The Upper Room

1:30 PM

can someone explain me Mark 16:17-18?

> And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

BeatMe

1:44 PM

and additionally Luke 10:19:

> I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

and Acts 28:3-6

BeatMe

2:05 PM

nevermined, formulated it as a question

TRiG

5:11 PM

I found a question on that subject, but it appears to be asked by someone else.

0

Q: The effect of poison to Christians

Can someone explain me these passages about the effect of poison? Who is immune to poison? Why do they have this trait? Why isn't anyone today immune to poison? Mark 16:17-18 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new...

(Should be, "The effect of poison on Christians.)

El'endia Starman

5:26 PM

@TRiG: BeatMe and Sven are the same person.

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Any particular reason?

El'endia Starman

Their avatars are the same, they write the same, and...

BeatMe confirmed himself as being Sven. :P

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman How did you do the "this is a reply to an earlier message" thing without my name showing up?

El'endia Starman

@TRiG I have no idea. I don't know how to make it happen on purpose.

Sep 20 at 16:27, by BeatMe

;) Unfortunately altough my account on †.SE is named Sven

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Weird.

Is it just me, or has this chat become a lot quieter of late?

BeatMe

5:33 PM

Yes, I don't know why I have different names here and on the site ;)

@TRiG, it's weekend ;)

TRiG

@BeatMe It beats me, too.

El'endia Starman

@BeatMe I can fix that if you'd like.

my different names?

Yes.

sure, go ahead :)

5:41 PM

To be clear, you want your profile on †.SE to be named "BeatMe", right?

BeatMe

hmm, I would like it more if my profile on chat is named Sven ;)

El'endia Starman

@BeatMe Hmmm. Not so sure if I could do that.

BeatMe

changing the name on †.SE should be no problem for me, right?

El'endia Starman

@BeatMe No, that's no problem. You could probably do it yourself.

BeatMe

yes ;)

El'endia Starman

5:44 PM

As to chat, I'm pretty sure you can't change your name for a specific chat room. Thus, you'd have to change your name on Stack Overflow to change it here.

BeatMe

i wanted to ask on meta.se, but it was no big problem yet

atheist has a different name on SO

he said he changed his email and consequently his chat profile did not refer to the SE one, but to †.SE alone

but that didn't work for me and I didn't try it further ;)

El'endia Starman

Hmm. [shrugs]

TRiG

@BeatMe Me no like Atheist's name. 'Tis confusing. I'm an atheist too, but I'm not Atheist.

BeatMe

agreed ;)

TRiG

@BeatMe What is your avatar, anyway?

BeatMe

5:58 PM

a picture from years ago

i think it's something like a ninja

but don't ask me :D

samurai after searching on tineye.com ;)

don't judge me :D

El'endia Starman

@BeatMe But samurai are cool! :P

BeatMe

i know ;)

Caleb

6:33 PM

@BeatMe To do that you have to change your screen name on the site that your chat account is associated with (in your case SO) or change the association to a differnet site.

BeatMe

how do I do the later?

Caleb

@BeatMe Go to chat.stackexchange.com then click on your name on the top right. Then use the [change] link to the right of the 'parent user' field.

You can use any of your associated SE accounts for chat so it will take the name/avatar etc from that site. But chat is network-wide, so you only get one or another.

BeatMe

6:52 PM

ok

thanks, that worked ;)

Flimzy

I'm working on a question, but want some help...

is it a good question? And how should I tag it?

TRiG

@Sven And now you're shown as Sven all the way back, to confuse anyone reading the transcripts.

Flimzy

Here's the text I have so far:

Inspired by this question: http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3937/how-do-christians-explain-to-commonalities-between-their-religion-other-major-fa

What is _fundamentally_ unique about Christianity? Obviously there are different stories, texts, and traditions associated with Christianity than with other religions. But if we cut away all the fluff from all the world religions... Is there anything that stands out as unique about the core of Christianity?

TRiG

@Flimzy I think this is rather fun, but perhaps not the most accurate.

►

"However wonderful people think it all is, it is, frankly, not original."

Flimzy

that is funny

TRiG

7:07 PM

@Flimzy That is QI, easily the most intelligent and the funniest TV panel game I know of.

And, well, it's chaired by Stephen Fry, so what more is there to say?

Flimzy

Yes, he's a pretty funny guy :)

Not always very respectful... but then most comedians aren't :)

To be a comedian, you have to throw out a certain amount of respect for something

TRiG

@Flimzy None of which is helping you to phrase your question.

Flimzy

Nope :)

I just pasted my question anyway

It is a wiki, after all, so it's easy to improve after the fact as well

... or close if it's a bad question

TRiG

The thing is, the theology bores me, so I'd answer along sociological lines. Christianity is different in the way it organises itself. Also, the concept of "buddy Jesus" is unique to modern Christianity. I think a certain amount of tidying up is necessary to clarify what type of answer you're looking for. I suspect that "Christianity is kitschier than most other religions" may not be the answer you had in mind.

Flimzy

Probably "Christianity is _____er than other religions" in general isn't what I'm looking for... since that would just be a matter of degrees...

Of course if that's the only thing unique about Christinaity, then fine.

But I'm really wondering if there's something fundamentally different.

All (most) religions have prophets who claim to speak on behalf of God.

All/most have scriptures, claimed to be from God.

All/most report miracles (or magic tricks, or whatever terminology they use)

All/most claim some tie to history

TRiG

7:18 PM

@Flimzy The Hindu holy scriptures don't claim to be inspired.

Flimzy

so if Christianity just has better prophets, better scripture, more real miracles, and more accurate history... that doesn't seem like a fundamental difference... it just seems like a "more complete evolution of religion"

Yeah, many "religions" don't even have scripture, per se....

TRiG

I think there can be some very real differences in the way people (especially in the less contemplative versions of Christianity) approach their gods. Modern American Christianity seems less ... I'm not sure what word or concept I'm looking for here.

Flimzy

Anyway... that's the gist of what I'm asking... is there something fundamentally unique about Christianity, that makes it more than just "an improvement on a good idea"

TRiG

@Flimzy Well, we might agree to differ on some of that.

Flimzy

(of course "improvement" is subjective anyway... but from the perspective of Christians, presumably Xianity is better than the other options)

TRiG

7:21 PM

@Flimzy Presumably, but not necessarily so. I think there are some Christians who think that Christianity is "the right path for them", but not for everyone.

Flimzy

Maybe... I think that's a minority view, though.

I think there are many who think "Christianity is the right path for some, but not for everyone"... and those people usually tend not to self-identify as Christians

But there are always exceptions :)

TRiG

@Flimzy There are always exceptions.

It took me a while to learn that.

Flimzy

Of course that statement itself is wrong.

Because to be true, there would have to be an exception to itself :)

(tangent, I know...)

TRiG

@Flimzy And now we get into interesting parts of set theory. Bertrand Russell did a good deal of work in that area.

(Is the set of all sets which are not elements of themselves an element of itself?)

Flimzy

I've updated my question as a result of some of our discussion, to help pin down the type of answer I'm looking for.

Caleb

7:30 PM

@TRiG Man I've got to think you've never actually been exposed to the core theologies of Christianity. A lot of things they are, but boring they are not. And they are inherently sociological. Jesus and his teachings turned the field of sociology inside out and upside down. The relationships between people and societies have never been so interesting as viewed with a little divine perspective.

TRiG

0

Q: What is unique about Christianity?

Inspired by this question: How do Christians explain to commonalities between their religion, other major faiths and obscure isolated tribal belief systems? What is fundamentally unique about Christianity? Obviously there are different stories, texts, and traditions associated with Christianity...

doctrine

@Flimzy. phenomena.

Flimzy

thanks

fixed

Caleb

@TRiG Also, I think the "buddy jesus" thing as mostly taught these days is on one hand a bunch of bunk, but there is a kernel of truth in it that dates back to Jesus personally calling and hanging out with a bunch of fishermen. In fact it could be said to go back to when God walked and talked with Adam in the garden. One of the defining features of Theism is the understanding of God as personal in that he has individual relationships with people.

TRiG

@Caleb I remember reading someone saying that the "buddy Jesus" idea is wrong because the whole concept of friendship worked differently in that society. I find that a little hard to believe. People are still people. Surely it can't have been that different.

Caleb

@TRiG God was a friend to men and still is. That's not the issue.

The issue is people want to make that bi-direction in the same way they do with their other friends. They expect to be able to manipulate him and bend HIS will to submit to their own. That's where the "buddy" view goes haywire.

TRiG

7:44 PM

@Caleb The article I read (and this was a good while ago, so don't press for details), was saying that the concept of "friend" which existed in Jesus' culture was very different to the concept of "friend" which exists in our culture.

Caleb

@TRiG There might be something to that, I don't claim to know much about how 1st century cultures viewed the idea of friendship. It's hard enough for me to keep the views of the different cultures I interact with regularly straight.

Flimzy

In Mexico, I'm everybody's "amigo"...

Caleb

But we do learn quite a bit about what it meant for God to be a friend to men in the Bible. And he calls believers his friends. That's a pretty crazy claim in itself, so knowing what he meant by it is pretty important.

Flimzy

especially anyone trying to sell something.

TRiG

►

And a commentary on the above.

> How to worship.

Is this sort of "contemporary" worship service (alien to me) common nowadays?

Flimzy

7:56 PM

probably

but I'm watching it now, I'll let you know :)

Yeah, that's pretty typical in many congregations

to varying degrees

both churches I attend (one in the U.S. and one in Mexico) do that, to some degree.

that skinny kid looks a lot like my brother

TRiG

@Flimzy The floppy-haired kid?

Flimzy

yeah

TRiG

He's cute.

Flimzy

heh

He also plays in the worship band at his church

that's exactly the kind of video he would make

He'll at least get a kick out of watching it

TRiG

The commentary is, yet again, a link to slacktivist. I love that blog so much.

Incidentally, this might be a good question to ask on the site. It's about Paul.

wakingupnow.com/blog/…

Flimzy

8:15 PM

I think that question is probably answered in how the Bible was canonized.

As Paul is not unique in that regard.

Although asking specifically may still be worth it's own question.

Even if the answer(s) reference the questions about canonization :)

TRiG

I suppose I ought to eat something today other than pears.

Flimzy

that's more than I've eaten today

TRiG

@Flimzy Well, it's a little earlier for you.

Flimzy

Yeah, it's 3:20pm...

still a bit late to not have eaten anything.

But I'm too lazy to go to the store... and anything in my fridge is likely spoiled, since I was out of town for a week

TRiG

True.

@Flimzy. There was something I wanted to ask you, but I've forgotten what it was. Annoying.

@Caleb. Could we have that discussion about tolerance now?

Oct 5 at 22:00, by Caleb

@brilliant Basically we are all here pulling the classic secular stunt of being tolerant of everything except intolerance.

Oct 5 at 22:26, by TRiG

@Caleb You probably don't want to have two conversations at once, but when you've finished talking to @brilliant, could we have another chat about "tolerance of intolerance"? It sounds, to me, like the tragedy of the commons.

Caleb

8:31 PM

@TRiG We can maybe start but I have to warn you I already have a couple irons in the fire so I might not be able to give it my best ATM.

TRiG

@Caleb Well, I'm just curious.

I'm probably not thinking the best either, because I'm starving. I've given in and ordered a take away. My mother would not be happy.

It's just that what you were saying didn't really make sense to me. Personally, I tend to think that "intolerance of intolerance" is a good thing.

Flimzy

The word "(in)tolerance" is grossly overused these days.

It usually means "acceptance"

People "tolerate" a screaming baby on an airplane.

Because the only alternative is to throw it out the hatch.

TRiG

@Flimzy Or smother it with a dishcloth.

Flimzy

That's not dramatic enough :)

TRiG

I tend to hang around online in American feminist/progressive circles, and sometimes get a bit out of touch with regressive/authoritarian thinking.

Flimzy

8:38 PM

Where the terminology breakdown matters is when someone says "You're being intolerant of X view, because you disagree with it." Which is simply untrue.

Disagreement and tolerance often coexist.

What the critic usually means is "You're being unaccepting of X view, because you disagree with it." Which may be true... but is also hard to argue against.

TRiG

@Flimzy Yes ... ish. And I'm probably too tired to elucidate that ish. It would need a few specific examples, which would require more imagination than I currently have at my disposal.

Flimzy

By substituting the word "acceptance" with "tolerance", it makes the "intolerant" seem like bad guys.

hehe, okay... well... I have other things to do anyway... like find some food

TRiG

@Flimzy Food. Food is good. Mine is coming.

@Flimzy In fact, in the abstract I agree with you thoroughly. It does matter, though, if the group with whom you are arguing is part of a disenfranchised minority. That makes a difference.

Flimzy

Anyway, to that extent, I would say we tolerate all "Christian" views on this site, but that's not the same as accepting them.... If that is indeed what your original conversation was about (I don't have a lot of context to go on).

And even then, the site is accepting of them, but the individual contributors needn't be.

TRiG

@Flimzy That was the subject of the original conversation, but @Caleb appeared to be making a more general point about tolerance in general.

Caleb

9:00 PM

Sorry I am interested in continuing this conversation but I've had some mod stuff to take care of and I need to get to bed in a few minutes. Do ping me another time @TRiG.

@Caleb G'night.

İyi geceler

@Caleb Oíche mhaith.

9:26 PM

@Caleb Jate'ca!

@TRiG You're only the second person that I've seen that knows "good night" in Gaelic. :P

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman I am Irish!

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Ah, that makes perfect sense. :P

TRiG

It would be amazing if I didn't know it. How do you?

TRiG, Offaly, Ireland

804 12

prayer sin sexuality doctrine morality culture faith

El'endia Starman

@TRiG One of my friends is from a family that celebrates their small Irish heritage very strongly. Said friend taught himself Gaelic, I believe. I in turn learned a bit from him. :P

@TRiG D'OH! :P

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman And the first words of my profile are "I'm Irish, of English parents". I was taught Irish in school. I am by no means fluent (it wasn't well taught, to be honest: my French is better), but there are some phrases that everyone in Ireland would know, even if they can't speak the language at all.

@ElendiaStarman How much can you speak? Do you know any of the grammar, or just a few words?

El'endia Starman

9:33 PM

@TRiG I can recognize a few phrases and that's it.

Stuff like "good night", "how are you?", etc...

"Hello" too.

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman "Go raibh maith agat"

El'endia Starman

@TRiG No idea what that means. :P

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman What were you taught for Hello?

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Lemme go find it... :P

"Dia dhuit".

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Which literally means "God with you".

El'endia Starman

9:36 PM

@TRiG [nods] Makes perfect sense. Said friend is a very strong Christian.

TRiG

"God [be] with you" would be a better translation.

@ElendiaStarman Christian or not, that's the standard way to say hello. The standard reply is "Dia 's Muire duit", "God and Mary [be] with you".

Gotta love sentences with no verbs.

El'endia Starman

I myself like to use Mando'a phrases. Mando'a is a Star Wars language and is spoken by people of the same culture as Jango and Boba Fett (in SW Episodes 2 and 5, respectively).

@TRiG [smacks forehead] Of course. Ireland has a large Catholic population, right?

dancek

@Atheist how so? I think we're all quite familiar with the non-theist point of view, and it's basically off-topic. That might explain why it doesn't get a very warm welcome. Is this what you mean?

(not always off-topic, of course)

TRiG

"Go raibh maith agat" means "Thank you". A literal translation would show that it's actually a blessing. It means something like "May you have good; may things go well with you". "Go raibh" is a form of the verb "to be", "maith" is "good", and "agat" means "with you".

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Oooo...cool!

TRiG

9:40 PM

@ElendiaStarman Traditionally, yes. The church is losing power, but it's still there as a major force.

@ElendiaStarman You may have noticed that "agat" and "duit" both mean "with you". Prepositions rarely match up neatly between languages.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Any two languages typically has something that doesn't match up. :P

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Yes, but that seems to be particularly the case with prepositions. What's the French for in? In different contexts, it could be dans, en, or even à, which would usually be translated back into English as at.

dancek

@TRiG pre-what? we have postpositions and suffixes in Finnish...

El'endia Starman

@dancek I'm not sure if you're being serious about postpositions or not... :P

dancek

@ElendiaStarman I am.

El'endia Starman

9:47 PM

@dancek Huh. What's an example?

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Finnish is a very unusual language. If you're looking at a printed page and see three ä in a row, that's probably Finish.

Flimzy

@Atheist: Your views (assuming they take after your chosen name), are not "Christian" views.

dancek

Finnish grammar

This article deals with the grammar of the Finnish language (the article "Finnish language" discusses the language in general and contains a quick overview of the grammar). There is a separate article covering the ways in which spoken Finnish differs from the formal grammar of the written language. Pronouns The pronouns are inflected in the Finnish language much in the same way that their referent nouns are. Personal pronouns The personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. The personal pronouns in Finnish in the nominative case are listed in the following table: {| class=...

TRiG

4 hours ago, by TRiG

@BeatMe Me no like Atheist's name. 'Tis confusing. I'm an atheist too, but I'm not Atheist.

dancek

@TRiG there's no word with three ä, but there are strange cases like hääyöaie

El'endia Starman

9:49 PM

@dancek Exactly the same as English prepositions, except they go AFTER the noun instead of English's before.

TRiG

@dancek And how does that sound?

@dancek But does Finnish have prepositional pronouns?

dancek

@ElendiaStarman yeah... though the most common way of translating prepositional phrases (in English) would be suffixes. Like "to Helsinki" "Helsinkiin", "from Helsinki" "Helsingistä", "in Helsinki" "Helsingissä" etc

@TRiG that's pronounced exactly as it's written (which might not make sense to an English speaker :P)

TRiG

omniglot.com/language/celtic/pronouns/gaelic.php

dancek

@TRiG yeah, there are a couple of those too

TRiG

@dancek When did this become Linguistics SE chat? It looks like the k becomes a g in certain contexts. Is that a regular rule, or is Helsinki irregular?

dancek

9:54 PM

@TRiG ooh, that looks almost familiar!

TRiG

@dancek Well, the Celtic languages are an odd offshoot of the Indo-European family, and not at all related to the Finno-Ugratic family, but I've heard before that there are similarities.

dancek

@TRiG almost all word bodies are altered in some cases... There probably are rules, but they're never taught. It's intuitive, but the different cases are plenty.

El'endia Starman

@dancek That "intuitive" part reminded me of word pairs/sets in English like "fewer" and "less".

TRiG

Tolkien based his two Elvish languages, Sindarin and Quenya, on Finnish and Welsh. But he also built up a linguistic backstory, showing how the two languages were derived from a common root.

El'endia Starman

Can either of you articulate the difference? Either of you know that there is a difference? :P

TRiG

9:57 PM

Welsh is on the other side of the Celtic family to Irish, but is closely enough related.

@ElendiaStarman Fewer biscuits; less cake.

dancek

@ElendiaStarman I'd think fewer is for countable things, while less is for others

TRiG

@dancek Hence the rage for supermarkets who put up "Twelve items or less" checkouts.

►

dancek

@TRiG I didn't know that. I did know Tolkien was a linguistician (sp?) and fancied Kalevala, and formed new languages for Middle Earth, but that's new to me :)

@TRiG didn't know the name for kinetic typography... reminds me of

►

El'endia Starman

@dancek Correct. @TRiG: You're correct too.

@dancek Linguist, I think.

dancek

@TRiG I've noticed your interest in linguistics before. Are you a student or just otherwise interested?

TRiG

10:03 PM

@dancek I believe he called himself a philologist, a lover of words.

@dancek Just interested. I always have been interested in the English language, and the history of it. I couldn't spell till I became interested in etymology. And then I found a book called The Power of Babel, which opened my eyes to a massive world of linguistic fascination.

And when my mother was studying Irish Sign Language, to become an interpreter, I read a few of her textbooks. Sign linguistics is especially fascinating.

dancek

@TRiG hmm. I might add that to my reading list. There seems to be one copy in one of the ~30 libraries in the capital area...

TRiG

@dancek I read most of it in a bookshop, and then rather cheekily bought it from a different bookshop.

I used to wander down town on my college lunchbreaks, pop into Eason, and do some surreptitious reading.

But I bought it from an independent bookshop in my hometown. We don't have an Eason.

dancek

@TRiG if that's allowed, it sounds like even better than reading in a library!

TRiG

@dancek No chairs, though. I had to stand there. And not get too absorbed in one book, in case they complained. If you look like you're browsing, they won't disturb you.

El'endia Starman

Huh. My college doesn't have that book in its library. -_-

dancek

10:11 PM

@TRiG oh, ok. Thought so! :)

El'endia Starman

But I can get it through an interlibrary loan.

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman It's an excellent "pop science" book on historical linguistics. The basic themes of the book are Every language is just a network of dialects ("Dialects are all there is") and Language change is constant.

dancek

@TRiG I'm actually astonished at how uniform English is. The written and spoken language are almost the same, and there's little variation between London and Melbourne (besides pronunciation).

TRiG

For an example of historical linguistics at work, see this rather excellent answer which I've just upvoted (now there's an interesting verb).

17

A: Why is there no plural indefinite article?

In most languages indefinite articles stem from that language's word for one. For instance in French un, or in German ein, In Italian and Spanish uno or in Portuguese um. English is no exception, since an is the Anglian version of the number one. Also note that an is the earliest indefinite a...

dancek

In Finnish, written and spoken languages are quite different.

TRiG

10:16 PM

@dancek I believe that standard Finnish is a "made up" dialect which no one speaks at home. Is that right?

dancek

@TRiG pretty much.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Methinks I'll probably end up borrowing it through the interlibrary loan. Seems like I'd be very interested.

TRiG

Cool. I have a convert.

dancek

@TRiG doesn't French have des which is exactly what that question is about?

TRiG

@dancek That's mentioned in one of the comments on that answer.

dancek

10:17 PM

on a closer look, the answer includes that too

TRiG

5

Q: Is Nicaraguan Sign Language the only language born from nothing?

My interest in linguistics was sparked by John McWhorter's popular book The Power of Babel, which, in its section on creoles, includes a small piece on Nicaraguan Sign Language, which really sparked my imagination. According to that book, it's the only language which has been, in historical time...

historical-linguistics signed-languages

That question was inspired by that book.

I made a rather good speech for Toastmasters out of it.

And, while we're on the subject of linguistics,

10

A: What are we going to ask Grammar Girl?

On a note somewhat related to the question about gyrl, how about, What do you think of gender-neutral pronouns? I am used to areas where they are used commonly, even of and by cissexual people whose gender is unambiguous. And I have used them in that light here at Stack Exchange, as, for example,...

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