For a genuinely crass explanation of the news, Sordel is usually a one-stop-shopper: generally, the BBC will be good enough. In order to illustrate the mind-numbing crassness of today's news, however, I must quote from The Belfast Telegraph.
The report of this particular "news" story actually appears in The Telegraph online, where the first paragraph reads "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, new research has shown."
Like a smaller brother copying homework from his nerdish sibling, however, The Belfast Telegraph sexes up this paragraph with an extra thought: "One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, research has shown – although the event described in the Book of Exodus was more likely caused by freak weather conditions than the hand of Jehovah."
Evidently quoting from one source is plagiarism but quoting from one source and then adding an oafish commentary of your own passes for journalism.
The scientific research in question (on the off-chance that you are too busy to click through those links) creates a scenario where, at a particular point close the the Red Sea, an Easterly wind blowing for 63mph for 12 hours could have created a temporary land bridge. The story of the Israelites' escape into the wilderness (well, the part that isn't about a rain of frogs, plague of boils and the Angel of Death slaying the First Born of Egypt) might therefore be literally true.
As The Belfast Telegraph kindly demonstrates, however, this story is not about how one small portion of The Bible could be literally true, but how every other part of it might be literally false.
Because, if Science can explain the parting of the Red Sea can be explained in scientific terms, then clearly "the hand of Jehovah" had very little part to play.
So, let's take a look at this story in the light of this bombshell.
Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and the Egyptians give chase. Oddly - and in a display of leadership not equalled until the days of Mrs. Brown's Little Boy - he chooses an escape route that leads to an impassable body of water.
Now, if you could establish that fishermen of the area knew full well that, say, a sandbank in the area was generally revealed during low tide or something, so Moses might have been talking things over with them in the preceding days and discovered this, then - fair enough - the escape doesn't seem like much of a miracle.
But - according to the latest scientific conjecture - what now happened is that an Easterly wind of 63 mph sprang up and was sustained for 12 hours.
(What's more, this isn't a regular occurrence. If it were, in the succeeding several thousand years someone would have seen this happen and said "hey, that looks a bit like the parting of the Red Sea!")
Now, if something that has never apparently happened again happens at the one time when it would be essential to allow passage for the Israelites ... wouldn't that count as a miracle?
And, if not, what would?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Proverbs 15:1, Fahrenheit 451
Sordel was surprised to hear that Terry Jones, infamous Python and driving force behind blasphemous satire The Life of Brian, is at it again with his plans to burn the Qur'an.
Except it's a different Terry Jones: a Terry Jones hitherto occluded by the heavy shadow of his irreverent namesake, and now crawling from beneath it with a packet of matches and the desire to be martyred.
This Terry Jones believes in keeping up with The (other) Joneses. In this case Jim Jones, whose inventive marketing campaign for Kool Aid came at the expense of his followers in the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. That all occurred in some hellhole in Guyana. Terry, however, has established his church in a city in humid subtropical Florida. The city is called Gainesville, and has presumably been popping up with unusual frequency on Google Maps for users throughout the Middle East and Asia.
Oh yes, the Dove World Outreach Center (or the Dove World Trade Center Outrage, as it will surely be rechristened) is indeed reaching out to the world with its message of peace, reconciliation and lighter fuel accelerant.
The real question that is prompted by this folly is not, however, to wonder why this is being done (given the number of nutcases in the world I'm surprised that it isn't done every day) but to wonder how. Sordel is a cultured fellow, but never owned a Qur'an until well along in years.
Back in what we will term for the sake of argument were the Good Old Days, when women decided to burn their bras, there were bras enough to burn. When the American flag is burnt, or draft cards, or Beatles albums, there is a presumption that someone in possession of the combustible material already had it to hand before settling on this means of disposal.
Do we really believe that Christians of this rabid hue have been hoarding multiple copies of the Qur'an prior to determining upon this process? Or that sympathetic devotees of The Prophet, alternatively, have been supplying their third and fourth best copies for charitable disposal?
No, surely Qur'an sales have rocketed in Florida in recent weeks, as Terry takes delivery of large cartons of books paid for by his extremist donors.
Because when you're out to save souls, saving the forests comes a distant second.
"Where they burn books they will soon burn people", wrote Heine. It may surprise you to discover that the occasion for that famous quotation was the burning of the Qur'an.
Except it's a different Terry Jones: a Terry Jones hitherto occluded by the heavy shadow of his irreverent namesake, and now crawling from beneath it with a packet of matches and the desire to be martyred.
This Terry Jones believes in keeping up with The (other) Joneses. In this case Jim Jones, whose inventive marketing campaign for Kool Aid came at the expense of his followers in the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. That all occurred in some hellhole in Guyana. Terry, however, has established his church in a city in humid subtropical Florida. The city is called Gainesville, and has presumably been popping up with unusual frequency on Google Maps for users throughout the Middle East and Asia.
Oh yes, the Dove World Outreach Center (or the Dove World Trade Center Outrage, as it will surely be rechristened) is indeed reaching out to the world with its message of peace, reconciliation and lighter fuel accelerant.
The real question that is prompted by this folly is not, however, to wonder why this is being done (given the number of nutcases in the world I'm surprised that it isn't done every day) but to wonder how. Sordel is a cultured fellow, but never owned a Qur'an until well along in years.
Back in what we will term for the sake of argument were the Good Old Days, when women decided to burn their bras, there were bras enough to burn. When the American flag is burnt, or draft cards, or Beatles albums, there is a presumption that someone in possession of the combustible material already had it to hand before settling on this means of disposal.
Do we really believe that Christians of this rabid hue have been hoarding multiple copies of the Qur'an prior to determining upon this process? Or that sympathetic devotees of The Prophet, alternatively, have been supplying their third and fourth best copies for charitable disposal?
No, surely Qur'an sales have rocketed in Florida in recent weeks, as Terry takes delivery of large cartons of books paid for by his extremist donors.
Because when you're out to save souls, saving the forests comes a distant second.
"Where they burn books they will soon burn people", wrote Heine. It may surprise you to discover that the occasion for that famous quotation was the burning of the Qur'an.
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