Posted on 12/20/2006 10:05:13 AM PST by Caleb1411
At one point in history, yes. Right now, the last clause reads more properly "Those in want or need of postmodernist, deconstructionist, revisionist, eisegetical bibling would do well to go there."
Well, let them bible there in whatever way they wish - it is still a free country, or at least it was so when I was last checking this morning. As long as they do not bible at me, I do not have any objections.
taming the hound of heaven? prostitution? sublimation of supersition?
They won't. To the First Existential Church of the Warm Fuzzy, the Bible's the equivalent of Heloise's Helpful Hints.
More to the article's point, however, the undergraduates at these universities are woefully, perhaps willfully, ignorant of the myriad rhetorical and literary allusions to the Bible. No matter, I guess. They'll just "cook up Shakespeare, serve him up like roast goose, stuffed with their political-sexual agendas, carve and quarter him with long knives. … These are the scholars in the journals now. They are at war with the beautiful; they are against G-d and metaphor."
Well, I [an atheist] am a graduate of officially atheistic Moscow University [in the thucking USSR of accursed memory], and I do not consider myself to be biblically illiterate - I could easily pick most rhetorical, literary, and pictorial allusions to it, in more than one language to boot. Occasionally I make a few of my own, for the fun of it. Thus I positively do not see why these graduates should be considered as "woefully illiterate". If they want or need it, for whatever reason - they'll pick it [there are places to do it, or they could do it on their own]. And if they do not need it - it would close the case.
It's one thing to know it and not to need it, as you may not, another to remain willfully ignorant of its existence, substituting the pallid, contrived interpretations of "the scholars in the journals now. They are at war with the beautiful; they are against G-d and metaphor."
ping
"Almost without exception, English professors we surveyed at major American colleges said universities see knowledge of the Bible as a deeply important part of a good education. The virtual unanimity and depth of their responses on this question are striking. The Bible is not only a sacred scripture to millions of Americans, it is also arguably (as one Northwestern professor stated), "the most influential text of all of Western culture."
Prof. Robert Klein of Harvard University stated, "I can only say that if a student doesn't know any Bible literature, he or she will simply not understand whole elements of Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth. One could go on and on and on. So just add that it's rich and beautiful and wonderful material in and of itself, a very important part of a liberal education. The Bible has continued to be philosophically, ethically, religiously, politically influential in Western, Eastern, now African cultures, and so not to know it -- whether one is a Jew or Christian -- seems to me not to understand world culture. It's not just Western culture. And in terms of my own field, English and American literature is simply steeped in Biblical legends, morality, Biblican figures, Biblican metaphors, Biblical symbols, and so it would be like not learning a certain kind of grammar or vocabulary and trying to speak the language or read the language. Can't do without it."
these is= there is
Let's see... Do I trust my friend the literature professor, who strongly confirms the thesis of the article; or do I trust you the avowed atheist whose opposition to Bible knowledge is likely rooted in something else....
Not a difficult choice, actually.
Choose as you wish - it is a free country. Being an avowed atheist does not [and has not, so far] prevented me from being somewhat decently well-read. Over my life I have probably read about 5 to 7 thousand books [all different; multi-volume sets to be counted by the number of bound books]. Unless you literature professor is a speed reader [and then the question is how much he/she has absorbed], his/her number is unlikely to be qualitatively higher.
I believe you're searching for the word "quantitatively," and I suppose it's really impressive that you can stack up such numbers, and yet still be so obviously without a clue.
Qualitatively, however, you come across as a rather insufferable snob.
I was meaning "qualitatively "- like, say, 3-5 times higher versus something in the same range. To illustrate with the numbers, 8-10 thousand read books would be higher but similar, while 15-20 thousand could be described [in the context of erudition] as qualitatively different.
You'd be more believable if you also ranted at cultural anthropology and womyn's studies courses which also seem to be required to graduate from so many places these days; and which have almost zero vocational utility for the overwhelming majority of students.
Particularly PhD chemists.
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
Not for reading Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton, for example.
The "classical" western thought and Canon (in the sense of the book The Closing of the American Mind) are dependent upon certain memes. These include logical categories and frameworks of thought, so to speak--which in science draw more heavily on the Greeks; moral frameworks, which heavily lean on Scriptures; and legal frameworks, which are a mishmash of the classics and the Bible.
As a living illustration: at my workplace these is one pre-med student [he was just accepted in a med school]. A few weeks ago he came to work coughing and sneezing. So, I solemnly informed him that Aristotle [Problemata, 1, 50] recommended sexual excess as beneficial against the diseases caused by phlegm. At first he laughed; several days later he came and expressed his wonder that it had worked. Then I showed him the book - and he became sufficiently interested so as to start reading. Score one more for the Western Civ.
C.S. Lewis wrote of the dumbing down of education in England fifty years ago, complaining of "and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT"
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas!
It does not refer to the professional study of what might be termed "women's plumbing".
"Womyn" is the preferred spelling of gender-feminist lesbian nutcases.
And as such, takes a more prurient interest in women's bodies.
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas!
Moral framework one could nicely build on Socrates [as transmitted by Plato, with additions] and that same Aristotle. Indeed, one does not even need to build it, as they have already done all the heavy work. As for the legal framework, it is a mishmash stemming from Roman civil law, Germanic tribal law [common law] and later royal enactments.
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