rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (06/26/84)
As promise in several previous articles. A list of questions that have gone unanswered or ignored. I do hope to hear some intelligent responses. This stuff is gleaned and re-processed from earlier articles that I and others have submitted. The sections with the open questions are bracketed by '|'. Additional comments have been added in [] braces to clarify. 1) 51 FACTS ------------- > In 1861 the French Academy of Science published a book stating fifty-one > "scientific" facts that seemed to contradict the Word of God. It was very > impressive when published. Yet today, every one of these fifty-one "facts" > has been found to be unscientific! There isn't a scientist alive who believes > them. And the Bible stands! [JENDER] | Why does the author of this article fail to mention any of the | 51 "facts" he describes? [In the original article, Ray Jender discussed his "proofs" of his religious experience. He used the above paragraph as one of his pieces of evidence. I asked what the facts were that he described, but no response was forthcoming. Not to criticize Ray, but his article was but one example of an article popping up out of nowhere, prompting a number of responses that go completely unanswered. Often it has been Jeff Sargent and David Norris (and to a lesser extent Paul Dubuc and Larry Bickford) who then have to "carry the flag" to continue the discussion. Jeff's going to have his work cut out for him (if chooses to continue to carry the flag) with David now gone.] 2) ACCURACY OF PROPHECY BASED ON WIDELY APPLICABLE PHENOMENA -------------------------------------------------------------- > He prophecied earthquakes and tidal waves. He prophecied a state of > political turbulance and emotional upheaval. He said mens hearts > would be failing them for fear. The Bible says that evil men and seducers > will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. [JENDER] | What of those who predicted the end of the world in 999, also based on the | Bible? Are those who now predict that our modern time is the time of the | end of the world more enlightened about the "real" meaning behind those very | specific prophecies in the Bible that could apply to any time in history? 3) THE BIBLE IS SACROSANCT AND INFALLIBLE, BUT LET'S ONLY OBEY WHAT WE LIKE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [in response to a statement by *Bob Brown* concerning the Bible] | An interesting point: you claim that you "realize that a lot of the 600+ | laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") don't have much | bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do. How did you make that | determination? Why are you claiming that the laws on "keeping Kosher" or | following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws concerning sexual | practices you don't like or establishing absolute infallibility of god and | church and bible are OK? Sounds like an arbitrary distinction to me. If you | can make such determinations yourself, great. More power to you. Now allow the | rest of us the right to make the same determinations for ourselves. [The quote in the first sentence came directly from akgua!rjb's article. The question is how come he can choose to make such independent determinations as to what parts of the bible are "still valid", and what parts he can ignore, and why can't each of us then do the same?] 4) EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS; EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING ------------------------------------------------------- | Could someone explain precisely why it is impossible not to worship? I | [don't] do it every day. Also, could someone explain what in heck Larry | meant by "the myth of neutrality"? [To summarize, Larry and others have implied that if humanists or other non-religionists do not worship god, then they must be worshipping themselves or humanity itself. My contention was that another viable option was not to worship anything, but that has been deemed an impossibility by some. I'd like to know why. Some have claimed that humanity's quest for knowledge about its origins is a 'religious sense' that everyone has, but such a "sense" has nothing to do with RELIGION (the worship of an externalized deity) but rather with humanity's inquisitiveness; to equate that with 'religion' is preposterous.] 5) SOCIETALLY PROSCRIBED ROLES IN GENERAL; SEX ROLES IN PARTICULAR -------------------------------------------------------------------- [as prompted by Steve Aldrich's original article on hermaphroditism] | Why is there a need at all to assign labels to sexual lifestyles & sex roles, | and to designate who the appropriate people (and sexes) should be to take on | those lifestyles and roles? Must there be a "husband" and "wife" in every | relationship, according to "standard" definitions of those terms? And must | it be the man who is the "husband" and the woman who is the "wife"? How can | this thinking apply in homosexual relationships among both sexes, or even in | the hypothetical two hermaphrodite relationship? Does it matter? [Steve Aldrich (ihuxj!amra) originally wrote an article on speculations about human hermaphroditism as sort of an icebreaker to open discussion on these sorts of questions. I am very curious as to what the religionist point of view on these issues would be. I have stated in the past that it would seem that religionist doctrine values the value systems and rules more than the needs and wants of the people themselves. This would be an interesting opportunity to discuss this further.] 6) SOCIETAL RULES BASED ON "ANCIENT WISDOM"/"GOD'S WORD" RATHER THAN LOGIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [in response to Jeff Sargent's remarks on good reasons for getting precepts out of books of wisdom] | A bad reason to get precepts out of books of wisdom is precisely because these | people may have thought up some rational things (occasionally), but they | failed to explain the reasoning behind their thinking, and as I've already | mentioned, if there's no clear cut reason why a law exists, it's worthless. | Unless you want to formulate a society that looks like those silly caveman | post-nuclear societies in futuristic post-holocaust SF. ("Hark! This sign on | the road left by the ancients says "NO LEFT TURN". Thus none of us may turn | left at any time. Praise the Holy Highway Department, the ancient lords who | gave us our laws!") (Hey, I'm sure some of you out there would LOVE such a | society; we'd all be free to do what's right...) It makes more sense to | formulate rules for a society of imperfect people by using rationality rather | than wisdom. Rationality means that you design laws and give reasons for | their existence. ("No murder, because a precept of our society is that | interfering with the rights of another human, especially the right to live, is | wrong. Now, what about rules about who can have sex with whom? Do we need | any? No? Fine. Next topic...") Wisdom is just a bunch of words in a book | that YOU happen to agree with (like the empty words of Lewis or McDowell). | One person's wisdom is another person's jokebook. [Since we have been discussing the nature of Lewis' and McDowell's notions, that is not the CENTRAL issue that has been ignored here. Rather, the focus is on the notion of laws with reasons behind them, versus the silly caveman society that I describe (which has been seen in any number of SF stories and extremely shoddy made-for-TV movies). In fact, it would seem to me that in many ways we are living in such a society today, what with rules yanked out of an ancient book solely because someone says "It is the word!!!".] -- "Now, Benson, I'm going to have to turn you into a dog for a while." "Ohhhh, thank you, Master!!" Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (06/29/84)
A partial response to some of Rich's questions.... But first a question of my own: Rich, are you really interested in the answers because you think they might do you some good, or do you just want more material you can use as points of attack on imperfect, imperfectly understanding Christians who are not (yet?) able to come up with all the pithy responses Christ was famous for? 1) 51 FACTS | Why does the author of this article fail to mention any of the | 51 "facts" he describes? Inasmuch as I have never seen that list of supposed facts (which seemed to contradict the Bible and have since been proven untrue), I cannot answer this question. Ray, would you please post some of them? > Jeff's going to have his work cut out for him (if chooses to continue to > carry the flag) with David now gone. I would certainly appreciate help from anyone who wishes to give it. I do have a job I'm paid to do, and this isn't it. [I sometimes suspect that posting articles IS Rich's job! :-)] 2) ACCURACY OF PROPHECY BASED ON WIDELY APPLICABLE PHENOMENA | What of those who predicted the end of the world in 999, also based on the | Bible? Are those who now predict that our modern time is the time of the | end of the world more enlightened about the "real" meaning behind those very | specific prophecies in the Bible that could apply to any time in history? Yes, actually. About 10 years ago, David Wilkerson published a book called "The Vision", in which he described a vision he had in 1973 of terrible calamities about to come upon the earth; he indicated that he had checked this vision with the Bible and found that they agreed; and he said that he believed that all these calamities would come on this generation. The calamities he saw included economic confusion (already starting), drastic changes in the earth (freakish weather, earthquakes, etc.), a growing flood of pornography and sexual practices which might draw protest even from Rich, hatred of parents by their children, and persecution of genuinely believing Christians throughout the world (not just in totalitarian countries). The Bible predicted that people would say something much like what you said (paraphrase of some verses from II Peter): "Where are the indications that Christ is about to return? Things are happening just as they've always happened since the world began." In fact they haven't gone quite the same. The Bible clearly predicted that the nation of Israel would be re-established. Lo and behold, it has been. I haven't made it into the prophecies yet in my current wading through the O.T., but my understanding is that the rebirth of Israel was to be one of the earliest signs that the world was about to get the hook.... 3) THE BIBLE IS SACROSANCT AND INFALLIBLE, BUT LET'S ONLY OBEY WHAT WE LIKE | An interesting point: you claim that you [Bob Brown] "realize that a lot of | the 600+ laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") | don't have much bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do. How did | you make that determination? Why are you claiming that the laws on | "keeping Kosher" or following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws | concerning sexual practices you don't like or establishing absolute | infallibility of god and church and bible are OK? Sounds like an arbitrary | distinction to me. If you can make such determinations yourself, great. | More power to you. Now allow the rest of us the right to make the same | determinations for ourselves. I think I answered this in some article not too long ago -- i.e. Jesus Himself indicated, for instance, that keeping kosher was not required. Jesus, and also Paul, were big on the idea that keeping the letter of the Law was not the important thing (Jesus and His disciples broke the letter of the Law numerous times), but rather that what one was inside was the important thing. When Jesus named the greatest commandments in the Law (and they are indeed in the O.T.), viz. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart & soul & mind & strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself", he also said, "On these depend all the Law and the prophets" -- i.e. even the intent behind the O.T. law was not to bind people into a rigid system of behavior, but rather to get them to change into people who would want to live as the Law described. 4) EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS; EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING | Could someone explain precisely why it is impossible not to worship? I | [don't] do it every day. Also, could someone explain what in heck Larry | meant by "the myth of neutrality"? Worship, by my dictionary, is not restricted to its traditional theistic sense. It also means "to have an excessive devotion to or adoration for; to idolize". I wish I could remember that dictionary's definition of "idolize", because I think it would be most appropriate. However, borrowing again from Doug Dickey's book (the man who said that all people are incurably religious), an idol (or a god, or even God Himself) is a center of integration around which one's life is built. One could also call it the foundation upon which one's life is built. If it collapses, your life collapses. But I doubt that anyone is without such a foundation. Many people do not recognize their foundation explicitly. Rich at least is quite explicit about his foundation...enough for his audience to see that his life is founded on the general idea of negating and doubting everything he can, that his foundation can be expressed in the simple phrase "it is not!" He may claim that this is not the case, but most of the articles I've ever seen from Rich have consisted largely of denying other people's claims. Christians' foundation, on the other hand, is not "it is", but "He is", or even "He lives!" -- a positive statement. But anyway, everyone, in the sense described above, worships something or someone. I don't remember Larry's article where the phrase "myth of neutrality" was introduced; but my guess is that he meant that you're either for God or against Him, that there is no middle ground. Care to comment, Larry? This is getting long. I'll work on the other questions later (if no one beats me to it). -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq "...got to find my corner of the sky."
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (07/03/84)
Trying to finish my arrears (how DOES Rich have time to write so much?): 5) SOCIETALLY PRESCRIBED ROLES IN GENERAL; SEX ROLES IN PARTICULAR | Why is there a need at all to assign labels to sexual lifestyles & sex roles, | and to designate who the appropriate people (and sexes) should be to take on | those lifestyles and roles? Must there be a "husband" and "wife" in every | relationship, according to "standard" definitions of those terms? And must | it be the man who is the "husband" and the woman who is the "wife"? How can | this thinking apply in homosexual relationships among both sexes, or even in | the hypothetical two hermaphrodite relationship? Does it matter? It's a trifle tricky to steer a straight (no pun intended) course here, but I'll try. I'm not sure I have an answer to all of your half-dozen questions, but here goes: I don't see a need for sex roles (except that only women can, physically, be mothers and [not counting rare cases most often reported in National Enquirer] breast-feed babies). I still consider that man and woman were meant to complement one another, that while two MOTSS's may be very different they still have a fundamental sameness which obviates the complementary nature that makes for the optimal ultimate relationship (plus the little detail, applicable to some male gays, that the anus's purpose is excretion of feces; there is an orifice made to accept the penis, but it happens to exist only in women). But there's nothing wrong with, say, the woman doing yardwork, house & auto repair, checkbook balancing, et al. while the man cleans the house -- if that's what they want to do; it is indeed a reversal of traditional "sex roles" in task assignments, but so what? I'm not sure about the "husband" and "wife" (which have traditionally meant "leader" and "follower" respectively). In my personal growth, I seem to be realizing (if not yet internalizing) the idea that the best relationship is between two persons who are free and equal, free to grow and develop their uniqueness, equal in that neither dominates the other. This is probably the toughest kind of relationship to develop, but the best. An interesting interpretation of the verse in Ephesians which says "The husband is the head of the wife" is the idea that "head" is like the head of a river -- i.e. the source, someone who feeds and nourishes the wife, rather than the dictator. I have recently read a book (not a religious one) in which at least one rather "liberated" woman stated that even if she took the initiative in starting a relationship with the man -- asking him out, paying for the dinner, etc. -- she would still want to feel "pursued" by the man at some point. I.e. there seems to be some validity to traditional sex roles after all -- i.e. the "husband" (or reasonable facsimile) being the stronger. I've gotten into enough hot water already by uninformed postings about homosexuals, so I'll sidestep that question; and I doubt that I've ever even met any hermaphrodites. > I have stated in the past that it > would seem that religionist doctrine values the value systems and rules > more than the needs and wants of the people themselves. This is difficult to respond to. Part of this is because many religionists (note the distinction from Rich's sentence) seem to indeed value the rules, which meets their want for security and predictability. On the other hand, the New Testament talks a great deal about freedom. The apostle Paul even said, "All things are lawful for me -- but not all things are profitable." In other words, you're free to do anything you want; but some things, as you will eventually discover, are not good for you, so you'd do better to avoid them. People need freedom in order to grow. They may not always feel that they want it, because it provides a lot more opportunity to get acutely hurt; but on the other hand, it provides a lot more chance to become the beautiful humans we all can be and, at bottom, want to be (I hope). The *doctrine* states that humanity is of infinite value (so valuable indeed that God gave His Son to save us), and that the "rules" were given because God values us so highly He doesn't want us to get hurt. The other reason it's difficult to answer this is that the rebellious part of me agrees with Rich's statement. Part of me wonders how on earth it could hurt to have sex with a woman without committing my life to her, provided that I was not destroying her virginity and that proper precautions were taken to avoid pregnancy. (Side note: The hymen seems to have been one of God's most sexist ideas; it treats women like aspirin bottles ["Do not purchase if seal is broken"]. Curiosity: In the non-religious view, why on earth would something so seemingly useless as the hymen have evolved?) Any of the other net Christians care to answer this one? I'm really struggling with it. 6) SOCIETAL RULES BASED ON "ANCIENT WISDOM"/"GOD'S WORD" RATHER THAN LOGIC | A bad reason to get precepts out of books of wisdom is precisely because | these people may have thought up some rational things (occasionally), but | they failed to explain the reasoning behind their thinking, and as I've | already mentioned, if there's no clear cut reason why a law exists, it's | worthless. Two comments on this: 1. If it has helped to make people live happier lives (IF), then why worry about the reasoning of the originators? If it works, go with it; just as we have some code floating around here that even the guy who wrote it isn't sure he understands, but which works. 2. You seem to consider your own reasoning powers to be strong. That being the case, you might be able to figure out the reasons behind the laws on your own. (The Bible says, though not in these words, "The proof is left as an exercise for the reader." [:-), but true; differing from math texts in that you "prove" it in the sense of testing it in real life rather than writing up a dry analysis of it]) | It makes more sense to formulate rules for a society of imperfect people | by using rationality rather than wisdom. Rationality means that you design | laws and give reasons for their existence. ("No murder, because a precept | of our society is that interfering with the rights of another human, | especially the right to live, is wrong. You've provided a reason for the law "No murder". Fine. What's the reason for the precept? Where did it come from? You're not at the bottom of this yet, though I will admit that a case could be made out in favor of that precept. The rest of this question (omitted from this article) has been pretty much discussed elsewhere. -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq "...got to find my corner of the sky."
alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll) (07/04/84)
> (Side note: The hymen seems to have been one of God's most > sexist ideas; it treats women like aspirin bottles ["Do not purchase if seal > is broken"]. Curiosity: In the non-religious view, why on earth would > something so seemingly useless as the hymen have evolved?) It's my understanding that the hymen often breaks as a result of menstruation or physical activity, so the idea that ~ HYMEN(x) -> ~ VIRGIN(x) is incorrect. At any rate, I, for one, have never seen, or even heard of, a "do not purchase if seal is broken" warning on a woman. Jeff, you must keep very stange company... -- Alan S. Driscoll AT&T Bell Laboratories
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/06/84)
The ``do not open if seal is broken'' label is applied by a lot of people, Alan. If people around where you are don't apply it, then perhaps I should move there. A lot of people apply it to themselves (I am going to be a virgin because being a virgin is a good thing - and I am not going to even think about why it is) and a lot of mothers apply it to their daughters (I don't care what ever else you do -- just don't sleep around) and some people apply it to their lovers (this one is fine but I want the one I *marry* to be a virgin). I know of at least 5 marriages that were annulled around here because the bride wasn't a virgin. If you read histories you will find that this is a good reason for political marriages to fail. So all the princesses went to their marriage beds with a little vial full of chicken's blood, just in case... There is a rumor thsat somebody made into a book that the reason that Joan of Arc got it was that she was tested to have no hymen, and therefore was lying in sayign that she was a virgin -- and therefore she was lying about all the other things as well. I don't think that the theory is any good, but I can tell you that anybody who has been riding a horse hard over rough countryside (not sidesaddle) is very unlikely to have any hymen. I suspect that the English Inquisitors would have known that. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/07/84)
> A partial response to some of Rich's questions.... > But first a question of my own: Rich, are you really interested in the > answers because you think they might do you some good, or do you just want > more material you can use as points of attack on imperfect, imperfectly > understanding Christians who are not (yet?) able to come up with all the > pithy responses Christ was famous for? Things that we don't understand we seek to find the answers for. How can you understand something imperfectly and yet assume its correctness? > | What of those who predicted the end of the world in 999, also based on the > | Bible? Are those who now predict that our modern time is the time of the > | end of the world more enlightened about the "real" meaning behind those very > | specific prophecies in the Bible that could apply to any time in history? > Yes, actually. About 10 years ago, David Wilkerson published a book called > "The Vision", in which he described a vision he had in 1973 of terrible > calamities about to come upon the earth; he indicated that he had checked > this vision with the Bible and found that they agreed; and he said that he > believed that all these calamities would come on this generation. The > calamities he saw included economic confusion (already starting), drastic > changes in the earth (freakish weather, earthquakes, etc.), a growing flood > of pornography and sexual practices which might draw protest even from Rich, > hatred of parents by their children, and persecution of genuinely believing > Christians throughout the world (not just in totalitarian countries). Would you like to hear about some of the visions *I* had in 1973? They correspond exactly to occurrences in the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Sorry for the flippant tone, but my visions seem to have just as much relevance. Again, most of the circumstances you describe are either 1) common in all historical periods, or 2) general statements that might be used to describe the end of the world ("... the sky will turn black, and red streaks will appear, and shoes will trample the ground ..."), with special emphasis on "hitting home" ("... and all those like you who believe in Ubizmo will have their hands swollen, and their eyes blackened, and their nasal passages clogged..."). Speaking of which (we've been through this before) but where is this "persecution of genuinely believing Christians"? Is it to be found in people proposing questioning and rational thought? In de-emphasis of religion as a central focus in society? In net.religion? > The Bible predicted that people would say something much like what you said > (paraphrase of some verses from II Peter): "Where are the indications that > Christ is about to return? Things are happening just as they've always > happened since the world began." In fact they haven't gone quite the same. > The Bible clearly predicted that the nation of Israel would be re-established. > Lo and behold, it has been. I haven't made it into the prophecies yet in my > current wading through the O.T., but my understanding is that the rebirth of > Israel was to be one of the earliest signs that the world was about to get > the hook.... How very clever of the prophecies to include the notion that "there would be those who would laugh at these prophecies, and not believe them, and they will scorn and laugh at those who blindly believe, and throw vegetables at them". That just makes sure you include all possibilities in your "prophecies". What if I proclaim that the world will come to an end when a huge star goat will devour our planet and replace it with a giant bowling ball? What if I further proclaim that there will be those who will doubt this prophecy, and call me a fool? In the words of Ken Arndt, "See?" What if I still further proclaim that some random event (the Great Wall of China will fall into the Mississippi River) will proclaim the coming of this end, and indeed you see it happen (some wealthy Arab has the Wall moved in the year 2011 just prior to the great flood of the American South...). Again, see? > | An interesting point: you claim that you [Bob Brown] "realize that a lot of > | the 600+ laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") > | don't have much bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do. How did > | you make that determination? Why are you claiming that the laws on > | "keeping Kosher" or following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws > | concerning sexual practices you don't like or establishing absolute > | infallibility of god and church and bible are OK? Sounds like an arbitrary > | distinction to me. If you can make such determinations yourself, great. > | More power to you. Now allow the rest of us the right to make the same > | determinations for ourselves. > > I think I answered this in some article not too long ago -- i.e. Jesus > Himself indicated, for instance, that keeping kosher was not required. Bob Brown also responded to this point, by saying that certain laws were specified as no longer applying to Christians by Paul. Again, this still sounds rather arbitrary to me. And isn't it commonly accepted that Paul chose to de-emphasize Jewish religious law solely as a public relations move, to make sure potential converts weren't put off by all of the "Jewish" things they'd have to do to be Christians. Agreed, Jeff, part of the idea was that the letter of the law was not as important as the spirit of the law. In which case I'd say many Christians are right back where they started from. > ... from Doug Dickey's book (the man who said that all people are incurably > religious), an idol (or a god, or even God Himself) is a center of integration > around which one's life is built. One could also call it the foundation upon > which one's life is built. If it collapses, your life collapses. But I > doubt that anyone is without such a foundation. Many people do not recognize > their foundation explicitly. Rich at least is quite explicit about his > foundation...enough for his audience to see that his life is founded on the > general idea of negating and doubting everything he can, that his foundation > can be expressed in the simple phrase "it is not!" He may claim that this > is not the case, but most of the articles I've ever seen from Rich have > consisted largely of denying other people's claims. Christians' foundation, > on the other hand, is not "it is", but "He is", or even "He lives!" -- a > positive statement. (My *audience*??? Should I start selling tickets to these net.fiascos and keep the interest accrued on the ticket payments when the show is cancelled? :-) It is sad that Jeff feels that life (for him and everyone else, apparently) must have an unshakeable foundation that can never collapse, else his life (and yours and mine) would collapse. My life has no such foundation, though Jeff may think that it must. I have no more proof that the way scientific method has demonstrated the world to be for common human perception is the "ultimate correct reality", than Jeff has proof that his way is the ultimately correct one. Nor do I need to have such ultimate proof, though I would hope that humankind would always be searching for truth in the most rational and logical way possible. But the discoveries and understanding of logical inquisitiveness into the order of things have resulted in a consistent model of the way things work in this "purposeless" (to Jeff, thus unmeaningful) reality. And when I say "it is not", it is only when claims are made without substance. Anyone can venture forth with any of a number of random positive affirming claims. Not as many can offer substance. And fewer still can afford to have that substance stand the test of real scrutiny. > But anyway, everyone, in the sense described above, worships something or > someone. Sorry. That's just wrong. I and others on this net stand as counterexamples. -- AT THE TONE PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NET ADDRESS. THANK YOU. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (07/07/84)
Greetings:
I was given to understand that the primary function of the hymen had to
do with protection of the internal reproductive organs during the woman's first
10 to 20 years of life (i.e. before use) in an aquatic environment, which some
people believe was an evolutionary stage which our ancestors frequented. Sea
water being full of things besides H20 and NaCl, particularly at a seashore
where waves stir up everything into the water, it would certainly have been
a favorable natural selection criteria to not become infected thereby.
{ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (07/09/84)
>From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) >The ``do not open if seal is broken'' label is applied by a lot of people, >I know of at least 5 marriages that were annulled around here because the >bride wasn't a virgin. If you read histories you will find that this is >a good reason for political marriages to fail. So all the princesses >went to their marriage beds with a little vial full of chicken's blood, >just in case... I suspect that if we are talking about WASP subcultures that annulments for non-virginity are *really* due to marriage breakdown and the non-virginity is just the pretext. Cynically, I can just about imagine somebody managing to arrange themselves a serious of 'marriages' and getting out of each on this pretext in series. Julian Davies {deepthot|uwo}!julian