Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 03:16:02 +0100, Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:

On 30/05/2025 16:37, Paul S Person wrote:

<snippo nonsense question I am responding to, and what led up to it>

OK. Why would what I merely /consider/ to be reality have to be
factual? It isn't as if I am claiming it really is reality, only  that
I consider it to be. Or do you want me to prove that I really do
consider to be reality what I consider to be reality?

>
If you consider it to be reality then you
presumably regard it as provable.

I think you are missing the thread here. Or maybe I am.

The question appears to be about "reality" as such. Not "the reality
of this" or "the reality of that" or even "the existence of reality",
but just "reality" -- and, even then, only what I consider to be
reality.

As I said, all that appears to be provable is that what I consider to
be reality really is what I consider to be reality. Since I make no
statement that it actually /is/ reality, what else is there to prove?

<snip-a-bit>

By the way - in that bible - there's a bit
about God creating things, including plants
on land, animals in the waters - but no plants
to live in water.  They seem to be around now,
!though.  Just a point to consider.  Did I
overlook that, or did God?  Did he fix it later
when no one was watching?

This is where one of Robert Graves suggestions comes in handy:

that the various sets of things created were assigned by the pagans to
various deities, and the account in Genesis is intended to say "no,
God, the God of Israel, did that".

In that case, the lack of aquatic vegetation mignt be taken to mean
that there was no pagan deity responsible for having created it.

Alternately, we could discuss the problems with scribes hand-copying
manuscripts -- for example, drop-outs.

There are (IIRC) two versions of this account (one in Psalms, one in
Proverbs -- IIRC) but, IIRC, they end early in the process (Earth,
Sun, Moon, Stars) and say nothing about days. This raises the
possibility of later additions in Genesis 1 to the original account.

Graves links this with the Greek legend of the Swan's Egg (it opens
and the Earth is revealed) and /enuma elish/, which was recited at the
start of each new year (Marduk is featured). That the Genesis 1
account is a Jewish version to be read at the start of each year is
possible.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"