TECHNICALLY the Bible doesn’t give a shit what you do, it’s just a dubious compilation of anecdotes
And it’s not like it’s the BOOK’S fault. The book was just PAPER, all bright-eyed and eager, showing up at the plant EXCITED for its big day, its DESTINY…
**comes in after watching a 2+ hour long video on Stargate SG1 that delves into how the last two seasons discussed, among other things, using the (intentional) misinterpretation of scripture to justify horrific actions.**
The various books of the bible are lots of things written by lots of people with different viewpoints over a long period of time for a variety of reasons. Not all of them were ever intended to be read as literal history, and those that were range in… well, in probable historical accuracy.
I’m not sure that any of them were written as literal history. Not in anything like the way we think of history at least.
The Gospels in particular were clearly written to promote the author’s own take on not only the events, but on the meanings behind them. Different competing ideas in early Christianity.
Miles
Some of the OT books such as Kings, Judges, Corinthians seem like at least an attempt was made at a historical account rather than some sort of propaganda nobody was going to read because copying books was expensive back then. ?♀️
milu
Corinthians is in the New Testament. it was definitely meant to be read and widely circulated, at least, you know, in 1st century Corinth.
thejeff
“Chronicles” maybe?
Generally, Kings and Judges are considered part of the Deuteronomistic school. Written (or heavily edited out of earlier works) during the period of the Babylonian Exile, hundreds of years after most of the events. Largely for explicitly propagandic purposes. To justify their faith and identity despite the Exile and to explain God’s purpose behind their troubles.
Individual people don’t have to have copies to read when it’s made part of the priestly tradition. Priests can read it and spread it as part of the religious teachings.
I mean TECHNICALLY TECHNICALLY, the bible only says “don’t sleep with men in the same way you sleep with women” (Levi) and “look I get you have issues with gay people but seriously you’re being such hypocrites that you’re condemning yourselves and your followers to hell so just stop” (the entire book of romans in summary)
And that’s the whole list of everything the bible has to say about gay couples. Now if we want to look at the hundreds of verses about why men shouldn’t sleep with women, it starts to look like god actually encourages gay sex in the levi verse.
I find your summary of Romans to be much easier to read than Romans. I have sufficient difficulty deciphering Romans that I cannot judge the accuracy of the summary, however.
Technically I think that’s actually about threesomes and paternity. Or something. Original translation being about two guys sleeping together in a woman’s bed. So it could literally be “Dudes, that’s her space, go to your own bed!”
The only other time being gay comes up IIRC, is with that guy who is in love with his slave and Jesus is all like “Dude, if you love him then why is he still your slave?”
TECHNICALLY… If that’s true then Leviticus might mean “Men and women have different needs. Women need (and like) foreplay. Don’t go straight to hammer time.” Or it might mean “Women can get pregnant. Maybe think about that before sexy times.” Or it might mean “Women have emotions. Hang around and cuddle a bit. Don’t just offer a high-five and doze off. And it wouldn’t hurt to get up early and make her breakfast instead of bailing. Looking at you, Zebulon.”
That would just confuse Joyce-during-her-fundie-period more, because she’s fairly petite, but someone like Joe or Ethan has much longer arms, but then again people were generally smaller thousands of years ago, but oh no, acknowledging that might point to evolution so what’s the official cubit?!
milu
i don’t think the difference in average height between modern humans and biblical humans, if any, has much to do with evolution, and everything to do with dietary and medical improvements. 6000 years, or about 25,000 generations, is not a whole lot on the evolutionary time scale.
related, i once met someone with a graduated ruler tattooed on his forearm. i thought that was pretty neat
Needfuldoer
Adam Savage got one too, in both metric and US customary units.
Isn’t the current consensus that “anatomically modern humans” emerged roughly 100- to 200-thousand years ago?
milu
it’s actually a really complicated question.
it depends where you draw the line, really.
our species, homo sapiens, is considered to have evolved around 300k years ago from H. heidelbergensis. possibly the line as to when that transition took place is when H. neanderthalensis split off; it’s still arbitrary, though, and i’m sure anthropaleontologists disagree about every part of this ^^
still, the overall human population is regarded as a single species by all and any biological criteria because we’ve interbred enough until recently enough that we’re all very, very similar genetically (it bears repeating that the most genetic diversity is found within Africa)
if i remember right, the human gene pool was basically united until about 70k years ago, which is around the time of the second major human expansion out of Africa. that means at least 70k years for some human divergence within human evolution. Besides, different modern populations have varying levels of DNA from other human species (mostly Neanderthals and Denisovans); either from different levels of interbreeding, or from different selective pressures to keep or lose that hybrid DNA.
So anyway, evolution continued within the H. sapiens stock, and another subdivision i’ve seen is early vs. post-glacial human, in terms of skeletal build. later humans are supposed to be more gracile, earlier ones slightly more heavy-built. i’m not sure which populations we’re talking about though, European probably?
it’s also alleged that there’s been an observed diminishing of our braincase volume over the last 10 to 20k years (SciAm article)
the Caucasian body type seems to have appeared about 20k years ago.
lactose digestion in adults was selected for in populations that domesticated cattle during the neolithic revolution starting ~10k years ago.
and some claim to have discovered evolutionary effects in human populations having happened over more recent time spans than that, like adaptations for underwater fishing in the Sama-Bajau people of Southeast Asia that would have had to occur in the last couple millenia. It’s pretty fascinating, they found that members of this group have enlarged spleens, which helps store haemoglobin in the blood longer while freediving; they found the same effect in members of the population who didn’t dive, which indicates it’s genetic, and not the effect of constant training from childhood.
i’m not sure what that any of that says about the possible genetic component of height, and i should’ve said that while 6000 years is not a lot, it’s also not nothing in evolutionary terms; some evolution may have been observed over that amount of time. It just seems likely to me that environmental factors would have a much more visible impact.
…anyway i looked up Adam Savage’s tattoo. nice! yeah that’s the idea! except why not the entire forearm?
Sunny
Yes.
But how do you get 25000 generations of humans in just 6000 years?
milu
lol! by commenting before i’ve had any coffee apparently!
i don’t even know how i got that figure. i calculate 25 years to a generation so i guess that’s where the 25 comes from. (maybe it’s closer to 20 years on average? idk) anyway what i meant to type was 240 generations. thanks for the catch
Some Ed
It should probably be closer to 300 generations, as people historically started families earlier than they do today. Sure, not all of them, but even today we have people starting families anywhere between around 13 and 52 years of age. And even with those extreme ranges, there’s probably some outliers on either side that I missed. I just went with the ages of people I actually have met when they started their families.
milu
by your logic, why would 20 years old be the average generation span then? the midway point between 13 and 52 is 32.5
i’m sure there’s been scholarly work into guesstimating what the average generation rate has been for earlier times in human history. it might even be below 20 for all i know!
Paul Grant
Actually, those dietary and medical advancements ARE evolution in action, it’s our adaptation to the environment around us and our adaptation to it. Physical evolution is just one piece of the whole. We weren’t around to see the behavioral or even intellectual adaptations extinct species made.
milu
sure, that’s one way to look at it. but a creationist would find that a lot less challenging to their worldview. i assume. not that Doctor Who’s comment was meant to be taken THAT seriously.
Some Ed
I’d say the dietary and medical advancements are the result of evolution. But to be evolution, they’d need to be represented in the offspring without being handed them by the existing population – and that doesn’t happen.
Not yet, anyway. We will probably get there some day, if we survive what we’re currently doing to our planet and ourselves on a global scale.
milu
there’s a case to be made that culturally-transmitted characteristics such as knowledge and behaviour are as much a part of evolution as genes. What’s special about genetic units of transmission that doesn’t also apply to cultural units, unless we specifically restrict the definition of evolution to exclude them? they exhibit inheritance, modification, and can be selectively advantageous or disadvantageous.
but yeah, it is an unorthodox view.
LuminousLead
I’d have thought that 6000 years would be more like 300 generations, assuming each generation occupies a 20 year gap.
milu
yep. mea culpa. my brain was not switched on
ziggy78eog
A cubit can be anywhere between 18-22 inches; I do not think that there is any officially recognized standard length, for a cubit.
SeanR
Probably as official as Yard or Foot was, and varying from principality to principality and cloth merchant to cloth merchant.
This is the only reason I don’t like SI, besides the order of the letters in the name.
The Meter Just Happens to be a close approximation of a PARISIAN YARD. There were many other yards even just in France, and they chose the one used in PARIS specifically. The Meter was DEFINED AS, (old definition, long defunct), one ten-thousandth the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, passing through Paris, which means the Meter was defined as roughly one forty-thousandth of a polar circumference. This is a VERY awkward “natural measurement”. Had they gone with the Cubit, which historically ranges VERY broadly, from the Macedonian Cubit of about 14 inches up to the Roman Cubit of about 47 inches, they could have chosen 1/50,000th, at about 31.50 inches, or 1/100,000th, at about 15.75 inches., which is also close to one of old definitions of a Pace. Both of which would have fit better into their supposed “natural measure” scheme than does the, now offical, Meter.
Bathymetheus
Does not compute.
If a meter is one ten-thousandth of the distance from the pole to the equator, that makes that distance 10,000 meters or 10 Kilometers (just over 6 miles).
I’m too lazy to look up the correct definition, but you have obviously mis-remembered it.
milu
they meant ten-millionth.
SeanR
Thank you. Yes. I “Meant” ten-millionth in that remembered it wrong, and regurgitated my faulty memory without doing any gut check.
The definition was one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator.
See if God had asked one of the Nephilim to build the Ark, it would have been much bigger because of the size of a giant cubit, and more kinds would fit and we would still have unicorns
Icalasari
What I find funny is how the ark actually does work…
…But only the local area would have flooded that much. And for many back then, the local area was the entire world. So to them, that’s two of every animal. It makes a LOT more sense looking at it through those eyes, for sure. Some crazed farmer shoving all his animals onto a large boat along with some wild animals, then holy shit actual floods come wtf!?
Though I dunno, the idea that homo sapiens is “an inventive, invincible species” is probably the sort of thing that Old Testament God would kill us all over again for thinking.
Wizard
Just hope it’s not a B Ark.
Illithid
There have been several iterations. We’re now on ‘Q’.
HeatherJean
Is a B Ark worse than a B Ite?
I am Nothing
I’m afraid it’s all B Ark, no B Ite.
Formedras
Well, sending off the B Ark would be fine… as long as we don’t succumb to a telephone-borne virus like our ancestors. Sadly I’d be on it.
I forget if it was here or on Twitter, but I got into a conversation about the cubit as it related to Roman bread and Galasso’s sammich offerings. This must have happened at least a year or two ago. It turns out the Romans and the Hebrews used different lengths of cubits. Got very confusing.
Cubit is an English word subbed in for the original Hebrew word, because no one knows what that word meant. Thus people who build arcs? Don’t know what they’re doing.
Exactly where my mind went as well. I grew up listening to all his albums. He had some great routines: 59th St Bridge, Frankenstein, Noah, 200MPH, etc. And then it turns out he’s a turd of a human.
Clif
But the bits didn’t get any less funny.
Thag Simmons
While I can’t speak to this example in particular, knowing someone is a monstrous human being will stain the works they made
It might not ruin them completely (I still really like Firefly & Buffy) but it will diminish them
StClair
Yeah. That was one of my favorite skits of his, and I can’t enjoy it nearly as much as I used to.
Miri
In fairness, while Whedon was obviously integral to their BEING a Buffy, I think primarily of the actors when I think of it.
… And the characters when I think of Harry Potter, which is slightly more problematic, and there is a chance her Trans* urghness was creeping in with Rita Skeeter, and there’s a decent amount of fat-shaming going on in those books, but OTHERWISE they’re a tale about friendship, loyalty, love, working out your principles and sticking to them, valuing compassion…
But yeah, not watched anything with Depp in since the whole Amber Heard thing…
Jason
As other comments are showing it’s really going to vary. For example I simply can’t enjoy HP since it’s author is literally using the platform she gained from it as the head of a hate movement that has had a huge cultural negative impact in my country on, well… my people. Any positive feelings there are massively overwhelmed by the negative.
My closest friend (who is also one of that particular group of “my people”) basically is able to divorce the pleasure found in the books and films from the author, while recognising what she’s done and how awful it is. And I think that last bit is important- if you’re able to still appreciate something without supporting the awful people and while recognising how they’re awful and the harm they’ve done, that’s valid and fine. And honestly, for me personally, enviable.
RassilonTDavros
I used to be a Harry Potter fan, but these days about the only HP-related thing I can get any enjoyment out of is My Immortal.
Steelbright
Jason, I appreciate this nicely nuanced summary of the whole dilemma of good, or at least somewhat good, media produced by terrible people.
Charles Spencer
“The Chicken Heart was kept alive in a fluid of half alcohol, half human blood.
One day a careless janitor knocked it over.”, or word to that effect.
I’d love to be able to hear his stuff again without knowing it was his.
Needfuldoer
Yeah, I liked his sitcom years ago. Rewatching it now just isn’t the same.
Kindra
I used to get myself through anxiety at the dentist by reciting his bit on dentists to myself while I sat in the chair. Can’t do that anymore. I remember the routine, but then I think about the man who wrote it and it doesn’t make me laugh a bit and relax.
Cubit is the Early Modern English spelling of qubit, which is why it’s in KJV. Playing games with quantum mechanics was the only way to fit all the species into the ark.
— Source: Some irreverent with a Computer Science degree.
Yeah but the interpretation of the bible foisted onto Joyce was extremely specific about it, so Joyce had to accept it as inerrant fact like everything else.
Yeah, this sort of snap from extreme faith to extreme anti-faith seems to be relatively common with ex-fundies specifically, from what I’ve seen— biblical literalism requires you to do massive mental gymnastics to justify all the inherent contradictions, so if a single domino falls, the whole thing collapses.
And once one thing is proven wrong, then everything is wrong. Especially the flood story, everyone and thing would have suffocated by the end of three weeks because it was a terrible boat and the only way to keep it afloat was to make it almost airtight.
Pylgrim
This is the best I’ve seen this phenomenon explained yet.
349 thoughts on “Judas”
Ana Chronistic
TECHNICALLY the Bible doesn’t give a shit what you do, it’s just a dubious compilation of anecdotes
And it’s not like it’s the BOOK’S fault. The book was just PAPER, all bright-eyed and eager, showing up at the plant EXCITED for its big day, its DESTINY…
Rose by Any Other Name
**comes in after watching a 2+ hour long video on Stargate SG1 that delves into how the last two seasons discussed, among other things, using the (intentional) misinterpretation of scripture to justify horrific actions.**
Indeed.
Autogatos
The last 2 seasons have their issues but I will always appreciate them for their thinly-veiled critique of the dangers of biblical fundamentalism.
Rose by Any Other Name
You should check out Ladyknightthebrave’s video on SG1 (the video I mentioned above). It’s good stuff.
Also Laura Crone’s video on the Swan Princess Sequels – it contains a surprisingly in-depth and thoughtful discussion of biblical interpretation.
Enkrod
The brave lady knight had me convinced to watch all her videos when I stumbled upon her M*A*S*H essay, I can thoroughly recommend her!
Uly
it’s just a dubious compilation of anecdotes
The various books of the bible are lots of things written by lots of people with different viewpoints over a long period of time for a variety of reasons. Not all of them were ever intended to be read as literal history, and those that were range in… well, in probable historical accuracy.
thejeff
I’m not sure that any of them were written as literal history. Not in anything like the way we think of history at least.
The Gospels in particular were clearly written to promote the author’s own take on not only the events, but on the meanings behind them. Different competing ideas in early Christianity.
Miles
Some of the OT books such as Kings, Judges, Corinthians seem like at least an attempt was made at a historical account rather than some sort of propaganda nobody was going to read because copying books was expensive back then. ?♀️
milu
Corinthians is in the New Testament. it was definitely meant to be read and widely circulated, at least, you know, in 1st century Corinth.
thejeff
“Chronicles” maybe?
Generally, Kings and Judges are considered part of the Deuteronomistic school. Written (or heavily edited out of earlier works) during the period of the Babylonian Exile, hundreds of years after most of the events. Largely for explicitly propagandic purposes. To justify their faith and identity despite the Exile and to explain God’s purpose behind their troubles.
Individual people don’t have to have copies to read when it’s made part of the priestly tradition. Priests can read it and spread it as part of the religious teachings.
milu
“Chronicles” maybe?
ah yes, maybe.
Miles
I mean TECHNICALLY TECHNICALLY, the bible only says “don’t sleep with men in the same way you sleep with women” (Levi) and “look I get you have issues with gay people but seriously you’re being such hypocrites that you’re condemning yourselves and your followers to hell so just stop” (the entire book of romans in summary)
And that’s the whole list of everything the bible has to say about gay couples. Now if we want to look at the hundreds of verses about why men shouldn’t sleep with women, it starts to look like god actually encourages gay sex in the levi verse.
Some Ed
I find your summary of Romans to be much easier to read than Romans. I have sufficient difficulty deciphering Romans that I cannot judge the accuracy of the summary, however.
PlanetNiles
Technically I think that’s actually about threesomes and paternity. Or something. Original translation being about two guys sleeping together in a woman’s bed. So it could literally be “Dudes, that’s her space, go to your own bed!”
The only other time being gay comes up IIRC, is with that guy who is in love with his slave and Jesus is all like “Dude, if you love him then why is he still your slave?”
Byron Orpheus
TECHNICALLY… If that’s true then Leviticus might mean “Men and women have different needs. Women need (and like) foreplay. Don’t go straight to hammer time.” Or it might mean “Women can get pregnant. Maybe think about that before sexy times.” Or it might mean “Women have emotions. Hang around and cuddle a bit. Don’t just offer a high-five and doze off. And it wouldn’t hurt to get up early and make her breakfast instead of bailing. Looking at you, Zebulon.”
Doctor_Who
“Also I have no idea what a cubit is, and I’m afraid to ask!”
Kyrik Michalowski
It’s the length of your forearm.
Doctor_Who
That would just confuse Joyce-during-her-fundie-period more, because she’s fairly petite, but someone like Joe or Ethan has much longer arms, but then again people were generally smaller thousands of years ago, but oh no, acknowledging that might point to evolution so what’s the official cubit?!
milu
i don’t think the difference in average height between modern humans and biblical humans, if any, has much to do with evolution, and everything to do with dietary and medical improvements. 6000 years, or about 25,000 generations, is not a whole lot on the evolutionary time scale.
related, i once met someone with a graduated ruler tattooed on his forearm. i thought that was pretty neat
Needfuldoer
Adam Savage got one too, in both metric and US customary units.
Isn’t the current consensus that “anatomically modern humans” emerged roughly 100- to 200-thousand years ago?
milu
it’s actually a really complicated question.
it depends where you draw the line, really.
our species, homo sapiens, is considered to have evolved around 300k years ago from H. heidelbergensis. possibly the line as to when that transition took place is when H. neanderthalensis split off; it’s still arbitrary, though, and i’m sure anthropaleontologists disagree about every part of this ^^
still, the overall human population is regarded as a single species by all and any biological criteria because we’ve interbred enough until recently enough that we’re all very, very similar genetically (it bears repeating that the most genetic diversity is found within Africa)
if i remember right, the human gene pool was basically united until about 70k years ago, which is around the time of the second major human expansion out of Africa. that means at least 70k years for some human divergence within human evolution. Besides, different modern populations have varying levels of DNA from other human species (mostly Neanderthals and Denisovans); either from different levels of interbreeding, or from different selective pressures to keep or lose that hybrid DNA.
So anyway, evolution continued within the H. sapiens stock, and another subdivision i’ve seen is early vs. post-glacial human, in terms of skeletal build. later humans are supposed to be more gracile, earlier ones slightly more heavy-built. i’m not sure which populations we’re talking about though, European probably?
it’s also alleged that there’s been an observed diminishing of our braincase volume over the last 10 to 20k years (SciAm article)
the Caucasian body type seems to have appeared about 20k years ago.
lactose digestion in adults was selected for in populations that domesticated cattle during the neolithic revolution starting ~10k years ago.
and some claim to have discovered evolutionary effects in human populations having happened over more recent time spans than that, like adaptations for underwater fishing in the Sama-Bajau people of Southeast Asia that would have had to occur in the last couple millenia. It’s pretty fascinating, they found that members of this group have enlarged spleens, which helps store haemoglobin in the blood longer while freediving; they found the same effect in members of the population who didn’t dive, which indicates it’s genetic, and not the effect of constant training from childhood.
i’m not sure what that any of that says about the possible genetic component of height, and i should’ve said that while 6000 years is not a lot, it’s also not nothing in evolutionary terms; some evolution may have been observed over that amount of time. It just seems likely to me that environmental factors would have a much more visible impact.
…anyway i looked up Adam Savage’s tattoo. nice! yeah that’s the idea! except why not the entire forearm?
Sunny
Yes.
But how do you get 25000 generations of humans in just 6000 years?
milu
lol! by commenting before i’ve had any coffee apparently!
i don’t even know how i got that figure. i calculate 25 years to a generation so i guess that’s where the 25 comes from. (maybe it’s closer to 20 years on average? idk) anyway what i meant to type was 240 generations. thanks for the catch
Some Ed
It should probably be closer to 300 generations, as people historically started families earlier than they do today. Sure, not all of them, but even today we have people starting families anywhere between around 13 and 52 years of age. And even with those extreme ranges, there’s probably some outliers on either side that I missed. I just went with the ages of people I actually have met when they started their families.
milu
by your logic, why would 20 years old be the average generation span then? the midway point between 13 and 52 is 32.5
i’m sure there’s been scholarly work into guesstimating what the average generation rate has been for earlier times in human history. it might even be below 20 for all i know!
Paul Grant
Actually, those dietary and medical advancements ARE evolution in action, it’s our adaptation to the environment around us and our adaptation to it. Physical evolution is just one piece of the whole. We weren’t around to see the behavioral or even intellectual adaptations extinct species made.
milu
sure, that’s one way to look at it. but a creationist would find that a lot less challenging to their worldview. i assume. not that Doctor Who’s comment was meant to be taken THAT seriously.
Some Ed
I’d say the dietary and medical advancements are the result of evolution. But to be evolution, they’d need to be represented in the offspring without being handed them by the existing population – and that doesn’t happen.
Not yet, anyway. We will probably get there some day, if we survive what we’re currently doing to our planet and ourselves on a global scale.
milu
there’s a case to be made that culturally-transmitted characteristics such as knowledge and behaviour are as much a part of evolution as genes. What’s special about genetic units of transmission that doesn’t also apply to cultural units, unless we specifically restrict the definition of evolution to exclude them? they exhibit inheritance, modification, and can be selectively advantageous or disadvantageous.
but yeah, it is an unorthodox view.
LuminousLead
I’d have thought that 6000 years would be more like 300 generations, assuming each generation occupies a 20 year gap.
milu
yep. mea culpa. my brain was not switched on
ziggy78eog
A cubit can be anywhere between 18-22 inches; I do not think that there is any officially recognized standard length, for a cubit.
SeanR
Probably as official as Yard or Foot was, and varying from principality to principality and cloth merchant to cloth merchant.
This is the only reason I don’t like SI, besides the order of the letters in the name.
The Meter Just Happens to be a close approximation of a PARISIAN YARD. There were many other yards even just in France, and they chose the one used in PARIS specifically. The Meter was DEFINED AS, (old definition, long defunct), one ten-thousandth the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, passing through Paris, which means the Meter was defined as roughly one forty-thousandth of a polar circumference. This is a VERY awkward “natural measurement”. Had they gone with the Cubit, which historically ranges VERY broadly, from the Macedonian Cubit of about 14 inches up to the Roman Cubit of about 47 inches, they could have chosen 1/50,000th, at about 31.50 inches, or 1/100,000th, at about 15.75 inches., which is also close to one of old definitions of a Pace. Both of which would have fit better into their supposed “natural measure” scheme than does the, now offical, Meter.
Bathymetheus
Does not compute.
If a meter is one ten-thousandth of the distance from the pole to the equator, that makes that distance 10,000 meters or 10 Kilometers (just over 6 miles).
I’m too lazy to look up the correct definition, but you have obviously mis-remembered it.
milu
they meant ten-millionth.
SeanR
Thank you. Yes. I “Meant” ten-millionth in that remembered it wrong, and regurgitated my faulty memory without doing any gut check.
The definition was one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator.
Vulcanodon
See if God had asked one of the Nephilim to build the Ark, it would have been much bigger because of the size of a giant cubit, and more kinds would fit and we would still have unicorns
Icalasari
What I find funny is how the ark actually does work…
…But only the local area would have flooded that much. And for many back then, the local area was the entire world. So to them, that’s two of every animal. It makes a LOT more sense looking at it through those eyes, for sure. Some crazed farmer shoving all his animals onto a large boat along with some wild animals, then holy shit actual floods come wtf!?
JA
But does a circle with diameter 3 have a circumference of 10?
Cholma
“Lets see, a cubit…I used to know what a cubit was.
Well don’t worry about that, Doctor_Who, just build me an Ark.”
RassilonTDavros
Maybe even an Ark… in Space?
Though I dunno, the idea that homo sapiens is “an inventive, invincible species” is probably the sort of thing that Old Testament God would kill us all over again for thinking.
Wizard
Just hope it’s not a B Ark.
Illithid
There have been several iterations. We’re now on ‘Q’.
HeatherJean
Is a B Ark worse than a B Ite?
I am Nothing
I’m afraid it’s all B Ark, no B Ite.
Formedras
Well, sending off the B Ark would be fine… as long as we don’t succumb to a telephone-borne virus like our ancestors. Sadly I’d be on it.
jeffepp
The tips of your fingers extended, to your elbow. About 18 inches, or half a yard. Your milage may vary. See store for details.
Stephen Bierce
I forget if it was here or on Twitter, but I got into a conversation about the cubit as it related to Roman bread and Galasso’s sammich offerings. This must have happened at least a year or two ago. It turns out the Romans and the Hebrews used different lengths of cubits. Got very confusing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Here is the most scientific and relevant data on a cubit
as pertains to the bible.
ANeM
That is easy, it’s the quantum computing equivalent of a bit.
BarerMender
Cubit is an English word subbed in for the original Hebrew word, because no one knows what that word meant. Thus people who build arcs? Don’t know what they’re doing.
Wizard
“Riiiight! What’s a cubit?”
(Old Bill Cosby bit about Noah. From way back in the day when the Cos was more funny and less rapey.)
Cholma
Exactly where my mind went as well. I grew up listening to all his albums. He had some great routines: 59th St Bridge, Frankenstein, Noah, 200MPH, etc. And then it turns out he’s a turd of a human.
Clif
But the bits didn’t get any less funny.
Thag Simmons
While I can’t speak to this example in particular, knowing someone is a monstrous human being will stain the works they made
It might not ruin them completely (I still really like Firefly & Buffy) but it will diminish them
StClair
Yeah. That was one of my favorite skits of his, and I can’t enjoy it nearly as much as I used to.
Miri
In fairness, while Whedon was obviously integral to their BEING a Buffy, I think primarily of the actors when I think of it.
… And the characters when I think of Harry Potter, which is slightly more problematic, and there is a chance her Trans* urghness was creeping in with Rita Skeeter, and there’s a decent amount of fat-shaming going on in those books, but OTHERWISE they’re a tale about friendship, loyalty, love, working out your principles and sticking to them, valuing compassion…
But yeah, not watched anything with Depp in since the whole Amber Heard thing…
Jason
As other comments are showing it’s really going to vary. For example I simply can’t enjoy HP since it’s author is literally using the platform she gained from it as the head of a hate movement that has had a huge cultural negative impact in my country on, well… my people. Any positive feelings there are massively overwhelmed by the negative.
My closest friend (who is also one of that particular group of “my people”) basically is able to divorce the pleasure found in the books and films from the author, while recognising what she’s done and how awful it is. And I think that last bit is important- if you’re able to still appreciate something without supporting the awful people and while recognising how they’re awful and the harm they’ve done, that’s valid and fine. And honestly, for me personally, enviable.
RassilonTDavros
I used to be a Harry Potter fan, but these days about the only HP-related thing I can get any enjoyment out of is My Immortal.
Steelbright
Jason, I appreciate this nicely nuanced summary of the whole dilemma of good, or at least somewhat good, media produced by terrible people.
Charles Spencer
“The Chicken Heart was kept alive in a fluid of half alcohol, half human blood.
One day a careless janitor knocked it over.”, or word to that effect.
I’d love to be able to hear his stuff again without knowing it was his.
Needfuldoer
Yeah, I liked his sitcom years ago. Rewatching it now just isn’t the same.
Kindra
I used to get myself through anxiety at the dentist by reciting his bit on dentists to myself while I sat in the chair. Can’t do that anymore. I remember the routine, but then I think about the man who wrote it and it doesn’t make me laugh a bit and relax.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Um… I’m pretty sure he was being just as rapey *then*. The above is just from before it was _known_.
Mr D
It’s the same measuring length as a Maderaka.
Clif
I think you mean a Madaraka, about a foot an a half.
Mr D
I know what I said. Maderaka.
Clif
The scholars of that time misspelled his name.
Reltzik
Cubit is the Early Modern English spelling of qubit, which is why it’s in KJV. Playing games with quantum mechanics was the only way to fit all the species into the ark.
— Source: Some irreverent with a Computer Science degree.
Sirksome
Isn’t the bible wanting you to hate gays kind of open to interpretation like most of it is?
Spencer
Yeah but the interpretation of the bible foisted onto Joyce was extremely specific about it, so Joyce had to accept it as inerrant fact like everything else.
butts
Yeah, this sort of snap from extreme faith to extreme anti-faith seems to be relatively common with ex-fundies specifically, from what I’ve seen— biblical literalism requires you to do massive mental gymnastics to justify all the inherent contradictions, so if a single domino falls, the whole thing collapses.
Opus the Poet
And once one thing is proven wrong, then everything is wrong. Especially the flood story, everyone and thing would have suffocated by the end of three weeks because it was a terrible boat and the only way to keep it afloat was to make it almost airtight.
Pylgrim
This is the best I’ve seen this phenomenon explained yet.