ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (10/31/85)
I can't believe some of what I'm seeing on the net these days. I mean, I try not to let it get to me, but..... Take this latest monstrosity in two parts by Michael McNiel for instance. He spends one entire page, something like eighty lines, making the point that EVERY BODY in the ancient world knew how large the earth was, and that it was round, and then, in Chapter II, we read the following: >Remember Homer? His was >an age when it was still a big deal to sail from Greece to Sicily! > >This was at least as true for the Hebrews of the Old Testament. >During early times the Hebrews were nomadic herdsmen and women who >had originated in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, and never wandered >very far from that region. They weren't seafarers or caravan >operators, they weren't really cosmopolitan at all. Foreigners >were heathens who carried contaminating ideas. The Hebrews' >concept of "foreign" was Phoenicia or Egypt. Legends and myths >regarding supposed "world-wide" disasters can be trusted only as >far as the limits to the travels of the people who invented them. And he begins all of this with: >[all persons stand back of white line.] and, >Ho, hum. This is a big lie only to persons as ignorant as Ted Holden. Ever consider trying to accomplish the physical equivalent of what you have just accomplished logically, Michael? That would amount to nailing yourself on the chin with a really hard over-hand right and then counting ten over yourself as you lay unconscious on the floor. If you got really good at it, you might could get a job working for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Circus as a clown.
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (11/04/85)
Just when I have the automatic article-rejection figured out, somebody tells me there's another doozy from Ted: In article <449@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > I can't believe some of what I'm seeing on the net these days. I >mean, I try not to let it get to me, but... He spends one entire page, >something like eighty lines, making the point that EVERY BODY in the ancient >world knew how large the earth was, and that it was round, and then, in >Chapter II, we read the following: > >>Remember Homer? His was >>an age when it was still a big deal to sail from Greece to Sicily! Is this beyond your comprehension? Think: We know how far away Pluto is, and the shape of its orbit, but we live in an age when it is still a big deal to travel from the Earth to the Moon. Give yourself a vacation, Ted. The strain is showing. _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt