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If you're not familiar with it, Ecclesiastes is a rant by an angry, elderly atheist that through some editorial oversight found its way into the Bible. Not an

by narag 9y ago

If you're not familiar with it, Ecclesiastes is a rant by an angry, elderly atheist that through some editorial oversight found its way into the Bible. Not an atheist. Ancient jews believed in God but not in the afterlife.

autokad 9y ago
yeah they kind of lost me at that point
- idlewords 9y ago
  That's the first slide! You pulled the ripcord while the plane was still at the terminal.
  - electricbanana 9y ago
    Thank God for zero-zero ejection seats... unless you get sucked into the turbine of an overflying jet.
  - autokad 9y ago
    i heard the engine rattling, and its not the only plane in the terminal. on a serious note, i already knew they didnt have their facts strait, and it was clear they were going to paint the article with some sort of rhetoric. i'm sure you enjoyed the article and it has good content, but it wasn't for me and i moved on.
    - grive 9y ago
      But even on such a tight schedule, you took the time to come to the comment and take part in a pointless thread about a joke. > i already knew they didnt have their facts strait Deducing this from this joke alone is irrational, so to be charitable let's assume you had other reasons for dismissing the talk. Why not expose them instead?
    - timdavila 9y ago
      FYI - You're responding to the author.
zellyn 9y ago
It's a joke.
- narag 9y ago
  It doesn't matter.
  - CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
    HN: Whereby, when presented with a Maciej slide deck, pedantry takes precedence over humor. Oh well, at least he can take solace in > that no matter how bad my talk, it won't be remembered.
    - narag 9y ago
      HN: Whereby, when presented with a Maciej slide deck, pedantry takes precedence over humor. Please, try to understand what others try to do before throwing unwarranted insults in the conversation. That was a joke. So? There are a lot of people that ignores what I said. I wasn't attacking the author, just adding some rare facts to the conversation for people that could be unaware of it and wonder wth the author was meaning. Now your comment, what exactly does it add to the conversation? Edit: your response (that I can't responde to) is even worse. <sigh>
      - CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
        > I wasn't attacking the author, just adding some rare facts to the conversation for people that could be unaware of it and wonder wth the author was meaning. I wasn't responding to your original comment, which I thought added value. I was responding to "It doesn't matter." You're dismissing someone else's perception of the context in which the statement was made. Sure, humor might not matter to you. To some HN users, it might even matter less than factual correctness to a granular level. But to say it doesn't matter, full stop? That's just rude. > Now your comment, what exactly does it add to the conversation? It circles back from your dickish dismissal with an excerpt from the webpage for the sake of humor. Try lightening up. Or, at the very least, maybe try to not be a dismissive jerk to other people. It costs very little to be kind. EDIT: If you want to respond, click the "x minutes ago" to access a comment directly and you'll get the reply box. i.e. https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=16107228 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=16107228
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
brlewis 9y ago
You're correct, but the article is overall a great read. This one little factual oversight is tangential.
- narag 9y ago
  That's not a factual oversight, it's a joke. I knew that. I even found it funny. I just added a little information that I find interesting.
- dingaling 9y ago
  I don't have a great deal of tolerance for any "factual oversights". If you're not certain of it, don't mention it.
itp 9y ago
I'm not an expert at all, but your response made me curious as to why that (presumably humorous) aside would have been thrown in. Anyway, my research, such as it is, took me as far as the Wikipedia article on Ecclesiastes[0], which maybe provides soft support for the claim? The presence of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is something of a puzzle, as the common themes of the Hebrew canon—a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people—are absent from it, which suggests that Kohelet had lost his faith in his old age. Anyway, I hope that this won't discourage people from reading the entire thing, which I thought was well written and well worth the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes#Canonicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes#Canonicity
- narag 9y ago
  I have no idea who wrote that in Wikipedia. My source was a Theology PhD about 35 years ago. Before maccabees there was no believe in afterlife, that came from Egypt and eastern cultures. Even in Jesus times, Sadducees didn't believe in afterlife.
- bambax 9y ago
  > a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people Yhwh is indeed the God of his own people, and fights alongside his people, against other peoples and their god(s). Sometimes he gets upset with his people and punishes them, usually very harshly (mass drowning, mass fires, getting them lost in the desert for generations, etc.) The role of prophets is mainly to try to talk God into being a little more lenient and maybe not kill everyone this time. The idea of a benevolent God is fairly recent. (Conversely, the argument that God doesn't exist because there is so much evil in the world is fairly weak. The God of the Old Testament doesn't have a problem with evil, he just wants his team to win.)

by narag 9y ago

autokad 9y ago

yeah they kind of lost me at that point

idlewords 9y ago
That's the first slide! You pulled the ripcord while the plane was still at the terminal.
- electricbanana 9y ago
  Thank God for zero-zero ejection seats... unless you get sucked into the turbine of an overflying jet.
- autokad 9y ago
  i heard the engine rattling, and its not the only plane in the terminal. on a serious note, i already knew they didnt have their facts strait, and it was clear they were going to paint the article with some sort of rhetoric. i'm sure you enjoyed the article and it has good content, but it wasn't for me and i moved on.
  - grive 9y ago
    But even on such a tight schedule, you took the time to come to the comment and take part in a pointless thread about a joke. > i already knew they didnt have their facts strait Deducing this from this joke alone is irrational, so to be charitable let's assume you had other reasons for dismissing the talk. Why not expose them instead?
  - timdavila 9y ago
    FYI - You're responding to the author.

zellyn 9y ago

It's a joke.

narag 9y ago
It doesn't matter.
- CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
  HN: Whereby, when presented with a Maciej slide deck, pedantry takes precedence over humor. Oh well, at least he can take solace in > that no matter how bad my talk, it won't be remembered.
  - narag 9y ago
    HN: Whereby, when presented with a Maciej slide deck, pedantry takes precedence over humor. Please, try to understand what others try to do before throwing unwarranted insults in the conversation. That was a joke. So? There are a lot of people that ignores what I said. I wasn't attacking the author, just adding some rare facts to the conversation for people that could be unaware of it and wonder wth the author was meaning. Now your comment, what exactly does it add to the conversation? Edit: your response (that I can't responde to) is even worse. <sigh>
    - CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
      > I wasn't attacking the author, just adding some rare facts to the conversation for people that could be unaware of it and wonder wth the author was meaning. I wasn't responding to your original comment, which I thought added value. I was responding to "It doesn't matter." You're dismissing someone else's perception of the context in which the statement was made. Sure, humor might not matter to you. To some HN users, it might even matter less than factual correctness to a granular level. But to say it doesn't matter, full stop? That's just rude. > Now your comment, what exactly does it add to the conversation? It circles back from your dickish dismissal with an excerpt from the webpage for the sake of humor. Try lightening up. Or, at the very least, maybe try to not be a dismissive jerk to other people. It costs very little to be kind. EDIT: If you want to respond, click the "x minutes ago" to access a comment directly and you'll get the reply box. i.e. https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=16107228 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=16107228

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

brlewis 9y ago

You're correct, but the article is overall a great read. This one little factual oversight is tangential.

narag 9y ago
That's not a factual oversight, it's a joke. I knew that. I even found it funny. I just added a little information that I find interesting.
dingaling 9y ago
I don't have a great deal of tolerance for any "factual oversights". If you're not certain of it, don't mention it.

itp 9y ago

I'm not an expert at all, but your response made me curious as to why that (presumably humorous) aside would have been thrown in. Anyway, my research, such as it is, took me as far as the Wikipedia article on Ecclesiastes[0], which maybe provides soft support for the claim? The presence of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is something of a puzzle, as the common themes of the Hebrew canon—a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people—are absent from it, which suggests that Kohelet had lost his faith in his old age. Anyway, I hope that this won't discourage people from reading the entire thing, which I thought was well written and well worth the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes#Canonicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes#Canonicity

narag 9y ago
I have no idea who wrote that in Wikipedia. My source was a Theology PhD about 35 years ago. Before maccabees there was no believe in afterlife, that came from Egypt and eastern cultures. Even in Jesus times, Sadducees didn't believe in afterlife.
bambax 9y ago
> a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people Yhwh is indeed the God of his own people, and fights alongside his people, against other peoples and their god(s). Sometimes he gets upset with his people and punishes them, usually very harshly (mass drowning, mass fires, getting them lost in the desert for generations, etc.) The role of prophets is mainly to try to talk God into being a little more lenient and maybe not kill everyone this time. The idea of a benevolent God is fairly recent. (Conversely, the argument that God doesn't exist because there is so much evil in the world is fairly weak. The God of the Old Testament doesn't have a problem with evil, he just wants his team to win.)