Center of Attention
Some extra attention for a few centrist, moderate, and independent bloggers …
Al Sharpton did some soulfamily searching. Amba writes: “Al Sharpton has discovered that an ancestor of his was owned by an ancestor of Strom Thurmond’s.” Go read her post over at AmbivaBlog.
Shay comments on the Oscars. She “batted .500 in [her] hicks”.
Capt. Fogg at The Reaction on “why in the hell [Americans] have to press ’1′ for English”, John Wayne and Marion Morrison.
Secular Blasphemy reports that the UN International Court of Justice “has cleared the state of Serbia for direct responsibility for the genocide in Bosnia.”
Polimom is “fascinated” by the question whose remains were found in the tomb in Jerusalem. Are they the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene and did they have a son? From an article at the Discovery Channel website she links to:
The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb. In other words, the conclusion works 599 times out of 600.
Dick Polman on the inability of the Democrats to unite and confront “an unpopular president who is waging a disastrous and unpopular war.”
Michael J. Totten, the best original reporter in the blogosphere, is on his way to Iraq.
6 Responses to “Center of Attention”
“The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb.”
Nonsense. The only interesting point is the ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ inscription, and the ‘Discovery’ story says it “appeared once out of 190 times”. In other reports, Archaelogists say they found hundreds of ‘Jesus’ graves so far, so it’s perfectly normal that at least one of them had a father named Joseph. What’s the big deal?
The point is, there’s no evidence whatever that Jesus ever married, so it’s absurd to make believe that a tomb for a ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ and ‘Mariamne’ together has any significance. All this tomb shows is that ‘Jesus’ and ‘Joseph’ were quite common names during that time. The idiotic calculation (1:600) only makes sense if other, unconnected evidence suggests that this combination of names was what we were looking for before the grave was found. It’s sloppy usage of the calculus of probabilities. It would be the same as if I asked you, Mike, for the names of your close relatives, calculated the chances for such a combination, and then declared how very impropable your very existence is. Of course, this would be nonsense, since after hearing the names from you I have to know that the chance is actually 100%.
Also, think about the fact that the ‘Mariamne’ here was the only one whose tomb was additionally marked with a greek inscription. Yeah, sure, that’s how I guess they buried Jesus: Simply as the son of Joseph, with his ‘wife’ being praised as ‘master’. Really makes sense, right?
Only total idiots would believe such a story. And only fanatics wanting to smear christian beliefs would spread it.
“press ‘1′ for English”
Makes perfect sense to me. English is the #1 language in the US, so press ’1′. What do those folks want? They prefer ’6′?
Gray: rest asured – it’s not my opinion, I simply quote from the article.
“Gray: rest asured – it’s not my opinion, I simply quote from the article.”
That’s how I understood it. I didn’t want to make it sound as if I think you endorsed this, sry, Mike. But I wonder about Polymom’s stance:
“600 to 1 odds aren’t nearly long enough to overturn faith. And frankly, they shouldn’t be. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be faith, would it?”
Besides citing the incorrect calculation of the odds, what does Polymom want to say to us here? That faith is foolish?
:-/
“And only fanatics wanting to smear christian beliefs would spread it.”
Oops, no misunderstanding, pls. This wasn’t aimed at you, Mike. I wanted to target those who triumphantly report this as if it has some scientific value, with the intention to hurt Christians at one fo their core beliefs.
Gray,
Good points about the criticism of the odds calculation. However, I didn’t find Polimom’s statement to be a smear against faith. I felt she was simply saying that faith doesn’t rely on probabilities. We would believe even if the odds were proven to be against it, because that’s the nature of faith and that’s its strength, not a weakness. It’s like having faith in a person even if he or she has screwed up 1000 times you never give up on him. Faith simply ignores the odds and believes anyway, and that’s a good thing.