Bible Wordcounts

Gordon wrote: »

'kneaded it': 2
'baked it': 1
'ate it': 1

What did they do with the other batch they did not bake and eat? Kneading is a lot of work, they must have done something with it.

I kind of predicted the high count of "fool" before I saw it. I was going to ask but someone checked it before I asked. It seems insulting people who doubt is a useful replacement for actually substantiating your claims in books such as these.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I kind of predicted the high count of "fool" before I saw it. I was going to ask but someone checked it before I asked. It seems insulting people who doubt is a useful replacement for actually substantiating your claims in books such as these.

Whoa, way to make the evidence fit your preconceptions! Very few of the uses of "fool" in the Bible refer to people who doubt. When it appears in the bible, the word mostly refers to figures who do things which they know to be wrong or unwise.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Whoa, way to make the evidence fit your preconceptions! Very few of the uses of "fool" in the Bible refer to people who doubt. When it appears in the bible, the word mostly refers to figures who do things which they know to be wrong or unwise.

I changed no evidence nor fit anything to preconceptions. I merely took something I know to be true.... which is that people with no evidence for a proposition often tend to insult the "mark" in order to cajole them into accepting the proposition.... and turned that observation into a prediction. The prediction turned out to be true.

More than that I did not do or say.

Now WHY that prediction turned out to be true, and whether it was just coincidence, or whether the reason it was true was, or was not, connected to the reasons I made the prediction.... is a different conversation and one you are perfectly welcome to have. I am perfectly aware that not all predictions turn out true because of the reasons the initial prediction was made.

That of course does not change the fact that phrases like "The fool hath said in their heart there is no god" are very interesting. The psychology behind such phrases are not only clear, but still used today in our advertising industries. Phrases like "Offer for limited time only.... you would be a fool to miss it" punctuate our advertising industry for good psychological reasons.

It seems that when selling a product one successful approach rather than espouse the virtues and uses of the product, is to somehow make the "mark" feel deficient for not buying into it. If you can successfully lodge in the head of the "mark" that they are somehow at fault for being without your product then there is little more that you have to do.

Religion has known this for a long time and approaches like calling people who do not buy into it "fools" is an example of it.

Those like myself who are interested in such things as the workings of human psychology can in fact find many parallels between things like advertising and even torture techniques, and the techniques religion uses to perpetuate itself. I have been constantly awestruck by the fact that almost by natural selection religion has hit on ways to manipulate the "mark" long before their equivalents have been discovered in advertising, torture or by human psychologists.

Gordon wrote: »

Fabrications in the bible, WHAT?!

I thought it might be a fabrication but then I checked and it's in the bible so it is actually true. Phew! QED

Is downloading a Bible stealing from God?

If not, is selling a Bible profiteering God's words?

Gordon wrote: »

Exactly what I was thinking last week! I imagine the text is out of copyright by now, so I reckon we could make our own version "The King Jam's Bible" and shuffle about some words to make it a unique interpretation, and sell it online with some google adwords on christian websites. Add in some liberal references to jam also. Don't see why not!

I have toyed with writing a sequel but it's hard to tell whether you should continue to include crazy plot holes or actually tie them up. I actually have two very short (about a page or two) rough drafts for a first chapter. I should post them up sometime...

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I changed no evidence nor fit anything to preconceptions. I merely took something I know to be true.... which is that people with no evidence for a proposition often tend to insult the "mark" in order to cajole them into accepting the proposition.... and turned that observation into a prediction. The prediction turned out to be true.
More than that I did not do or say.

You did, actually. Having informed us of your remarkable prescience, you then went on to draw the conclusion that "it seems insulting people who doubt is a useful replacement for actually substantiating your claims in books such as these". That statement makes no sense at all - and I would be the last to accuse you of writing nonsense - unless you assume that the word "fool" in the bible often or usually refers to doubters. In fact, it doesn't.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Now WHY that prediction turned out to be true, and whether it was just coincidence, or whether the reason it was true was, or was not, connected to the reasons I made the prediction.... is a different conversation and one you are perfectly welcome to have. I am perfectly aware that not all predictions turn out true because of the reasons the initial prediction was made.

We call this "coincidence", and as all good sceptics know we cannot validly draw causal conclusions from coincidences.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

That of course does not change the fact that phrases like "The fool hath said in their heart there is no god" are very interesting. The psychology behind such phrases are not only clear, but still used today in our advertising industries. Phrases like "Offer for limited time only.... you would be a fool to miss it" punctuate our advertising industry for good psychological reasons . . . Those like myself who are interested in such things as the workings of human psychology can in fact find many parallels between things like advertising and even torture techniques, and the techniques religion uses to perpetuate itself. I have been constantly awestruck by the fact that almost by natural selection religion has hit on ways to manipulate the "mark" long before their equivalents have been discovered in advertising, torture or by human psychologists.

I'm puzzled as to why this should strike such awe into you. The culture which produced the scriptures was not as technologically advanced as ours, but there is no reason why this would prevent them from developing techniques of effective writing, for which the only required technology is papyrus, ink and a nib. Even today's militant atheists extensively employ the same technique or ridicule - homage, if you will, to the insights into the human mind which are reflected in scripture!

On a slighly more serious note, I think there's another misplaced assumption here. If you think about it, the Old Testament texts are mostly not addressed to non-Jews; non-Jewes aren't expected to read them, or even to be aware of their existence, much less to attach any signficance or authority to them. Furthermore, the authors are not trying to "sell" Judaism to the world; they had absolutely zero interest in attracting converts. So if the "fool" language is intended to influence anybody, it's the target audience, which is observant Jews. It's purpose is to confirm them in the rightness and wisdom and general good sense of their commitment to the Jewish way of life.

(In much the way, come to think of it, that the caricaturing and ridiculing of religion which abounds in discussion groups populated largely by atheists or agnostics serves mainly to comfort and confirm them in their beliefs.)