Psalms used to settle court case in USA.

[Guest]

Evidently an atheist in Florida hired a lawyer to bring a discrimination case against Christians and Jews and the observance of holy days. His argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognised days.

When the case came before the judge and after he had listened to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, he banged his gavel and declared the case dismissed.

The lawyer objected to the ruling asking how the case could be dismissed as Christians had Christmas, Easter and others and the Jews had Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah but his client and other atheists had no such holidays.

The judge said " Yes they do. The calendar says April 1st is April Fool's Day. Psalm 14 verse 1 states ' The fool has said in his heart there is no God.' So it is the opinion of this court that if your client says there is no God he is a fool and April 1st is his day."

What a very wise judge ( It is not April 1st ).

VCC

[Simon]

Very cute, VCC!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Evidently

The "evidence" being ... ?

[MrGongGong]

The "evidence" being ... ?

Quite !
interesting use of the word "wise" IMV

[jean]

This is a joke that has been widely circulated over the years and we have found no evidence of any such court case.

[MrGongGong]

It "evidently" needs "faith" methinks

[Magnificat]

This is a joke that has been widely circulated over the years and we have found no evidence of any such court case.

Jean,

I know, but I thought it would entice out Mr Gong Gong from his recent hiding place and give him a laugh.

I thought it would cheer him up after such a bad week for the atheists. You know, Richard Dawkins being neatly skewered by Canon Giles Fraser and that fool of a councillor from Bideford who made such a fuss about prayers before council meetings and then rejoiced at the fact that he lost the main point of principle of his complaint and won on the detail of some obscure part of the Local Government Act that is about to be superseded anyway!!

VCC

[MrGongGong]

I thought it would cheer him up after such a bad week for the atheists. You know, Richard Dawkins being neatly skewered by Canon Giles Fraser and that fool of a councillor from Bideford who made such a fuss about prayers before council meetings and then rejoiced at the fact that he lost the main point of principle of his complaint and won on the detail of some obscure part of the Local Government Act that is about to be superseded anyway!!

VCC

Strange how some people see the world ???
Giles Fraser sounded a total idiot when I listened
his whole argument seemed to be
"Dawkins get's a title wrong ................. ergo god exists"

clutching at straws more like !

[Magnificat]

Strange how some people see the world ???
Giles Fraser sounded a total idiot when I listened
his whole argument seemed to be
"Dawkins get's a title wrong ................. ergo god exists"

clutching at straws more like !

Mr GG

No more idiotic than Dawkins saying that because you can't remember the name of the first book of the New Testament you can't be a Christian but it was good to hear his plea to God in his time of trouble!

VCC

[Boilk]

The judge said "...Psalm 14 verse 1 states 'The fool has said in his heart there is no God.' So it is the opinion of this court that if your client says there is no God he is a fool and April 1st is his day."

What a very wise judge.

Why at a terribly unwise judge. Basing an "opinion of this court" directly from a statment in Psalms, he is ideologically aligning himself (and the court) with a book of the Hebrew/Christian bible, and against the plaintiff. His stance is supposed to be objective and non-partisan.

In short, he's saying that non-believers must be fools because I'm with the believers.

[amateur51]

Mr GG

No more idiotic than Dawkins saying that because you can't remember the name of the first book of the New Testament you can't be a Christian but it was good to hear his plea to God in his time of trouble!

VCC

With respect, VCC knowing the name of the first book of the The Bible is not in the same league as knowing the subtitle of Darwin's On The Origin of Species, now is it? And Giles Fraser knew this.

However I grant you that it was a clever publicity stunt.

But then we have come to expect this from Giles Fraser after his performance over the Occupy stramash at St Paul's

[Miles Coverdale]

Neither Dawkins nor Fraser is actually the best spokesman for their point of view. The fact that Fraser thought he'd scored a cheap debating point shows that he was concentrating on the man, not the argument. His assertion that 'If you asked people who believe in evolution that question [what's the full title of On the Origin of Species] and only two per cent got it right it would be terribly easy for me to say they don't really believe it after all' is frankly ridiculous. I can't help coming to the conclusion that Fraser isn't quite as clever as he thinks he is.

Dawkins has probably learned a valuable lesson, namely that religious people are not above fighting dirty by setting rhetorical traps. Dawkins and others like him only have to slip up once and his opponents will pounce. The reverse is not true: apologists for religions of all flavours can go on talking nonsense and dodging the difficult questions beacuse that's what they usually do.

[heliocentric]

No more idiotic than Dawkins saying that because you can't remember the name of the first book of the New Testament you can't be a Christian

I wondered about this. And then I thought that, actually, for a christian the bible is THE book which contains everything that's important to know. It's a fairly long book (and of course would have been even longer if some of it hadn't been jettisoned by the church fathers for political reasons) but nevertheless it's only one book, which apparently tells people in some detail what the ultimate nature of reality is supposed to be and what principles one should live by.

Contrast this with the scientific theory of evolution, which continues to spawn thousands of books which refine, revise and extend Darwin's original one and whose refinements, revisions and extensions seem likely to continue expanding for the indefinite future. (And then there are all the other sciences too.)

But science isn't about books (let alone A book), it's about "conjectures and refutations", to use Popper's term. The theory of evolution doesn't depend in any way on the title or any of the specific contents of a book written by Charles Darwin. If Fraser doesn't understand that, he doesn't understand much.

[amateur51]

I wondered about this. And then I thought that, actually, for a christian the bible is THE book which contains everything that's important to know. It's a fairly long book (and of course would have been even longer if some of it hadn't been jettisoned by the church fathers for political reasons) but nevertheless it's only one book, which apparently tells people in some detail what the ultimate nature of reality is supposed to be and what principles one should live by.

Contrast this with the scientific theory of evolution, which continues to spawn thousands of books which refine, revise and extend Darwin's original one and whose refinements, revisions and extensions seem likely to continue expanding for the indefinite future. (And then there are all the other sciences too.)

But science isn't about books (let alone A book), it's about "conjectures and refutations", to use Popper's term. The theory of evolution doesn't depend in any way on the title or any of the specific contents of a book written by Charles Darwin. If Fraser doesn't understand that, he doesn't understand much.

Magnificent, heliocentric!

How is Saturn these days?

Still building that ring road are they?

[heliocentric]

How is Saturn these days?

The weather's absolutely bloody awful. It's about -180º C and there are thousand-mile-an-hour winds blowing the whole time. If you're thinking of coming here on holiday, don't bother.