[lbo-talk] M. Parenti joins the New Atheists?

[Chris Doss]

There is a difference between "comment on," as in "talk some shit in a bar or post on the Internet" and "write a book and expect people not to point at you and guffaw loudly." To write about film noir or Armstrong, you should know a lot about film noir or Armstrong. Hopefully you would know a lot about cinematography or 20th-century music and not say things like "Louis Armstrong's music was a conscious blending of Gospel music and Gregorian Chant."

BTW you can't comment on the Bible except in the loosest way unless you know Greek and Hebrew, because different English translations vary very widely. Not only are many Greek constructions untranslatable into English (I don't know Hebrew, but I assume it is the case there as well, probably more so since it's not an Indo-European language), the translation is invariably different depending on the theological beliefs of the translator. Especially because there was no punctuation in these languages. Is it "a voice calling in the wilderness, prepare me the way of the lord" or "a voice calling, in the wilderness prepare me the way of the lord"? The theological implications of the placement of that comma are immense.

----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>wrote:

Any literate person is qualified to comment on the bible, just as that
> person would be qualified to comment on film noir or Louis Armstrong record.