Salut From France

[neilmarr]

Sorry. There was a glitch on the boards this morning and my message was repeated three times. What an entrance! Perhaps a moderator could lose the two unnecessary posts. Thanks. Neil

Woops: Thanks for sorting that out Min, but you threw away my original message and saved the apology. No problem. Because of the board problems this morning, I kept a copy ...


Thanks to Min for an introduction to this fascinating forum.

I can see after just a cursory glance through the running threads that I have a lot to catch up on and much to learn before I can make a constructive contribution -- but I'll try hard because the subject has always been of great interest to me.

My home base, by the way, is the old Mediterranean town of Menton, France where my Monegasque wife, Skovia, is a nurse, I'm slightly younger than Methusela, have a gaggle of grandchildren, and I earn a crust as a book editor.

Since I decided some time ago that I wasn't going to be a rock star after all, I laid aside my Flying V and now spend my spare hours making up for lost time by studying everything I can lay my hands on that touches upon the subject at hand.

Like some others here, I suspect, I am a confirmed atheist, so there's no religious baggage to weigh me down as I dig along with you for answers.

Thanks to Min and the webmaster for clearing my registration so quickly. Looking forward to getting to know you all as time goes on, and once I have a little more knowledge under my belt, to joining the debate.

Very best wishes. Neil

[Minimalist]

No problem, Neil.

That sort of thing happens all the time. It's my main function around here!

[Ishtar]

Hello Neil. Good to see you here!

[neilmarr]

Thanks, Min and Ish. Sorry about the mix-up when the boards were playing up morning. Neil

[Ishtar]

Like some others here, I suspect, I am a confirmed atheist, so there's no religious baggage to weigh me down as I dig along with you for answers.

Actually Neil, there's quite a mix of religious and spiritual views, but we try not let it get in the way.

[neilmarr]

***there's quite a mix of religious and spiritual views, but we try not let it get in the way***

That's refreshing to know, Ish. Thanks for putting me right from the start.

Most of my reading on this subject (so far) has tended to be in random, popular articles and TV documentaries rather than more scholarly works and, to a layman like me, this material does seem to suggest a camp whose intent it is to justify parts of a biblical myth, no matter how flimsy the evidence.

One fairly recent discovery, for instance, which I'm sure has been discussed here, was a 'chariot wheel' on the bed of the Red Sea which was claimed as evidence of the Exodus story. I've come across several similar cases where researchers seem to put the cart before the horse.

To be fair, though, I suspect that in the case of general newspaper articles and TV documentaries, it's likely that the journalists rather than the archaeologists often provide the popular spin.

But the membership here will be well ahead of me on this point, I'm sure. There are many threads in the forums for me to catch up on before I understand something about the membership and its views.

Best wishes. Neil

[Ishtar]

One fairly recent discovery, for instance, which I'm sure has been discussed here, was a 'chariot wheel' on the bed of the Red Sea which was claimed as evidence of the Exodus story. I've come across several similar cases where researchers seem to put the cart before the horse.

Reminds me of when they found a huge conch-like shell in the Gulf of Cambay and insisted that it was Krishna's conch!

I mean ... it must have been, after all, what an unusual place to find a bloody great seashell - on the seabed!

[Forum Monk]

Hi Neil.
I take from your admitted prior association with Min and Ish's "nice to see you here", that the three of you have common ground elsewhere on the web. Am I correct in assuming its KoreaBridge?

I was wondering, as an atheist, do you specialize in debunking judeo/christian claims or do you, like Dawkins, diversify and take on Buddhists, Isamics, Hindis and religion in general? We seem to have a glut of specialists here and I personally would like to see some diversification.

[Forum Monk]

Hey Michelle, Min the word *censored* in the above post was added by the board not me. The word I entered was s p e c i a l i s t s - why would that be censored?

[Minimalist]

Test:


censored



Test:


specialists

[Minimalist]

You're right, Monk.

specialists comes out censored

s pecialists comes out censored

s p ecialists comes out censored

s p e cialists comes out censored

s p e c ialists comes out alright.

That makes no sense to me at all. Especially since fuck comes out as written?

Michelle, time to consult the manual or the technogeeks?


And Monk, we all know each other from Jesusneverexisted.com

[Minimalist]

specialty

s pecialist

s pecialists

specialization



The two in the middle were s p e c i a l i s t and the plural form.


Perhaps the board software dislikes spec..... those people.

[Forum Monk]

Whew, I'm glad its not just me. ABout half an hour ago, I had to shut off all my IE windows because everything I type was coming out in cyrillic characters, but other progams, like notepad produced my normal western alphabet. So I thought this was related.

I remember a few days ago, Michelle mentioned some words replaced with censored as a way to defeat spammers pushing certain products like censored (<- that's c i a l i s)

[Forum Monk]

Maybe its spe "c i a l i s" t that's the culprit.

[Minimalist]

Overly sensitive.