Scott Wolter: Cosmic Forces Have "Profound Impact" on History, Templars Gave Natives Jesus Genes6/5/2014 On May 16, Scott Wolter appeared on a radio program called Truth Connections on the UFO Paranormal Radio Network. The program opens hilariously with the host’s technical problems, followed by her utter inability to read Scott Wolter’s promotional copy about himself in anything like a convincing way. However, it’s worth nothing that Wolter’s promotion copy claims that he has investigated “5,000” prehistoric mysteries, and it reads explicitly that his intention in his research is “adding to the mystery that many European visitors came here prior to Columbus, and our history is not what we’ve been led to believe.” That ought to put to rest any doubts about Wolter’s intentions vis-à-vis Europeans influence in America versus those of non-European peoples. His comments on the show are the same as always: Academics are “controlling the argument, and it’s not right and it’s sad”; the Kensington Rune Stone is the key to understanding history (“the Rosetta stone of North America”); judicial rules for admissible evidence are a good standard for his research; etc. etc. Again, he hits the same notes that archaeology and anthropology are “humanities disciplines” and therefore are not “hard science disciplines” and archaeologists “don’t receive formal training in the scientific method. … They don’t follow proper methods.” Wolter exposes his ignorance about postgraduate training in archaeology and anthropology, but none of this is new.
Instead, let me focus on what is new in this two-hour free-association interview. The host asks Wolter if secret societies have given him “pushback,” but Wolter says that the secret societies support his work and believe he is on the right track. Instead, Wolter says that the “Roman Church” has the most to fear from him but have not moved against him because of their financial and sex abuse scandals. He asserts, in reference to the Holy Bloodline Conspiracy, that “they know what I’m talking about, and they know it’s true.” Much later he will imply that the Bloodline families planned the clergy sex abuse scandal, which is as outrageous as it is irresponsible. Wolter says that he would be a “fool to deny” that there is a “cosmic” aspect of life, and he says that we recently moved through “one of the most profound” astrological changes in our history when the precession of the equinoxes switched our governing sign in keeping with the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012. He is here referring to the slow drift of the stars, which every 2,160 years change the constellation against which the sun rises on the spring equinox. “The changing of the ages throughout history has had a profound impact on the history of mankind and religion,” he said, attributing to pictures in the sky a range of human cultural achievements. As a point of fact, the precession of the equinoxes was traditionally marked by the spring equinox, not the winter solstice, and there is no evidence for any recognition of ruling houses of astrological ages prior to the Greek adoption of Babylonian astronomy in the Hellenistic period. Astrologers can’t even agree when the Age of Aquarius supposedly begins, with different astrologers placing its start anywhere from 1447 to 3597 CE. The current scientific definition of the “edges” of constellations, adopted in 1929, would start the Age of Aquarius in 2600 CE. So far as I know, no one identified December 21, 2012 as the start of the Age of Aquarius prior to the invention of the Mayan calendar apocalypse myth in the 1960s. “People have no idea, no concept, of how much it has impacted our world,” Wolter said. Wolter again asserts that “certain powers in religion and politics” know the true history of North America and are purposely suppressing this truth. Wolter gives a confusing statement in which he says that Native Americans know the truth about the Knights Templar but that “nobody” (except him) is talking to them and that the U.S. government committed genocide against them for what he seems to imply were conspiratorial reasons involving a cover-up of Templar truths. Logically speaking, this makes no sense since (a) the genocide was not complete enough to eliminate the Templar “facts” Wolter supposedly recovered from Native peoples, and (b) if the Freemasons are really Templar adjuncts and secretly run America, why would they want to cover up their own right to power? After discussing his conversations with Native Americans, Wolter amends his statement to suggest that the Native Americans refuse to speak about the Templars because of the genocide, but this is confusing again since it would seem that if this information were so threatening to their oppressors Native Americans would want it publicized as far and wide as possible. The logic just doesn’t follow. A few minutes later, he changes the story a bit more and this time talks of “one of the conveniences” of genocide: “you get rid of the witnesses” to the Templar involvement in American history, “and you get rid of the Bloodline.” We will get to that bizarre idea in a moment. Wolter falsely asserts, again, that the Midewin rituals of the Ojibwa are “identical” to “Knights Templar rituals. Identical.” (He emphasizes “identical” at least three times.) This is a step up from his previous claim, which was that they were parallel to Freemason rituals, something I showed to be almost certainly wrong last year. Claiming them as Templar rituals eliminates the requirement for proof since we have no reliable records of the details of Templar rituals for comparison. But I doubt that the Templar rituals involved training in medicinal plant usage, the focus of the Midewin ritual. (Chances are that Wolter is conflating the Knights Templar with the Freemason order of the same name, even though they are unrelated.) He then complains that archaeologists “can’t say anything without using a big word.” Wolter is just folks, you know. At this point the host tells Wolter that many believe that Native Americans are the descendants of a race of ancient astronauts from outer space called Star People, whom we have seen before on Ancient Aliens. Wolter seems to misunderstand the point, not recognizing that Star People are space aliens, and instead says he’s “been told that the Templars came over here and they intentionally brought the Bloodline [of Jesus] and put it into the Natives so it would be protected.” Just try unpacking that sentence. It sounds like Wolter envisions the Templars as running some kind of perverted breeding program where Jesus-spawn are sent out to stud. (Assuming the Templars brought males for efficiency.) “In times to come, that will be vetted out by science,” he asserts. Now we see why Wolter is so interested in Steve St. Clair’s DNA project. Did Native women have a choice when these Templar studs “saw the daughters of men that they were fair” (Genesis 6:2)? I find it intriguing that almost by osmosis Wolter has come to adopt a modified form of the Watchers myth from Genesis 6:1-4 and the Book of Enoch as his template for the Templar heritage: The sons of God (descended this time from the literal son of God) travel to a new land, cross-breed with people from another race, and produce a hybrid people (the current Native Americans), to whom are attributed secret knowledge and advanced spiritual powers. The time and place and people have changed, but the template is exactly the same. I found this the single most interesting part of his interview. “They did it with them as a preemptive strike because they knew what was coming,” Wolter said, and I picked out that line because it unintentionally turned this discussion into a weird, pun-filled porno version of America Unearthed. The Templars, he said, “warned the Natives that the Christians were coming and that it wasn’t going to be good”—this is in the 1400s—and Wolter said that the Templars bonded with the Natives through their shared experience of violent repression at the hands of the Catholic Church. It seems that for Scott Wolter, history is the story of spiritual truth trying to escape from the institutional control of Catholicism. I’m not quite sure how the fact that the United States was virulently anti-Catholic for more than a century plays into this. The invading Christians and then the U.S. government killed the Natives, he said, to suppress the Jesus Bloodline. “And don’t think that that wasn’t known.” It was all “part of the plan,” he said. That plan (and do not try to make sense of this) was masterminded by the Cistercian Order, which he said was not in fact Catholic but instead “the greatest coup d’état in history, which the world still doesn’t understand.” Except, of course, Scott Wolter. He says that the Cistercians were formed by the “Bloodline Families” to infiltrate the Church and destroy it, a destruction he asserts has “come to fruition” right now. He comes dangerously close here to asserting that the Bloodline Families engaged in ritual child abuse to destroy the Catholic Church through pedophile sex scandals. Again, I am deeply confused by why Wolter feels that the Cistercians and the U.S. government, which he asserts is controlled by Templar-Freemasons, “got rid of the Bloodline” by eradicating the Native Americans that the Templars supposedly hybridized with magic Jesus genes. Remember: The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears were the effort of Andrew Jackson, and Jackson was a Freemason! Did the Cistercian-Templar-Freemasons change allegiances at some point? Or is there a super-conspiracy that’s trying to suppress lesser conspiracies? Or is this all because of the magic power of astrology, which somehow changes everyone’s beliefs when the “stars are right”? According to Wolter, the Cistercian-Bloodline Families controlled France and used their position to force Napoleon into the Louisiana Purchase to exercise their Templar land claim to the Mississippi watershed, a land claim that the British (?) had somehow denied them by virtue of… what exactly? They weren’t Catholic, so I don’t see how they fit into the Catholic conspiracy. It isn’t clear. But somehow everyone recognizes America as the new Holy Land, the promised land of the new covenant or some such. Wolter says that his grand conspiracy “makes all the sense in the world.” He claims that “These Bloodline families are still around. They’re basically running the world. … I know this is right.” Except, of course, when they’re not. After the break, and at the halfway point, the show opened the floor to questions from the audience. During this, the host brings up monoatomic gold, the imaginary food consumed by Sitchinite space aliens, and Wolter goes right along with it! “Now you’re getting into the ancient Egyptian stuff!” he says. “I love it!” He doesn’t realize, however, that she’s talking about aliens so he suggests that there could be an episode of America Unearthed based on the aliens’ magic food. I presume he is confusing monatomic gold with colloidal gold, a solution of nanoparticles (not single atoms) known since Antiquity. During the Q-and-A he again reiterates his contempt for the Catholic Church, which he considers a fraudulent religion, and he asserts that the Vatican has profound and continuing “influence” over the Smithsonian, which he labels as “corrupt.” He asserts that the Smithsonian, potentially on Vatican orders, is hiding the skeletons of giants. He also wonders if the Druids had “influence” on the Mound Builders, and he now claims that the Templars obtained “fresh” silver from the Americas, and that Columbus and the Spaniards learned about America from the Templars (“it’s so obvious!”). Columbus, of course, conveniently hid that fact by pretending that he didn’t realize America was not Asia. “How many cultures do you think came her pre-Columbian?” the host asks. “Everybody,” Wolter says. “Everybody!” A few minutes later he added, “speculation [is] really, really fun!” At least someone is having fun.
171 Comments
666
6/5/2014 07:24:22 am
"intentionally brought the Bloodline [of Jesus] and put it into the Natives so it would be protected"
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666
6/5/2014 07:30:29 am
An after-note about the New Testament sholars - they tried to pin an identity on the Teacher of Righteousness when in all probability that "individual" too, is most likely the personification of an event (like the Spouter of Lies and the Wicked Priest)
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Snarkie Stackhouse
6/5/2014 08:10:33 am
On the other hand, no one can disprove the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Snarkie Stackhouse
6/5/2014 08:14:42 am
Of course, the Gnostics and the Cathars were entitled to believe the historical Jesus was a sham and a contradiction
Being seriously devious
6/5/2014 08:22:02 am
Ensure that the Gnostics existed AFTER "mainstream" Christianity. Do NOT make Gnosticism contemporary with it.
Being candid
6/5/2014 08:27:47 am
Not one first century Christian mentioned the existence of the Gospels. Not one fragment of the Gospels dates from the first century.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:30:19 am
Not one first-century Christian self-identified as Christian; they were, at that stage, Jewish sectarians. Christianity as Christianity was only codified by the Council of Nicaea and subsequent Church synods.
666
6/5/2014 08:34:56 am
The earliest fragments of Josephus date from the 10th century.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:39:13 am
How convenient, that when someone has a source that contradicts you, you can hand-wave it and say it doesn't really count. As long as you're going that route, we don't exactly have troves of documents from the first century from ANY author. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially in a giant documentary black hole.
Matt Mc
6/5/2014 08:41:15 am
Grunt, why even trying to talk sensibly to someone who creates long threads of conversations with themselves?
666
6/5/2014 08:41:31 am
Can a 10th century fragment devoid of a first edition dating from the 1st century count as a "source" especially when it can be demonstrated previous versions were doctored
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:43:53 am
Tell you what. When you come up with a first edition of ANY classical text, let me know and we'll resume this argument. In the meantime, they're all copies of copies of copies, almost always including editorial additions and subtractions, either deliberate or accidental.
666
6/5/2014 08:45:40 am
Manuscripts by Josephus predating the 10fh century have not survived because they contained obvious Christian interpolations.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:46:32 am
Matt -
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:48:49 am
Ah, so fragments from before the 10th Century were magically all destroyed by 19th-Century Biblical scholars? How extraordinary, that they would find evidence of something, then destroy said evidence!
666
6/5/2014 08:50:47 am
Testimonies exist relating to what existed in the manuscripts by Josephus by notable sources.
Matt Mc
6/5/2014 08:52:19 am
Fair enough Grunt, there is a lot good reasoning in that logic.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:54:46 am
"Testimonies exist?" By "notable sources?" Well now, since we don't have signed first editions of those testimonies either, how do you know they're undoctored? And I suppose you have "top men" inspecting the Ark of the Covenant as well?
666
6/5/2014 08:55:04 am
John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete referred to passages within Josephus predating the 10th century
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:59:38 am
Why is it that you trust the veracity of one old document, but not another? Why do you assume that either of them tells the truth? If you're willing to accept falsehood in one, why is the next beyond suspicion?
666
6/5/2014 09:01:50 am
Have you actually read Josephus' creed and what he actually believed in and how he received his religious creed?
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 09:03:31 am
Not in years. What I remember of Josephus was primarily an impression that he was more interested in saving his skin by whatever means necessary, and justifying his actions in doing so, than service to any creed or cause.
666
6/5/2014 09:05:20 am
Josephus was a turncoat. Still more the reason the passages attributed to him regarding Jesus Christ are later interpolations.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 09:08:50 am
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. "Josephus wrote for an audience, therefore anything he says about Christianity must be a later addition." By that reasoning, "Einstein refused military service, therefore his letter to FDR must be taken with suspicion." There is no direct and necessary relation between those two statements.
666
6/5/2014 09:13:40 am
I understand the testimonies of John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete and I further understand the passages found within the Slavonic Josephus
Mandalore
6/5/2014 11:17:49 am
Will you provide citations from Andrew, John, and Slavonic Josephus so that I too can understand them? I'm curious to read them.
666
6/5/2014 11:21:52 am
I found them.
666
6/5/2014 11:30:54 am
The Slavonic Josephus referred to non-existent archaeological proof for the existence of Jesus Christ.
666
6/5/2014 11:53:52 am
J. Spencer Kennard Jr, "Gleanings from the Slavonic Josephus Controversy" (Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Volume 39, Number 2, October 1948)
Mandalore
6/5/2014 03:33:37 pm
Thanks for the reference about Josephus. And John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete?
666
6/5/2014 09:00:06 pm
Andrew of Crete and John of Damascus references can be found in the article by Kennard. Haven't you got access to JSTOR?
666
6/5/2014 09:10:28 pm
John of Damascus,
666
6/5/2014 09:38:01 pm
Reference by John of Damascus, not found here:
666
6/5/2014 09:45:00 pm
ok, Andreas of Jerusalem was the same as Andrew of Crete
.
6/6/2014 03:56:13 am
Monsieur Triple Six, not all of us pay thru the nose so as
Mandalore
6/5/2014 09:10:47 am
Wow. Someone really doesn't understand how manuscripts have passed down through the ages or how scholars work with them. Try looking at a critical edition of any ancient source; Teubners are best but Loebs will do. Just because most manuscripts are from after the 10th century (fragments of earlier survive) doesn't mean that they are not still representative of their original forms.
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.
6/6/2014 03:35:45 am
Trajan's busy scribes at one point "faked" Christian sounding
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/5/2014 08:05:01 am
Actually, if you accept his position that the Cistercians were a stab at the belly of the Church, it was remarkably unsuccessful. They were noted for their zeal and asceticism early on, but it faded out after only a century or so - once the original generation had passed, so too had the ideals that drove them as a proto-Reformation. Within a couple of centuries, most of the local chapterhouses had gone their own way, which makes it hard to believe that they were guided by some secret conspiracy.
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.
6/5/2014 08:38:26 am
does this radio interview by SW more than hint
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.
6/6/2014 03:39:30 am
medieval heresies are often solipsistic, they metaphysically
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.
6/6/2014 04:03:27 am
Kal's quip is way tres cool, an' very "on the money" about SW!
Kal
6/5/2014 09:42:19 am
Not going to go there on the blood of Christ argument or the Templars, or even the fake Kenzington stone again, but SW sounds like a total quack. Again there is evidence for other voyages from Asia and Europe though in the new world, which is a given, not a conspiracy, so there is no story. It's not like Columbus was the center of all exploration, but just an explorer who happened to lead to Europeans coming (again, as the Vikings had been here). This is not a great surprise. AU is a fiction show and should be billed as such, as is AA. They might as well claim bigfoot is an alien Templar master shaman who goes through star gates...oh wait, they did that one.
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666
6/5/2014 09:53:14 am
Whatever you do, don't mention anything about Pope Boniface being found guilty posthumously of practicing ritual magic by Guillaume de Nogaret
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Rev. Phil Gotsch
6/5/2014 04:05:55 pm
LOL …
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Joe
6/6/2014 01:53:17 am
Since this article is about an interview that Scott did on a radio program. I really do not see your point in talking about American Unearthed.
.
6/6/2014 04:09:17 am
Scott Wolter likes the filming he's done for Au's season 3 !!!!!
Clint Knapp
6/5/2014 10:55:22 am
This just in; Templar's discovered the Hollow Earth, built the moon out of swiss cheese, and have advanced anti-gravity propulsion technology which foolish plebs have been mistaking for aliens since the late 40s.
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Varika
6/5/2014 11:07:58 am
Uh....if Scott Wolter dives any closer, he's gonna wind up sued by Ubisoft for copyright infringement on the Assassin's Creed storylines! Seriously, I'm reading this stuff and going, "....I haven't even played AC, just watched parts of my brother's playthroughs, and I STILL recognize those serial numbers..."
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Gregor
6/5/2014 12:59:05 pm
"America Unearthed is brought to you by....Abstergo Industries: We Love Apples!"
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Zach
6/5/2014 04:51:51 pm
I have to say that as a fan of the AC games, having played them all, even they are tame compared to Wolter's ridiculous theories, especially when they go against the nature of the said group in question. For instance, take for where Wolter asserts that the Smithsonian, on Vatican orders, is hiding the skeletons of giants. Why would the most powerful church leaders of Christianity hide evidence that could prove their stories right? Especially if it gives them converts to the more Christian fundamentalist crowd? Even the writers for AC have more logic in their stories than this garbage.
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Gregor
6/5/2014 05:45:10 pm
You posit a level of logic and discipline in the Catholic church that simply isn't there - it's history is filled with contrary and contradictory decrees, behaviors and reformations, and that's not even counting the centuries it served as the personal criminal enterprise of wealthy & conniving Italian families.
666
6/5/2014 09:02:01 pm
Oh, religion has been the bane of homo sapiens
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 01:17:33 am
Except for the parts where it, you know, preserved literacy in Western Europe, inspired most (not all - and yes, I can probably name a longer list of exceptions than you can) of the great architectural monuments from about 250 BC to about 1750, led to the foundation of communities in otherwise unsettled areas, gave us codified behavior to keep us from slaughtering each other in our sleep...
666
6/6/2014 01:43:45 am
You missed out the bit about Religion being used for human control
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 01:45:48 am
You mean like laws, or family units, or access to resources?
.
6/6/2014 04:26:48 am
Varika, --- i've played DOOM, i've played Wolfenstein but my
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Only Me
6/5/2014 10:48:20 pm
I'm so glad that KIF/A.C./666/whatever alias that has been drawn from the hat posts here. No, seriously. I always look forward to an example proving beyond doubt that some folks are afflicted with serious attention-seeking issues.
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666
6/6/2014 12:46:22 am
Ho-hum, Firstly, Jesus Christ was a magical religious being, Secondly, Jewish scholarship takes a different interpretation of the passages in Josephus relating to Jesus Christ (Louis Feldman being the exception rather than the norm). Thirdly, scholars over the centuries have proposed that the passages in Josephus relating to Jesus Christ as found in Eusebius were forged by Eusebius, Do you care for a bibliography?
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Voila
6/6/2014 01:09:21 am
Voila
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 01:19:28 am
Proposed - not confirmed. I propose that you are a baboon with access to a keyboard, and I offer the exact same level of certainty that you offer. The debate's still ongoing about Josephus, and while there is broad agreement that parts of the Eusebius passage were inserted by Eusebius, there is equally broad agreement that the core of the passage was not.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 01:39:32 am
Scott Wolter will be able to solve these questions perhaps someone should email him?
666
6/6/2014 01:49:58 am
Scott Walter cannot solve the mystery of the missing toilet roll in his own WC
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 02:00:23 am
Wolter believes otherwise, not that I agree with him at all.
666
6/6/2014 02:18:38 am
You have to convince me you do not engage in superficial discussion
.
6/6/2014 04:49:30 am
KIF/A.C/TripleSixDude --- are you about half
666
6/6/2014 01:39:04 am
What you are rambling on about was first proposed by Geza Vermes and no 2 scholars are in agreement over it - there are as many interpretations of that as there are scholars - and it could be 100% wrong. And these scholars are inevitable closet-churchgoers.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 01:49:06 am
"Could be" isn't "are," which you act so certain of, and you're an obvious partisan of your viewpoint, so "closet churchgoers" is a meaningless ad-hominem. They could sacrifice goats in their spare time and still be right on the question.
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666
6/6/2014 01:55:25 am
We're still left with the conundrum that the earliest MS of Josephus dates from the 10th century (Ambrosianus 370), that earlier MSS were in existence but have not survived, that they contained obvious Christian interpolations that were referenced by John of Damascus and by Andrew of Crete, that the Slavonic Josephus serves as another example of this trait with references to non-existent archaeological proofs.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 02:16:36 am
Wait a minute, you mean two authors in the ancient world wrote contradictory statements? Stop the presses! Why, next, you'll tell me that the Roman biographers of the Julio-Claudians had biases in their texts that were driven by their politics, and that you can't take every word they wrote literally, or that Lenin is an unreliable source on economics!
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 01:55:28 am
How important is it that there be a historical Jesus?
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666
6/6/2014 02:03:06 am
Christianity was originally an Apocalyptic Religion, the Romans were not overthrown. And succeeding generations of Christians turned the religion into different directions. Christianity developed into something completely different to what it originally was. And that's what makes the passages in Josephus laughable - and another reason why they are forgeries
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 02:12:32 am
Okay so, what does that have to do with proving endless debating if Jesus existed or not?
666
6/6/2014 02:16:55 am
Descendants?
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 02:20:20 am
What I find absolutely hysterical is that if there were absolute and incontrovertible proof of the historicity of a Joshua, son of Joseph and Mary, who preached in Galilee in the period in question, was captured and tried by the ecclesiastic authorities, and then crucified by the Romans, you'd then turn around and say "Well it's not THAT Jesus!"
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 02:21:59 am
you are so missing the point. The point is people believe and nothing is going to change their mind, nothing. Maybe in the future the belief will diminish but it will be replaced with another spiritual being, its what humans do.
666
6/6/2014 02:24:42 am
Of course there are scholars who believe the passages in Josephus about Jesus are genuine. Such careless thinking needs to be put to the critical test.
666
6/6/2014 02:26:49 am
The might of the Empire Diocletian could not eradicate simple minded belief in Christianity. We must concede to that.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 02:30:13 am
"Careless thinking" would be an a-priori assumption that those passages are wrong, then cherry-picking your scholars to support that conclusion.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 02:32:12 am
I would rather spend my energies on the carelessness in thinking that causes people to think that others are inferior to others. The fact is no one is inferior to anyone else regardless of what they believe, where the live, what sex they are, what color they are, what their sexual preferences are, what their education level. We are are just people and no better than anyone else.
666
6/6/2014 02:41:54 am
The belief in passages being authentic would never be a priory assumption
666
6/6/2014 02:44:29 am
Scholars believing the passages in Josephus as authentic outnumber those who think otherwise. Being closet-churchgoers is a main factor in that. Here's an example of prejudice for ya
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 02:49:08 am
Never said it was, but then, fact-based considerations are by definition a posteriori, since a priori considerations require no evidence to support them. You start with the position that Josephus never said anything about Jesus; when someone suggests that might not be true, you instead go on and on, at great length, about all of the sources and scholars that say that you're right, while never once acknowledging or addressing any of the sources and scholars that say you're wrong, instead calling them "closet church-goers" and claiming that Louis Feldman is a minority of one. He's not; he's just the most Jewish of the voices in the argument. Further, your primary sources are all from 1800 to 1950, rather than including any more recent scholarship. That's sloppy thinking, because you're failing to account for or address ANY criticism of your position. I hardly claim to be an expert on the subject, but my very brief literature review suggests that since 1950, the scholarly consensus has swung to the idea that while Josephus may be corrupt in parts, the core message is solid. You fail to address ANY of that discussion, then accuse anyone who disagrees with you of "sloppy thinking." Whatever else you may be (and I will freely admit you're an excellent parrot and very good at staying on-message), you're not terribly self-aware.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 02:49:39 am
Personally I don't see what it matters.
666
6/6/2014 02:55:27 am
Going back to the Geza Vermes theory again. No 2 scholars agree with each other on that. As for 19th century scholarship, that was critical, that was why the testimonies of John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete were considered then and not being ignored like they are today. And belief in authenticity is not going to make their testimonies go away, or the fact the earliest MS dates from the 10th century, or the fact that the Slavonic Josephus promoted non-existent archaeological proofs. The 19th century critical treatment is preferable to the current belief treatment.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:07:33 am
Translated: "Scholars who support my conclusion are preferable to scholars who don't."
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:07:45 am
You might think that I am trying to stray for the discussion at hand but I am not.
666
6/6/2014 03:13:26 am
"What i get from this all is that people will pick and choose and ignore things to fit there theories"
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:17:49 am
Seems like you are the one being dismissive. I could be wrong but I read it as Grunt is saying everything should be considered along with its potential bias, you are saying that because of potential things should just be dismissed
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:18:02 am
Sweetheart, you don't know a thing about my belief system. I've told you why I'm arguing with you, and all you've done is repeat the same three points over and over without admitting the possibility that you're wrong. You're Cato the Elder, thundering about destroying Carthage, to the exclusion of all else.
666
6/6/2014 03:10:58 am
Translated: "Scholars who support my conclusion are preferable to scholars who don't."
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:16:08 am
No, 19th-Century scholarship was rooted in the post-Enlightenment period and was a product of its times. A strong argument could be made that textual scholarship has advanced since then, that new sources have been found (unless you want to say, just as a well-known example, the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found in the 1850s?), and that the scholarly consensus has moved on, while you haven't, because the conclusion you prefer - and it is no more than that, unless you care to offer some sort of proof that you're more than a blowhard arguing online (I offer none; that's precisely what I am, and I know it) - is that of the 1800s.
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666
6/6/2014 03:20:25 am
That's actually true. But it's also true that 19th century scholarship was critical whereas today's scholarship is not. The best "critics" are mavericks like Eisenmann who I wouldn't recommend to anybody,
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:24:08 am
I'm curious, have you ever submitted a paper for academic publication?
666
6/6/2014 03:26:35 am
I am only repeating the 3 points because you are constantly ignoring them.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:27:47 am
Sounds a lot Wolter. I wonder if 666 could get a friend to look his theories over and they agree if that counts as a peer review in his world.
666
6/6/2014 03:34:30 am
As I've mentioned before, New Testament scholarship is something of a cartel that would never accept certain facts relating to Christianity. There are references found in other books, written by scholars who are expert in other fields, that relate to Christian origins and to Christian practices because anthropology and botany is not controlled by New Testament scholarship
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:36:14 am
The three points as I see them are as follows:
666
6/6/2014 03:40:07 am
"there IS a broad consensus that Josephus said something about Jesus"
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:44:15 am
You know what? I'm done. You're convinced that there's absolutely no possibility that Josephus ever wrote anything about Jesus, never mind that, as I said, there are two separate references, and the debate is less about whether he did than the specifics of what might be, never mind that there is no such thing as certainty when analyzing ancient texts, and never mind that my point isn't that there was a historical Jesus, it's that you're certain of an unprovable, and therefore you're operating as much on faith as the Pope is.
666
6/6/2014 03:47:06 am
The reference cited by Origen you're not interested in, because that contradicts what's found in Eusebius. What's more - and more damning - is that New Testament scholarship isn't interested in it either. And you invite me to become a member of such a crass and shoddy set-up?
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:47:07 am
Kind of like listening to Wolter talk about the KRS and the other runestones.
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:49:58 am
No, you ass, I invite you to open yourself to the possibility that you might be wrong, that there are opinions divergent from yours arrived at by people who put just as much time and thought into theirs as your sources (note that I don't say you) have put into theirs, arriving at orthogonally different destinations from the same starting point.
666
6/6/2014 03:52:08 am
Origen was the first Christian who cited passages to Jesus Christ found in Josephus. It wasn't Eusebius. What Origen cited contradicted what is found in Eusebius.
666
6/6/2014 03:55:01 am
It's not "me" that's wrong, but the theory - because there are no facts in existence to back up the theory. Scholars are believing their own theories without any facts to back them up. Anyone could have written those references to Jesus in Josephus. Whole books and academic articles have been written to present the case.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:55:06 am
Grunt are you still more frustrated by Phil?
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 03:56:39 am
That's nice, sweetheart. I'm done with this argument, because you keep repeating things as if they're carved in stone when they're written on two-thousand-year-old parchment. I do not care about Josephus, Origen, Eusebius, Feldman, Slavonic manuscripts, Arabic manuscripts, Syriac manuscripts, the scholarly consensus about any of this, or whether Scott Wolter believes that Moon Masons built the pyramids as a solar sperm collector to inseminate North America with Jesus-sperm. I care that you, very specifically you, do not admit to any viewpoint other than your own very narrowly defined one, then sit back and comfortably deride anyone who believes otherwise. You can blather about Origen and Eusebius all you like; it does not change the fact that YOU MIGHT BE WRONG ABOUT JOSEPHUS AND REFUSE TO ADMIT IT.
666
6/6/2014 04:06:13 am
Robert E. Van Voorst would like to believe the passages in Josephus to be authentic - but in sober and objective frame of mind commented that authenticity could not be determined by textual analysis alone.
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:14:23 am
So Scott Wolter should be reading 19th century scholars to better formulate his theories?
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666
6/6/2014 03:18:28 am
Scott Wolter is not accessing any scholarly material at all. And he couldn't tell the difference between any form of scholarship,
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Matt Mc
6/6/2014 03:21:48 am
That was the point that I was making. He is focusing on the belief not that quest for the historical Jesus or even the understanding of how the spiritual Jesus evolved.
Matthew
6/6/2014 05:03:17 am
The historicity of Jesus is a dead subject. Tacitus' reference alone, accepted by virtually every reputable scholar, effectively ends this debate. We can argue until we're blue in the face as to who Jesus was, but not that he existed.
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666
6/6/2014 05:20:15 am
Tacitus is not accepted by every reputable scholar.
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666
6/6/2014 05:22:55 am
The Annals of Tacitus were condemned as fakes when they first appeared during the 15th century
666
6/6/2014 05:26:02 am
New Testament scholarship does not even address this
Matthew
6/6/2014 05:33:42 am
By your brilliant reasoning, Pontius Pilate likely didn't exist either as Tacitus' passage is the only documentary evidence of him as well. The annals were also not 'unknown' until the 15th century. The earliest surviving manuscripts date from the 11th century, were brought to public notice in the 14th century and have been accepted as genuine by virtually everybody since then. Van Voorst, Chilton, Evans, Eddy, Boyd, Meier, Fox are a few modern examples, but my favourite quote is from Ronald Mellor, who stated that the Annals is "Tacitus's crowning achievement" which represents the "pinnacle of Roman historical writing." Seriously, give it up bud.
Matthew
6/6/2014 05:45:30 am
I assume of course that you would also throw out Suetonius and Pliny the Younger's references to Christ(ians) and their practices as well? A better tactic might be to argue that the New Testament is riddled with contradictions or don't portray the actual historical figure of Jesus or so on. To reject Christ as a living breathing person is basically to reject all notion of antiquity. Alexander the Great for example is testified to by only four main sources and one highly abridged source (and I've read them all), written hundreds of years after his death and mostly by Romans.
666
6/6/2014 06:19:47 am
"Tacitus' passage is the only documentary evidence of him as well"
666
6/6/2014 06:24:28 am
"I assume of course that you would also throw out Suetonius and Pliny the Younger's references to Christ(ians) "
666
6/6/2014 06:29:49 am
Ronald Mellor doesn't need any proof to accept that The Annals attributed to Tacitus are authentic - and Scott Wolter is being criticised over accepting things uncritically...
Matthew
6/6/2014 07:30:08 am
"Tacitus' passage is the only documentary evidence of him as well"
Pacal
6/26/2014 04:21:53 am
Tacitus is not the only mention of Pilate, aside from Josephus, the Alexandrian Jewish writer / Philosopher Philo also mentions him.
.
6/6/2014 05:26:39 am
Poor Plato himself could be thought to be a work of fiction
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666
6/6/2014 05:29:25 am
Missing the point --- Eusebius is contradicted by Origen --- nobody wants to discuss this,
666
6/6/2014 05:34:40 am
Oh yes --- the passages in Josephus are authentic --- the passages in Tacitus are authentic --- and guess what: The Gospels are eye-witness accounts, And Jesus Christ was truly the Son of God who performed all those miracles, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven,
.
6/6/2014 08:16:07 am
i'm very distantly related to Edmund Burke and at the central
.
6/6/2014 05:51:01 am
Triple Six ---- Humour me. Lets ask a deep question.
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.
6/6/2014 06:01:47 am
Lets leap from Claudius the Second and his famous grandson
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Tommy Kooker
6/6/2014 06:14:27 am
Pumpkin Pie took over the world in AD 403 - but this information was suppressed by the Vatican.
.
6/6/2014 07:10:48 am
He never worshiped like a wise Persian, its Apollo or nothing.
Tommy Kooker
6/6/2014 06:18:21 am
Not only did Constantine read the original and unblemished version of Josephus, untouched and unsullied by Christian hands, he actually read Einstein's Theory and Relativity, as well as Darwin's Origin of Species. The Time Machine was invented in 6033 and they went back in time to show these writings to Constantine, showing that Christianity was wrong and so ensuring Constantine only converted at the moment of his death, continuing being a believer of Sol Invictus up to that point.
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.
6/6/2014 06:30:19 am
seriously, the High Priests of Jove often had FULL copies of
.
6/6/2014 06:36:35 am
Constantine was never a whorshipper of Mithra, whether its
Tommy Kooker
6/6/2014 06:45:02 am
Constantine only became a Christian on his deathbed
.
6/6/2014 06:44:13 am
the power elite of Republican Rome is from seven tribes,
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.
6/6/2014 06:53:49 am
Jason Colavito is again trying to tell us things about H2.
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.
6/6/2014 07:28:33 am
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10001/10001-h/10001-h.htm
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Gunn
6/6/2014 07:29:10 am
Historically fulfilled prophecy proves to those who have eyes to see that Jesus was and is real. The aforementioned periods of time are all covered by instances of fulfilled prophecy, from OT references, carried forward through the NT, and then forward to today, where those who have eyes to see, see prophecy continuing to be fulfilled today. Christ is the center-point of historical and Biblical prophecy...fulfilled prophecy and future prophecy yet to be fulfilled. Christ came in the flesh as a real person, and He died for the sins of the World.
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.
6/6/2014 07:41:11 am
true.. that.
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Terry Hart
6/6/2014 08:14:00 am
Yuck, pass the sick bag
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.
6/6/2014 08:21:24 am
i still feel Bill Nye won that public debate
Mandalore
6/6/2014 10:05:05 am
Prophecy is in the eyes of the beholder. I think there may be some Jewish people who would disagree that Jesus is the center of Biblical prophecy. It is impossible to say whether one thing fulfilled prophecy or another. (That's ignoring the problem of the debatable reality of prophecy.)
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Matt Mc
6/6/2014 10:40:53 am
I guess we will all find out when we die. Problem is it is not like anyone can come back and tell people if there is in fact a heaven or hell. Kind of convenient if you ask me.
666
6/6/2014 01:02:16 pm
There is nothing after death - just like there is nothing before birth
Matt Mc
6/6/2014 01:22:37 pm
Never said there was.
Only Me
6/6/2014 05:45:29 pm
"There is nothing after death - just like there is nothing before birth
Gunn
6/9/2014 06:13:01 am
As far as I know, the best way to attempt to persuade an intelligent unbeliever is to challenge her to make a study of all the OT prophesies concerning the coming of the Messiah, then seeing the Jewish anticipations coming true. One after the other, like prophetic clockwork.
EP
6/6/2014 02:29:54 pm
Let's suppose (for the sake of argument) that Jesus is a real historical character (leaving aside the question of his divinity).
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William
6/6/2014 04:11:53 pm
This. ^^
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6/7/2014 09:50:51 am
Obviously the comments have gotten far off topic, due largely to "666" (who posts under multiple aliases). I'm trying to figure out what to delete, though part of me thinks I should just delete everything not specifically related to the above post. Unless anyone sees some value in keeping 666's comments and the other off-topic discussion up, I will remove them later today.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/7/2014 10:00:27 am
As one of the primary participants, I say kill 'em and don't even put up a gravestone "I have deleted..." post. That was, frankly, ridiculous.
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Mandalore
6/8/2014 06:24:06 am
I'd leave the comments on this page, but prevent such a ridiculous reoccurrence elsewhere. I'd just shake my head and leave this page to its own devices.
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Mark R
6/8/2014 05:15:14 am
I don't get it...Jason mentions deleting 666's posts. And 666's offense? He stepped upon the poorly veiled religiousosity of Grunt. Grunt replies with escalating anger, condescension, snark, and degenerates into name calling. Matt, claiming to be agnostic, happily piles on the nonbeliever...And you guys blame 666?
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6/8/2014 05:19:00 am
No, I intended to delete his posts because he or she is posting under multiple names and carrying on whole conversations with his/her other aliases. I decided to leave the comments after several people said that they found them valuable. However, I would like to ask that 666 pick one alias and stick with it.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/8/2014 05:32:17 am
And again, you know nothing at all about my religious beliefs. If you'd care to have that conversation, I'm all ears, except for the parts that are teeth. Bluntly, I believe that distilled water free of impurities freezes at 32 Fahrenheit and boils at 212 Fahrenheit; the modulus of elasticity of mild steel is 29 million pounds per square inch; the unit weight of water is 62.4 pounds per cubic foot; the mean distance from Earth to the Sun is eight light-minutes... I believe, in short, in things that you can test. I find internet atheists to be frustrating, self-righteous idiots, because they pronounce judgment on things that you cannot test. Meantime, until they become testable, they're matters of opinion, not fact, and should be treated as such.
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william smith
6/8/2014 05:54:34 am
I have read all the post on this subject and find very little that addresses Scott Wolters ability to use scientific information to support his theorys. Reading a book or a stone carved in runic letters is no more accurate than the author. If only one book was found that addresses a subject like the KRS then you must take it as face value and use scientific academicly approved technology to prove or disprove its authenticity. The King James Bible has many views from many authors that explain the logic of our existance. Even though this is a translation by man in the 1700's with the inspiration of God it to date has no proven scientific flaws. For one to believe we are created from nothing and nothing remaines after death is no more than a cop out. It even explaines that be aware of the anti Christ (666) who will attemt to lead you down the wrong road. What is (THOUGHT) and where does it go after we are so called dead? The founders of the USA were not all Templars,Masons, Christans, Jews, Mormons and other, however they all said In God we trust.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/8/2014 06:07:06 am
I'm sure this is going to go over well, but since this thread's already a cesspool in that regard...
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.
6/9/2014 05:25:10 am
Grunt --- the 4004 B.C date came from the way my rather
.
6/9/2014 05:50:28 am
CLEARLY if octavius = augustus = roman god by self decree
.
6/9/2014 05:54:16 am
Our Creator Being is slightly dishonest and hath
william smith
6/9/2014 08:06:50 am
Plato's translation of creation and the time of Atlantis was from a conversation he overheard his grandfather talking about. The actual length of a year is in question because the conversation relates to a time before the Julian calendar in about 50 BC. Prior to this most people used the lunar calendar and a year was about 30 days because it took the moon 29.6 days to circle the earth. When you convert the mistranslated years into months you will see many of the dates fall into line with the expected time frame. The lunar calendar was used in America when the modern European came ashore. The oldest known writing is about 5000BC. Stonehenge is about 2500BC, The Great Pyramids in Egypt are about 2200BC. The sinking of Atlantis would have been about 5500BC and not 10,000 years before Plato. The oldest common man made structures in both Europe and the Americas has been stated as Dolmans based on archaeology carbon dating. Their is speculation that these Dolmans were made by the survivors of Atlantis. Note: Cave art in Spain and spear points fall into a time before Atlantis and the introduction of technology from the Island people.
Pacal
6/26/2014 04:10:01 am
Actually the notion that when some of the ancients were talking about "years" they actually meant months goes back to Greek and Roman writers who when faced with the large number of years reported by Egyptians and Babylonian (In the case of the Babylonians hundreds of thousands of years) decided that the "years" referred to were months and in some cases seasons. Later certain Christian thinkers adopted this idea because it fit their much shorter chronology for the existence of the world. (At the time under 5,000 years). Well it is a crock when the Egyptians and Babylonians talked about "years" they meant years they had different words for months and seasons.
BillUSA
6/8/2014 06:18:18 am
I was on my way home to southeastern Pennsylvania from Ocean City NJ yesterday. Being that I hardly ever go there I brought my GPS device with me to find the shortest route to and from that beautiful shore town. I am adept at keeping it updated and with it's operation in transit. So when it kept suggesting that I head north when I wanted to go west, I decided to change it's name to...
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peter
6/14/2014 04:41:23 am
J C had three phases
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peter
6/14/2014 04:52:36 am
ammuz and osiris
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Gunn
6/16/2014 12:16:03 pm
As repeatedly foretold, Jesus was born on earth as a helpless human infant, and as God Almighty. Through spiritual and physical victory, He now has custody of the keys of hell and death, and He will be worshiped throughout eternity by a certain number of earth's population.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/17/2014 01:50:16 am
Actually, it's nowhere near the size of a pen. Try all of the matter in all of the Universe, in an infinitesimally small space. I almost said "in a pinhead," but that, again, would be too large a scale. You seem to think that reason is the death of wonder; you are mistaken.
William Smith
6/17/2014 07:35:13 am
Well said Grunt. Before god created our world he said all was void with no mass. On the first day he said let their be light. On the second day he created the heavens and earth. On the third day he put the planets in orbit. On the forth day he put the sun and moon in orbit with the earth. What light was he talking about on the first day if he did not create the sun until the forth day? It is understood that if matter exceeded the speed of light it would turn into pure energy without mass. The one thing we do have that can exceed the speed of light is thought. I suggest that 666 remember that his thoughts will be with him forever.
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Only Me
6/19/2014 01:11:46 pm
It has always been my personal opinion that science and faith are not mutually exclusive. They walk side by side, enriching each other.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
6/20/2014 04:33:54 am
I'm staying out of that one. I'm not commenting on yesterday's blog post (that of 19 June 2014) because I don't have anything to add to Jason, it's his blog, it's not KIF/666/whoever's, and I'm not here to debate nihilism and philosophical positions that have been discredited since the Stoics. I have my own beliefs, that, as I've said, tend to lean on the side of what can be tested. He, she, or it is welcome to whatever beliefs he, she, or it chooses. That doesn't mean I have to indulge or respond to them.
Only Me
6/20/2014 08:18:23 am
No problem, Grunt. Considering the shellacking you gave him/her/it the last time, I encourage you to take it easy and let the scabs on your knuckles heal ;)
.
9/17/2014 10:48:27 am
As a self imposed penance for my many sins i read
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