Kerygmania: God hardened Pharaoh's heart

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  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    edited October 2018
    UK. CoE, Baptist, everyone really. Apart from post. Or so high up the candle that it goes out through lack of oxygen. I can count the leading clergy I've encountered who don't have to go along with HGM* on one hand. Churches with Reformed in the name have three members apiece round here.

    *Historical Genital Mut... Grammatical Method.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    UK. CoE, Baptist, everyone really.
    Interesting that neither of the only two groups you mention self-identify, at least so far as I know, as Reformed.* Meanwhile, apart from inclusion in “everyone really,” you don’t mention bodies in the UK that are unquestionably Reformed—the Church of Scotland and the URC, for example.
    I can count the leading clergy I've encountered who don't have to go along with HGM* on one hand.
    While that certainly speaks to your experience with “leading clergy,” you haven’t convinced me that it’s compelling evidence to support your claim.
    Churches with Reformed in the name have three members apiece round here.
    Aside from the fact that not all Reformed churches, particularly in the English-speaking world, have “Reformed” in their names, one might think that the relative size of such churches in your area would suggest to you that your experience may not be sufficient to make claims about the “huge majority” of Reformed Christians. Would you make such generalizations about Lutherans, who are even more thin on the ground in the UK?

    FWIW, there are over 100 million members of Reformed churches in the world. (For reference, that compares to an estimated 85 million Anglicans worldwide—counting those in the Church of South India, which identifies as both Anglican and Reformed, but not counting Continuing Anglicans.) Nothing you’ve said gives me a sense that you’re really familiar with streams of historical or contemporary Reformed theology. It all just comes across as sweeping, unsupported pronouncements and condemnations.


    * Yes, I’m familiar with the reference to the “Protestant Reformed Religion” in the coronation oath, and with the Reformed theology of the XXXIX Articles. Let me know, please, when the XXXIX Articles are widely considered authoritative in the contemporary CofE (they certainly haven’t seemed to be among Anglican shipmates when the topic has come up in the past), or when the CofE seeks to be part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches or of one of the smaller, more conservative Reformed associations.
  • 'Must'?

    Yes, but not because he is beholden to anything but his own character and promises.

  • Sure. Which is why we have the apparent dilemma here, because on all sorts of levels, the account of God hardening Pharoah's heart seems 'out of character' in that sense.

    The only way around that, it seems to me, is to either attempt to rationalise the problem away, as you are doing, by postulating analogies about toffee and getting increasingly sticky - because any analogy will only take us so far ...

    Or accept that there're other things going on in the text - which is what some of the others here are suggesting - that it represents 'earlier' concepts of God held by people at the time Exodus was written, that it represents people's attempts to understand God according to their lights, that it's part of the 'foundation myth' of ancient Israel and so on.

    Which can take us into sticky and tricky territory too. MPaul clearly sees this as a reductionist approach as it relegates the story to 'Bronze Age mythology'.

    For my own part, and it may sound like a cop out, I'm inclined to leave the issues of theodicy that it raises and concentrate on the point Paul actually seems to be raising in Romans 9 - that it's one of these conundrums from the Hebrew scriptures that indicates that God can and does act in inscrutable ways - in order for him to illustrate and explain a current conundrum, how the Gentiles were accepting the Gospel and 'natural Israel' were not doing so in any great numbers by the time he was writing.

    Beyond that, I'm afraid I let go into the Mystery, as it were.

    @Nick Tamen. I took Martin to be referring to his own neck of the woods rather than the UK as a whole.

    If he lived in Scotland or Northern Ireland he may have posted differently.

    As far as the URC goes, they're fairly thin on the ground. I've always got on well with URC ministers and others I've known but most congregations seem to be struggling, but then that applies to most Methodist churches too.

    Generally speaking, in an average sized English town, you'd have a couple of Methodist churches and a URC at one time.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    UK. CoE, Baptist, everyone really.
    Interesting that neither of the only two groups you mention self-identify, at least so far as I know, as Reformed.* Meanwhile, apart from inclusion in “everyone really,” you don’t mention bodies in the UK that are unquestionably Reformed—the Church of Scotland and the URC, for example.
    I can count the leading clergy I've encountered who don't have to go along with HGM* on one hand.
    While that certainly speaks to your experience with “leading clergy,” you haven’t convinced me that it’s compelling evidence to support your claim.
    Churches with Reformed in the name have three members apiece round here.
    Aside from the fact that not all Reformed churches, particularly in the English-speaking world, have “Reformed” in their names, one might think that the relative size of such churches in your area would suggest to you that your experience may not be sufficient to make claims about the “huge majority” of Reformed Christians. Would you make such generalizations about Lutherans, who are even more thin on the ground in the UK?

    FWIW, there are over 100 million members of Reformed churches in the world. (For reference, that compares to an estimated 85 million Anglicans worldwide—counting those in the Church of South India, which identifies as both Anglican and Reformed, but not counting Continuing Anglicans.) Nothing you’ve said gives me a sense that you’re really familiar with streams of historical or contemporary Reformed theology. It all just comes across as sweeping, unsupported pronouncements and condemnations.


    * Yes, I’m familiar with the reference to the “Protestant Reformed Religion” in the coronation oath, and with the Reformed theology of the XXXIX Articles. Let me know, please, when the XXXIX Articles are widely considered authoritative in the contemporary CofE (they certainly haven’t seemed to be among Anglican shipmates when the topic has come up in the past), or when the CofE seeks to be part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches or of one of the smaller, more conservative Reformed associations.

    Oh I am Nick. They are damnationists to a man. For leading clergy read Rob Bell and Steve Chalke. We'd be delighted to attend any church in a city of a third of a million people and more on out for 5 miles that isn't HGM based so as not to frighten the damnationist horses - apart from the cathedral (implicitly) of course. If you know of one we've missed, with or without an 'R' in the month, please let me know.
  • In other words, Martin54 would be happy to attend any church providing it agrees with him on every issue.

    If his verbal exchanges are anything like his posting style, I'd be surprised if Martin could find a church that would actually understand what he's going on about ... ;)
  • But back to the plot ...

    The URC don't strike me as being 'damnationists' to a man. If anything they are very woolly and liberal for the most part.

    I can't believe that in a city of the size of the one Martin lives in that it's going to be that difficult to find a church that isn't 'damnationist to a man' (or woman).

    Unless Martin's 'damnationist' label applies to almost anyone and anything who isn't some kind of unitarian universalist. There, Martin. Sorted. Become a Unitarian or a Quaker. They aren't 'damnationists'.

    I'm sure there'll be Quaker Meeting Houses and Unitarian chapels in your city.

    (Smirks to self, imagining what a Martin54 contribution might sound like in a Quaker meeting ...;)).
  • magnilomagnilo Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Sure. Which is why we have the apparent dilemma here, because on all sorts of levels, the account of God hardening Pharoah's heart seems 'out of character' in that sense.
    I think the story is a sobering reminder that God has a great deal more latitude in terms of what his character would permit him to do without giving legitimate grounds for accusations of injustice than many people like you are prepared to allow.
    The only way around that, it seems to me, is to either attempt to rationalise the problem away, as you are doing, by postulating analogies about toffee and getting increasingly sticky - because any analogy will only take us so far ...

    And I would counter that by saying that your particular brand of principled agnosticism often seems to be a cover for dismissing the stated opinion of others without having to make the effort of providing a cogent counter-opinion. In short, it’s a far cry from the humility in which it is clothed and is actually just passive-aggression.

    Yes, I know (as I’ve stated upthread) that analogies will only take us so far, but to be accused of trying to “rationalise the problem away” is just an ad hominem. I don’t mind push back in the form of searching questions or counter-opinions and arguments, but I do object to your annoyingly garrulous brand on non-engagement.
  • In reflection, I apologise. I should have taken this to your hell thread.
  • @Nick Tamen. I took Martin to be referring to his own neck of the woods rather than the UK as a whole.

    If he lived in Scotland or Northern Ireland he may have posted differently.
    Yes, I took Martin to be referring to his own neck of the woods, too, and that was part of my point. Martin's posts seem to me to reflect a universalizing of personal experience—in this case, a broad statement about what a "huge majority" of people believe and teach based on relatively narrow experience with those people.
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Oh I am Nick.
    You are what? You quote my entire post and then answer "I am," even though that doesn't really seem to respond to anything I said.
    They are damnationists to a man.
    Who is damnationist to a man? And what exactly do you mean by "damnationist"? As @Gamma Gamaliel suggests, it seems to mean "anyone I don't agree with," or "anyone who isn't a universalist."
    For leading clergy read Rob Bell and Steve Chalke.
    I've read them both. I used to listen to Bell's podcasts (on which Chalke was a guest at least a few times), but I finally tired of them, not because I disagreed with him or dislike him, but because it was mostly old news wrapped in new paper. It became clear to me that Bell's primary audience is former, often wounded, evangelicals questioning whether rejecting a literalist reading of Scripture means rejecting Christianity, and the unchurched who are unchurched at least in part because they've been turned off by their encounters with evangelical churches. It's great that he speaks to and resonates with that audience. But for many of us without that background, much of what he says isn't really new or eye-opening.

    I'll let it go at this. I didn't mean to instigate such a tangent.

  • We are all trying to 'rationalise the problem away.' That includes me.

    So my comment wasn't meant to be ad hominem in anything other than an inclusivist sense.
  • I'm not sure what you mean by 'people like you.'

    There are plenty of people like me in the pews. Regular folks who are trying to make sense of it all.

    FWIW I'm far from agnostic on the Creeds and the 'dogmatic core' of the Christian faith where the Venn Diagram overlaps. I'm up for that.

    Trying to reconcile conundrums in the Exodus story is beyond my pay grade. I like your toffee analogy but to my mind it gets too sticky after a while. All analogies do that.

    Saying that I'm letting go into the Mystery, man ... Like uh far out ... isn't so much a sign of disengagement so much as an admission that I'm never going to be able to square some circles and work it all out. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in what you or anyone else has to say.

    I completely understand MPaul's 'God gave them over' stuff and the thing about the iniquity of the Amalekites not having reached its full measure etc ... But these raise as many questions as they answer.

    Hence letting go into the Mystery.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    In other words, Martin54 would be happy to attend any church providing it agrees with him on every issue.

    If his verbal exchanges are anything like his posting style, I'd be surprised if Martin could find a church that would actually understand what he's going on about ... ;)

    I was most happy at Oasis last weekend. It was pure oxygen. I'm intro behind the extro in church. In an HGM one I'm never... almost never, not for many a year, challenging. I made the mistake once of shaking my head to the insane damnationist shit being said, as usual, in my first (of three over 80+% of the past 15 years) and entirely typical Evo Anglo congo and was judged a heretic. On a shake of the head. What's to challenge? What's the point? I don't do verbal exchanges generally. Apart from with the bosses (home, work) and I always fold.

    And you understand me just fine : )
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    GG: But these raise as many questions as they answer.
    Gamma Gamaliel, When you say you.. "completely understand, but..."
    One wonders if that is true or merely a wave away kind of comment.
    There are certainly real issues with how one understands God's character at the heart of this discussion. In the end, we only know what he has shown us and the only place this occurs is in the OT itself. ISTM that one cannot really have a faith journey if one questions the character of God because without that, one cannot possibly trust him.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    My neck of the woods is very mainly the three shires of Warwick, Northampton & Leicester with drop ins in Lanca, Stafford, Lincoln, Derby, Nerja, Liverpool, London. Damnationism, homophobia, condemnation of the divorced, Islamophobia, the sinner's prayer, endorsed public testimony of low blood sugar and altered leg length, miracles and healings and words of knowledge and prophecies and ... a breath of fresh air once every three years. The RCs were OK. Far safer. And all the cathedrals. Not that they'd ever challenge HGM.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    GG: But these raise as many questions as they answer.
    Gamma Gamaliel, When you say you.. "completely understand, but..."
    One wonders if that is true or merely a wave away kind of comment.
    There are certainly real issues with how one understands God's character at the heart of this discussion. In the end, we only know what he has shown us and the only place this occurs is in the OT itself.... ISTM that one cannot really have a faith journey if one questions the character of God because without that, one cannot possibly trust him.

    This confuses me. I think he showed us a lot in the NT.

    And again we're not questioning the character of God so much as the interpretation of the character of God by some interpreters. Even ones who fondly think they are being literalists.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    GG: But these raise as many questions as they answer.
    Gamma Gamaliel, When you say you.. "completely understand, but..."
    One wonders if that is true or merely a wave away kind of comment.
    There are certainly real issues with how one understands God's character at the heart of this discussion. In the end, we only know what he has shown us and the only place this occurs is in the OT itself. ISTM that one cannot really have a faith journey if one questions the character of God because without that, one cannot possibly trust him.

    Why should it be a 'wave away comment'?

    Why can't it be a sincere one? And where have I questioned God's character?

    The point I'm trying to make is that whilst I 'get' the theology behind what you are saying and what Magnilo is saying, it doesn't tie up all the loose ends. There are still questions. There will always be questions. That's the nature of these things. We are dealing with issues of faith here.

    As for trusting God, how has anything I've posted here indicate any lack of faith or trust?

    To trust God doesn't mean we have to have everything neatly battened down in a box marked 'Sorted.'

    I'm certainly not saying, 'God hardened Pharoah's heart, how wicked of him.'

    No, what I am saying is that this raises questions and dilemmas that I don't think any of us can answer adequately. That doesn't mean we shouldn't give it our best shot and in our various ways, all of us here are trying to do that - Magnilo, Mousethief, Martin54 and myself - to be alliterative about it - as are Kwesi, Nick Tamen and others from their various perspectives.

    I've been accused of being dismissive and yes, I can understand why. Fair call. I can post flippantly and I'm a way that can sound dismissive - 'Sure, sure, I get that, I used to think that way once but now ...'

    So yes, I can how that can rankle.

    But that really isn't my intention. I don't mean to be disrespectful of your views or those of anyone else here, but I can't pretend that I find your well-intentioned but highly literal approach very convincing.

    Here I stand, I can do no other.

    My wife's cancer is active again. How do I deal with that? I hold on. 'Will not the judge of all the earth do right?'

    Yes, of course.

    How long does she have? Who knows? Two years? More? Less?

    'Will not the judge of all the earth do right?'

    Sometimes there are no straight answers. In the Pharoah case I don't believe there are. It's a Mystery. Call that dismissive if you must.

    'Are you for us or for our enemies?' Joshua asked the Angel.
    'No,' came the answer, 'But ...'

    If my 'principled agnosticism' irritates some posters. Tough.

    I'm not agnostic about the things that matter.

    I'll apologise if my tone can be off-colour at times but I won't apologise for finding certain solutions inadequate. If that marks me out as dismissive or failing to engage then so be it.

    I reject Dispensationalism. I reject fundamentalism. I reject hyperdoxy and I reject hyper-Calvinism.

    I embrace Christ. I embrace Mystery.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Gamma Gamaliel: this raises questions and dilemmas that I don't think any of us can answer adequately.
    Well, it does depend on what you call an adequate answer. You have to be careful not to paint yourself into a corner. There are a couple of things that should never be questioned by a believer. One is God's character, the other his love. The personal aspects of your post I should not comment on but will certainly pray.
  • Where have I questioned God's character or his love?

    Questioning people's interpretations of scripture or their theology isn't the same as questioning God's character or love.

    'Will not the judge of all the earth do right?'

    The Orthodox Liturgy says that 'God is good and loves mankind.' (They don't do gender neutral language)

    I believe both of those things.

    So I'm faced with a dilemma - as we all are - when we come across incidents in scripture that don't immediately appear to line up with that. The one with the prophet mauled by a lion would be one example, the slaughter of the first born of Egypt would be another.

    Pharoah was the guilty one. What had the first born and their parents done other than be Egyptians?

    There are other issues here as well as the one about hardening Pharoah's heart.

    I really don't think anyone has an adequate answer to that one. Not you with your very conservative evangelicalism, not Magnilo with what appears to be a fairly conservative Reformed stance.

    Which leaves us where? With the Mystery.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    interpretations of scripture or their theology isn't the same as questioning God's character or love..Which leaves us where? With the Mystery.

    Yes and no. It depends on the interpretive stance.

    To me there is no mystery in the presumption that where judgement happens, it is just. I once heard Christopher Hitchens dismiss God's dealings with Job. It brought home that to a materialist like him, there was no nuance at all in that story.

    The fact that the first born were taken was a judgement on the entire nation.. You and I do not really know the reason apart from the obvious assumption that a judgement of a leader can take in the judgement of their nation. In the NT we have Christ pronouncing judgement on the temple worship and on his generation of Israelites because they did not recognise their day of visitation.

    Presumably Egyptians en masse were also unwilling to recognise God's dealings in their midst. I would bet that a few of them daubed their houses with blood that night. We do not know. However, just because you do not know, then the presumption of God's guilt is the wrong presumption. (and I do not imply you are doing this.) He can never be guilty of sin or evil by definition.
  • Sure, but that still raises dilemmas. 'Bomber' Harris said that Germany had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind to justify the carpet-bombing of her cities in WW2.

    There's a cold logic there but that doesn't make it easier for the civilians who died in Dresden, Hamburg and dozens of other places.

    Those guys crushed when the tower fell or those Galileans whom Pilate executed, were they greater sinners than all the other Israelites? Luke tells us that Christ said, 'No they weren't,' but unless we all repent we shall all likewise perish.

    Hard sayings.

    You don't have to be a materialist like Hitchens to struggle with some of this stuff. You just have to be a human being.

    I'm not suggesting that God isn't entitled to judge. I'm not saying he is capricious or some kind of cosmic sadist who loves to dangle us over Hell fire flames as a spiteful boy dangles a spider over a flame - to use Jonathan Edward's analogy from 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God.'

    What I am saying is that there are problems and dilemmas and apparent contradictions in the way some of these things are portrayed or understood.

    There are various ways to deal with that. You have said yourself that in relation to some things, 'We just don't know.'

    We don't. Hence my invocation of Mystery. We know in part. One day we shall know fully even as we are fully known.

    I often quote the RC priest I knew who observed, 'We don't know where the Rich Young Ruler was on the Day of Pentecost.'

    He could have been among the 3,000 for all we know. We don't know. God does.

    The best we can do in instances like those we are discussed here is to give it our best shot at coming up with explanations. We can only approximate. No matter how many loose ends we tie up there are more left to tie.

    How could it be otherwise?

    The issue is to what extent we can live with loose ends remaining untied? To what extent can we live with Mystery? With the unreconcilable and the unexplained?
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    You don't have to be a materialist like Hitchens to struggle
    There are no untied loose ends and there is no mystery. Mystery in scripture is not about the unknowable it is about the yet unrevealed . If you care to accept what has been revealed and align your thinking with it then you can say with certainty that God is just and loving and regarding Pharoah et al..they are not disadvantaged, they had their chance and so do I. So, what If you want to quibble? Well you can, but it is not a stance of faith. A stance of Faith is not a struggle.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    MPaul - you seem to be saying "turn your critical faculties off. Call injustice justice. Call genocide fair and just. Pretend you can cope with thousands of babies being killed in a night because they committed the terrible deed of being the first son of an Egyptian family. Pretend it's fine and dandy for God to orchestrate that so he can play the Rescuer. Pretend you can't see how twisted that is."

    No. A thousand times no. It's not even possible, not for anyone with a functioning brain and conscience, anyway. If I have to explain to you why punishing a group for the sins of some is wrong, then I don't think it's I who has the problem.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Yeah but Jesus died for your sins!
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    It's THAT insane.
  • And I'm the one who has been accused of lack of engagement ...

    ;)

    More seriously, and to engage profitably, hopefully, it seems to me that we have two options from within a Christian faith standpoint:

    1) To close the discussion down by effectively saying, 'It's in the Bible, stupid. If you have a problem with it then it's your fault for your lack of faith.'

    2) To accept that yes, it is in the Bible and yes, it is hard to understand and to then begin to consider how we might interpret these things.

    I think we're all at number 2) here, being charitable.

    If we go for 2) then it seems to me that we have several options:

    a) We stick with a conservative approach, knowing full well that it raises difficult issues and then try to consider how we might reconcile apparent contradictions. Magnilo is doing this with his toffee analogy, it seems to me.

    b) We consider some form of 'progressive revelation' - which would be where Nick Tamen is coming from I think.

    c) We consider the Hebrew scriptures not as literal, historical accounts in the way conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists do but as reflections of how people interpreted events or their relationship with God in ways that were commensurate with their culture, society and other factors - which is where Mousethief is coming from I think.

    For my own part, FWIW, I tend to be drawing from a, b and c. Others here may well be doing the same. I'm not unique. Far from it.

    Contrary to the impression I appear to given magnilo, I am not as dismissive of the toffee analogy or his conservatively Reformed viewpoint as he may think. It's a position I know and understand. However, I'd be dishonest if I didn't acknowledge that it's one I also have some difficulties with.

    I'm more comfortable with b) and c) these days but remain quite conservative theologically, which may come as a surprise to those who appear to regard me as some kind of agnostic liberal.

    It strikes me that if we go too far down the conservative route of, 'Who are you to talk back to God? He can do whatever he likes. You can't tell him not to kill babies or wipe out entire cities. That's his prerogative ...' then you end up in some pretty disturbing territory indeed.

    In the 1630s the New England Puritans justified genocidal attacks on Pequod villages in which women and children were killed by citing passages from Joshua.

    Admirable though he undoubtedly was in many ways, Jonathan Edwards's sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' contains some very disturbing views about the nature of the Deity.

    Are we to really accept the idea of God taking a grim delight in torturing people over eternal Hell flames in the way that a cruel schoolboy might torture a spider?

    I mean, c'mon ...

    Of course, most Reformed Christians would distance themselves from that kind of view but it's there in some of the sermons and writings of representatives of that tradition just as anti-Semitism and other unpalatable positions are there in the writings of the Fathers, the medieval Schoolmen and the Reformers.

    How do we deal with this?

    Discuss.

  • If we go for 2) then it seems to me that we have several options:

    a) We stick with a conservative approach, knowing full well that it raises difficult issues and then try to consider how we might reconcile apparent contradictions. Magnilo is doing this with his toffee analogy, it seems to me.

    b) We consider some form of 'progressive revelation' - which would be where Nick Tamen is coming from I think.

    c) We consider the Hebrew scriptures not as literal, historical accounts in the way conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists do but as reflections of how people interpreted events or their relationship with God in ways that were commensurate with their culture, society and other factors - which is where Mousethief is coming from I think.

    For my own part, FWIW, I tend to be drawing from a, b and c. Others here may well be doing the same. I'm not unique. Far from it.
    FWIW, I'd say I'm coming from a mix of b and c, which are consistent with/compliment each other, I think.

  • Ok, I get that, Nick and would agree with you. 'I agree with Nick,' to quote someone I don't often quote!

    ;)
  • Nailed me dead to rights.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Not by me. And not me.

    0% a 100% c, b: everything in between.

    Conservatism not only puts the cart before the horse, the horse doesn't exist. Or to put it another way, HGM puts the cart before a non-existent horse. Or ... Jesus didn't [have to] die for anyone's sins.

  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Engaged enough for you? This is the crux...
  • Engaged or enigmatic?
  • Enigmatic or opaque?
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Opaque or orthogonal?
  • Ostrogoth or Visigoth?
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Heruli.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Oi you two. I keep on coming here because there's new posts expecting some inspired insight and instead it's more dribble...
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Karl has it right. Please stop cluttering this thread with tripe.

    Moo, Kerygmania host
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    My unreserved apologies.
  • Likewise.

    I must admit, I have been waiting for magnilo to post again but he/she sees to have decamped.
  • magnilomagnilo Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Likewise.

    I must admit, I have been waiting for magnilo to post again but he/she sees to have decamped.

    I think the conversation is over, to be honest. I’d be happy to explore the conundrum further, but as you’ve already decided that we’re all just trying to “rationalise the problem away” rather than trying to engage is a conversation which might actually go somewhere, I don’t think I’ll waste any more of our time.
  • That's your take on what I was saying.

    But yes, I think things have run their course, but for rather different reasons.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    magnilo wrote: »
    Likewise.

    I must admit, I have been waiting for magnilo to post again but he/she sees to have decamped.

    I think the conversation is over, to be honest. I’d be happy to explore the conundrum further, but as you’ve already decided that we’re all just trying to “rationalise the problem away” rather than trying to engage is a conversation which might actually go somewhere, I don’t think I’ll waste any more of our time.

    False Dichotomy Of The Week Award.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    In other words. There is nothing to rationalize away. Or converse about. There is no conversation between the historical methods.
  • That's your take on what I was saying.

    But yes, I think things have run their course, but for rather different reasons.

    Yeah. You win.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    edited November 2018
    Nope, tilt. Game over. Nul points. Non-starter in fact.
  • magnilo wrote: »
    That's your take on what I was saying.

    But yes, I think things have run their course, but for rather different reasons.

    Yeah. You win.

    Nobody's won.
  • I have.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Me too.
  • 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'
    'No.'

    FWIW I think that both Mousethief and Nick Taken are ahead on points.

    Martin may not be far behind but it's hard to tell. I'm damned or buggered or what you will if I can make out what he's on about and find it very hard to believe that he can't find anywhere in a city of the size of his where they aren't all HGM as he puts it ...

    If I were an adjudicator I'd say we needed the video playback to see if he's passed Go and can collect his £200.

    Magnilo made a magnificent effort but got stuck in his own sticky toffee it seems to me.

    As for MPaul, I could have written his script for him. No surprises there. At least his arguments are consistent though and we know what we are going to get, the Gospel according to late 19th/early 20tu century fundagelicals.

    I'll leave others to assess my performance. Did I derail the thread or simply put a few obstacles on the course?
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