No Cav's Game Thread?

[Ned Ryerson 94]

Ya see folks, content like the last two posts is why I come to the board, not for game threads or pointless trade discussions.

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

Ya see folks, content like the last two posts is why I come to the board, not for game threads or pointless trade discussions.

 

and here I thought you were trying to sell me insurance.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

This is too trite.

 

Let's say a young boy sustains a life-threatening injury and, after being rushed to the hospital, is saved by a brilliant surgeon because he/she immediately recognized the need to cut HERE right NOW in order to save the boy's life. The religious-minded parents of the boy are thanking God for saving their son's life. Yet, this doesn't change the fact that the boy was saved due to the quick thinking and understanding of the surgeon. Yet, there are so many factors that go into this boy being saved. He happened to be taken to this particular hospital. He happened to receive his injury on the night that this particular brilliant surgeon was on duty. He happened to come into the hospital when this surgeon was not on break, or not in the can. I could go on and on.

 

The point is, identifying the factors and getting down the facts of what happened and then saying "and here is WHY they happened" doesn't change what actually happened. The boy was saved. A religious man may see God's hand. A non-religious man may see a brilliant surgeon and a series of fortuitous coincidences.

 

The fact that the Book of Samuel states that God delivered the Philistines unto David should not lessen - even in the eyes of an atheist - the possibility that a young boy of slight build could have slung a smooth rock and hit a large warrior in the head.

 

"History" is full of stories - both secular and religious - that could begin with "You're never gonna believe this..."

 

"History" is also full of stories that we now know to be complete bull****.

 

In many ways, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms bares a similar effect in Chinese culture to the effect of The Bible in Christian culture. Several of the major characters from TRotTK were deified after their deaths. The General of the Shu Han, named Guan Yu, became synonymous with honor, integrity, and loyalty, and there are STILL, in 2011, shrines to him in shops all over China and Hong Kong, and all of that was based on the series of stories in TRotTK.

 

The thing is, unlike the Old Testament, which wasn't written down and collected until many centuries after the documented events occurred, there were historical texts being written about the Warring States period of China concurrently with TRotTK, and due to those texts, we can not only discard a lot of the more fantastical aspects of the stories, such as Shu Han strategist Zhuge Liang having superpowers, but we can also discard a lot of the non-supernatural imagery and stories based on corrobarative stories that they never happened.

 

One of the most enduring stories to demonstrate that Guan Yu was a beacon of honor was the story of how he spared and released T'sao T'sao, leader of the opposing army, after the Battle of the Red Cliffs, when Guan Yu captured T'sao T'sao during his disasterous retreat. Because T'sao T'sao had once spared Guan Yu's life years earlier, Guan Yu could not take T'sao T'sao to be executed, even if it meant victory for him and his brothers' nation.

 

In reality, T'sao T'sao escaped at Red Cliffs because flooding blocked most of the northern roads that T'sao T'sao was using to escape, allowing an army led by his nephew, T'sao Ren, to cover his rear guard while he escaped. He was never captured during his retreat by anyone, and he certainly couldn't have been captured by Guan Yu, who wasn't anywhere near the battle.

 

In the case of that story, there are multiple non-supernatural texts that document what happened, but people still worship the god Guan Yu(and Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang to lesser extents), even though we know, and have ample historical data to support, that he wasn't a god and that he never even committed several of his most heroic deeds. That doesn't stop people from worshipping the story.

 

With the story of David and Goliath, while we have mutliple religious texts which tell a similar overall story, even they can't agree on some of the key details. How big was Goliath? According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, he was about 6'9". According to later texts and translations of the Bible, he was over 10' tall. As someone who is 6'2" in shoes who recently had the opportunity to play basketball against an opposing team with a player who was 7'0.5", I can say conclusively that a difference of 3'3" to someone's height is reasonably significant.

 

It's also been noted that the story of David and Goliath is remarkably similar, at least in terms of the key points, to the story of Nestor from The Illiad, the youngest of many children who, despite his youth and small size, won victory for his country's wrecked army by challenging the great leader of the opposing army, a giant, to solo combat and defeating him thanks to the help of a divine blessing, and that the Illiad is much, much, much older than both the Bible and the time frame from which David would have been killing Goliath.

 

None of that is to say that the story couldn't possibly have occurred exactly as the Bible says it did. I'm merely saying, to borrow your "boy at the hospital" metaphor for a second, if someone tells me that their son was in a serious accident and that God saved him at the hospital, I'm probably going to want to ask the boy's doctor for a second opinion on the matter.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

Also: George Washington didn't actually have wooden teeth.

[Live or Die Magic 383]

Also: George Washington didn't actually have wooden teeth.

 

But he DID throw a stone across the Rappahannock! And I bet if a giant had been standing on the other side, in just the right place, he could have hit him.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

waiting for someone to take this discussion into face palm territory.

[Svanxx 30]

waiting for someone to take this discussion into face palm territory.

 

I think the whole thread is one big face palm.

[Live or Die Magic 383]

waiting for someone to take this discussion into face palm territory.

 

Give yourself one from me. Really really hard.

[bhnole 153]

Give yourself one from me. Really really hard.

 

Hard enough to need wooden teeth??

[Live or Die Magic 383]

Hard enough to need wooden teeth??

 

Perfect!

Or, he could just borrow George Washington's.

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

[Live or Die Magic 383]

Mr. the Top...I hope you're in a well-insulated place, preferably underground, surrounded by rubber.