experience that which I deal with essentially daily, are essentially in different universes. I do not want to brag about myself, but I think I have dealt with these things as best as possible.
That does not mean I have to like these trends, no. Nor will I. I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
This week, one of my staff members attended the trial of a man who shot and killed her brother-in-law. The victim had been a likeable man, generous, and a good father in an intact family. However, he had experienced severe injuries that left him with ongoing pain and trauma that doctors tried to handle with heavy medication. The medication affected his mind in a way that caused him to have highly uncharacteristic borderline psychotic episodes. It was during one of these episodes that he physically attacked a man who happened to be carrying a concealed weapon.
The man who shot him was a youth with no previous criminal record. He was a member of a gun-toting culture who panicked and killed somebody under severe but not life-threatening stress. The jury should have considered this a major set of mitigating factors. Instead they put him away for 45 years. Most relatives of a shooting victim would have been pleased at such a severe verdict. But my staff member, and some others in the family, feel that the sentence was unduly harsh. They are deeply compassionate and sad for this youth who shot and killed one of their own kin. Their stance reminds me of the Amish community some years back who publicly forgave the school shooter who murdered their community's children, and backed that statement up by assisting the murderer's family.
They are able to have forgiving attitudes like this because they have a New Testament Christian understanding of God's grace. They understand that we're not a society of victims and perpetrators--I am a victim, you are a perpetrator--but, rather, a whole society of perpetrators who have sinned against God. Part of accepting God's grace by following Jesus to receive forgiveness of our sins involves recognizing that from that point on our lives must be about passing on God's grace. Which allowing Jesus to transform our lives will enable us to do.
I'm saying all this to say that this New Testament Christian grace is
not compatible with holding gnawing grudges over the sort of pet peeves and disappointments that we all have. God's grace in our lives should enable us to let these sorts of things go. It may be a challenge, but we can
and must do it. I've found in my own case that learning to live like this is very freeing, and makes life much better.
Quote from: apl68 on September 30, 2023, 07:02:18 AMQuote from: kaysixteen on September 27, 2023, 05:59:53 PMI suspect many if not most of you would adjust to my life circumstances no better, and in most cases much worse, than I have. The life of a satisfied college professor, happily ensconced in a community and a job where you would simply never have to encounter and regularly experience that which I deal with essentially daily, are essentially in different universes. I do not want to brag about myself, but I think I have dealt with these things as best as possible.
That does not mean I have to like these trends, no. Nor will I. I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.
This week, one of my staff members attended the trial of a man who shot and killed her brother-in-law. The victim had been a likeable man, generous, and a good father in an intact family. However, he had experienced severe injuries that left him with ongoing pain and trauma that doctors tried to handle with heavy medication. The medication affected his mind in a way that caused him to have highly uncharacteristic borderline psychotic episodes. It was during one of these episodes that he physically attacked a man who happened to be carrying a concealed weapon.
The man who shot him was a youth with no previous criminal record. He was a member of a gun-toting culture who panicked and killed somebody under severe but not life-threatening stress. The jury should have considered this a major set of mitigating factors. Instead they put him away for 45 years. Most relatives of a shooting victim would have been pleased at such a severe verdict. But my staff member, and some others in the family, feel that the sentence was unduly harsh. They are deeply compassionate and sad for this youth who shot and killed one of their own kin. Their stance reminds me of the Amish community some years back who publicly forgave the school shooter who murdered their community's children, and backed that statement up by assisting the murderer's family.
They are able to have forgiving attitudes like this because they have a New Testament Christian understanding of God's grace. They understand that we're not a society of victims and perpetrators--I am a victim, you are a perpetrator--but, rather, a whole society of perpetrators who have sinned against God. Part of accepting God's grace by following Jesus to receive forgiveness of our sins involves recognizing that from that point on our lives must be about passing on God's grace. Which allowing Jesus to transform our lives will enable us to do.
I'm saying all this to say that this New Testament Christian grace is not compatible with holding gnawing grudges over the sort of pet peeves and disappointments that we all have. God's grace in our lives should enable us to let these sorts of things go. It may be a challenge, but we can and must do it. I've found in my own case that learning to live like this is very freeing, and makes life much better.
This.
Quote from: Kron3007 on September 30, 2023, 05:54:03 AMI have had several debates on this forum with Dr. Sixteen, and this goes much deeper than names. It seems he was raised in a very traditional and religious setting and wants to impose his moral values and standards on society across the board.
To me, it seems he has somehow travelled through time from 1800's puritan USA and is struggling to adjust to the future, ranging from names, LGBT rights, racial interactions, drug policy, and even technology (see the cable thread).
I can see how it would be hard being raised with such values and trying to navigate the outside world, but you can't expect the world to bend to your culture. It would make for a tough go.
I tend to get embroiled here and elsewhere with "conservative" people, and I realized one day that it was because I grew up in one of those nurturing households with old-school conservative parents born in the '30s who were beautifully honest, generous, gentle, and terribly judgmental, and most of all, they were perpetually irritated and outraged by the facts of an evolving Western culture.
Hair, rock'n'roll, TV, driving, clothes, jewelry (particularly on boys), language, outlook, careers, college majors, the military, staying up at night, Democrats, homosexuality, obesity, body parts showing, and yup, being referred to by their first names outside their peer group. One of the first things my father said when meeting the woman who would become my wife was "We will not hire anybody with a tattoo." It was a complete non sequitur since neither my wife nor I have tattoos; it was just something that had been galvanizing him as more and more people were sporting ink. He also did the same thing when meeting my friends after I defended my master's thesis. My mother was upset one night at a Chinese buffet when her 6 and 8-year-old granddaughters bought lick-on tattoos from a gum-ball machine (mom also objected to them learning to belly-dance because it was not dignified and it was "sexual"). Once at a symphony orchestra concert, my father in a full business suit looked over the crowd and complained, "No one dresses up any more." And the anecdotes can go on.
I guess the point is exactly what Kron says above. People sometimes conflate their subjective viewpoints of ephemeral social conventions, often which were inculcated during childhood, with fixed ethics and aesthetics. These folks will spend their lives resentfully telling everyone about their personal judgments----powerlessly, as it turns out.
I'm all for the casualization and slobification of Western culture. If jammies are comfortable, particularly on an airplane, why not wear them? Casualization makes dressing up cool again. And slobification means we can relax, show off our new ink, and comfortably address each other in any respectful manner we choose.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 30, 2023, 07:39:17 PMQuote from: Kron3007 on September 30, 2023, 05:54:03 AMI have had several debates on this forum with Dr. Sixteen, and this goes much deeper than names. It seems he was raised in a very traditional and religious setting and wants to impose his moral values and standards on society across the board.
To me, it seems he has somehow travelled through time from 1800's puritan USA and is struggling to adjust to the future, ranging from names, LGBT rights, racial interactions, drug policy, and even technology (see the cable thread).
I can see how it would be hard being raised with such values and trying to navigate the outside world, but you can't expect the world to bend to your culture. It would make for a tough go.
I tend to get embroiled here and elsewhere with "conservative" people, and I realized one day that it was because I grew up in one of those nurturing households with old-school conservative parents born in the '30s who were beautifully honest, generous, gentle, and terribly judgmental, and most of all, they were perpetually irritated and outraged by the facts of an evolving Western culture.
Hair, rock'n'roll, TV, driving, clothes, jewelry (particularly on boys), language, outlook, careers, college majors, the military, staying up at night, Democrats, homosexuality, obesity, body parts showing, and yup, being referred to by their first names outside their peer group. One of the first things my father said when meeting the woman who would become my wife was "We will not hire anybody with a tattoo." It was a complete non sequitur since neither my wife nor I have tattoos; it was just something that had been galvanizing him as more and more people were sporting ink. He also did the same thing when meeting my friends after I defended my master's thesis. My mother was upset one night at a Chinese buffet when her 6 and 8-year-old granddaughters bought lick-on tattoos from a gum-ball machine (mom also objected to them learning to belly-dance because it was not dignified and it was "sexual"). Once at a symphony orchestra concert, my father in a full business suit looked over the crowd and complained, "No one dresses up any more." And the anecdotes can go on.
I guess the point is exactly what Kron says above. People sometimes conflate their subjective viewpoints of ephemeral social conventions, often which were inculcated during childhood, with fixed ethics and aesthetics. These folks will spend their lives resentfully telling everyone about their personal judgments----powerlessly, as it turns out.
I'm all for the casualization and slobification of Western culture. If jammies are comfortable, particularly on an airplane, why not wear them? Casualization makes dressing up cool again. And slobification means we can relax, show off our new ink, and comfortably address each other in any respectful manner we choose.
I think as we age many of us are in a similar boat on this. My father was all about "clothes make the man", and had all sorts of old fashioned views (don't get me started about immigrants...). It would not have been ok to address adults by their first name unless they were very familiar. He was a product of his times.
However, I am impressed with how much my father's views have evolved over the years, and I feel he is much happier for it. I'm sure he still thinks you should dress to impress and that tattoos have gone too far (he has one, but was a navy guy). I agree there is a time and place for that, but don't know that the airport is one.
As I devolve into an old man I too think some trends are silly or stupid, like the jogging pants that are baggy, but tight around the ankles that were popular a few years ago (really?). The difference, is that while I think they are stupid looking, I don't care that half my grad students wore them, as long as they don't make me. So, instead of getting peeved, I have a chuckle.
I had someone contact me the other day about research collaboration and addressed me as "bro". Dr. Sixteen and I agree that this is not the right way to address someone in this situation, but where I had a laugh, he would have gone red in the face.
A laugh is good for the soul, going red in the face is not good for anything.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 30, 2023, 07:39:17 PM.
I'm all for the casualization and slobification of Western culture. If jammies are comfortable, particularly on an airplane, why not wear them? Casualization makes dressing up cool again. And slobification means we can relax, show off our new ink, and comfortably address each other in any respectful manner we choose.
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 01, 2023, 04:26:29 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on September 30, 2023, 07:39:17 PMQuote from: Kron3007 on September 30, 2023, 05:54:03 AMI have had several debates on this forum with Dr. Sixteen, and this goes much deeper than names. It seems he was raised in a very traditional and religious setting and wants to impose his moral values and standards on society across the board.
To me, it seems he has somehow travelled through time from 1800's puritan USA and is struggling to adjust to the future, ranging from names, LGBT rights, racial interactions, drug policy, and even technology (see the cable thread).
I can see how it would be hard being raised with such values and trying to navigate the outside world, but you can't expect the world to bend to your culture. It would make for a tough go.
I tend to get embroiled here and elsewhere with "conservative" people, and I realized one day that it was because I grew up in one of those nurturing households with old-school conservative parents born in the '30s who were beautifully honest, generous, gentle, and terribly judgmental, and most of all, they were perpetually irritated and outraged by the facts of an evolving Western culture.
Hair, rock'n'roll, TV, driving, clothes, jewelry (particularly on boys), language, outlook, careers, college majors, the military, staying up at night, Democrats, homosexuality, obesity, body parts showing, and yup, being referred to by their first names outside their peer group. One of the first things my father said when meeting the woman who would become my wife was "We will not hire anybody with a tattoo." It was a complete non sequitur since neither my wife nor I have tattoos; it was just something that had been galvanizing him as more and more people were sporting ink. He also did the same thing when meeting my friends after I defended my master's thesis. My mother was upset one night at a Chinese buffet when her 6 and 8-year-old granddaughters bought lick-on tattoos from a gum-ball machine (mom also objected to them learning to belly-dance because it was not dignified and it was "sexual"). Once at a symphony orchestra concert, my father in a full business suit looked over the crowd and complained, "No one dresses up any more." And the anecdotes can go on.
I guess the point is exactly what Kron says above. People sometimes conflate their subjective viewpoints of ephemeral social conventions, often which were inculcated during childhood, with fixed ethics and aesthetics. These folks will spend their lives resentfully telling everyone about their personal judgments----powerlessly, as it turns out.
I'm all for the casualization and slobification of Western culture. If jammies are comfortable, particularly on an airplane, why not wear them? Casualization makes dressing up cool again. And slobification means we can relax, show off our new ink, and comfortably address each other in any respectful manner we choose.
I think as we age many of us are in a similar boat on this. My father was all about "clothes make the man", and had all sorts of old fashioned views (don't get me started about immigrants...). It would not have been ok to address adults by their first name unless they were very familiar. He was a product of his times.
However, I am impressed with how much my father's views have evolved over the years, and I feel he is much happier for it. I'm sure he still thinks you should dress to impress and that tattoos have gone too far (he has one, but was a navy guy). I agree there is a time and place for that, but don't know that the airport is one.
As I devolve into an old man I too think some trends are silly or stupid, like the jogging pants that are baggy, but tight around the ankles that were popular a few years ago (really?). The difference, is that while I think they are stupid looking, I don't care that half my grad students wore them, as long as they don't make me. So, instead of getting peeved, I have a chuckle.
I had someone contact me the other day about research collaboration and addressed me as "bro". Dr. Sixteen and I agree that this is not the right way to address someone in this situation, but where I had a laugh, he would have gone red in the face.
A laugh is good for the soul, going red in the face is not good for anything.
Yeah, I agree. Usually, when I find myself judging other people, it's because I think their choices reflect on me and they are judging me. I decided I liked wearing a coat and tie to teach and spent some time trying to find things that I thought looked nice and doing it made me feel good. Great, but then I felt self conscious because most instructors don't wear ties and I worried that people thought I was putting on airs or being weird. I felt like I had to justify my choices (internally, I wasn't saying any of this out loud to anyone at work) which I then did by creating a narrative about everyone else being a lazy slob.
I can't pretend I'm totally over this, but I recognize now that it's all sort of pointless. Nobody is actually judging me-I'm wearing a coat and tie, not a Darth Vader suit. If anything, I should be happy to be in a profession where I can just wear what I want and everyone else can too.
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 01, 2023, 04:26:29 AMAs I devolve into an old man I too think some trends are silly or stupid, like the jogging pants that are baggy, but tight around the ankles that were popular a few years ago (really?).
Fashion fads are always stupid. It is really amusing to watch my 15-y.o. nephew revolve through the brief fads of his local peer group----soap, energy drinks, sweatpants, and video games. He was greatly offended when I pointed out that his new hairstyle (which evolved from a Justin Bieber-inspired mop to a plain old curly down-the-back-and-over-the-bangs mop) that he would have been a good hippie kid. Oh no! Not the hippies!!! Next time I saw him, he had cut his hair.
Part of getting old is realizing how stupid your own fashion choices were back in the day. It amuses me endlessly that "the mullet" is coming back into fashion. I'm waiting for Day Glow, Mtv, and Bubblicious to reconstitute.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 01, 2023, 03:52:33 PMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 01, 2023, 04:26:29 AMAs I devolve into an old man I too think some trends are silly or stupid, like the jogging pants that are baggy, but tight around the ankles that were popular a few years ago (really?).
Fashion fads are always stupid. It is really amusing to watch my 15-y.o. nephew revolve through the brief fads of his local peer group----soap, energy drinks, sweatpants, and video games. He was greatly offended when I pointed out that his new hairstyle (which evolved from a Justin Bieber-inspired mop to a plain old curly down-the-back-and-over-the-bangs mop) that he would have been a good hippie kid. Oh no! Not the hippies!!! Next time I saw him, he had cut his hair.
Part of getting old is realizing how stupid your own fashion choices were back in the day. It amuses me endlessly that "the mullet" is coming back into fashion. I'm waiting for Day Glow, Mtv, and Bubblicious to reconstitute.
Yes, I was not innocent when I was young, speaking of mullets....
Apparently belly shirts for guys is a thing again too. I heard it on the radio, but then had a few sightings at a music festival this summer. That is one thing I didn't think would return.
It's not uncommon for people in their 40s and 50s to prefer being addressed by their titles, especially in more traditional or hierarchical cultures. Personal preferences for addressing and being addressed can vary widely among individuals. Ultimately, it comes down to personal comfort and mutual respect in how people choose to address each other.
Quote from: masonjones5711 on October 03, 2023, 10:03:40 PMIt's not uncommon for people in their 40s and 50s to prefer being addressed by their titles, especially in more traditional or hierarchical cultures. Personal preferences for addressing and being addressed can vary widely among individuals. Ultimately, it comes down to personal comfort and mutual respect in how people choose to address each other.
I have found that often younger professors prefer to be called by their honorifics so as to distinguish themselves further from their students, when they are often not that far from in age or appearance. In addition, as you mention, in certain cultures (i.e., a medical school campus), use of honorifics by students when addressing professors publicly or in formal communication, is mandated.
My own personal belief is that is it tiring with all the "Dr. You", "Dr. Them", "Dr. Who" all the time. In the basic sciences we are often more informal, and I offer that my grad students (those doing research in the lab) can call me by my first name, but it is still "Dr. Bio-Nonymous". But culture and setting obviously makes a difference...
When I was still in the classroom, I tried, tried, to get my students to use "Your Majesty," but somehow they (and my chair) never got with that program.
My students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
I've said before that I'm now increasingly known as Mr. <first name,> which around here means I'm now regarded as old enough to be considered an elder. Here many people, including younger ones, still use what I was taught in my youth to regard as the polite terms of address. What's taking some getting used to is hearing them applied to me! Fifteen years ago I was still occasionally being mistaken for a teenager. Now I guess I look my age. Shrug.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 04, 2023, 08:13:35 PMMy students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
You don't strike me as the Lizard King type. Now Para, on the other hand....
Quote from: apl68 on October 05, 2023, 08:05:36 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 04, 2023, 08:13:35 PMMy students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
You don't strike me as the Lizard King type. Now Para, on the other hand....
Would you believe..."Mighty Dragon Master?"
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 04, 2023, 08:13:35 PMMy students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
Perhaps you remind them that people are strange?
Quote from: jimbogumbo on October 05, 2023, 10:41:59 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 04, 2023, 08:13:35 PMMy students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
Perhaps you remind them that people are strange?
Well now THAT is probably true, actually.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 05, 2023, 02:17:44 PMQuote from: jimbogumbo on October 05, 2023, 10:41:59 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 04, 2023, 08:13:35 PMMy students called me Lizard King. I don't know why.
Perhaps you remind them that people are strange?
Well now THAT is probably true, actually.
Or maybe they are lizards? And you are their king?
Pretty awesome though, your reptilian Majesty. Makes me think of the old TV show V, which was kind of awesome.
I apologize for not having kept this up, but I have been sick.
I would ask this question, of those, esp wahoo, who advocate unfettered casualization or even 'slobification' of our society, exactly how much is too much, and what if any standards of personal accoutrement and social address/ interaction, should be maintained? And who gets to choose-- if I think calling me 'Kay' is disrespectful and wearing a 'f*ck you' t-shirt is unacceptable, and you do not...?
Sorry you were sick, man, I hope it was the common cold and not something more serious.
I can't imagine why you want to know specifically what I think, but I don't know, really. We need basic sanitation for practical purposes, and presumably people will wear more clothes when it is cold and fewer clothes when it is warm. Anything else? Well, sumo fashion is perfectly decorous (https://thejapans.org/2013/06/12/sumo-fashion/) in context of the sport. And uncontacted tribes (https://explorersweb.com/exploration-mysteries-north-sentinel-island/) seem to be able to handle near-nudity without losing their minds as we tend to do. I do not have any idea how their kids refer to their elders, however.
Remember that everything you and I and anyone else thinks is "decent" or "appropriate" or "decorous" or "right" is an entirely random construct. So anything that upsets you is entirely a product of your imagination.
I really don't care what are on other people's T-shirts.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 11, 2023, 06:05:32 PMRemember that everything you and I and anyone else thinks is "decent" or "appropriate" or "decorous" or "right" is an entirely random construct. So anything that upsets you is entirely a product of your imagination.
Well, that's kind of true of everything, I think--including what we choose to invest in emotionally. To paraphrase Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," what if reality is just a collective hunch?
So who decides? Whose turf is it--that's pretty much what it boils down to. When it's your name, or how you're addressed, that's your turf. Other aspects of dress and self-expression tend to be a bit less cut and dried. If you're the teacher in a class, you get to decide. If you're both visitors in a library, you might need to disapprove silently and move along.
Quote from: little bongo on October 12, 2023, 11:02:24 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 11, 2023, 06:05:32 PMRemember that everything you and I and anyone else thinks is "decent" or "appropriate" or "decorous" or "right" is an entirely random construct. So anything that upsets you is entirely a product of your imagination.
Well, that's kind of true of everything, I think--including what we choose to invest in emotionally. To paraphrase Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," what if reality is just a collective hunch?
So who decides? Whose turf is it--that's pretty much what it boils down to. When it's your name, or how you're addressed, that's your turf. Other aspects of dress and self-expression tend to be a bit less cut and dried. If you're the teacher in a class, you get to decide. If you're both visitors in a library, you might need to disapprove silently and move along.
All things are true above.
Everything but essential life functions are an evolution of someone's random choices and seem real only in our imaginations. According to "Modern Tie" (https://moderntie.com/blogs/news/the-history-and-evolution-of-mens-neckties) this is the origin of the necktie:
QuoteEarly ties hardly resemble the modern tie today as we know it. We can thank Croatians for the necktie, but the French made it the fashion staple it is today. The origin of the necktie can be traced back to the 17th Century, during the 30 Years' War (1618-1648). The French hired Croatian mercenaries who wore traditional knotted neckerchiefs around their necks as part of their uniform. This held the top of their jackets together and was more practical than stiff collars.
Towards the end of the war, Croatian soldiers were being presented to French King Louis XIV. During his inspection, the king noticed these neckerchiefs and took a strong liking to them. The boy-king began wearing these himself around 1846, at just seven years old, according to the Dubrovnik Times. He named the early neckties "La Cravate,'' after the Croatians who invented the fashion piece and is still the French word for necktie today. The king made cravats a mandatory accessory at royal gatherings. With the king and other nobility wearing cravats, the new fashion trend caught on like a wildfire across Europe.
I'd always heard that business ties were invented to cover the buttons on button-down shirts because buttons were indecorous, like having your underwear show. I don't know which is true. Either way, the business tie is a random accoutrement developed by a random historical occurrence, yet they are considered an important, even necessary accessory, and not wearing a tie to a formal interview can nix a job offer.
The same is true of how one is addressed. I tend to think these random conventions should be beneath our considerations...even as I follow them.
Mind you, I would never insult Kay if he asked me to call him "Dr. Sixteen." I understand that what is important to me might not be to someone else, and vice-versa.
I thought the purpose of a tie was to collect soup or mustard at the dinner table. Lord knows that's all mine ever do - on the vanishingly few occasions I actually wear one.
The question of "who decides" for these kinds of issues is an interesting one. I mean, who decided today was Thursday?? Nobody asked me. How do we know there's not another whole number between 6 and 7?
Yet somehow, we collectively come to the decision that using first names is generally OK in most circumstances (unlike the Germans), that tattoos are no longer a big deal to most people (unlike my grandparents), that same sex relationships are of no more interest than those in different sex relationships (unlike some religious belief systems), etc.
If if you don't agree with these kinds of collective decisions, you're pretty much left to deal with it on your own.
You are right to acknowledge that social conventions end up deciding what is acceptable and unacceptable in any given society, and that these change over time. It is also true that in an enormous *and enormously diverse* country such as the USA there will be 'changes' that unambiguously are not accepted by all, and indeed certain avant garde or otherwise rarified/ distinctive subgroups may well change faster than other more traditional elements in society, even though those latter traditionalists may well be numerically superior, esp in, like it or not, areas of the country outside of the comparatively few areas dominated by the change agents. So those change agents do not get to simply assert: 'we have changed, deal with it'. Nor get offended when the traditionalists say: 'tough patooties, we ain't changin'.' And of course there is the related question of how to figure out how to deal with any given person, in the sense that if you decide that I have the right to be addressed as I wish, and you as you wish, how does either one of us know what the other's preferences here are? This of course is another piece of evidence suggestive of some sort of overarching cultural standard that would allow each of us to assume a priori how to address the other, unless specific instructions/ evidence to the contrary are given.
I am also still going to push back on the idea that anyone realistically is going to say he does not mind if someone wears a 'f*ck you sh*thead' shirt in public. You may well say you would not care, would not differentiate your response to this person upon such a sight, but, despite your doubtlessly motivated by progressive sympathies notion, methinks that, ultimately, you are lying to yourself.
Wahoo, thanks for your kind words. Sadly my illness is no cold. I am struggling with fairly severe anemia, with various bloodtest numbers very low, and immense and growing fatigue, sadly exacerbated by pretty bad fall allergies. There are adjacent health issues as well, and I have several doc appts next week during which anemia treatments will be undertaken-- I am hopeful to be able to return to work in about ten days or so.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 12, 2023, 05:53:15 PMSo those change agents do not get to simply assert: 'we have changed, deal with it'. Nor get offended when the traditionalists say: 'tough patooties, we ain't changin'.'
Yeah, buddy, I'm afraid they do on both counts. It's in the Constitution. Numerical numbers have nothing really to do with it----and I don't think my position is terribly avant garde at all. I think the numericals are actually the inverse of what you are suggesting.
QuoteAnd of course there is the related question of how to figure out how to deal with any given person, in the sense that if you decide that I have the right to be addressed as I wish, and you as you wish, how does either one of us know what the other's preferences here are?
You have to hash it out. I used to ask my students if they had a particular way they wanted to be addressed----nicknames, diminutives (ex. "Freddy" for "Frederick"), etc.----and I apologized when I got it wrong.
But I don't think personal address is a "right," simply a common courtesy that most people will voluntarily observe.
QuoteThis of course is another piece of evidence suggestive of some sort of overarching cultural standard that would allow each of us to assume a priori how to address the other, unless specific instructions/ evidence to the contrary are given.
There is a cultural standard. It is shifting.
QuoteI am also still going to push back on the idea that anyone realistically is going to say he does not mind if someone wears a 'f*ck you sh*thead' shirt in public. You may well say you would not care, would not differentiate your response to this person upon such a sight, but, despite your doubtlessly motivated by progressive sympathies notion, methinks that, ultimately, you are lying to yourself.
I was only speaking for myself. Other people would indeed be offended by an obscene insult on a T-shirt. I might be offended by a T-shirt degrading women or a racist or fascist T-shirt.
I am just not sure there is very much I could do about it except complain to management if I were someplace like a mall or a Barnes & Nobels. I suppose I could punch someone, but they would probably punch me back and/or I would be arrested.
Sometimes we have to accept what other people do, say, and think, even if we hates it, hates it, hates it.
I'm really sorry to hear about your health concerns. I am dealing seriously for the first time in my life with potentially dangerous hypertension. Getting old sucks. You will be in my thoughts and prayers. And I will celebrate when you get better!!!
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 12, 2023, 11:48:17 AMQuote from: little bongo on October 12, 2023, 11:02:24 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 11, 2023, 06:05:32 PMRemember that everything you and I and anyone else thinks is "decent" or "appropriate" or "decorous" or "right" is an entirely random construct. So anything that upsets you is entirely a product of your imagination.
Well, that's kind of true of everything, I think--including what we choose to invest in emotionally. To paraphrase Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," what if reality is just a collective hunch?
So who decides? Whose turf is it--that's pretty much what it boils down to. When it's your name, or how you're addressed, that's your turf. Other aspects of dress and self-expression tend to be a bit less cut and dried. If you're the teacher in a class, you get to decide. If you're both visitors in a library, you might need to disapprove silently and move along.
All things are true above.
Everything but essential life functions are an evolution of someone's random choices and seem real only in our imaginations. According to "Modern Tie" (https://moderntie.com/blogs/news/the-history-and-evolution-of-mens-neckties) this is the origin of the necktie:
QuoteEarly ties hardly resemble the modern tie today as we know it. We can thank Croatians for the necktie, but the French made it the fashion staple it is today. The origin of the necktie can be traced back to the 17th Century, during the 30 Years' War (1618-1648). The French hired Croatian mercenaries who wore traditional knotted neckerchiefs around their necks as part of their uniform. This held the top of their jackets together and was more practical than stiff collars.
Towards the end of the war, Croatian soldiers were being presented to French King Louis XIV. During his inspection, the king noticed these neckerchiefs and took a strong liking to them. The boy-king began wearing these himself around 1846, at just seven years old, according to the Dubrovnik Times. He named the early neckties "La Cravate,'' after the Croatians who invented the fashion piece and is still the French word for necktie today. The king made cravats a mandatory accessory at royal gatherings. With the king and other nobility wearing cravats, the new fashion trend caught on like a wildfire across Europe.
I'd always heard that business ties were invented to cover the buttons on button-down shirts because buttons were indecorous, like having your underwear show. I don't know which is true. Either way, the business tie is a random accoutrement developed by a random historical occurrence, yet they are considered an important, even necessary accessory, and not wearing a tie to a formal interview can nix a job offer.
The same is true of how one is addressed. I tend to think these random conventions should be beneath our considerations...even as I follow them.
Mind you, I would never insult Kay if he asked me to call him "Dr. Sixteen." I understand that what is important to me might not be to someone else, and vice-versa.
Regardless of their origins, ties do draw the eye down which makes most men look taller and thinner when combined with a jacket. I don't like wearing a coat without a tie because I feel like it looks like my shirt is balooning out. Of course, the idea that men should want to look taller and thinner is a cultural construct...
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 12, 2023, 07:04:21 PMQuote from: kaysixteen on October 12, 2023, 05:53:15 PMSo those change agents do not get to simply assert: 'we have changed, deal with it'. Nor get offended when the traditionalists say: 'tough patooties, we ain't changin'.'
Yeah, buddy, I'm afraid they do on both counts. It's in the Constitution. Numerical numbers have nothing really to do with it----and I don't think my position is terribly avant garde at all. I think the numericals are actually the inverse of what you are suggesting.
QuoteAnd of course there is the related question of how to figure out how to deal with any given person, in the sense that if you decide that I have the right to be addressed as I wish, and you as you wish, how does either one of us know what the other's preferences here are?
You have to hash it out. I used to ask my students if they had a particular way they wanted to be addressed----nicknames, diminutives (ex. "Freddy" for "Frederick"), etc.----and I apologized when I got it wrong.
But I don't think personal address is a "right," simply a common courtesy that most people will voluntarily observe.
QuoteThis of course is another piece of evidence suggestive of some sort of overarching cultural standard that would allow each of us to assume a priori how to address the other, unless specific instructions/ evidence to the contrary are given.
There is a cultural standard. It is shifting.
QuoteI am also still going to push back on the idea that anyone realistically is going to say he does not mind if someone wears a 'f*ck you sh*thead' shirt in public. You may well say you would not care, would not differentiate your response to this person upon such a sight, but, despite your doubtlessly motivated by progressive sympathies notion, methinks that, ultimately, you are lying to yourself.
I was only speaking for myself. Other people would indeed be offended by an obscene insult on a T-shirt. I might be offended by a T-shirt degrading women or a racist or fascist T-shirt.
I am just not sure there is very much I could do about it except complain to management if I were someplace like a mall or a Barnes & Nobels. I suppose I could punch someone, but they would probably punch me back and/or I would be arrested.
Sometimes we have to accept what other people do, say, and think, even if we hates it, hates it, hates it.
I'm really sorry to hear about your health concerns. I am dealing seriously for the first time in my life with potentially dangerous hypertension. Getting old sucks. You will be in my thoughts and prayers. And I will celebrate when you get better!!!
The irony is that people wearing an obviously offensive shirt are doi g so to get a rise out of people, and taking offense to it simply accomplishes their goal. As they say, don't feed the troll.
As mentioned, we all have the right to dress and communicate as we see fit, just as we all have the right to take offense to what others wear and how they act.
There really isn't a right or wrong, at least withing the limits of freedom of expression etc. This is obviously quite gray, but also clear that using formal address or not, does not violate it.
In the end, you only have control over how you act and how you respond to others. You can take offense to other people's life choices, or not. Living in a world of constant offense seems stressful.
I like to think we are allowed to express ourselves, dress, act and speak in whatever manner we so choose in this country (USA), with the caveat that you will need to deal with the consequences. Social mores determine what is appropriate in given situations, and yes they are constantly evolving. It is certainly up to you if you want to wear a "F*$# You" t-shirt to your arraignment hearing, but the CONSEQUENCES of that action are also on you.
In my personal life I try my best to ignore "boorish" or ignorant behavior by others and not get distracted and uptight over stuff--I leaned long ago that I am not the world's policeman and do not need to right all wrongs and address all slights... This doesn't always succeed when, for one example, I am trapped behind someone going 15 mph under the speed limit!
In my part of the country it is still customary for younger people to refer to older adult males as "Sir" and females as "Ma'am". When I first started getting called sir I was a bit flustered, since it meant I was "OLD" now. But now I have come to accept it as just another part of life that doesn't really matter much in the long run.
Sir??? People do address me as Sir from time to time. I usually ask them to desist, otherwise I would start believing it!
I get the idea of being willing to accept the social, etc., consequences of poor personal expression choices, but this should not be the be-all and end-all of the discussion. Put simply, as I have mentioned here before, all rights do not devolve on individuals-- society has some rights. Consider the following:
1) I am a middle aged fat white Gentile dude. What if, otoh, I were a 30yo black or Jewish female professor, and Joe Punkass Undergrad shows up with a swastika shirt? Would I then have the right to assert that his doing so created an unbearably hostile work environment for me?
2) Regardless of ethnicity or religion of onlookers, could the campus, retail store, etc, simply decide that there were certain forms of personal expression too dangerous or offensive to allow? If Dumbass Troll shows up with a 'Kill all the Jews' t-shirt, must his presence therewith be accepted?
3) There remains a role for societal norms and conventions. We are not tribal people in the jungle. Sumo wrestlers, further, however much they are cultural icons in Japan, do not wear their sumo suits on the Tokyo subway.
4) In all cases, further, the onus is absolutely on those who would try to induce folks in society to accept radical changes in mores, etc., to demonstrate why they should be able to do so, and, failing that, to allow, without whining or self-righteous boasting, the traditionalists to continue to do as they have always done, always been taught to do. This is especially the case when the changers are young, puffed up with their own post-adolescent 'wisdom' and self-importance.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 14, 2023, 05:53:08 PMI get the idea of being willing to accept the social, etc., consequences of poor personal expression choices, but this should not be the be-all and end-all of the discussion. Put simply, as I have mentioned here before, all rights do not devolve on individuals-- society has some rights. Consider the following:
1) I am a middle aged fat white Gentile dude. What if, otoh, I were a 30yo black or Jewish female professor, and Joe Punkass Undergrad shows up with a swastika shirt? Would I then have the right to assert that his doing so created an unbearably hostile work environment for me?
Yes, I think we have agreed on this. To begin with, a workplace has rules of conduct.
Quote2) Regardless of ethnicity or religion of onlookers, could the campus, retail store, etc, simply decide that there were certain forms of personal expression too dangerous or offensive to allow? If Dumbass Troll shows up with a 'Kill all the Jews' t-shirt, must his presence therewith be accepted?
Yes. Again, workplace.
Quote3) There remains a role for societal norms and conventions. We are not tribal people in the jungle. Sumo wrestlers, further, however much they are cultural icons in Japan, do not wear their sumo suits on the Tokyo subway.
I believe I said "in context of the sport." But if sumo wrestlers wore their athletic accoutrements on the subway, would anyone object?
Quote4) In all cases, further, the onus is absolutely on those who would try to induce folks in society to accept radical changes in mores, etc., to demonstrate why they should be able to do so, and, failing that, to allow, without whining or self-righteous boasting, the traditionalists to continue to do as they have always done, always been taught to do.
There is an essential disconnect, failure of comprehension, or refusal to comprehend here.
The traditionalists may do as they like within the boundaries of the law. If you were taught to behave a particular way, go for it. That has never been in contention. The traditionalists need not accept anything. The traditionalists can be mad about anything they like. Note that they can't force the non-trads to be traditionalists without the voluntary buy-in of the non-trads. But live the way you want to live.
The non-trads do not have to live the way the traditionalists live, however. And if this bothers the traditionalists, that is the bad luck of the traditionalists. The world does not revolve around traditionalists, no matter how firmly they believe it should.
QuoteThis is especially the case when the changers are young, puffed up with their own post-adolescent 'wisdom' and self-importance.
You kids get off my lawn!!!
Are you not getting the respect you think you deserve, Dr. K?
Sorry, man, the changers can do whatever they want, even if that drives you nuts.
If you are waiting for the changers to ask for your permission, you're gonna be waiting a long, long while, my friend, and there is nothing you can do about it.
I think it's worth asking what satisfaction you get from disapproving of the way people do things. If you're not getting satisfaction from feeling this way, you could try not minding, and that would make you feel better. But if you already like feeling this way, then it's all good.
I do not take pleasure in this, and nothing I have said should reasonably be interpreted this way. But I do believe what I say, and think society loses many things when it adopts this 'slobification'/ no respect for elders, etc., attitude. And I believe my views are biblical.
Some years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 16, 2023, 07:06:06 PMI do not take pleasure in this, and nothing I have said should reasonably be interpreted this way. But I do believe what I say, and think society loses many things when it adopts this 'slobification'/ no respect for elders, etc., attitude. And I believe my views are biblical.
Some years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
The hubris of using Christianity to judge others, the irony is palpable. Isn't that the opposite of biblical, it did I read a different bible?
This is a trick question since I have not read the Bible, but it definitely seems contrary to the crib notes.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 16, 2023, 07:06:06 PMI do not take pleasure in this, and nothing I have said should reasonably be interpreted this way. But I do believe what I say, and think society loses many things when it adopts this 'slobification'/ no respect for elders, etc., attitude. And I believe my views are biblical.
Some years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
"Respecting your elders" means treating people with respect and being thoughtful and mindful in one's actions. It means when your childlike impulses cause you to act out, the adults in the room are there to help you behave yourself, even when you don't feel like it... because that's what being a civilized human being is all about. It means remembering that there are other points of view and lessons learned in life, and maybe other people have something to say even if they aren't your cool friends.
Still, some "elders" aren't behaving respectably - should we tolerate that behavior? Other "elders" use that phrase as an excuse to be abusive and weaponize standing up for oneself and setting boundaries.
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 17, 2023, 05:43:09 AMQuote from: kaysixteen on October 16, 2023, 07:06:06 PMI do not take pleasure in this, and nothing I have said should reasonably be interpreted this way. But I do believe what I say, and think society loses many things when it adopts this 'slobification'/ no respect for elders, etc., attitude. And I believe my views are biblical.
Some years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
The hubris of using Christianity to judge others, the irony is palpable. Isn't that the opposite of biblical, it did I read a different bible?
This is a trick question since I have not read the Bible, but it definitely seems contrary to the crib notes.
Jesus spoke of not judging others in the sense of presuming to sit in judgement over them. Only God has that right. However, Christians
are encouraged in the New Testament to compare the behavior of themselves and others against the standards set forth in scripture. It's a way of keeping ourselves honest, and of helping to keep others honest.
If we see things in our own lives that don't measure up, we know that this is something to work on. If we see such things in the life of a professing fellow Christian, we have a responsibility--in a humble and caring manner--to point those out to help the other to work on them. Jesus' often-misquoted "take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck of dust out of your brother's eye" is about having this attitude, not a prohibition against ever having anything to say about somebody else's conduct.
All that said--we all, religious or otherwise, can fall, if we aren't careful, into the temptation to regard uncongenial behaviors, styles, customs, etc. as moral issues when they really aren't as important as all that.
Quote from: apl68 on October 17, 2023, 07:43:48 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 17, 2023, 05:43:09 AMQuote from: kaysixteen on October 16, 2023, 07:06:06 PMI do not take pleasure in this, and nothing I have said should reasonably be interpreted this way. But I do believe what I say, and think society loses many things when it adopts this 'slobification'/ no respect for elders, etc., attitude. And I believe my views are biblical.
Some years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
The hubris of using Christianity to judge others, the irony is palpable. Isn't that the opposite of biblical, it did I read a different bible?
This is a trick question since I have not read the Bible, but it definitely seems contrary to the crib notes.
Jesus spoke of not judging others in the sense of presuming to sit in judgement over them. Only God has that right. However, Christians are encouraged in the New Testament to compare the behavior of themselves and others against the standards set forth in scripture. It's a way of keeping ourselves honest, and of helping to keep others honest.
If we see things in our own lives that don't measure up, we know that this is something to work on. If we see such things in the life of a professing fellow Christian, we have a responsibility--in a humble and caring manner--to point those out to help the other to work on them. Jesus' often-misquoted "take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck of dust out of your brother's eye" is about having this attitude, not a prohibition against ever having anything to say about somebody else's conduct.
All that said--we all, religious or otherwise, can fall, if we aren't careful, into the temptation to regard uncongenial behaviors, styles, customs, etc. as moral issues when they really aren't as important as all that.
I am not going to debate the intricacies of a book I have not read, and that is often twisted by experts to support a variety of opposing conclusions, but from what I know of Jesus' message I don't think judging people based on their use of honorifics and taking offense when they dont was his intention.
Kay has also gone on about tattoos, etc., and I am pretty sure the bible explicitly states not to judge based on appearances. Again, it can probably be twisted to mean the opposite of what it actually says, but this one seems like a stretch.
The Bible does forbid tattoos though (in Leviticus; therefore it's also a rule in Jewish law).
I don't recall any discussion of calling people by their first name though. In fact, most figures in the Bible have only one name.
a
Quote from: bacardiandlime on October 17, 2023, 09:16:02 AMThe Bible does forbid tattoos though (in Leviticus; therefore it's also a rule in Jewish law).
I don't recall any discussion of calling people by their first name though. In fact, most figures in the Bible have only one name.
It forbids a lot of things that no one listens to no?
Are we also judging those wearing clothes made from two materials, or just cherry picking to fit our personal opinions?
Kron reminded me of this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIHjoT19XpE) relevant to proof-texting. (And I'm still waiting for a real-life Jed Bartlett.)
This conversation fascinates me for a number of reasons, mainly that I have seen this rather destructive dynamic at work in my own nuclear family growing up.
And my friend Dr. 16 enacts many of the same tripping points that my parents did even though he and I are both of the Mtv Generation, whether we like it or not.
The problems of Biblical cherry-picking and hypocrisy aside, what is so interesting here is the hierarchy of entitlements that some people feel at a certain age, the sense that they are owed a certain response having now crossed a subjective threshold.
And then this cherished chestnut----
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 16, 2023, 07:06:06 PMSome years back, on the old fora, we had a long-running 'mother-in-law' thread, largely started by youngish academic women who did not like that their MILS disapproved of various aspects of their lifestyle and viewpoints. Culture clashes, generation gaps, significant differences on attitudes towards religion, higher ed, etc., notwithstanding, I did try to suggest to some of these youngish DILs that, esp if they had a son, they would likely one day be MILs of DILs themselves, and, well...
----which is the ol' "you'll-understand-when-you-get-older" topos.
My first MIL from doomed marriage #1 loved me and tried very hard to ingratiate me into the family; she and I got on famously and I would embrace her today if we ran into each other at the mall. My second MIL from successful marriage #2 also loved me but had a pronounced personality disorder; nevertheless, she tried hard to make friends, which was an effort on her part, and mostly succeeded with some serious head-butting. My own parents were highly critical of wife #1, which put tremendous strain on my marriage and my relationship within my own family; my folks apologized to me when marriage #1 went down like the Hindenburg and the healing took some time. When I brought soon-to-be-wife-#2 out to meet them, my folks practically fell on their faces in their attempts to be welcoming and understanding of the new woman in the family.
The point being is that the paradigm of elder dominance, Biblical or not, doesn't necessarily work all that well. The DILs of today will hopefully learn what NOT to do from the MILs of today, and the DILs of today will therefore be better MILs of tomorrow.
Quote from: AmLitHist on October 18, 2023, 10:09:59 AMKron reminded me of this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIHjoT19XpE) relevant to proof-texting. (And I'm still waiting for a real-life Jed Bartlett.)
Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.
This also makes me think of the show Good Omens. It dosnt really look at this in particular, but still comes to mind.
I suppose I could give a lecture on the principles of proper biblical exegesis, but, well, let's try this thought experiment first:
"Prof. Kron, I know that I did not actually do the reading for class, but I know that, properly understood, the reading means...."
Now as to today's DILs learning to avoid the mistakes of their MILs for when they themselves become MILs down the line, to an extent this is true, but it is also true that, when today's DIL disagrees with MIL, it might could be that DIL is wrong, now, and should adopt MIL's advanced knowledge and wisdom. That is more likely than not, taken as a whole, to be the case.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 18, 2023, 04:37:09 PMNow as to today's DILs learning to avoid the mistakes of their MILs for when they themselves become MILs down the line, to an extent this is true, but it is also true that, when today's DIL disagrees with MIL, it might could be that DIL is wrong, now, and should adopt MIL's advanced knowledge and wisdom. That is more likely than not, taken as a whole, to be the case.
Of course. One can never say a single demographic has the market on wisdom. But no, it is not necessarily to be the case that MILs as a whole have "advance knowledge and wisdom"----not at all. There are plenty of oldsters who have screws rattling around in their heads. I've seen it.
In defense of Kron, it is hardly like the Bible is a recondite subject in the Western world. Virtually everyone knows the stories and the concepts of the scriptures.
What is interesting is how those who seek Biblical wisdom cannot or will not engage with the problem of slavery, sexism, clothing, diet, custom and ceremony from the Good Book that we as a society reject while wholeheartedly and didactically citing other scriptural doctrines that we nonbelievers should be following. There is either a swerving away from the subject or simply a pretense that these problematic passages no longer matter.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 18, 2023, 04:37:09 PMI suppose I could give a lecture on the principles of proper biblical exegesis, but, well, let's try this thought experiment first:
"Prof. Kron, I know that I did not actually do the reading for class, but I know that, properly understood, the reading means...."
Now as to today's DILs learning to avoid the mistakes of their MILs for when they themselves become MILs down the line, to an extent this is true, but it is also true that, when today's DIL disagrees with MIL, it might could be that DIL is wrong, now, and should adopt MIL's advanced knowledge and wisdom. That is more likely than not, taken as a whole, to be the case.
If Christians had not been bleating all these contradictory messages all my life you would have a good point. However, I have been extolled the virtues of Christianity all my life and judging others based on their mannerisms, dress, and appearance are not compatible with the general teachings. I have not read the Bible cover to cover, but have read enough to see the Emperor wears no clothes.
The real issue, is that even religious scholars who have indeed read the Bible, disagree on some very basic aspects. People twist it to fit their narrative.
As attributed to Ghandi, "I like your Christ, but not your Christianity.". Seems to get right to the point.
It's a fascinating conversation in many ways, but our personal investment in "right" and "wrong" runs pretty deep. And if we're using the Bible as a guide, how "biblical" do we want to be and when?
Would we be willing to sacrifice our son if God told us to, as Abraham was ready to do?
Would we offer our virgin daughters to young men who want to have gay sex, as Lot did, to prevent the gay men from so engaging? I mean, we'd be saving the gay men from hell, right, so shouldn't we have our kids take one or two for the team?
Would we curse fig trees because we are hangry, as Jesus did? (This one always puzzled me. I mean, God Jr. knew it wasn't fig season.)
The lines between exegesis and sophistry are pretty fluid--and the Bible gives us room to fill in blanks, explain away "uncomfortable" elements, and just engage in some tap-dancing as needed.
We could go even deeper into the old testament and remember that children who do not obey their elders should be stoned to death.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21:
"18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."
I am all for it. ;)
Not to mention all the animal sacrifices and bloodletting, etc.
It gets a little dark...
Quote from: bio-nonymous on October 20, 2023, 08:58:40 AMWe could go even deeper into the old testament and remember that children who do not obey their elders should be stoned to death.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21:
"18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."
I am all for it. ;)
Not to mention all the animal sacrifices and bloodletting, etc.
It gets a little dark...
Do we stone puffed-up adolescents in love with their own solipsistic wisdom who address their elders by their first names?
Well, then the issue is solved by "grace"--those "dark" parts of Old Testament law that do not apply to followers of Jesus. But man, just try to suss out when grace applies and when it doesn't--to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," present the rules to a budding biblical scholar with a bottle of aspirin. For example, Jesus gets into the issue of supposedly unclean food with his disciples, and starts a rant on eating and pooping--it's not one of His best or most logical parables (my personal interpretation is that Jesus just liked Him some shrimp).
But to bring things back (more or less) to how the issues of "first name basis" are or can be biblical, there are some general admonitions to treat elders with respect (including slaves respecting their masters, as was discussed on another thread), so yes, a younger person is encouraged (commanded?) to be deferential, even if the elder is not especially pleasant. None of this changes what has already been noted about changing social norms of course.
Quote from: little bongo on October 20, 2023, 10:15:05 AMWell, then the issue is solved by "grace"--those "dark" parts of Old Testament law that do not apply to followers of Jesus. But man, just try to suss out when grace applies and when it doesn't--to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," present the rules to a budding biblical scholar with a bottle of aspirin. For example, Jesus gets into the issue of supposedly unclean food with his disciples, and starts a rant on eating and pooping--it's not one of His best or most logical parables (my personal interpretation is that Jesus just liked Him some shrimp).
But to bring things back (more or less) to how the issues of "first name basis" are or can be biblical, there are some general admonitions to treat elders with respect (including slaves respecting their masters, as was discussed on another thread), so yes, a younger person is encouraged (commanded?) to be deferential, even if the elder is not especially pleasant. None of this changes what has already been noted about changing social norms of course.
This has to be one of the weirdest parts. Christians acknowledge that the old testament is the word of god, yet it does not apply to them? Why would God release a false document, only to go on to correct it? I would think that even a moderately competent god would be able to release a single edition without needing a rewrite.
It takes some major mental gymnastics to make this work.
Don't tell anyone: (This is just between you and me) None of it works. None of it.
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 21, 2023, 12:34:17 PMQuote from: little bongo on October 20, 2023, 10:15:05 AMWell, then the issue is solved by "grace"--those "dark" parts of Old Testament law that do not apply to followers of Jesus. But man, just try to suss out when grace applies and when it doesn't--to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," present the rules to a budding biblical scholar with a bottle of aspirin. For example, Jesus gets into the issue of supposedly unclean food with his disciples, and starts a rant on eating and pooping--it's not one of His best or most logical parables (my personal interpretation is that Jesus just liked Him some shrimp).
But to bring things back (more or less) to how the issues of "first name basis" are or can be biblical, there are some general admonitions to treat elders with respect (including slaves respecting their masters, as was discussed on another thread), so yes, a younger person is encouraged (commanded?) to be deferential, even if the elder is not especially pleasant. None of this changes what has already been noted about changing social norms of course.
This has to be one of the weirdest parts. Christians acknowledge that the old testament is the word of god, yet it does not apply to them? Why would God release a false document, only to go on to correct it? I would think that even a moderately competent god would be able to release a single edition without needing a rewrite.
It takes some major mental gymnastics to make this work.
On the off chance that there's some honest curiosity in this question, and not just invective about how "Christians are stupid and hypocritical," I'll try to answer this.
The Old Testament and New Testament are in a sense like two different courses in a major. The latter is meant to build on the former, like a prerequisite course. Broadly speaking, the Old Testament teaches that God created the Earth and its people. God has standards. People failed to meet those standards. In the Mosaic Law, God chose one specific people, Israel, and gave them a codified set of rules to follow and codified rituals to keep--which is how people have usually tried to pacify whatever divine forces they believed in.
Israel's subsequent history demonstrated that they
couldn't keep the laws. Even the Old Testament's greatest figures of faith were deeply flawed individuals who messed up a lot. Both Christians and Jews have long understood that a lot of the descriptions of the conduct of OT figures were often meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. The Old Testament in effect establishes that human beings are too fundamentally bent toward sin to fix themselves.
In the New Testament, we get the second course for the major. Jesus is born. A man who is in some way that can't really be explained both a human being and God. He taught that, since human beings couldn't fix themselves, as established by Old Testament history, they must instead rely on God to fix them. And how does God do that? By sending Jesus, who was both God and human, to suffer and die for sins that he himself did not commit. He paid the just penalty for sin so that we don't have to.
How do we gain the forgiveness of sin that Jesus offers? By admitting that we, ourselves, are sinners in the sight of God, and asking for God's forgiveness based on Jesus' sacrifice. And then devoting the rest of our lives to serving God by following Jesus' teachings. New Testament teachings preserve the essence of the Old Testament's ethics and morality, but don't insist on Mosaic Law's various ritual and dietary laws. Many early Christians who were also Jews continued to practice these laws (and some Jewish Christians still do). But Gentile Christians weren't forced to follow all of those rules. The New Testament explicitly says as much. There are no mental gymnastics about it.
So, the OT has nothing to teach us then, right? Everything valuable is in the NT?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 09:08:31 AMSo, the OT has nothing to teach us then, right? Everything valuable is in the NT?
It's probably a bit like Newtonian mechanics vs. quantum mechanics and relativity. The newer ones are more technically correct, but for many situations they give basically the same answers as the older, simpler one. Physicists who understand all of them know which situations can be adequately dealt with by the simpler one and which ones reflect situations requiring one of the newer ones.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 09:35:55 AMPhysicists who understand all of them know which situations can be adequately dealt with by the simpler one and which ones reflect situations requiring one of the newer ones.
Marshman: master of the analogy.
But you've essentially said that we are back to picking-and-choosing which Biblical laws we abide by.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 10:13:42 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 09:35:55 AMPhysicists who understand all of them know which situations can be adequately dealt with by the simpler one and which ones reflect situations requiring one of the newer ones.
Marshman: master of the analogy.
But you've essentially said that we are back to picking-and-choosing which Biblical laws we abide by.
In various countries, bodies like a Supreme Court often have to decide whether a given law violates the constitution. In other words,
moral principles (embodied in the constitution), don't automatically translate into perfect "laws". This is because the situations that occur vary widely, and so a law which may clearly embody an important moral principle in many situations may be less helpful (and possibly even counter-productive) at doing so under some very specific situations.
It's why it's common to talk about the difference between "the letter" and "the spirit" of a law.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 10:23:50 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 10:13:42 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 09:35:55 AMPhysicists who understand all of them know which situations can be adequately dealt with by the simpler one and which ones reflect situations requiring one of the newer ones.
Marshman: master of the analogy.
But you've essentially said that we are back to picking-and-choosing which Biblical laws we abide by.
In various countries, bodies like a Supreme Court often have to decide whether a given law violates the constitution. In other words, moral principles (embodied in the constitution), don't automatically translate into perfect "laws". This is because the situations that occur vary widely, and so a law which may clearly embody an important moral principle in many situations may be less helpful (and possibly even counter-productive) at doing so under some very specific situations.
It's why it's common to talk about the difference between "the letter" and "the spirit" of a law.
I think you need a title: the Apologist Analogist.
How do you determine what is the letter and what is the spirit?
I ask because
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination"
is as clearly stated as
"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse."
Which one is "letter" and which one is "spirit?"
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 11:13:27 AM"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse."
Yeah, I guess that one would be better as "Slaves, rise up and fight your masters, especially the nasty ones; take no thought for whether it will get you flogged or killed."
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 10:23:50 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 10:13:42 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 09:35:55 AMPhysicists who understand all of them know which situations can be adequately dealt with by the simpler one and which ones reflect situations requiring one of the newer ones.
Marshman: master of the analogy.
But you've essentially said that we are back to picking-and-choosing which Biblical laws we abide by.
In various countries, bodies like a Supreme Court often have to decide whether a given law violates the constitution. In other words, moral principles (embodied in the constitution), don't automatically translate into perfect "laws". This is because the situations that occur vary widely, and so a law which may clearly embody an important moral principle in many situations may be less helpful (and possibly even counter-productive) at doing so under some very specific situations.
It's why it's common to talk about the difference between "the letter" and "the spirit" of a law.
The big difference is that the constitution and all national laws were developed by humans and can be interpreted and amended as required. If you subscribe to the belief that the bible is the word of god, and it says something explicitly, how can you argue that it was not the spirit of what god intended? Talk about hubris.
Of course, the bible does contradict itself, so no matter what your beliefs are, you are forced into a weird position of discarding gods word at some point.
Quote from: apl68 on October 23, 2023, 07:46:04 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 21, 2023, 12:34:17 PMQuote from: little bongo on October 20, 2023, 10:15:05 AMWell, then the issue is solved by "grace"--those "dark" parts of Old Testament law that do not apply to followers of Jesus. But man, just try to suss out when grace applies and when it doesn't--to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," present the rules to a budding biblical scholar with a bottle of aspirin. For example, Jesus gets into the issue of supposedly unclean food with his disciples, and starts a rant on eating and pooping--it's not one of His best or most logical parables (my personal interpretation is that Jesus just liked Him some shrimp).
But to bring things back (more or less) to how the issues of "first name basis" are or can be biblical, there are some general admonitions to treat elders with respect (including slaves respecting their masters, as was discussed on another thread), so yes, a younger person is encouraged (commanded?) to be deferential, even if the elder is not especially pleasant. None of this changes what has already been noted about changing social norms of course.
This has to be one of the weirdest parts. Christians acknowledge that the old testament is the word of god, yet it does not apply to them? Why would God release a false document, only to go on to correct it? I would think that even a moderately competent god would be able to release a single edition without needing a rewrite.
It takes some major mental gymnastics to make this work.
On the off chance that there's some honest curiosity in this question, and not just invective about how "Christians are stupid and hypocritical," I'll try to answer this.
The Old Testament and New Testament are in a sense like two different courses in a major. The latter is meant to build on the former, like a prerequisite course. Broadly speaking, the Old Testament teaches that God created the Earth and its people. God has standards. People failed to meet those standards. In the Mosaic Law, God chose one specific people, Israel, and gave them a codified set of rules to follow and codified rituals to keep--which is how people have usually tried to pacify whatever divine forces they believed in.
Israel's subsequent history demonstrated that they couldn't keep the laws. Even the Old Testament's greatest figures of faith were deeply flawed individuals who messed up a lot. Both Christians and Jews have long understood that a lot of the descriptions of the conduct of OT figures were often meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. The Old Testament in effect establishes that human beings are too fundamentally bent toward sin to fix themselves.
In the New Testament, we get the second course for the major. Jesus is born. A man who is in some way that can't really be explained both a human being and God. He taught that, since human beings couldn't fix themselves, as established by Old Testament history, they must instead rely on God to fix them. And how does God do that? By sending Jesus, who was both God and human, to suffer and die for sins that he himself did not commit. He paid the just penalty for sin so that we don't have to.
How do we gain the forgiveness of sin that Jesus offers? By admitting that we, ourselves, are sinners in the sight of God, and asking for God's forgiveness based on Jesus' sacrifice. And then devoting the rest of our lives to serving God by following Jesus' teachings. New Testament teachings preserve the essence of the Old Testament's ethics and morality, but don't insist on Mosaic Law's various ritual and dietary laws. Many early Christians who were also Jews continued to practice these laws (and some Jewish Christians still do). But Gentile Christians weren't forced to follow all of those rules. The New Testament explicitly says as much. There are no mental gymnastics about it.
I am quite curious about this, but your explanation really dosn't make much sense to me. Is the old testament the word of God or not? How can you just discard the whole thing.
The deeper question in my mind though, is that god would have known we couldn't keep to those laws in advance so why did it bother with the old testament in the first place? Why make so many people suffer so much? OT god did a lot of pretty nasty things no?
It all just seems far to human.
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 23, 2023, 12:28:19 PMI am quite curious about this, but your explanation really dosn't make much sense to me. Is the old testament the word of God or not? How can you just discard the whole thing.
The deeper question in my mind though, is that god would have known we couldn't keep to those laws in advance so why did it bother with the old testament in the first place? Why make so many people suffer so much? OT god did a lot of pretty nasty things no?
It all just seems far to human.
But the Old Testament hasn't been discarded. It supplies the background to the New Testament. Read the New Testament, and you'll see that it draws a great deal from the Old Testament.
Why God presented the revelation of the Old and New Testaments across a wide stretch of history, I don't pretend to know. Why God allowed sin and evil to come into the world in the first place I don't know. What I do know is that the Bible taken as a whole diagnoses humanity's greatest problem as stemming from rebellion against God. We live in a world of humanity that is fundamentally in rebellion against God. It's because we don't want to serve God that we treat each other so badly, even though we are all made in the image of God, and are thus valuable. Along with this diagnosis, the Bible presents the solution to the problem, which is accepting Jesus' sacrifice and following him.
Jesus didn't try to force everybody to follow him. He leaves whether we do so up to us. Most don't follow Jesus' actual teachings, although many more claim to do so. To those who do follow him, Jesus gives the strength to live for him in an evil and broken world. He told his followers to follow his teachings and tell others about him until he comes back. When he does, he will put a stop to the evil of the world and restore it to what it should be. Everybody who has lived will be restored to life and judged on the basis of whether they followed Jesus or refused to do so. Those who didn't will be destroyed in a second death, and those who did will spend eternity with God.
I can't explain all of the above, or make it make sense to anybody else. I'm only responsible for telling people about it so that they can make their own decisions. And also for trying to live as the best example in life that I can be of following Jesus' teachings. Why Jesus entrusted that message and example to people who often make a botch of it, as I and my fellow Christians do, is another thing I can't explain.
I do know that I'm glad that I was given the chance to follow Jesus, and that I took it. It has made my life a lot better, and has made me into a much less fearful and self-centered person than I would have been otherwise. I've seen first-hand examples of how encounters with Jesus have made some quite radical transformations for the better of other people as well. I know of people who used to
hate each other who love each other and worship Jesus together now. I know people who love their own worst enemies enough to pray for them to come to Jesus to. It's what Jesus enables us to do. So even though I don't know the answers to all the questions, I do know that believing the Bible and following Jesus works.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 12:08:15 PMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 11:13:27 AM"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse."
Yeah, I guess that one would be better as "Slaves, rise up and fight your masters, especially the nasty ones; take no thought for whether it will get you flogged or killed."
So, God in His benevolence is protecting the slaves from further unjust punishment rather than simply telling His believers not to be slave owners?
Hmmmmm...not sure your sarcasm is making a good point there, buddy...
Quote from: apl68 on October 23, 2023, 03:33:39 PMBut the Old Testament hasn't been discarded. It supplies the background to the New Testament. Read the New Testament, and you'll see that it draws a great deal from the Old Testament.
So even though I don't know the answers to all the questions, I do know that believing the Bible and following Jesus works.
My friend, this is what I said: no one wants to deal with the indefensible parts of the Bible, there is simply a swerving away.
If one looks at history with a certain angle, it is also possible to argue that following Jesus does not work unless one negates the role of Christianity in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Nazi Holocaust, and the Branch Davidian, among many other examples.
The Bible says some things that offend 21st c secular liberals. So what's your point?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2023, 05:37:31 PMThe Bible says some things that offend 21st c secular liberals. So what's your point?
I think the point is pretty clear.
Some Christians are unable to deal directly with the inhumane contradictions found in the Bible that brings into question the rationale of the religion.
That's just exactly what you did above.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 04:50:22 PMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 23, 2023, 12:08:15 PMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 11:13:27 AM"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse."
Yeah, I guess that one would be better as "Slaves, rise up and fight your masters, especially the nasty ones; take no thought for whether it will get you flogged or killed."
So, God in His benevolence is protecting the slaves from further unjust punishment rather than simply telling His believers not to be slave owners?
Slaves and owners are two different groups of people. Whether one of them listens (or follows) moral principles cannot be assumed when advising the other. There are all kinds of laws regarding how slaves should be treated, including when they had to be released, and with what provisions.
It's fascinating how easily offended some are that instructions given to people
3000 years ago on the other side of the world don't fit our current sensibilities. How much advice given today do you think will make sense to people
3000 years in the future (and to every generation
between now and then)????
I don't pretend to understand all of the instructions in the Old Testament, but also, from reading all kinds of history, I'm aware that the world and civilization then was so vastly different in all kinds of ways that much of what we take for granted would be totally incomprehensible for people then.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 06:07:59 PMQuote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2023, 05:37:31 PMThe Bible says some things that offend 21st c secular liberals. So what's your point?
I think the point is pretty clear.
Some Christians are unable to deal directly with the inhumane contradictions found in the Bible that brings into question the rationale of the religion.
That's just exactly what you did above.
These arguments always get rather silly, mostly because people seem to think that someone woke up the 1700s and made these arguments and they have never been addressed. This is convenient, because then you just get to make really simplistic arguments to people on internet forums without any sense of shame. Usually, people who do this justify this with a belief that theology is dumb.
I'm sympathetic to this kind of thing. I sort of think much of the stuff economists say sounds made up. I could investigate this further, but to do that I'd probably have to admit that the the Micro Econ 101 I took in college combined with stuff I read in the newspaper isn't really a sufficient basis to make any particular judgements. But I don't want to spend my time learning economics because it doesn't interest me. Which is fine, I'm allowed to have lots of partially examined prejudices. However, if I don't want to seem like a doofus, I should probably not go around loudly proclaiming my half baked ideas based on straw men and a total lack of knowledge of a complicated and extensive discipline.
Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2023, 05:58:50 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 06:07:59 PMQuote from: kaysixteen on October 23, 2023, 05:37:31 PMThe Bible says some things that offend 21st c secular liberals. So what's your point?
I think the point is pretty clear.
Some Christians are unable to deal directly with the inhumane contradictions found in the Bible that brings into question the rationale of the religion.
That's just exactly what you did above.
These arguments always get rather silly, mostly because people seem to think that someone woke up the 1700s and made these arguments and they have never been addressed. This is convenient, because then you just get to make really simplistic arguments to people on internet forums without any sense of shame. Usually, people who do this justify this with a belief that theology is dumb.
I'm sympathetic to this kind of thing. I sort of think much of the stuff economists say sounds made up. I could investigate this further, but to do that I'd probably have to admit that the the Micro Econ 101 I took in college combined with stuff I read in the newspaper isn't really a sufficient basis to make any particular judgements. But I don't want to spend my time learning economics because it doesn't interest me. Which is fine, I'm allowed to have lots of partially examined prejudices. However, if I don't want to seem like a doofus, I should probably not go around loudly proclaiming my half baked ideas based on straw men and a total lack of knowledge of a complicated and extensive discipline.
Reminds me of my Fox-News loving butcher, a number of years ago, who asked me if I had been listening to Glenn Beck's take on the economy.
"No, but have you read Paul Krugman in the New York Times?"
He snorted. "Glenn Beck totally takes down Paul Krugman."
"Paul Krugman did win a Nobel Prize for Economics, so he does make some good points."
"Oh."
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 23, 2023, 04:55:29 PMQuote from: apl68 on October 23, 2023, 03:33:39 PMBut the Old Testament hasn't been discarded. It supplies the background to the New Testament. Read the New Testament, and you'll see that it draws a great deal from the Old Testament.
So even though I don't know the answers to all the questions, I do know that believing the Bible and following Jesus works.
My friend, this is what I said: no one wants to deal with the indefensible parts of the Bible, there is simply a swerving away.
If one looks at history with a certain angle, it is also possible to argue that following Jesus does not work unless one negates the role of Christianity in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Nazi Holocaust, and the Branch Davidian, among many other examples.
But were they following Jesus? Sure, they SAID that did, but their lives and actions made it pretty clear that they weren't living lives that followed Jesus' teachings. Jesus said right from the start that not everybody who claimed to follow him actually would do so. He also said that in the final judgement some would come to him saying "Didn't we follow you? Didn't we do things in your name?" And he will tell him to depart from him, he never knew them, they were workers of evil.
The "Christianity" you have in mind is a huge mass of religious traditions that invoke Jesus and the New Testament, but in most cases have very little to do with actual New Testament teaching. Somewhere in the middle of all of that have been history's actual followers of Jesus. As dismaying as the decline in religious observance is to those of us who care about it, I don't know that there are really any fewer honest-to-goodness followers of Jesus in the world than there ever have been.
Joining a church isn't that hard, if that's what you want to do. Actually living for Jesus is more of a challenge. I know people who actually do, though, and it has made all the difference in their lives.
Quote from: apl68 on October 24, 2023, 07:41:57 AMBut were they following Jesus?
I expected this response.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but they did follow Jesus. They were Christian from birth and followed their understanding of scripture as you follow your understanding. They were church members. They believed in the Trinity. They prayed and looked to the Bible for guidance----and they found passages which they believed gave them sanction to do what they did. And they felt righteous about their decisions and actions.
It's painful, I know, but there is not way to realistically say they were not Christians because, yeah, they were in the same way that the terrorists who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were Muslims----the message may have been perverted, but they were acting on religious faith, like it or not.
Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2023, 05:58:50 AMThese arguments always get rather silly, mostly because people seem to think that someone woke up the 1700s and made these arguments and they have never been addressed. This is convenient, because then you just get to make really simplistic arguments to people on internet forums without any sense of shame. Usually, people who do this justify this with a belief that theology is dumb.
I never said theology is "dumb." That is a strawman.
Where are these arguments, then? I have no doubt that they exist. But no one, the Christians included, seem to be aware of them.
I see simple avoidance.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 09:06:47 AMQuote from: apl68 on October 24, 2023, 07:41:57 AMBut were they following Jesus?
I expected this response.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but they did follow Jesus. They were Christian from birth and followed their understanding of scripture as you follow your understanding. They were church members. They believed in the Trinity. They prayed and looked to the Bible for guidance----and they found passages which they believed gave them sanction to do what they did. And they felt righteous about their decisions and actions.
It's painful, I know, but there is not way to realistically say they were not Christians because, yeah, they were in the same way that the terrorists who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were Muslims----the message may have been perverted, but they were acting on religious faith, like it or not.
In both cases, the question to be asked is whether these people were driven by "orthodox" faith, or by some flawed interpretation. Different denominations reflect the different interpretations of scripture on all kinds of things. Unless you believe that "true believers" should have some sort of personal revelation from God on every point of theology, then you shouldn't be surprised that different interpretations exist on many things. C.S. Lewis wrote
Mere Christianity as an attempt to outline the pretty common understandings about the main points of Christianity which the vast majority of Christians would agree on. He explicitly avoids issues that denominations differ on because his point is that those are secondary. (Not unimportant; just less important than the "core" beliefs.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 09:32:42 AMIn both cases, the question to be asked is whether these people were driven by "orthodox" faith, or by some flawed interpretation.
How do you know that your faith is not a flawed interpretation?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 10:09:54 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 09:32:42 AMIn both cases, the question to be asked is whether these people were driven by "orthodox" faith, or by some flawed interpretation.
How do you know that your faith is not a flawed interpretation?
No doubt it is in some ways. The point is that whether you blame "the faith" or "the individual" depends on your own interpretation of "the faith". The U.S. constitution is only a couple of
hundred years old. Were the Jan.6 protesters
upholding the constitution or
violating it?
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 10:14:56 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 10:09:54 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 09:32:42 AMIn both cases, the question to be asked is whether these people were driven by "orthodox" faith, or by some flawed interpretation.
How do you know that your faith is not a flawed interpretation?
No doubt it is in some ways. The point is that whether you blame "the faith" or "the individual" depends on your own interpretation of "the faith". The U.S. constitution is only a couple of hundred years old. Were the Jan.6 protesters upholding the constitution or violating it?
I don't know about the Constitution (I will let the experts debate if Trump violated the 14th Amendment, and it does appear that he did), but there is no question that these people were outlaws. The people who support the seditionists believe unfounded conspiracy theories and outright lies. I'd be careful trying Jan. 6th atrocities to religious faith; it may not be an analogy that sheds a good light on faith.
I think the point, Mighty Marshman, is to point out the tremendously subjective nature of the scriptures and how they can be manipulated to mean largely whatever one wants it to mean. (https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/)
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 09:06:47 AMQuote from: apl68 on October 24, 2023, 07:41:57 AMBut were they following Jesus?
I expected this response.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but they did follow Jesus. They were Christian from birth and followed their understanding of scripture as you follow your understanding. They were church members. They believed in the Trinity. They prayed and looked to the Bible for guidance----and they found passages which they believed gave them sanction to do what they did. And they felt righteous about their decisions and actions.
It's painful, I know, but there is not way to realistically say they were not Christians because, yeah, they were in the same way that the terrorists who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were Muslims----the message may have been perverted, but they were acting on religious faith, like it or not.
I can so deny that they were Christians, if a Christian is understood as
somebody who devotes his or her life to following the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Which is the definition that Jesus himself said was the only definition that ultimately mattered. Jesus said to love your enemies--the Crusaders killed them in Jesus' Name, which was no less than blasphemy. He said "My kingdom is not of this world"--the Inquisitors were part of a secular political system that provided a religious veneer to secular power, which included more of that killing people in Jesus' Name. Jesus said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself,"--but lots of professing Christians decided to follow these violent, hate-preaching, neo-pagan Nazis because they thought it would be to their worldly advantage. Jesus told his followers to beware of false messiahs who would come after him--and David Koresh was pretty much the perfect model of such a false messiah.
Sure they all "were acting on religious faith" of some kind or another. Which goes to show how trustworthy "religion" as it's usually understood is. I'm not trying to argue for the validity of a "religion," Christian or otherwise, or talk anybody into following a "religion." The hell with "religion"--it's one of the many clever creations the Devil has come up with to divert us from God.
I do practice a "religion" in the sense that I meet with other people to worship, and we have certain customs that we follow. But that's not what guides my life. It's not what has saved me from despair in this life, or gives me hope in the next. That's Jesus who does all that.
Jesus said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is life." Jesus was speaking specifically to people worn out by the religious demands of their own time, but the principle holds for anybody who has anything that weighs us down. Jesus offers rest for our souls if we follow him. Not if we "become a Christian" or "practice a religion." If we
follow him.
apl, I am not speaking of you, please understand, because I am positive you are a true, kindly Christian----our debates about lifestyles notwithstanding.
But how can you separate actions from the religion that sanctions said actions?
The apology that "[whoever] is not a true follower of Christ" is a facile and superficial response, even a cliched response.
No, theology is not dumb.
"[Whoever] is not a true follower of Christ" is, in fact, absolutely true.
And it is, simultaneously, absolute bunk.
Let's tackle the bunk first--it's the "no true Scotsman" fallacy writ about as large as a fallacy can be writ. Who are we, and who is anyone, to say that a slaver didn't look at the Bible as carefully as they could, and say, "Okay then, that cotton isn't going to pick itself" and figure they're following Jesus? That's not just the individual, and that's not just the religion, it's both, together and intertwined--which is why there's no sense trying to artificially separate them.
But now let's look at the truthful part--for the believer, for the one who has felt the presence of God, Jesus, Allah, et al., a true follower of God will follow the true path, because the relationship (or lack thereof) between the individual and the deity is extremely, entirely, and fully personal. It is indeed the most intimate relationship into which we enter. It is also why the truth we discover cannot under any circumstances be anyone else's truth. Different believers might align on a few general concepts, and even worship together in a worthwhile way, but the believers do NOT share the same truth.
THEREFORE, Marshwiggle's comment about the advice we get from 3,000 years ago from the other side of the world is quite on point--of COURSE laws from 3,000 years ago from the other side of the world are going to be horrid in many cases, while others still hold up. Of COURSE there's no way to make a totally literal reading of the Bible work in our time (if indeed there was ever a time that it could). But an individual can, and often does, make it work for themselves--that's the point of religion and faith. Sometimes, you follow a just and loving master, and it makes you a more just, loving person. Sometimes, you follow the same master, and it makes you someone who just thinks they're the only good people in the room. And sometimes, you follow the same master and say, "So I like scallops and lobster, but I think gay people suck. Can I make that work?" And that's why "this is wrong because God says so" can work for person A or person B--but not ever for everyone all at once.
P.S. The Jesus as recorded in the Bible knew that, too. See the Sermon on the Mount: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
P.P.S. Is this thread derailed?
Quote from: little bongo on October 24, 2023, 09:15:18 PMNo, theology is not dumb.
"[Whoever] is not a true follower of Christ" is, in fact, absolutely true.
And it is, simultaneously, absolute bunk.
Let's tackle the bunk first--it's the "no true Scotsman" fallacy writ about as large as a fallacy can be writ. Who are we, and who is anyone, to say that a slaver didn't look at the Bible as carefully as they could, and say, "Okay then, that cotton isn't going to pick itself" and figure they're following Jesus? That's not just the individual, and that's not just the religion, it's both, together and intertwined--which is why there's no sense trying to artificially separate them.
But now let's look at the truthful part--for the believer, for the one who has felt the presence of God, Jesus, Allah, et al., a true follower of God will follow the true path, because the relationship (or lack thereof) between the individual and the deity is extremely, entirely, and fully personal. It is indeed the most intimate relationship into which we enter. It is also why the truth we discover cannot under any circumstances be anyone else's truth. Different believers might align on a few general concepts, and even worship together in a worthwhile way, but the believers do NOT share the same truth.
THEREFORE, Marshwiggle's comment about the advice we get from 3,000 years ago from the other side of the world is quite on point--of COURSE laws from 3,000 years ago from the other side of the world are going to be horrid in many cases, while others still hold up. Of COURSE there's no way to make a totally literal reading of the Bible work in our time (if indeed there was ever a time that it could). But an individual can, and often does, make it work for themselves--that's the point of religion and faith. Sometimes, you follow a just and loving master, and it makes you a more just, loving person. Sometimes, you follow the same master, and it makes you someone who just thinks they're the only good people in the room. And sometimes, you follow the same master and say, "So I like scallops and lobster, but I think gay people suck. Can I make that work?" And that's why "this is wrong because God says so" can work for person A or person B--but not ever for everyone all at once.
P.S. The Jesus as recorded in the Bible knew that, too. See the Sermon on the Mount: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
P.P.S. Is this thread derailed?
So, the Bible is the word of god but it is flawed and you can use it as you see fit. You see the logical fallacy in this right?
Why bother with the bible at all? Can't you be a good person without it if you are dismissing and selecting the parts you want?
Back to the post, you can use the bible to either support judging people for not calling you sir, or judge the person for judging, or to say that you shouldn't judge either person.
This is one of the reasons religion seems so crazy to many of us non-religious. You are openly embracing logical contradictions. It's the word of god, but don't take it so literally, unless it is a passage I happen to agree with and anyone who interprets it differently is doing it wrong. Basically, who do you want to hate/repress/judge, we have a passage for that!
Quote from: Kron3007 on October 25, 2023, 03:13:27 AMThis is one of the reasons religion seems so crazy to many of us non-religious. You are openly embracing logical contradictions.
I promise you, that you also embrace a whole series of logical contradictions, as do we all.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 11:30:27 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 10:14:56 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 10:09:54 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2023, 09:32:42 AMIn both cases, the question to be asked is whether these people were driven by "orthodox" faith, or by some flawed interpretation.
How do you know that your faith is not a flawed interpretation?
No doubt it is in some ways. The point is that whether you blame "the faith" or "the individual" depends on your own interpretation of "the faith". The U.S. constitution is only a couple of hundred years old. Were the Jan.6 protesters upholding the constitution or violating it?
I don't know about the Constitution (I will let the experts debate if Trump violated the 14th Amendment, and it does appear that he did), but there is no question that these people were outlaws. The people who support the seditionists believe unfounded conspiracy theories and outright lies. I'd be careful trying Jan. 6th atrocities to religious faith; it may not be an analogy that sheds a good light on faith.
My point is that
no-one seems surprised that a document, written
only a couple of hundred years ago, in the
same country, in the
same language, has debates about how it should be interpreted in the present. In fact, even countries with more
recent constitutions also have Supreme Courts who
also debate how those should be interpreted, and
no-one is upset about that.
However, a document written
millenia ago, (actually, a
series of documents written over
several centuries), in a
different country and in a
different language, (again, original documents were written in
different languages), somehow cannot be taken seriously because not everyone agrees on how it should be interpreted.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:25:11 AMHowever, a document written millenia ago, (actually, a series of documents written over several centuries), in a different country and in a different language, (again, original documents were written in different languages), somehow cannot be taken seriously because not everyone agrees on how it should be interpreted.
I think any reasonable adult would agree.
But then, how can you take the Bible as the infallible Word of God?
I see a wonderful and unique mythology there, but a document you can base your faith and your life on...?
This guy has virtually the same take. (https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/there-are-no-contradictions-in-the-bible/) He's pretty brilliant, I guess (Harvard PhD in theology).
His idea is that
QuoteThe "contradictions" in the Bible aren't contradictions, for the Bible does not reflect the "perfectly consistent mind of God," but the diversity of time and place of the writers.
Okay.
He does not have a place to leave comments, but I would ask him the same question: if the Bible is just the history of religious perception, how can it be "holy." And, BTW, that does nothing to eliminate the contradictions in the Bible or the aspects we reject; his explanation simply provides a context, as does yours, which makes the Bible sound like...a book, not The Good Book.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 25, 2023, 05:43:21 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:25:11 AMHowever, a document written millenia ago, (actually, a series of documents written over several centuries), in a different country and in a different language, (again, original documents were written in different languages), somehow cannot be taken seriously because not everyone agrees on how it should be interpreted.
I think any reasonable adult would agree.
But then, how can you take the Bible as the infallible Word of God?
I see a wonderful and unique mythology there, but a document you can base your faith and your life on...?
This guy has virtually the same take. (https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/there-are-no-contradictions-in-the-bible/) He's pretty brilliant, I guess (Harvard PhD in theology).
His idea is that
QuoteThe "contradictions" in the Bible aren't contradictions, for the Bible does not reflect the "perfectly consistent mind of God," but the diversity of time and place of the writers.
Okay.
He does not have a place to leave comments, but I would ask him the same question: if the Bible is just the history of religious perception, how can it be "holy." And, BTW, that does nothing to eliminate the contradictions in the Bible or the aspects we reject; his explanation simply provides a context, as does yours, which makes the Bible sound like...a book, not The Good Book.
His take is pretty good. He's summarized things better than me (so that Harvard PhD obviously had some value).
As he alludes to, if the "purpose" of the Bible is to give absolutely clear answers to every moral question for all time, it's a horrible failure. If it's "purpose" is to give us a window on the ongoing development of the relationship between God and humanity, it gives tons of insight.
Were the framers of the Constitution failures because there are still debates about how it applies to issues today? Should it be replaced with some newer document every generation or two because the "lived experience" of people has changed from that of the people who wrote it? Is the broadened interpretation of "All men are created equal" a
rejection of the ideas of the framers, (who, as has often been pointed out, owned slaves), or is it a
deeper understanding of the idea, which the framers themselves would no doubt embrace
if they were living now?
he role of Christianity in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Nazi Holocaust, and the Branch Davidian, among many other examples.
[/quote]
This is a very weird collection of examples. I mean ok, crusades, inquisition are pretty standard and I see the logic. But the other two examples are weird.
Nazism was pretty anti christian in its outlook and most of its leaders wanted to undermine and eventually destroy it in Germany. In the meantime they settled for trying to coopt it. Individual christians in Germany responded to this in a variety of ways. Some enthusiastically joined in, many others disapproved quietly, and a small number resisted, mostly paying for it with their lives. This included groups like the White Rose, a group of religious protestant teenagers who learned what was happening, decided they had to do something and distributed pamphlets denouncing the regime. Almost all of them were murdered by the regime. You could say various things about all of this, but it doesn't seem to fit with the first two examples.
The Branch Dravidians are even odder in this context. It was a tiny break away sect of the seventh day adventists which was taken over by David Koresh. Koresh's relationship with Christianity before the Branch Davidians was quite shallow-he converted and belonged to a church briefly in his early 20s before being thrown out after claiming a divine revelation that he should marry the pastor's 14 year old daughter. Blaming "Christianity" for Koresh is like blaming the 1960s counter culture for Charles Manson.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:56:28 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 25, 2023, 05:43:21 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:25:11 AMHowever, a document written millenia ago, (actually, a series of documents written over several centuries), in a different country and in a different language, (again, original documents were written in different languages), somehow cannot be taken seriously because not everyone agrees on how it should be interpreted.
I think any reasonable adult would agree.
But then, how can you take the Bible as the infallible Word of God?
I see a wonderful and unique mythology there, but a document you can base your faith and your life on...?
This guy has virtually the same take. (https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/there-are-no-contradictions-in-the-bible/) He's pretty brilliant, I guess (Harvard PhD in theology).
His idea is that
QuoteThe "contradictions" in the Bible aren't contradictions, for the Bible does not reflect the "perfectly consistent mind of God," but the diversity of time and place of the writers.
Okay.
He does not have a place to leave comments, but I would ask him the same question: if the Bible is just the history of religious perception, how can it be "holy." And, BTW, that does nothing to eliminate the contradictions in the Bible or the aspects we reject; his explanation simply provides a context, as does yours, which makes the Bible sound like...a book, not The Good Book.
His take is pretty good. He's summarized things better than me (so that Harvard PhD obviously had some value).
As he alludes to, if the "purpose" of the Bible is to give absolutely clear answers to every moral question for all time, it's a horrible failure. If it's "purpose" is to give us a window on the ongoing development of the relationship between God and humanity, it gives tons of insight.
Were the framers of the Constitution failures because there are still debates about how it applies to issues today? Should it be replaced with some newer document every generation or two because the "lived experience" of people has changed from that of the people who wrote it? Is the broadened interpretation of "All men are created equal" a rejection of the ideas of the framers, (who, as has often been pointed out, owned slaves), or is it a deeper understanding of the idea, which the framers themselves would no doubt embrace if they were living now?
You keep trying to compare the constitution to the bible.
However, the constitution was written by people and there is no reason to believe it cant be changed over time. In fact, there is a process baked in to amend it recognizing this fact (hence why there are amendments).
In contrast, most people view the bible as being the word of god, or inspired by god in some fashion and the idea of amending it is unheard of, even though it sounds like the new testament is an amended version, and there are various versions of the bible that were amended by various people. However, the thought of altering biblical text would not fly well with most Christians, even though the current version is not the original, one of the many contradictions I suppose.
Really, this comparison is apples and oranges.
Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2023, 03:41:22 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 25, 2023, 03:13:27 AMThis is one of the reasons religion seems so crazy to many of us non-religious. You are openly embracing logical contradictions.
I promise you, that you also embrace a whole series of logical contradictions, as do we all.
Perhaps this is true, but there are degrees of logical fallacy and Christians are on a whole other level.
I am a little curious of the series of logical contradictions you assume I subscribe to though. I suppose the main difference is that if you explain the contradiction to me I am likely to alter my world view accordingly, whereas Christians just drop the old F-bomb (faith) and soldier on.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:56:28 AMHis take is pretty good. He's summarized things better than me (so that Harvard PhD obviously had some value).
As he alludes to, if the "purpose" of the Bible is to give absolutely clear answers to every moral question for all time, it's a horrible failure. If it's "purpose" is to give us a window on the ongoing development of the relationship between God and humanity, it gives tons of insight.
I'm not making my point clear.
We are used to Christians using the Bible as a tool. This tool is meant to batter our thinking into its proper shape. We have had debates on this very Fora in which Biblical prohibitions against certain sexual practices were used as debate points. But when faced with the obvious problems with Biblical claims (ex. "slavery") and exegesis (ex. homosexuality) and our modern zeitgeist, well, then suddenly we cannot hold the Bible to its Word because, you know, those people were thinking different than we are, and the Bible is open to interpretation anyway...
You can't have it both ways, my friend. Either the Bible is the Word of God which we are to follow or you have a very interesting mythology which offers some hints on how to live and a great many things we throw away.
And the vagueness of the Constitution is a big problem. But again, these are human agents, not God, so that is not a very good analogy.
Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2023, 03:41:22 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 25, 2023, 03:13:27 AMThis is one of the reasons religion seems so crazy to many of us non-religious. You are openly embracing logical contradictions.
I promise you, that you also embrace a whole series of logical contradictions, as do we all.
That's a fair point. Logic's a useful tool to help us get through life on a day-to-day basis. But like all systems of human thought, it has its limitations. There's no such thing as a life of absolutely perfect logic. People who try to maintain an absolute logical consistency in all their actions have a history of losing their minds. That's part of why I'm okay with not knowing and understanding everything that has to do with God or why God does or allows this or that. I'm prepared to recognize that there are things above my pay grade--above
all of our pay grades.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 03:39:33 PMapl, I am not speaking of you, please understand, because I am positive you are a true, kindly Christian----our debates about lifestyles notwithstanding.
But how can you separate actions from the religion that sanctions said actions?
The apology that "[whoever] is not a true follower of Christ" is a facile and superficial response, even a cliched response.
I guess I don't understand why that's so facile or superficial a response. To me, it only makes sense. I mean, if I am in a position of authority (or am trying to be) and tell somebody to do something, and they say that they'll follow my orders, but then
go and do something completely different from what I tell them, then how can they be considered my "follower?" They might say they are, might even be recognized as somebody taking orders from me, but in practice they aren't. Professed Christians who don't actually make a point of practicing what Jesus says aren't actually following Jesus. And Jesus said that such people aren't actually his followers.
Anyway, that's the best I know how to explain it. I'm honestly not trying to debate anything here. I'm just trying to explain what I believe. I can't make somebody accept it.
Quote from: Caracal on October 25, 2023, 06:14:48 AMThis is a very weird collection of examples. I mean ok, crusades, inquisition are pretty standard and I see the logic. But the other two examples are weird.
Nazism was pretty anti christian in its outlook and most of its leaders wanted to undermine and eventually destroy it in Germany. In the meantime they settled for trying to coopt it. Individual christians in Germany responded to this in a variety of ways. Some enthusiastically joined in, many others disapproved quietly, and a small number resisted, mostly paying for it with their lives. This included groups like the White Rose, a group of religious protestant teenagers who learned what was happening, decided they had to do something and distributed pamphlets denouncing the regime. Almost all of them were murdered by the regime. You could say various things about all of this, but it doesn't seem to fit with the first two examples.
In other words, the Nazis were Christians. The leadership may have wanted absolute power after their presumed victory in the war, but the Christian population was perfectly complicit with open Nazi atrocities. Nazi Germany was one of the greatest failings in the history of Christianity.
QuoteThe Branch Dravidians are even odder in this context. It was a tiny break away sect of the seventh day adventists which was taken over by David Koresh. Koresh's relationship with Christianity before the Branch Davidians was quite shallow-he converted and belonged to a church briefly in his early 20s before being thrown out after claiming a divine revelation that he should marry the pastor's 14 year old daughter. Blaming "Christianity" for Koresh is like blaming the 1960s counter culture for Charles Manson.
The '60s counter culture absolutely had a great deal to do with the creation of Charles Manson. "Helter Skelter" is a Beatles' song. Have you read Manson's biography by Jeff Gunn? It's a trip.
Koresh was a Christian, tiny break-away or not. His outlandish claims were Biblically based. Herald Camping also comes to mind as does Joel Osteem. The point was that we can see pretty much what we decide to see in the Bible. That is problematic.
Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2023, 06:37:47 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on October 24, 2023, 03:39:33 PMapl, I am not speaking of you, please understand, because I am positive you are a true, kindly Christian----our debates about lifestyles notwithstanding.
But how can you separate actions from the religion that sanctions said actions?
The apology that "[whoever] is not a true follower of Christ" is a facile and superficial response, even a cliched response.
I guess I don't understand why that's so facile or superficial a response. To me, it only makes sense. I mean, if I am in a position of authority (or am trying to be) and tell somebody to do something, and they say that they'll follow my orders, but then go and do something completely different from what I tell them, then how can they be considered my "follower?" They might say they are, might even be recognized as somebody taking orders from me, but in practice they aren't. Professed Christians who don't actually make a point of practicing what Jesus says aren't actually following Jesus. And Jesus said that such people aren't actually his followers.
Anyway, that's the best I know how to explain it. I'm honestly not trying to debate anything here. I'm just trying to explain what I believe. I can't make somebody accept it.
I respect what you believe.
It is simply too easy an answer to try and separate the religion from the follower, particularly if the follower finds sanction for their actions in the religion.
Quote from: apl68 on October 25, 2023, 06:28:34 AMQuote from: Caracal on October 25, 2023, 03:41:22 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on October 25, 2023, 03:13:27 AMThis is one of the reasons religion seems so crazy to many of us non-religious. You are openly embracing logical contradictions.
I promise you, that you also embrace a whole series of logical contradictions, as do we all.
That's a fair point. Logic's a useful tool to help us get through life on a day-to-day basis. But like all systems of human thought, it has its limitations. There's no such thing as a life of absolutely perfect logic. People who try to maintain an absolute logical consistency in all their actions have a history of losing their minds. That's part of why I'm okay with not knowing and understanding everything that has to do with God or why God does or allows this or that. I'm prepared to recognize that there are things above my pay grade--above all of our pay grades.
Sure, you can never achieve perfection, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't have standards.
If an adult believes in the Easter bunny, you would likely question their logic. If they said l, well your not perfectly logical either, that doesn't change the fact that believing in the Easter bunny is illogical does it?
The ultimate experts on the origin of faith, of course, were Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner doing their "2,000-year-old man" routine:
INTERVIEWER: Did you believe in anything?
OLD MAN: Yes, a guy – Phil. Philip was the leader of our tribe.
INTERVIEWER: What made him the leader?
OLD MAN: Very big, very strong, big beard, big arms, he could just kill you. He could walk on you and you would die.
INTERVIEWER: You revered him?
OLD MAN: We prayed to him. Would you like to hear one of our prayers? "Oh Philip. Please don't take our eyes out and don't pinch us and don't hurt us....Amen."
INTERVIEWER: How long was his reign?
OLD MAN: Not too long. Because one day, Philip was hit by lightning. And we looked up and said..."There's something bigger than Phil."
***
I. too, agree that there's something bigger than Phil. I think a lot of us would. Beyond that... well, there's always "The Life of Brian":
https://www.google.com/search?q=life+of+brian+work+it+out+for+yourselves&sca_esv=576501417&sxsrf=AM9HkKm9pBlImqSscX1eH3ISLwMl6aQOgg%3A1698243838267&source=hp&ei=_iQ5ZYX9DaHMkPIPx_6x0Ac&iflsig=AO6bgOgAAAAAZTkzDocfkPGcPJE0AiSdciU9D821x_6u&ved=0ahUKEwiF9OCls5GCAxUhJkQIHUd_DHoQ4dUDCAw&uact=5&oq=life+of+brian+work+it+out+for+yourselves&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IihsaWZlIG9mIGJyaWFuIHdvcmsgaXQgb3V0IGZvciB5b3Vyc2VsdmVzMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFIqldQAFiTTnAAeACQAQCYAZUBoAHDHqoBBTI3LjEzuAEDyAEA-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&sclient=gws-wiz#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b2dc2f2d,vid:9xSpYSxcvFk,st:0
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 25, 2023, 06:27:49 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 05:56:28 AMHis take is pretty good. He's summarized things better than me (so that Harvard PhD obviously had some value).
As he alludes to, if the "purpose" of the Bible is to give absolutely clear answers to every moral question for all time, it's a horrible failure. If it's "purpose" is to give us a window on the ongoing development of the relationship between God and humanity, it gives tons of insight.
I'm not making my point clear.
We are used to Christians using the Bible as a tool. This tool is meant to batter our thinking into its proper shape. We have had debates on this very Fora in which Biblical prohibitions against certain sexual practices were used as debate points. But when faced with the obvious problems with Biblical claims (ex. "slavery") and exegesis (ex. homosexuality) and our modern zeitgeist, well, then suddenly we cannot hold the Bible to its Word because, you know, those people were thinking different than we are, and the Bible is open to interpretation anyway...
There are, broadly speaking, three different positions within Christendom on this:
- conservative-literalist; assume virtually everything must be taken at face value, so rules are timeless.
- liberal-literary; the Bible was a book written by humans, and reflects the prejudices, etc. of their cultures, so things that were written that our culture disagrees with can be ignored.
- middle-of-the-road-ongoing interpretation; principles which are consistent through scripture always apply, but changes in context may affect how.
The most vocal groups are the first two. So, for instance, on the issue of homosexuality the first group is against it, the second group supports it, and the third group will include people both for and against, and many still trying to figure it out. (This would include people, for instance, who accept gay civil marriage while not supporting it within the church; i.e. it's a rule for Christians which does not apply to the rest of society.)
QuoteYou can't have it both ways, my friend. Either the Bible is the Word of God which we are to follow or you have a very interesting mythology which offers some hints on how to live and a great many things we throw away.
And the vagueness of the Constitution is a big problem. But again, these are human agents, not God, so that is not a very good analogy.
But unless you believe Christians should all have some sort of infallible pipeline to God, then the interpretation problem is very similar to the constitution. Even if the writing of Scripture was "inspired", (and as the earlier article mentioned, what that means is far from crystal clear), then unless the interpretation is similarly "inspired", then it's still open to error and confusion by humans.
In any endeavour involving humans, human agents are always going to cause problems, even when they're well-meaning.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 25, 2023, 07:41:42 AM- liberal-literary; the Bible was a book written by humans, and reflects the prejudices, etc. of their cultures, so things that were written that our culture disagrees with can be ignored.
- middle-of-the-road-ongoing interpretation; principles which are consistent through scripture always apply, but changes in context may affect how.
Yeeeeeessssss, we've been over this. And this is right where the problem lies. You are back to cherry-picking.
I'll say it again. You can't have it both ways.
QuoteBut unless you believe Christians should all have some sort of infallible pipeline to God
If I am going to be told what God wants from me, then hell yeah, I want an infallible pipeline to God.
If you do not have a pipeline, then we are back to the problem above. You cannot have it both ways. Keep religion out of politics, out of public policy, and out of our faces unless you have a pipeline.
It's that simple.
A person uses their religion as a tool of their own expression.
A good person uses their religion to make themselves a better person.
A jerk uses their religion to justify being a bigger @ssh0l3.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 25, 2023, 10:45:13 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on 10/25/2023, 10:41:42 AM- liberal-literary; the Bible was a book written by humans, and reflects the prejudices, etc. of their cultures, so things that were written that our culture disagrees with can be ignored.
- middle-of-the-road-ongoing interpretation; principles which are consistent through scripture always apply, but changes in context may affect how.
Yeeeeeessssss, we've been over this. And this is right where the problem lies. You are back to cherry-picking.I'll say it again. You can't have it both ways.Quote But unless you believe Christians should all have some sort of infallible pipeline to GodIf I am going to be told what God wants from me, then hell yeah, I want an infallible pipeline to God.If you do not have a pipeline, then we are back to the problem above. You cannot have it both ways. Keep religion out of politics, out of public policy, and out of our faces unless you have a pipeline. It's that simple.
So does this mean there should never be public discussion about things like antisemitism or Islamaphobia? Should religious people be forbidden from stating their reasons for voting in a certain way if it involves their faith? If so, then should there be similar rules to "Keep [ethnicity, sex, sexual orienation] out of politics, out of public policy, and out of our faces"? Who should be allowed to vote and speak?
Quote from: ciao_yall on October 26, 2023, 07:00:28 AMA person uses their religion as a tool of their own expression.
A good person uses their religion to make themselves a better person.
A jerk uses their religion to justify being a bigger @ssh0l3.
A jerk uses their nationality, sex, sexual orientation, profession, etc. to justify being a bigger @ssh0l3.
Religion has no monopoly on this.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 26, 2023, 07:15:25 AMSo does this mean there should never be public discussion about things like antisemitism or Islamaphobia?
Never said anything of the sort. As a matter of fact, should we just admit there is no "pipeline to God," these discussion gain some piquancy.
QuoteShould religious people be forbidden from stating their reasons for voting in a certain way if it involves their faith?
"Forbidden!?" Always the sense of being victimized.
No. We want voting to be as free of constraint as possible.
What we want are for religious people to truly, honestly, earnestly evaluate their own beliefs in light of their faith lacking a "pipeline to God." This is on you, not on me.
QuoteIf so, then should there be similar rules to "Keep [ethnicity, sex, sexual orienation] out of politics, out of public policy, and out of our faces"? Who should be allowed to vote and speak?
Complete, hysterical, typical self-victimizing strawmen. I said nothing of the sort.
See above.
What this ruptured pipeline does create, however, is a need for someone like me to oppose people who expect the world to adhere to their faith. We've seen that very thing here, on this Fora. You didn't mean to admit there is no "pipeline," but you did. You also were circled into admitting that the core of Christianity, the Bible, is more or less a book written by people, so it is not a facsimile of the Word of God, but a compendium of inspired impressions, therefore we cannot expect it to be perfect. The "ergo" here seems pretty obvious to me.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 26, 2023, 07:15:25 AMQuote from: ciao_yall on October 26, 2023, 07:00:28 AMA person uses their religion as a tool of their own expression.
A good person uses their religion to make themselves a better person.
A jerk uses their religion to justify being a bigger @ssh0l3.
A jerk uses their nationality, sex, sexual orientation, profession, etc. to justify being a bigger @ssh0l3.
Religion has no monopoly on this.
Yeah. No one is going to disagree. Do you have a point?