"I did not expect to "make peace" with that post despite Herring taking it that way."

Hey Reg--

I think I was more interested in cracking a joke than in analysing what you'd said, largely because after watching that Bart Ehrman video, I was moved to run out & get the guy's book, and I knew I only had a limited time to do so. I cracked a quick joke, then hit the door.

I'm back now--got the used paperback for six bucks, which I raised by selling aluminum to the recycler. (Bought me lunch at this great little Mexican place too. Carne asada rocks.)

Anyway . . . you're right that the "sides" in this argument, if it can be called that, are at permanent loggerheads. Some of that is no doubt due to the psychology of the fundamentalist (which I believe is rather well described in the piece someone posted up above here). There is a definite strain of dualistic thinking, black-and-white reasoning (again, if it can be called that) that simply won't admit to nuance or re-reading. It typically cannot stomach metaphor or figurative language in general, except insofar as the interpretation of that metaphor backs up conclusions at which the believer has already arrived.

Some of the logjam could, as I believe you say, be attributed to the non-fundamentalist psychology too. There is a tendency to overreach with metaphor, perhaps, or to dazzle with the confusions all language is heir to, just because we can. Some of us probably have just enough "devil" in us to want to "stick it to them," to the fundamentalists, at least once in a while, through some clever argument or even through some form of scholarship.

So what passes for an "argument" among facets of civilization is possibly really just two groups of people heaving taunts each other's way.

As for me, I'm truly interested in the scholarship, the study of what has been believed, when, and why. Why, for example, this particular strain of militant fundamentalism, in this particular country, in this partiular century? What are the analogues in previous centuries? Etc. I am fascinated by this.

Where I suppose I got the idea of "Reg the Peacemaker" would be that it seemed you were describing an unbreachable divide between these groups, and perhaps suggesting that each group spend more time looking within rather than pointing outward, which at the very least (if it happened)would calm the fighting.

And, of course, "Reg the Cheesemaker" isn't meant to be taken literally; it refers to all manufacturers of dairy products.

Once again, I show myself just smart enough to know that I know nothing. Scholarship is perhaps well conceived as a form of play. I'm at peace with that. I suppose you could call it a religion, though hopefully not in the same sense that David means in his post.

Herring405