Greetings.
Relevant to
Divine Misconceptions:
- “Afghan court upholds sentences in Quran translation trial”: This will come off as rather extreme to most Westerners, though there is some logic to it. The offense in question is publication of a translation of the Qur’an into an Afghan language without also giving the original Arabic text as well. Every translation is an interpretation (unless produced by a computer, in which case it is a blind approximation), and an interpretation can be wrong. Indeed, since no two languages model the world in quite the same way, every translation is off, if only by a little. In the case of the Qur’an, which is about 1,400 years old, scholars claim it is not always clear anymore what Muḥammad meant. As such, a translation stands the risk of projecting meanings on the Qur’an which arguably are not present in the original text. Thus there is reason to be displeased with a translation, especially without the original text to compare with it. Do note, though, the fact that anyone needs a translation in Afghanistan indicates they are doing an inadequate job of teaching Qur’anic Arabic so that Muslims can read the Qur’an in the original language, thus saving them an unnecessary layer of interpretation.
- More religious intolerance: “Iran accuses Bahais of having ties with Israel”.
Today’s news and commentary:
Today’s weird thing is something amusing which Emily sent to me, “Judas Asparagus”, included below. Enjoy and share the weirdness.
Aaron
Judas Asparagus
If you need a laugh today, then this should do it!
A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible.
This is amazing and brought tears of laughter to my eyes.
I wonder how often we take for granted that children understand what we are teaching???
Through the eyes of a child:
The Children’s Bible in a Nutshell
In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.
Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did.
Then God made the world.
He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.
Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.
Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.
One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.
After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.
Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.
God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don’t lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor’s stuff.
Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.
One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.
After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me.
After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.
There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.
After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’)
During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.
Jesus also had twelve opossums.
The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.
Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.
But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.
Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum.. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.
-------You must share this delightful story! --------
