vol VII: Notes

1999

Notes

[Notebook MA, DB 51]

[Sunday 5 September 1999 - Saturday 15 September 1999]

[page 259]

Sunday 5 September 1999

Vernon Reynolds, Ralph Tanner The Social Ecology of Religion OUP 1995 Reynolds & Tanner

page 5: 'to be religious to to believe in soe supernatural power . . . '

page 6: .Faith:
1. Institutional
2. Personal

page 7: Religions articular practical, secular, materialistic concerns. Deeply concerned with physical realities, sex, food, burial, etc etc.

page 8: Mormon to US mainstream
What are religions doing in the world?
What are they interested in?
How do they survive?

page 9: Religious experience: meditation; trance; ecstasy; {sex and death — marihuana and heroin]

[page 260]

Reynolds & Tanner page 11: Theology

page 13 Morality

page 14: We see morality as prior, logically and evolutionarily, to religions, We derive morality from evolutionary processes operating on the reciprocal behaviour of intelligent creatures living in social groups.

page 25: 'what people do when they are acting in religious ways. The function of religion is to respond to human needs, to help people at times of personal crisis or when they are undergoing a change of status (eg at weddings), or generally in relation to the everyday strains of normal life.

comparative

page 16: '. . . a thoroughgoing functional approach to religions in terms of the life cycle of ordinary people has had to await the present work.'

page 20: Evans-Pritchard theories of religion Evans-Pritchard

[page 261]

Reynolds and Tanner page 22: '. . . religion comes into human life to give it added force and the will to continue against the odds.

'Whether religions reflect and strengthen the structure if society or not seems to us of less relance than whether they offer benefits to individuals in their relationships with one another and in their approach to the world at large.

page 23: '. . . religions are deeply concerned with disease and cure.'

'. . . religious movements arise from disturbed social conditions that present individuals with crises.

page 25: 'religions . . . engage with people in matter-of-fact ways, instructing them about their hygiene, their sexual behaviour, how and when to have children how to manage the difficulties of adolescence, and so on, through the life cycle until death.

Clifford Geertz: Islam Observed Geertz

page 26; how people conceive f life sets the stage for how they cope with is.

Geerts 1975: Religion as a Cultural System Geertz

[page 262]

Reynolds and Tanner page 27: 'Geertz. . . is at pains to emphasize that religious ideas create worlds of meaning within which [religious] functions are carried out.

'Religions formulate a new order for the world by mean sof symbols, and in this new order everything, including the most joyous and the most tragic experiences of life, finds its place.'

page 28: 'We shall show that al through life, people in all parts of the world, n great religions and small, move into religion at times of crisis and then more out again to get on with everyday living.

page 30: ' "Live your life according to the faith and you will get great benefits, some in this life,some in the next." '

page 31: 'The problem for such people [the poor] is that their lack of physical resources limits their ability ti respond to disease or accident or disaster of any kind except by means which we think to be ineffective in scientific terms.'

[page 263]

Reynolds and Tanner page 34: '. . . the intermediary concept is energy.'

'A Chinese source in AD 1700 estimated that nearly 14 per cent of al cultivated lans was owned by religious bodies not related to clans according to Welch.

page 37: E O Wilson Sociobiology chapter 8. Wilson.

page 39: religions 'handbooks for parental investment. There is thus a constant dynamic between religions and the physical circumstances in which they occur.

page 41: Marvin Harris " 'The functional unity of cultura systems is a basic postulate underlying all of cultural anthropology.' "

page 42: life crises are foci of religions: Human needs: security / environment: relationships.

page 43: 'We . . . see religions as an integral art of vernacular history, as a strand woven into the lives of individuals, families social groups and whole societies.

[page 264]

'like technology'

. . .

Reynolds and Tanner page 305: 15: General conclusions.

page 91: 'Ethical abhorrence of infanticide occurs against a background of general affluence. (Original emphassis)''

'The Sikama have been recorded as having children born by breech presentation by smothering them with manure immediately after birth, as

[page 265]

they were regarded as evil omens.

Religiin is an industry that takes money for its services. This is bound by contemporary standards of product safety, utility and environmental impact.

Reynolds and Tanner page 94:'Economic security, even in Islam, thus seems to go along with a shift of beliefs and practices and a Western style education can be seen as a link in the chain of events by which this comes about.'

page 94-95: Christianity, Catholicism and abortion.

Attitude to women is a fatal error in the Church, one alone which would preclude my membership.

. . .

page 97: 'We should nots that the changes that have taken place, and are taking place, are doing so because of changes in the way of thinking that began with a few breakaway individuals who provoke.

[page 266]

debates and discussion. Finally they can lead to changes in norms and laws.

Religion is a much studied phenomenon in human anthropology and I believe that most of us practice some form of religion some times in our life. My understanding of religion follows Reynolds and Tanner.

page 106: 'The rules of legitimacy are written into most religious rule systems and whenever they are strongly enforced, those who violate them, as well as their illegitimate children, suffer punishment,.

page 106: 'For a Hindu to conceive a child by a Muslim may be seen as beyond any possibility of legitimation. Such cases have resulted in the killing of the child and the subsequent suicide of the woman involved.

page 115: 'The child learns by mechanical repetition and memorization which does not demand any understanding of the text. . . . '

[page 267]

Religion and public heath.

Reynolds and Tanner page 245: 'This raises the general question of what cures disease and how fr Western Science, with its emphasis on pharmacological currs for so many symptoms, has, in departing from traditional methods, lost as well as gained.

Cantor Universe helps us get back to the holistic view.

Religion and hope

page 247: 'Garner "And so the sick leave Lourdes still with their bodily ailments, all but a few. But they are cured — cured of despair, sadness for their inability to accept mortality, What is the definition of health: Optimum adaptation to one's environment. In this sense every pilgom, bodily sick or not who goes to Lourdes receives a benison of health." '

page 247: Xianity and washing

page 248: Vaux : look up De Vaux: Ancient Israel

[page 269]

15 Conclusions

Reynolds and Tanner page 305: ' In the traditions of sociology and anthropology we have noted the existence of religions and religious practices, and have tried to explain them in terms of human needs.'

page 308: Need for meaning
'In our own society religions have become optional but have the same functions nevertheless.

NO: religion is all around us, which is why the reality of it is hard to see,

page 309: Sartre , angoisse — a poignant uncertainty that they are doing, or have done, the right thing. Of course for Sartre, a committed atheist, angoisse is a necessary part of being a modern thinking human being.'

page 310: 'It is thus in their ability to deal with life and death events that religious find their place in the scheme of human meanings.'

Monday 6 September 1999

C G Jung The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Bollinger, Princeton Jung

Tuesday 7 September 1999

Wednesday 8 September 1999

Thursday 9 September 1999

. . .

Ronald Knox Evelyn Waugh. Waugh

[Knox] maternal grandfather Thomas Valpy French, Bishop of Lahore.

Waugh page 13; 'He suffered the disarrangements common to missionaries

[page 270]

among Hindues and Mahommedans. Not for him the exhiliarating triumphs of his colleagues in Central Africa.

Beacuase Catholicism = Christianity appeals to more primitive mind / culture?

'He found no pristine simplicities [among the ancient heretical and schismatic communities in the heart of the Turkish Empire] . . . but superstitions darker than those of Rome itself.'

He believed that if they were brought to the true word of Gd they would purify themselves as the english had done four centuries before.

Schism — new degree of freedom.

Every degree of freedom is associated with energy (eg kT, in general nkT, n ∈ N

At the end his spiritual life was fed almost entirely from Catholic sources.

[page 271]

Waugh page 14: 'Mrs French and the children suffered the common lot of the sundered families of the British Empire, with an essential difference. There was no worldly reason for the Bishop to remain in India. England was full of pleasant opportunities for a man of his quality. He remained by choice obedient to his imperious vocation.'

page 29: 'None of the aunts had ever mixed in any sort of society outside their own home, or heard any opinion other than their father's.'

page 59: But he returned late to Eton to luxuriate in the last six weeks of the summer half.
They constituted the period of highest natural happiness in his life.

page 64: 'His mind has flourished and matured while his heart was still a child's.'

page 67: ' "a tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority." '

page 75: ' "The honourable gentlemen have turned their backs on their country and now have the effrontery to say they have their country behind them." '

[page 272]

Excessive pain a consequence of excessively narror culture &mdash all eggs in one basket.

Waugh page 91: ' "I've now reached the stage of being in two minds about whether one ought to be in two minds about things or not." ' (July 1949)

Religion is so deep and braod (like culture) that it is very hard to get outside it for an objectiv 'look' cf Einstein and coordinates.

page 94: Latin / English '. . . had nothing to fo with his religion, which was founded on biblical scholarship theological orthodoxy and mental prayer.'

Now prefer my contemplation (rumination, mental prayer) in comfort (bath, bed, bush) to the hard kneeler and straight back.

page 95: 'The two years of doubt that preceded his reception into the Catholic Church was also a process of emancipation from the bonds of friendship.

[page 273]

Me increasingly interested in time and flesh, the two rejects of Catholic theory.

Waugh page 100: Who, in the language of the set, 'poped'.

page 102: The holocaust of Ronald's friends lay in the future.

page 103: 'I'm sorry, but i can't think properly with a pen.'

page 112: 'A man's first duty is to his plans'. Anything in the world is better than a bad conscience.'

page 117: Is religion spiritual?

[page 274]

Waugh 120: 'When Ronal wrote "A Spiritual Aneid" he was in the first confidence of his new-found faith.'

page 121: '. . . he was struck cold by the fear that this was not a real mass, nor his brother a real priest.'

page 129: 'Now, with Ronald's defection in the balance there was nothing which this fond pair could say to one another which did not exacerbate deep feelings of dread and remorse.'

page 134: 'Nothing in the Church attracted him save her divine authority.'

'Child . . . realized, better than Ronald, that he was in danger of total loss of faith.'

page 140: 'He had stepped into a totally strange world . . . ' (?)

page 244: 'Mystical writers agree that it is a common, if not universal, sign of advance in the spiritual life when 'consolations' are withdrawn and the soul is left without any sensible delights, often for long periods.'

page 145: 'A surer sense of the impermanence of human loss.'

[page 275]

Waugh page 161: Sanctions 'What are the ultimate sanctions social, intellectual, supernatural, which determine man's behaviour and destiny?'

page 220: '. . . a particular enthusiasm for a civilizing mission in the Church whose forms still spole too loud in the accents of the stultifying penal era and of recent immigrations.'

'. . . the prayers used by the Church of England are, by general admission, model of dignity and faultless prose rhythm. No convert, I think, has ever failed to experience a sense of loss over this.'

'Protestants who are beginning to feel the weakness of their own position, etc.'

page 223; ' "Naturally I should not have made the changes if they had not commended themselves to my own taste, and I can't get outside my own skin sufficiently to see them with somebody else's eyes.

On prayer, Quote 225
MIND CONTROL

[page 276]

CHURCH - INTERNAL FORUM - MIND CONTROL

What is spiritual growth; increase in consistent breadth of vision.

Waugh page 226: 'Are creature comforts more demoralizing when consciously enjoyed or when taken for granted.

pag e 228: Le Dons Delight 'A great part of R's purpose was to show that the universities attempted to be centres of general education which excluded theology they found themselves not knowing what they were to teach, to whom or why.'

PNEUMATOLOGY — The Roman Catholic Church is rooted in a gigantic error.

Remember Klir and Valach: Klir

Friday 10 September 1999

Saturday 11 September 1999

Copyright:

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Augustine, and C. Marriott, De Catechizandibus Rudibus. De Symbolo ad Catechumenos. De Fide Rerus Quae Non Videntur. De Utilitate Credendi, Nabu Press 2010 Amazon Product Description 'This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.'  Amazon   back

Braudel, Ferband, and Richard Mayne (translator), A History of Civilizations, Penguin 1995 Editorial review From Booklist 'A leader of the Annales school, which reacted against the prominence of politics and personalities in historiography, Braudel wrote based on la longue duree, emphasizing the material basis of daily life -- the routine workings of commerce as it changes over the long term. This outlook has gradually permeated the profession, and, as so often happens when a good idea proves unstoppable, its proponent takes a turn at textbook writing. This is the late Braudel's 1962 lesson for French university students on the origin of European, Islamic, Indian, Asian, and New World civilizations. As a text it wasn't widely adopted, perhaps because France was then in a political uproar, pitting its colonialists--heirs to the civilizing mission of the nineteenth century--against decolonizers. And the book bears that sign of its time: The colonial motif pops up everywhere, presented as a timeless feature of ways of life in collision. So it was at the Battle of Tours in 732, which stopped the Muslim juggernaut; and so it is now in the anti-Western sentiments in the Arab world. Whether the conflict split religion and religion, town and country, or liberty and right, the colonial view benefits from Braudel's phenomenal depth of knowledge and synthesizing agility, and his palpable curiosity enlivens the sometimes deadly textbook form. For serious history collections.' Gilbert Taylor   Amazon   back

Christie, Agatha, Cards on the Table , Berkley 2005 Amazon Product Description 'A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players! Mr Shaitana was famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he was a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana's private collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether!'  Amazon   back

De Vaux, Roland, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1961, 1997 'Considered by many to be a modern classic, Ancient Israel offers a fascinating, full-scale reconstruction of the social and religious life of Israel in Old Testament times. Drawing principally on the text of the Old Testament itself, as well as from archaeological evidence and information gathered from the historical study of Israel's neighbors, de Vaux first provides an extensive introduction to the nomadic nature of life in ancient Israel and then traces in detail the developments of Israel's most important institutions --family, civil, military, and religious --and their influence on the nation's life and history.'  Amazon   back

Debray, Regis, God, An Itinerary, Verso 2004 Amazon Product Description 'God, who has changed the lives—and deaths—of men and women, has in turn changed His face and His meaning several times over since His birth three thousand years ago. He may have kept the same name throughout, but God has been addressed in many different ways and cannot be said to have the same characteristics in the year 500 BC as in AD 400 or in the twenty-first century, nor is He the same entity in Jerusalem or Constantinople as in Rome or New York. The omnipotent and punitive God of the Hebrews is not the consoling and intimate God of the Christians, and is certainly not identical with the impersonal cosmic Energy of the New Agers. Régis Debray's purpose in this major new book is to trace the episodes of the genesis of God, His itinerary and the costs of His survival. Debray shifts the spotlight away from the theological foreground and moves it backstage to the machinery of divine production by going back, from the Law, to the Tablets themselves and by scrutinizing Heaven at its most down-to-earth. Throughout this beautifully illustrated book, he is able to focus his attention not just on what was written, but on how it was written: with what tools, on what surface, for what social purpose and in what physical environment. Debray contends that, in order to discover how God's fire was transferred from the desert to the prairie, we ought first to bracket the philosophical questions and focus on empirical information. However, he claims that this does not lessen its significance, but rather gives new life to spiritual issues. God: An Itinerary uses the histories of the Eternal and of the West to illuminate one another and to throw light on contemporary civilization itself. 50 b/w illustrations.'   Amazon   back

Evans-Pritchard, Edward E., Theories of Primitive Religion, Oxford University Press 1968 Edward E. Evans Pritchard was a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford  Amazon   back

Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia, University Of Chicago Press 1971 'Mr. Geertz begins his argument by outlining the problem conceptually and providing an overview of the two countries. He then traces the evolution of their classical religious styles which, with disparate settings and unique histories, produced strikingly different spiritual climates. So in Morocco, the Islamic conception of life came to mean activism, moralism, and intense individuality, while in Indonesia the same concept emphasized aestheticism, inwardness, and the radical dissolution of personality. In order to assess the significance of these interesting developments, Mr. Geertz sets forth a series of theoretical observations concerning the social role of religion.'  Amazon   back

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Faith and Knowledge, State University of New York Press (March 4, 1988) Language: English ISBN-10: 088706826X ISBN-13: 978-0887068263 1988 Jacket: 'An English translation of G W F Hegel's Glauben und Wissen prepard and edited by Walter Cerf and H S Harris.'  Amazon   back

Jung, Carl G , Archetypes and the Collective Unconsious (2nd ed) (translated by R F C Hull) Collected works (Bollingen Series) vol 9 part 1 Princeton UP, 1980 back

Klir, Jiri, and Miroslav Valach, Cybernetic Modelling, Iliffe, SNTL 1965, 1967 Preface: 'The principal purpose of this book is to show the part played by cybernetic modelling in the solution of problems common to the animate and inanimate world. The system, its behaviour and structure are used here as fundamental concepts forming the basis of a wide approach that utilizes the model as a methodological instrument. ...' J Klir and M Valach, Prague, 1965.back

Paz, Octavio, and Helen Lane (translator), One Earth, Four or Five Worlds: Reflections on Contemporary History, Mariner Books 1986 Jacket: 'Written with a poet's sensibility and a diplomat's sense of history, these essays view a contemporary world poised between the upheavals of the 1960s and the uncertainties of the 1980s with vision, frankness and depth. Whether focussing on the prosperity without grandeur of contemporary Europe, the inconsistencies of American "imperial democracy", the "paralyzed mammoth" of the Soviet totalitarian empire, or the ominous lessons of Iran and the pains and dangers of modernization, Paz's views of a dividing yet increasingly interdependent world are as clear as they are original. His closing plea for a Latin American style of democracy rooted in native traditions as an alternative to solutions tainted by violence provides an eloquent coda to this sensitive and visionary collection of essays.'  Amazon   back

Reynolds, Vernon, and Ralph Tanner, The Social Ecology of Religion, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'No society exists in which religion does not play a significant part in the lives of ordinary people. Yet the functions of the world's diverse religions have never been fully described and analyzed, nor has the impact of adherence to those religions on the health and survival of the populations that practice them. . . . this extraordinary text reveals how religions in all parts of the world meet the needs of ordinary people and frequently play an important part in helping them to manage their affairs.'  Amazon   back

Robinson, Marilynne , Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of Self (The Terry Lecture Series), Yale University Press 2010 Introduction: 'These essays examine one side in the venerable controversy called the conflict between science and religion, in order to question the legitimacy of the claim its exponents make to speak with the authority of science and in order to raise questions about the quality of thought that lies behind it. . . . '  Amazon   back

Waugh, Evelyn, The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and Protonotary Apostolic to His Holiness Pope Pius XII, Chapman & Hall 1959 Preface: 'This book, I surmise, will prove to be the forerunner of many weightier studies of [Ronald Knox]. Its primary puspose is to tell the story of his exterior life, not to give a conspectus of his thought; still less to measure his spiritual achievements. His published works provide abundant material for research and criticism by specialists in many subjects. Here I have attempted to give the essential biolgraphical facts that they will need.'  Amazon   back

Wilson, Edward Osborne, Sociobiology: The new synthesis, Harvard UP 1975 Chapter 1: '... the central theoretical problem of sociobiology: how can altruism, which by definition reduces personal fitness, possibly evolve by natural selection? The answer is kinship. ... Sociobiology is defined as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour. ... It may not be too much to say that sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the last branches of biology waiting to be included in the Modern Synthesis.'   Amazon   back

Papers

Luis, A, L L Sanchez-Soto, "Randomization of quantum relative phaze in welcher weg measurements", Journal of Optics B, , 1, 1999, page 668-677. 'Abstract. Welcher Weg (which-path) detectors where complementarity is enforced without altering the interfering beams are analysed in terms of the quantum relative phase. In such a case, the measurement disturbs the interference via random classical phase shifts. This applies when the interfering particles are atoms or photons. In the case of photons, the quantum relative phase coincides with the field phase difference.'. back

Links

Alfred Loisy - Wikipedia, Alfred Loisy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Alfred Firmin Loisy (28 February 1857 – 1 June 1940) [1] was a French Roman Catholic priest, professor and theologian[1] who became the intellectual standard bearer for Biblical Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. He was a critic of traditional views of the biblical creation myth, and argued that biblical criticism could be applied to interpreting scripture. His theological positions brought him into conflict with the leading Catholics of his era, including Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X. In 1893, he was dismissed as a professor from the Institut Catholique de Paris. His books were condemned by the Vatican, and in 1908 he was excommunicated. Loisy's most famous observation was that "Jesus came preaching the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church" ("Jésus annonçait le Royaume et c'est l'Église qui est venue": Loisy 1902), and he is often taken to have said that with a note of regret (Loisy 1976: 166). But for all his clashes with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Loisy did think that Jesus intended to form some sort of society or community. It was the aping of civil government ("comme celle d'un gouvernement établi"; Loisy 1902: 152) that he doubted Jesus intended.' back

Auguste Comte - Wikipedia, Auguste Comte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Auguste Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. . . . Comte attempted to introduce a cohesive "religion of humanity" which, though largely unsuccessful, was influential in the development of various Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century. He also created and defined the term "altruism".' back

Decretum Gratiani - Wikipedia, Decretum Gratiani - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Decretum Gratiani or Concordia discordantium canonum (in some manuscripts Concordantia discordantium canonum) is a collection of Canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It retained legal force in the Roman Catholic Church until Pentecost 1918, when a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) promulgated by Pope Benedict XV on 27 May 1917 obtained the Force of Law.' back

Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia, Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Edict of Thessalonica, also known as Cunctos populos, was delivered on 27 February 380 by Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II in order that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria. This made Nicene Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. The edict was issued shortly after Theodosius had suffered a severe illness in Thessalonica and was baptized by Acholius, the bishop of that city.' back

JJJ, Family Week Is Here | Hack | tripleJ, 'Keep it in the Family with Hack. Love them or hate them, you're stuck with FAMILY for life. Hack wants to hear from you if you're bring primed for the family business. Is it something you want to do? Or do you feel like you're being pressured into it? We also want to speak with same sex families and people who are mad sibling rivals. We'll be talking close-knit families, family expectations, family breakdown and more. Get involved - we'd love to hear about your family. Are you in a close-knit family? re you in a crazy battle for sibling supremacy? or is there something straining your family bond?' back

Monadology - Wikipedia, Monadology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Monadology (La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz’s best known works representing his later philosophy. It is a short text which sketches in some 90 paragraphs a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads.' back

Original sin - Wikipedia, Original sin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Original sin, sometimes called ancestral sin, is, according to a doctrine proposed in Christian theology, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a "sin nature," to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt by all humans through collective guilt. Those who uphold this doctrine look to the teaching of Paul the Apostle in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 for its scriptural base, and see it as perhaps implied in an Old Testament passage Psalm 51:5.' back

Sotah - Wikipedia, Sotah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Sotah deals with the ritual of Sotah - the woman suspected of adultery as described and prescribed in the Book of Numbers in Numbers 5:. Part of the Biblical ritual to determine if a wife suspected and accused of adultery, but not proven to have done so based on any reliable witnesses that obviates this ritual, is the so-called "ordeal of bitter water" to be applied in certain cases of suspected adultery.' back