jawq81:Ever hear of the ACLU? You know, those gentle people who never miss a beat at putting down those who believe in the Bible?

Are you serious or joking? When someone starts complaining about how Christianity is under attack etc, etc., what they’re really upset about is what are the beginnings of their loss of completely UNDESERVED PRIVILEGE that they have enjoyed for far too long. Whenever someone stands up and says they are tired of seeing their government being dominated by Christianity and its ideology/theology, they claim to be under attack. I thought the whole idea of a free and open society was to protect us from just such a thing as being dominated by ANY religious group. This includes religious terminology in our motto and pledge (which was added to the original, not part of it) etc. Organizations like the ACLU might take up cases we don’t all like, but the very reason for their existence is to defend your rights and mine. E.g.: the display of Christian symbols on government property is beyond inappropriate unless you are going to display symbols of every single religious system on Earth, which is impossible. Imagine how it is to be a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Baha’i, Native American, Atheist and yet everywhere you go and everything in this country slaps you in the face with Christianity every time you turn around. Allowing any one group to dominate all the others is no better among religions than it is among races / ethnicities, languages, genders, etc.

Yup. Serious as a heart attack. I think you and I live in alternate universes, that's all.

saloli:When someone starts complaining about how Christianity is under attack etc, etc., what they’re really upset about is what are the beginnings of their loss of completely UNDESERVED PRIVILEGE ..

ACLU (and you) may like to emphasize the first half of the First Amendment to your Constitution, which prohibits creating a state church, because the framers were of various beliefs. But what about the second half of it, not to mention the rights of states to favour forms of belief at the state level?

Let's keep it respectful, everyone. We are technically all here because of Esperanto, and while conversations on other topics is fine, I don't see much point in debating Christianity versus non-Christian groups in the US. I don't think anyone's mind will be changed, so it leads to a lot of pointless anger with one another, and that doesn't really serve any purpose at all. We Esperantists are already a small community and we don't need to be at each other's throats over religious differences.

Regarding the KJV, on the original thread, one big problem is that many English words have changed meanings since it was written. So when you read it, not only do you have to understand old words that are not used anymore, but you also have to understand that sometimes the plain meaning of the text is not what you think it is - because the KJV's definition of a certain word is not the same as today's definition of that same word.

saloli:This includes religious terminology in our motto and pledge (which was added to the original, not part of it) etc.

That bit added to the pledge is actually an idiom meaning "god willing" and was added (if I'm not mistaken) after the Civil War, so that it forms the thought: One nation, God willing. While it is disrespectful to throw religion in peoples faces, that part of the pledge reflects a time in our nation's history when there were doubts about whether the union would survive.

Oŝo-Jabe:That bit added to the pledge is actually an idiom meaning "god willing" and was added (if I'm not mistaken) after the Civil War...

It was officially incorporated into the pledge on June 14, 1954 by an act of Congress following a campaign by the Knights of Columbus to add it. Louis A. Bowman, who started the campaign, stated that it came from the Gettysburg Address (which is its only link with the Civil War, which had ended nearly nine decades earlier). However, there is no evidence that the Address actually contained the words "under God". Copies of the Address from that time do not contain that phrase.

According to what I have read, it doesn't mean "God willing"; it means exactly what it says.

erinja:sometimes the plain meaning of the text is not what you think it is - because the KJV's definition of a certain word is not the same as today's definition of that same word.

!!! Really! I would like to hear more about that.

------------------------------------

I've heard that "under God" was created during the McCarthy era, but don't bet on that.

LyzTyphone:

erinja:sometimes the plain meaning of the text is not what you think it is - because the KJV's definition of a certain word is not the same as today's definition of that same word.

!!! Really! I would like to hear more about that.

One of those words is "vial". In the KJV, it means a bowl or a goblet (=a cup with a bowl-like top). In modern English, it means a very small container for liquids that can be closed. A "talent" in the KJV is weight, money, or a gift ("give me two talents", "it costs one talent of silver"). Today, it means a capability that a person has. The modern meaning probably comes from the old meaning of a gift; someone has a gift for dance, or a talent for dance.

This website has a list of King James words and their definitions. It is labeled as a list of words whose meaning has changed. That is not really an accurate characterization of the list, however.

I noticed that many of the words are simply not used in modern English, but that doesn't mean that their meaning has changed (for example, amerce = to punish by fine). Some of the words are still used, and still with the same meaning, but someone without a good vocabulary might not know them (for example, adder = a venomous snake). And some of the words, a minority of the ones I checked (but I was hardly likely to check all 800 words) have changed meaning from the old meaning.

Unfortunately, the page doesn't mark which is which. You have to just click on a word to get a definition, and know based on your background knowledge which of those three categories it falls under. The dictionary is meant to assist people who are studying the Bible, it isn't meant for linguistic interest purposes, so that's probably why they gave definitions but didn't classify the words, or compare the old to the new definition.

I've heard that "under God" was created during the McCarthy era, but don't bet on that.

That's correct. Wikipedia says that "under God" was added in 1954, which was during the McCarthy era. I always learned that the "under God" part was added to help distinguish the US from the (officially atheist) Soviet Communists. Wikipedia says that officially, it was added to reflect the American spirit, because otherwise the pledge could refer to any country. Who knows? I haven't said the pledge in years, so it's not really at the top of my list

One word in the KJV that has changed meaning but is not in the on-line dictionary is "prevent", which in that translation can mean "come before", so that in 1 Thes 4:15, the expression "not prevent" simply means "have no advantage over".

* Please omit *