Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Special Status Needs Special Support - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 May 2009 10:59PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 May 2009 08:20:57PM 2 points [-]

This is addressed to "the Bible is a derivative work with many authors", not "the derivative works lend sacredness to the Bible". The Pentateuch may be multiauthor but it still adds up to awfulness. Read the damn thing!

Comment author: Cyan 13 May 2009 08:35:27PM *  0 points [-]

Read the damn thing!

I have done so, over many a loooong Saturday morning in the year-and-a-half of shul attendance preceding my bar mitzvah (as mandated by the council of synagogues in my city). Why are you bringing up literary awfulness in a discussion about where people get a sense of sacredness? One has very little to do with the other.

Comment author: thomblake 13 May 2009 08:37:41PM 0 points [-]

One has very little to do with the other.

I'm not sure I'd agree, but I think it's interesting that the word 'awful' seems appropriate here - not just plain 'bad'. 'awful' and 'sacred' really should be related concepts.

Comment author: Cyan 13 May 2009 08:48:56PM 1 point [-]

A non-Bayesian! Burn the heretic!

More seriously, the bible is not uniformly awful -- I'm rather fond of bits of Ecclesiastes, for example, particularly when set to music.