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#8195 10/24/00 01:32 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Appropriately enough, this member agrees with the old hand. I'm keepin' my hands off that one! Yipe!

the vast difference (even total opposition) between the portrayal of God in the Old Testament and the New.

It is strange, isn't it? I've often thought that the Old
Testament may be that way due to the simplistic beliefs of the time, e.g. that weather events were not random, but
purposefully chosen by some unknown Being, who had better
be appeased. And yet, civilization was hardly advanced by the time of Christ's birth! Dare I say it?--he might have
been real.




#8196 10/24/00 01:53 PM
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old hand
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Jackie

I am sorely tempted to round up all my F.A.C.T.S. colleagues and march at your statement...

In reply to:

And yet, civilization was hardly advanced by the time of Christ's birth! Dare I say it?--he might have been real.



But this board is about language, not comparative religion, or history. Suffice to say that the Roman Empire was suffused, at the time, with interesting spiritual notions from the East; Mithrasism (or Mithraism) being the most well known of them. Also, it was arguably the most advanced civilisation in the West until the mediaeval period. Finally, a lot of the Old Testament was written without reference to the nearly contemporaneous great Greek philosophers. The New Testament, written within the Roman civilisation, can hardly have failed to be influenced by them...

For what it's worth, I believe the scholarly opinion is that somebody called Jesus, who founded a religion latterly called Christianity, is likely to have lived around that time. The scholars are, of course, silent about his putative divinity!

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#8197 10/24/00 02:10 PM
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My sweet shanks--
notice I said "might". And I meant it as a person, not as "The Son". I agree with your statements, my dear! :-)

I really didn't and don't want to get into a discussion on religion. But all of this gives excellent examples of the efficacy, or lack thereof, of our attempts at communication using language. Jesus' (if he existed) statements may have
been written incorrectly, translated incorrectly, and just
plain misinterpreted at the time. We may not have found everything that was written about him.
My failure to specify my meaning was another example. No
offense was meant.



#8198 10/24/00 02:59 PM
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old hand
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I am inoffensible! (Maybe I should put that in the coinages forum?)

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#8199 10/24/00 03:34 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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]green]. But wouldn't masturbation have had a category all of its own?

It certainly did, Shona - In Victorian Public Schools (and right up until WW2 in some of them, I believe) it was known as "Self-Pollution."

Sorry to be a bit late with this - I've only just got back to work today after a long and arduous week-end, in which pollution of any sort didn't figure at all.


#8200 10/24/00 03:36 PM
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>pocket billiards/pool

is billiards (sans pockets) played at all in the U.K.? the last time I saw a "billiards" table here was in "Hustler" (Paul Newman, again). [and the last time I saw a snooker table I was in college <mumble> years ago.]


#8201 10/24/00 04:20 PM
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jmh Offline
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I do believe that billiards is still played in places but I don't move in the right circles.

Unfortunately many pubs tend to have pool tables rather than either billiards or snooker. I suspect because it has a smaller table (so it takes up less space) and the game is shorter (giving more people a chance to play and generating more money).

I know of one version of late night billiards which has rather simple rules - no spitting, no gouging, no other rules. The last surviving player wins. I haven't played it but I know people who have survived!


#8202 10/24/00 09:20 PM
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Billiards is certainly something of a special/cult sport. Fron what I remember (Bombay childhood) India nay claim to be the most successful nation of recent recent times, with record-breaking world champions through the 70s and 80s in Michael Ferreira and Geet Sethi.

One must ask, nevertheless, whether great value must be attached to a break of over a thousand that was compiled using only the three (or is it four) balls available, and took a couple of hours to complete...


#8203 10/24/00 10:46 PM
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"Self-Pollution."

Cheers, Rhub. Yes, that sounds about right for teecha terminology - and back then it probably wouldn't be applied to smoking, which would be the first association these days.
But what would the kids themselves have called it?

"Jerking off"? Or did we get that from over the Pond? Hang on, this could be time to get into tsuwm's slang references.

Sorry to hear about the pollution-free weekend. Sad to say most of us have to spend a little time in the Garden (usually with the sprats)...


#8204 10/24/00 11:02 PM
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pubs tend to have pool tables rather than either billiards or snooker

Indeed they do. Though there's a fair amount of bar billiards played hereabouts. I'll have to find a link for this, as an explanation would be complex!

I know of quite a few snooker clubs, but I don't actually know of any billiard clubs. Isn't the same size table used for billiards as snooker?

Beastlified if I know.




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