Re: Saprutum website update

I will not hurt the feelings of Christians in relation to the words of one
Iesu di' Nazareth, because they are the words of someone who was very, very
perceptive, very, very compassionate, very, very angry, and thus true.

On the matter of a book written in the apocalyptic style of the book of
Daniel, and thus impossible to interpret "literally", I have no such
inhibitions.  The more so since practically every interpretation of those two
books - the book of Daniel and the book of Revelations - that breaks away
from their temporal contexts, turns out completely wrong within a few
decades, if not years.  And we know what is to be done with false prophets,
don't we?  If we can't stone them, we should at least be able to laugh at
them.

Again, sorry for intruding this matter on this list, but that has been a
bugbear of mine for over the last couple of decades.  (If I really wanted to
get offensive, I would be asking if Hashem was the name of the forefather of
the Hashemite royal family of Transjordan.  (That is a conculture idea
frightening to consider!  I have a truly perverted sense of humour! ;)  I
_do_ know enough Hebrew to know that isn't the case, that "Hashem" - The Name
- is one of the Jewish circumlocutions for the name of God, YHWH - and as far
as [fore]fathers becoming gods goes, it occurs in my of my (unfinished)
novels, "The House of the Gods" - the main male character, Tye'ari, aka
Charlie, half-Earth/half-Centauri human, is quite unaware that his father,
the Earthman Eric Sibi, who died shortly before his birth, has been deified
as the god of knowledge and wisdom and is worshipped by his friends as
Rere'eri - "Great and noble Teacher" - Rere is a reduplicated "emphasis"
prefix, translated according to context, as "most" or "very" in nominal
contructions, "great and noble" in front of proper nouns, etc.  It is a
"personal" construction.  And the State worships his father as Re'erire -
"Honoured, royal Teacher" - in this case the intensifier |re-| is both
prefixed |re-| and suffixed |-re| to the word it modifies, and gives a
heavily formal construction.  Ie, you would use |ndao| for "(biological)
father",  |Rerendao| for "Daddy", |Rendao| for "Dad" as in "Can I borrow the
car keys?", whereas for a Coming-of-Age ceremony you would use |Rendaore| -
"Father".  So, sorry if I offend anyone, and I apologize, and to quote from
Giovanni Guareschi's Introduction to "The Little World of Don Camillo", "If
any Christian is offended ..., he is welcome to break the biggest crucifix he
can find over my back, and if any Communist is offended ..., he is welcome to
break the biggest hammer and sickle he can find over my back.", but these
days I can't take religion - beyond recognizing its worth as social cement to
maintain a group's coherence - seriously at all.)

Shalom and all that,

Wesley Parish

On Thursday 06 March 2003 11:32 pm, you wrote:
> Katav Wesley Parish:
> > "mystery behind seven seals"?  Wait till you meet up with the "mystery
> behind
> > seven sea-lions"!  Or worse still, the "mystery behind seven walruses"!!!
> ;)
> > (IMVHO, the various interpretations of a certain part of the Christian
> Bible,
> > namely the Apocalypse/Revelations, would be etc.
>
> Hehe. The expression "a mystery behind seven seals" is a plain Russian
> proverb, used in many secular contexts, meaning just "a deep mystery". I
> would have never connected this phrase to the Chr. Bible unless you have
> pointed that to me!!! True, the Russian language is full of such phrases,
> usually slightly archaic in their style being quoted from the Old Church
> Slavonic Bible...
>
> And, Wesley, please don't offend / hurt the feeling of those people in the
> List who are devoted Christians. I know there are some. [The same concerns
> the devoted ones of any religion: Jews, Moslems, Tribal Dancers,
> Wiggaboompalars whatsoever...]
>
> Yitzik, a devoted one of Hashem, G-d of Israel
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

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