Bowdlerization, 21st Century style

This evening I was flipping through stations, as I occasionally do when driving alone, and an Oldies station, to my surprise, was playing Money For Nothing by Dire Straits (I didn't remember that station playing anything newer than the 70s before). I have a hard time resisting the urge to assist Sting on his harmony vocals.

Then came the little surprise. The line came in which the appliance-moving protagonist points out "that little [practitioner of an alternative lifestyle] with the earring and the makeup...", but somehow it didn't sound the same. Sure enough, when the same word came up again, it had been electronically garbled so, to my ears, it sounded roughly like "fed-huff" as pronounced by some patron of the cantina in Mos Eisley (you know, the one in which Han shot first, ehem).

That little fed-huff has his own jet airplane
That little fed-huff is a millionaire

Nothing else was changed, of course. Certainly not the parts in which the protagonist is lusting after the "easy easy chicks for free." Just the parts which don't fit with today's ethic.

I suppose there are much better songs to sing along with anyway.

At last, I know what I am ...

My Belief-O-Matic results:

1. Orthodox Quaker (100%)
2. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (94%)
3. Eastern Orthodox (93%)
4. Roman Catholic (93%)
5. Seventh Day Adventist (87%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (70%)
7. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (66%)
8. Orthodox Judaism (62%)
9. Islam (57%)
10. Hinduism (55%)
11. Liberal Quakers (53%)
12. Sikhism (50%)
13. Bahá'í Faith (50%)
14. Jehovah's Witness (45%)
15. Unitarian Universalism (41%)
16. Jainism (39%)
17. Theravada Buddhism (39%)
18. Mahayana Buddhism (39%)
19. Reform Judaism (39%)
20. Neo-Pagan (30%)
21. New Age (23%)
22. Taoism (23%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (23%)
24. Secular Humanism (19%)
25. Scientology (18%)
26. Nontheist (18%)
27. New Thought (14%)

Hmmm ... My big question is, what key issue makes me an "Orthodox Quaker" instead of of a "Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant", which is a half-way (but only half) accurate description of my actual affiliation? Aha! It must have been the questions about social justice and the environment. My working theory is that an Orthodox Quaker is the closest thing this quiz offers to a "Crunchy Conservative" or a "Hippie Christian".

Welcome to Blogger, Dave

David Holford of David's Daily Diversions, one of the only two blogs I actually read every day, appears to have suffered a blogo-injustice and is no longer available at his previous address. Please show your support by reading his blog here.

The "argument from uniqueness" - quotes by Kaufmann

A recent post at Brandywine Books turned into an extended discussion of arguments against the reliability of the Bible set forth by Thomas Paine in his work, The Age of Reason.

About the time the discussion seemed to be coming to an end, I said I would offer a few "choice quotes" from Jewish Bible scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann, which in my opinion lend support to what I call the "argument from uniqueness" - that the utter uniqueness of the basic nature of biblical faith is a piece of evidence for its truth. I'm not calling it a "proof", just a piece of evidence. Certainly one could propose many theories to explain the rise of a religion uniquely different from all the religions of its neighbors. But I would propose that a unique religion suggests a unique origin, such as a real encounter with the Living God. Lots more could be said, but I'll just give you a few quotes I've selected from Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960:

The store of biblical legends lacks the fundamental myth of
paganism: the theogony. All theogonic motifs are similarly
absent. Israel's God has no pedigree, fathers no generations;
he neither inherits nor bequeaths his authority. He does not
die and is not resurrected. He has no sexual qualities or desires
and shows no need of or dependence upon powers outside himself
(pp. 60-61)

Nor is YHWH ever portrayed as world congueror in the cosmogonic
legends of the Bible. There is no biblical parallel to pagan
myths relating the defeat of older gods (or demonic powers) by
younger; no other gods are present in primordial times ...
There is no hint, however, that YHWH's defeat of Rahab, the
dragon, etc. was the beginning of his rule, nor ar his antagonists
portrayed as primordial or divine beings coeval with him. They
are all mentioned explicitly at one time or another as creatures
of and subject to YHWH (Gen. 1:21; Amos 9:3; Pss. 104:26; 148:7).
The battle is not, then between primordial divine powers contending
over world dominion, but between God and certain of his creatures.
(p. 62)

One of the remarkable aspects of the religion of pre-exilic
Israel is that it failed to transmute either its ancient pantheon
or the gods of the nations into demons. It is sometimes asserted
that the pagan gods became angels, appointed over natural phenomena
or patrons of nations ... if biblical angelogy has pagan antecedents,
it has lost every trace of mythological features. No angel has a
sufficient identity to enable us to see in him his pagan original ...
The non-derivative character of Israelite angelology is indicated
by the fact that the names of the angels have no antecedents in the
old Israelite pantheon or among the gods of the antions. (p. 63)

Israelite religion conceived a radically new idea: It did not proclaim
a new chief god, a god who ruled among or over his fellows. It
conceived, for the first time, of a god independent of a primordial
realm, who was the source of all, the demonic included. (p. 66)

... a fundamental difference between the biblical and pagan
conceptions of the temporal process arises. Theogony makes the
birth of the gods part of the eternal, self-operating process of
becoming that governs the universe. Hence the gods-like the rest of
the universe-are subject to a succession of ages (ending frequently
in annihilation) which are beyond their control. The biblical
God, however, is outside of the flux of becoming and change; he
controls times and sets seasons (p. 73)