XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com
On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 03:37:49 GMT, Sean wrote:
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> All this "would have" and "must have" sounds like Marxist rhetoric. If
that's
>> what the ideology says should have happened, thyen it "must have" happened,
>> regardless of empirical events.
>
>Mercy goodness, have I been harbouring "Marxist thinking"? Perhaps
>I should get brainwashed so I can think correct thoughts again.
No, your argument resembled Marxist rhetoric in one respect -- the idea that
if the theory said it should have happened that way, then it must have
happened that way. Call it the deductive method if you prefer.
>> Sprinkling your postings with factoids like that does nothing to make them
>> convincing.
>
>I can't get away with anything around here, can I, not even a bit of
>speculation. However I think the oral tradition Neil Anderson mentioned
>was part of the Old Religion, which was replaced by Christianity,
>and that this wasn't accomplished by having Jehovah's Witnesses going
>around door to door giving away copies of the _Watchtower_. I wouldn't
>have wanted to be a card-carrying Druid back in those days.
Speculation is fine, as long as you make it clear that it *is* speculation,
and preferably base it on known facts rather than factoids.
One also needs to ask "which "Old Religion?"
Anglo-Saxon pagans were probably a lot tougher on Druids than their Christian
grandchildren were (note the "probably" - that signals speculation). Were
there any Druids left by the time Theodore came along?
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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