A Quote by Hershel Shanks
I've been on a faculty in a university, and I felt it was incumbent on me to deal with the Bible not as something I was attempting to convert people to, or to have them enter into my religious experience, but rather as an academic and scientific discipline.
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There's a big mistake the left has made with talking to religious people, which is attempting to talk them out of their interpretations of the Bible, attempting to have theological debate with them. When I'm on right-wing whackjob radio, when people call up to inform me that I'm going to hell, I concede the point. "I'm going to hell. Yes. Can you leave me alone now?"
Academic sociologists have been trained to conceive of their discipline - sociology - as the scientific study of society, and to remit to the sister discipline of psychology the study of individuals.
Many faculty retreated into academic specializations and an arcane language that made them irrelevant to the task of defending the university as a public good, except for in some cases a very small audience. This has become more and more clear in the last few years as academics have become so insular, often unwilling or unable to defend the university as a public good, in spite of the widespread attacks on academic freedom, the role of the university as a democratic public sphere, and the increasing reduction of knowledge to a saleable commodity, and students to customers.
I've never been lonely. I've been in a room... I've felt suicidal, I've been depressed. I've felt awful ... awful beyond all , but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude.
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One of the things that sets the Bible apart from all other ancient religious writings is its scientific accuracy. Without exception, every other ancient religious writing contains certain scientific errors. For example, Muhammad taught in the Qur'an that the sun descends down into a muddy spring. The Hindu Vedas state that the Earth is flat and triangular, that earthquakes are caused by elephants shaking themselves under it. You'll never read absurd statements like those in the Bible.
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I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness.
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Many people asked me to convert. I said my religious convictions remain. I am fighting the wrongs within my own community. And if I decide to convert I will lose the right to fight.
In the midst of applying for American citizenship, of finally attempting to get my presidents in a row, I felt it incumbent upon myself to explore the national psyche in every way.
If you're denying God's power, that means you don't really believe they were miracles, and so then why believe they happened at all. What you're saying is you're taking the Bible's account as literally true in need of a scientific explanation rather than just people coming up with stuff to fulfill their religious missions.
I was always reticent about taking offerings from my father, and I think it was maybe because I felt the caveat was that I had to give something back, and I didn't like that position. But I've never felt incumbent on anyone to kind of keep them lifted or to support them, necessarily. I do that by wish or by option.
People talk about discipline, but to me, there's discipline and there's self-discipline. Discipline is listening to people tell you what to do, where to be, and how to do something. Self-discipline is knowing that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life; you are the only one who can take yourself to the desired heights.
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
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