"Searles O'Dubhain"
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> "Tom"
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>> "Searles O'Dubhain"
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>> news:5q2dnd0lPYrY1hTVnZ2dnUVZ_vednZ2d@comcast.com...>>>
>>> "Tom"
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>>> news:FJadnVQGioYxAxXVnZ2dnUVZ_s_inZ2d@comcast.com...>>>>
>>>> "Searles O'Dubhain"
wrote in message
>>>> news:CLOdneXNf8xP-hXVnZ2dnUVZ_rTinZ2d@comcast.com...>>>>>
>>>>> The people generally did not live in "squalor and hardship" unless
>>>>> times
>>>>> were tough for everyone. You're projecting 21st and 20th century
>>>>> values
>>>>> and morality on much older practices which were fairly advanced for
>>>>> their times.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not projecting any modern values on that evaluation. It's not even
>>>> my evaluation. It's Julius Caesar, who actually saw real Druids, not
>>>> just the pretend one's you see now. From Caesar's "Gallic War Book
>>>> VI":
>>>>
>>>
>>> Caesar was spouting propaganda in the worst way.
>>
>> He was there. You weren't. If you want to refute him, you're going to
>> need
>> some verifiable evidence beyond your mere say-so. The point here,
>> however,
>> is that your claim that my description of the subjects of the Druids were
>> no
>> more than slaves and lived in squalor is due to "projecting 21st and 20th
>> century values and morality on much older practices". That claim has now
>> been utterly refuted by the fact that Julius Caesar said the very same
>> thing.
>>
>
> OK. Here's the evidence:
>
> Everyday Life of the Pagan Celts by Anne Ross, Putnam and Sons (or)
> Batsford Ltd., London and NY, 1970.
>
> In particular, read the section on the 'Fitness of Things:'
>
> Caesar against the Celts, Ramon L. Jimenez, Sarpedon, NY, 1996. pp. 30-31
>
> Regarding eating habits expressed by the Greek historian, Posidonious:
>
> "They partake ... in a clean but leonine fashion..."
>
> "The drink of the wealthy classes is wine impoted from Italit6y
> or..Marseilles."
>
> "The lower classes drink wheaten beer prepared with honey..."
>
> In other places he goes on to say:
>
> pp136-137
>
> "The typical Celtic family (in Britain) lived on an isolated farm.... the
> British Celts were building one-room circular houses in contrast to the
> rectangualr dwellings.. on the continent..."
>
> "The Celts were surprisingly sophisticated farmers."
>
> A History of Gaul, Fr. Funck-Brentano, Barnes & Noble, 1993.
>
> On pp. 60-74
>
> "Meals were taken sitting on the skins of wolves or dogs (Diodorus
> Siculus, or on bundles of straw and dead leaves (Strabo)..."
>
> "...the Gauls supplied the whole of Italy with the sagum, a kind of heavy
> cloak made of thick, hairy wool. Theuy sold to the Romans soap of which
> they were the inventors..."
>
> There were of course slaves in this system just as there were in Greek and
> Roman society of the time. The entirety of society was set up by a system
> of related extended families and a class system which assigned rights,
> riveleges and honor prices to various members. The primary food of the
> Celts was centered around cattle, pigs and meat from the hunt. The Romans
> adapted many practices from Celtic culture like dress, metal working, road
> building, art and coach building.
None of that refutes Caesar's observation that Gauls lived in squalor and
heavy debt to their "nobles" nor does it in any way support your claim that
my statement largely concurring with Caesar was a projection of modern
values on an ancient culture. Caesar may not have been very complimentary
but you have not established that he was "spouting propaganda in the worst
way" nor that he and I were relying on 20th Century standards to judge the
Gauls' life-style.
It may have been a surpise to some historians that the Celts, whose lower
class was backwards in so many ways, may have been better farmers than one
might expect, but that doesn't mean they were all that good at it in
comparison with other cultures nr that they were in any way to be considered
"prosperous". Having dog skins and straw as one's only furniture must have
seemed pretty destitute to the Romans. As for the Romans learning
road-building and metal work from the Celts, that's as laughable an
absurdity as any you've offered yet.
>>> Need I say more?
>>
>> No, you needn't. You've already lost the argument irretrievably. Any
>> further comment from you won't change that.
>
> So you say but I think you're wishfully thinking and unread on the
> subject.
I haven't read as much as you, of course, since it's your area of primary
interest and not mine, but my examination of the available evidence here
indicates to me that you have been very selective in your source material
and are well out of the main stream of scholarship as pertains to the real
situation of the pre-Roman Celts. It isn't the quantity of evidence alone
that is one's best bet for an accurate assessment but the overall quality of
it. Your conclusions are romanticized and you use evidence selectively to
support your wishful interpretation, ignoring or dismissing contrary
evidence without a second thought and accepting very tentative speculation
as fact.
>>> That's not true at all Tom. The Greeks hired Celts as mercenaries and
>>> eventually ceded them lands in what is now present day Turkey.
>>> These were the Galatians mentioned in Paul's writings of the New
>>> Testament.
>>
>> The Celtic tribes that invaded Macedon around 300 BCE caused quite a bit
>> of trouble and were eventually pushed back to Turkey by what was even
>> then a fading Greek culture which no longer had much interest in what was
>> going on outside its own borders. After that they were largely ignored
>> by the Greeks. The Romans came along about a hundred years later and
>> drubbed them into submission. They were then incorporated into the Roman
>> Empire and never again gained any independence. They were protected
>> thereafter by the Pax Romana but ended up being completely assimilated by
>> their neighbors in a few hundred years.
>
> The Romans defeated most of the people they encountered. It's significant
> that they did not defeat the Scots, the Picts or the Irish.
That may be because Caesar was tired of tramping around the less than
pleasant climates of the northerly outposts of the empire and decided to go
back and rule a warm and civilized Rome instead. They didn't really get all
that much benefit from conquering Gaul and may have simply considered those
outlying areas as not worth the effort. I'm speculating, of course, but I
figure that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
> The Celts of Asia Minor were a factor there for 500 years regardless of
> Roman military prowess.
Well, there were a lot of them and since the Romans generally didn't go in
for genocide (Carthage being a major exception), it's inevitable that they'd
be around for a while.
>>>> The only difference is that the Romans themselves showed some respect
>>>> for
>>>> the cultures they conquered, but the Roman-Celtic mixed cultures of
>>>> Europe showed no such respect to cultures on this side of the pond,
>>>> preferring genocide to assimilation. Might that indicate that Druidism
>>>> actually devolved the Roman ideal and made it less civilized?
>>>
>>> I don't follow what you are saying at all.
>>
>> Of course not. You don't want to believe it.
>>
>
> No. It just doesn't make any sense in the context in which you've
> presented it.
I was comparing the Roman conquest of western Europe with the post-Roman
conquest of North America. The pagan Romans alone were quite tolerant of
indigenous cultures, but the later Roman-Druid-Christian mixture
demonstrated that it preferred genocide to tolerance when it came to the
indigenous people of North America.
>>>>> Your slant and spin on things seems to me to be very biased opinion.
>>>>
>>>> You discount any evidence that you find inconvenient and then accuse me
>>>> of "bias". You read my very specific and historically accurate example
>>>> of St. Patrick's admission of have edited the Brehon law in his codices
>>>> and then announced I had not provided "a singler valid example" of it.
>>>> That's what I'd call a whopping huge bias on your part.
>>>
>>> Actually, the evidence is that Padraig had little to do with editing the
>>> Brehon Laws and that this was an invention of the later Church and its
>>> scholars to establish a greater role for Padraig but the truth of that
>>> might be inconvenient for you.
>>
>> What evidence?
>>
>
> This evidence (among a great many other references):
>
> King of Mysteries, Early Irish Religious Writings, John Carey, For Courts
> Press, Portland, Oregon,1998. "The Pseudo-Historical Prologue to the
> Senchas Már, pp. 139-144.
>
> "The story predictably resolves this rivalry in Patrick's favor; but it is
> significant that it does so in a way which allows for the retention of as
> many as possible of the old ways, and indeed provides divine ratification
> of their value."
What "rivalry"? The king and Padraig were working together. The king
picked six brehons who weren't so prejudiced against writing that they'd
refuse to serve as sources for a codex. They weren't anybody's "rivals"
either. In fact, the only "rivalry" I can see is this romantic revisionist
fighting with mainstream scholarship using rhetorical ploys instead of
historial evidence.
>>> I like the story about Padraig and the eight other sages (six of whom
>>> were
>>> Druids) who edited the laws in the Introduction to the Senchus Mór. It's
>>> a fun read. There were 6 Druids on that committee. :-)
>>
>> One of those "sages" was the King who was doing as Padraig suggested in
>> order to create a written record of the laws of Ireland. The rest were
>> brehons he appointed as sources for him and Padraig to record. It took
>> them
>> three years and was declared afterwards by Padraig that anything
>> conflicting with Christian Doctrine had been expunged.
>
> That tale was written about 500 years after the Senchus Mór was codified
> (to place Padraig on a pedestal and to justify the Church's interjecting
> itself into Irish traditions). See the above references.
That's an allegation that romantic revisionist Celtophiles like to make, but
the evidence for it is nothing but supposition.
And now on to our discussion of the nature of truth.
>>>>> Everyone has their own truth which establishes who they are and
>>>>> usually
>>>>> how they act.
>>>>
>>>> No, everybody has some excuse that they like to label "the truth" in
>>>> order to justify whatever it is they want to do. Not everybody has
>>>> "their own truth". Truth is not personal property.
>>>
>>> You're wrong that everyone does not have their own truth. Just ask a few
>>> people. Their answers will either be truth or lies. Who thinks of
>>> themselves as a liar? Is that everyone? Think again.
>>
>> Everyone has their own truthiness, not their own truth. Truth does not
>> vary from person to person. Truthiness does, though. Lots of people
>> fail to understand the difference.
>
> I think you must be one of those people who fail to understand the
> difference.
I just explained the difference. Did you miss it?
> Here I thought you understood the difference between truth and illusion
> from our previous postings about Yoga/Eastern traditions.
Seeing that you have failed to comprehend the difference between truth and
truthiness even as it is explained to you, I don't think *you're* in a
positio to declare whether or not *I* understand it.
>>>>> Every society also has its own truths, traditions and laws. It is not
>>>>> slippery to acknowledge that this is so.
>>>>
>>>> Sure it is. Those are not "truths". Those are negotiated agreements
>>>> and
>>>> tall tales. They are open to revision at will. Truth isn't something
>>>> you can simply decide for yourself, differently than anybody else.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Right Tom. Society is based on tall tales. Uhuh!
>>
>> I'm glad you are finally willing to admit it.
>>
>
> Of course. Your opinions have blown across the fields of my facts and
> logic like a gentle breeze barely rippling the wheat, much less causing a
> single grain or seed to fall before its time.
This statement is very poetic, but essentially it's just noise.
>>> Let's get this straight.
>>> First you say society has no truth.
>>
>> First, I didn't say that. I said that societies have stories and
>> negotiated agreements as to what will be allowed an what will be
>> forbidden. Those are not truths. Societies do live in a world of
>> truths, but their laws and traditions are not those truths.
>
> Like I said before, first you say society has no truth.
Repeating the same stupid mistake even after you have just had this mistake
pointed out to you is not going to help you. Your fallacies are not truth
just because you insist on repeating them over and over.
>>> Then you say people have no truth.
>>
>> I said that nobody "has" the truth. Truth is not something you can
>> "have". It cannot be owned. It cannot be kept.
>
> Then you say people have no truth.
*sigh*
>>> Then you say truth is not something that anyone can decide for
>>> themselves
>>> differently from others.
>>
>> That's correct. Truth is not something that one "decides".
>
> Then you say that people cannot decide (as in discern, determine, judge)
> truth for themselves.
*snore*
>> Society does not "have" a truth and nobody "decides" the truth and I
>> never said anything that even remotely sounds like that.
>
> Now you're saying that you didn't say what you said that contradicts
> itself.
There is no contradiction whatsoever in what I said. It is not a
contradiction to say that societies and individuals cannot "have their own
truth" if truth is not something one can have. It is not a contradiction to
say that truth is not someone decides if truth is not something that can be
decided.
> Truth is simple. *It is*. People decide for themselves *what is*
> regarding themselves and the reality around them. This is their truth. Why
> is that so hard for you to grasp?
I grasp that people want to presume that whatever they believe is "truth",
especially when they are trying to indoctrinate others into their societal
beliefs. I don't agree with that presumption, though, for reasons I have
very clearly stated. Truth is what is, it is not what we choose to think it
is or tell each other it is. You can tell all the stories you like and
believe them as you may, but none of it is truth. Truth is not a story.
Everybody has different stories, but nobody has the truth.
> In the ultimate extension of this search for *what is* or truth, people
> often "go beyond" into meta-realms of logic, philosophy, science and
> religion. In these often called higher states of consciousness, what is
> true for a person attains greater clarity and less obscuration.
People jabber to each other all the time about why their personal beliefs
equate to truth. They use all sorts of rhetorical ploys to justify them.
However, jabber is not truth either, no matter how cleverly one jabbers.
Flattering yourself that your state of consciousness is "higher" than
somebody else's is just more jabber.
