Marlin Messenger: Fill & Download for Free

Unsurprisingly, this distinction is held by Julio Franco, who is probably playing a pickup game in a field somewhere, still to this day.27-June-2005, Braves at Marlins. Franco did not start the game, but gets called upon to pinch-hit in the top of the eighth:Furcal doubles (-2-).Johnson lines out (1 out, -2-).Giles walks (1 out, 12-).Double steal (1 out, -23).Andruw Jones intentionally walked (1 out, 123).De Los Santos relieves Messenger.Franco pinch-hits for LaRoche.Franco homers, four runs score.The Braves see their 3–1 lead jump to 7–1. Cabrera homered in the bottom half to make it 7–2, but the skies opened up one batter later and the game was called, Atlanta winning 7–2.Franco was a sprightly 46 years, 308 days old.

I would like to answer this from the atheist viewpoint and also as someone who has had the good fortune to have had some excellent college level courses in religion (from an historical aspect.) Please accept my apologies for those of you who are students of history, that much of what I learned was over 30 years ago and my old brain sometimes has faulty recollection of facts. What I am writing is how I remember what I learned and is majorly condensed as well. I think the general gist is here.Way back in the history of mankind there was no understanding of the natural phenomena so when rains came, or droughts, or fires, or whatever else nature threw at the world the ancient people wanted some explanation and what they came up with was a number of entities which were considered to be gods. When the gods were happy crops were good and when they were unhappy bad things happened. In order to (they hoped) keep the gods appeased various sacrifices were made from crop offerings to human sacrifices.As civilizations progressed more ideas were brought into play and more gods were thought up. There were fertility gods (Ishtar), gods of the seasons such as Baal and Mot (who battled every year for summer and winter) and there were many other gods as well that were worshiped in many civilizations around the world.According to the Old Testament (a compilation by many authors) a man (or composites of men) Abraham conceived the idea that there might be only one god, El who controlled all other things. It is very difficult to wade through the mythology of the OT but some of the ideas from it were borrowed from other beliefs such as the demand for human sacrifice (of Isaac), the flood from the Epic of Gilgamesh which I believe was also borrowed from a more ancient civilization and much, much more.I believe you can see the progression from gods to a single god but keep in mind that the Old Testament was written by 4 or 5 “scholars” and it only becomes verifiable history by the time of the Kings. Even then the books were written and redacted many times and argued about as to which stories should be included and this happened over a long period of time.Then came a period of time when the tribes which had evolved into the Israelites, settled in the land of Palestine. We are really not certain of the historical aspects such as was Moses a single person or a composite of people? The mythology has him receiving stone tablets with a law purportedly given him by “god.” His people were caught worshiping an idol when he came down from the mountain and in his anger he broke the tablets. Somehow (I am a little vague here myself) he received a second set and these were the 10 commandments, which if you think about them you see that this “god” was a vain narcissist.Okay, moving ahead to the time of the Roman occupation and the time of Joshua or Jesus as his name was Romanized. Again questions arise whether he was a single person or a composite but let’s assume he was an individual. He was a Rabbi or teacher and he had some ideas that were counter to the teachings of Judaism such as that circumcision (the covenant between “god” and the Hebrew people) was not necessary. He was considered by the Romans to be a rabble rouser and was crucified. Those apostles who wrote about him did not write until at least 40 years after his death (Mark) with Matthew and then Luke even later and then John. This is one reason the gospels do not completely agree with each other. There were other gospels written as well (Thomas, et al) and a following of “early christians” began to accept these stories.During that time period the Hebrews as well as others were oppressed by the Romans and their lives were miserable so they were looking for some kind of savior. There had been many messengers throughout the period and even centuries later and people needed something to look forward to even in death because life was not all that pleasant. The word Messiah means messenger and the word Christ also means Messiah.The early christians looked toward these ideas as giving them some kind of hope. As they migrated toward Rome, especially Peter and Paul, wanted to gain more adherents to their belief system so they wrote things that would appeal to the people of Rome who had their own beliefs and gods. Gods having intrcourse with humans was accepted and is probably the origin of the “virgin birth.” Going back to the original language Mary or Miriam was called a young woman but was later translated as “virgin.” Every translation from Aramaic made such changes and we don’t actually even have the actual original writings but I believe the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered close.The christian believers slowly gained adherents but it wasn’t until Constantine in 300s proclaimed Christianity the “true” religion and the books were codified that the writings became a “bible.” Even after that there were many changes made over centuries by the Catholic church and later the Lutheran church and others and every country and religious group translated from a previous translation and added their own interpretations as well.The testaments people read today in English are quite far removed from the original writings so there is no way what is written and believed, especially by fundamentalists, is the actual word of “god!”

I can’t say what the psychological reasons are but I think that people are so ingrained in their belief systems that they become irrational. This can be true even in non-religious situations. More often than not it is because of false or inaccurate information or from mis-interpreting or just not understanding that information.Take for instance the idea of evolution. People often see only the part of the description of ‘ape to man’ and immediately they think “I am not related to a monkey!” They don’t really understand the idea of a continuum with subtle changes that happen over millions of years. All they see are their own life experiences during a very short span of life. Obviously you will not see evolution actually happening with the exception of very short-lived zoological or biological creatures but those allow science to actually observe the changes that can occur.Religious beliefs are another prime example. Many people who only speak English don’t consider the fact that their religious documents were NOT written in English. (generalization here.) This is true for Christianity particularly but also true of other religions as well. The other thing they fail to recognize is the evolution of language so something written 2,000 years ago in a particular language doesn’t have the same meaning in that language today, let alone in the translation of that language.In ancient Hebrew “almah” can read as young woman or as virgin keeping in mind that most unmarried women of the time were virgins. The translators took it upon themselves to use the word ‘virgin’ which led to a prediction in Isaiah of a “virgin birth” of a child to be called Immanuel (God with us) that then evolved into a translation that led eventually to the belief in the prediction of the “virgin” birth of a messiah.There have also been many men who were considered to be a messiah which word means “messenger.” ‘Christ’ means messiah and is NOT the last name of Jesus or Yeshuah. The needs of the population of the times were for someone to liberate them from oppression so the times were ripe for the appearance of a messiah. This is just by way of leading up to the idea of how language and beliefs are influenced by the times.Now, 2,000 years later you have a semi-educated population who have been taught that their translation of the “bible” is actually the word of a god who is infallible and this is what they have been taught from the time they were born. No wonder their minds aren’t open to any other belief system! They don’t have the mental tools to evaluate what might be going on or to see how history affects their beliefs so they will often fight to impose this “reality” on everyone because they are convinced they are ‘right!’ The Crusades are a good example, as is the Spanish Inquisition.I once had a college professor in a religion class who defined religion as “that which a person holds most dear.” And that which is most dear MUST be right and therefore people will fight, sometimes to the death to defend it. Or at least become extremely emotional and unable to allow for any other interpretation.