The Amateur Scholar – Page 5 – Exploring history, religion, and a bit else

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / Religion

Dan Barker surprises me with a passage on war in Judges || Barker’s Worse

The Old Testament is filled with warfare. It should be expected since Israel was in a strategic position. So to pick some terrible actions within war should be easy when it comes to the Old Testament. Yet Dan Barker picks the Tribe of Dan conquering a city. No massacre, no gory details, just a simply conquering.

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May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

Scalping didn’t start in Europe.

A second video on the topic of scalping, because well, it’s a popular question. Here we dive a bit more into the history.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / Religion

Dan Barker and Hosea. Misunderstanding Prophets || Barker’s Worse

In the Book of Hosea, we get some disturbing images. Israel was under attack, and would soon become a conquered people. Hosea was one of the prophets that were trying to get the people to understand what was happening.

But the book of Hosea was written long after the events it speaks of, and the intention was to try to understand what had happened. And part of what happened was terrible. Hosea doesn’t leave out those gory details.

The thing though is that the perpetrators of those actions wasn’t God, but the Assyrians.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

Why couldn’t American Indians practice their religion?

In the near distant past, American Indians found it to be illegal to practice their religious beliefs. This seems incredible given that our First Amendment gives us the right to free worship, but what exactly that meant has long been debated.

In this short video, I go over the history of the right to worship freely, and how American Indian’s history has impacted this.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

How did Indigenous peoples feel about non-hetero individuals? Were any nomadic?

A two question type of video. First, how did Indigenous peoples feel about non-hetero individuals? Well, it was complicated, much like it is today.

What about nomadic tribes? Well that is much easier. Yes, and I look at some of those tribes.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

How common was scalping? A lot more so than one would think.

Did Europeans bring the practice of scalping to the Americas? No, but the did help spread it a bit. But long before any European set foot on this continent, scalping was practiced quite widely.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / Religion

Dan Barker misses the point of Job || Barker’s Worse

Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has compiled a list of his top 10 worse verses of the Old Testament. There’s just one problem, he utterly butchers the job.

In this first video, I look at the number 10 verse, which deals with the story of Job. Job is a complicated book, and one that both atheists and theists often get wrong. Barker isn’t an exception here. Instead of looking at what Job is saying, the argument that he’s making, he takes a verse out of context.

Ironically, what Barker is pointing out as a flaw about how God is portrayed is the same thing that Job was doing.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / Autism

Talking about Autism, 10 top Questions

Why the stack of rocks, who knows. But what I do know is about autism. I was diagnosed as a young adult, and have since studied it extensively to figure out why I am the way I am. Sometime it’s just because I”m weird.

In this video, I start a new series that looks at some of the top questions that are posed to people with autism, and, well I answer them. If you have any questions about autism you’d like answered, feel free to ask.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

Jews in Argentina. Fleeing from European persecution.

For much of history, Jews were not welcomed in Europe. They would be expelled from one area after the next, and serious persecution continued to happen. To fight that, a man named Hirsch would set up the Jewish Colonization Association, and set up Jewish colonies around the world.

One of those colonies was in Argentina, where they flourished for a few years. But anti-semitism, and the Second World War would catch up with them. In this video, I explore that history.

May 19, 2020 / Dustin / History

Ancient friends, Serbians and Israelites? Not quite, but Zionism did start in Serbia.

It’s been mentioned that Serbians and Israelites have had a very long friendship, dating back to Roman times. Yet that really isn’t the truth. While Israel and Jews have sold weapons to the Serbs on a number of occasions, which helped in various conflicts, and Zionism did have a founding in Serbia, the friendship just wasn’t something that stood the test of time.

In this video, I dive into that history, trying to trace it back to Roman times. I look at the history of Zionism, as well as current relations between Israel and Serbia.

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