April is the cruelest month, particularly for Post of the Month Coordinators.
Out of a bumper crop of excellent posts, I picked two, because both had to be picked.
        --PotM Coordinator

Enormous Gaps Yawn Through the Beatles Play List

Post of the Month #1: April 1999

by Louann Miller

Newsgroups: talk.origins
Date:       April 2, 1999
Message-ID: 7e3g7a$4si$4@hermes.seas.smu.edu

Secular Humanists would have you believe that the Beatles sold billions of records beginning in the early 1960's. An actual examination of the evidence shows something very different.

The stories of huge record pressings which have been handed down uncritically in secular music-history textbooks do not stand up to the test when they are looked at without that 'mainstream' bias. There are only a tiny number of well-documented cases (supported by the existence of the record, the sales receipt, and the eyewitness testimony of the original purchaser) where we can prove Beatles records were sold during this decade when they were supposedly so popular.

OEE's (Old Epstein Enthusiasts) claim that these few proven sales of 'fossil records' are enough to support the entire edifice of their theory. They say the poor evidence in support of their theory is caused by the loss of sales receipts, discard of damaged or worn-out records, and the deaths or absentmindedness of many record-buying fans 35 years later. It's all too convenient, isn't it?

We YEC's (Young Enthusiastic Collectors) have no problem with 'micro-stardom.' The fossil records show that the Beatles did exist in the 1960's, and did sell a few copies of their music. Our only complaint is with the ridiculously over-hyped theory of 'macro-stardom' which has been forced down our throats for so long. This theory is being taught to our children (or at least our younger siblings) against our will in the public schools with our hard-earned tax money.

Our own much more reasonable theory -- the vast majority of Beatles vinyl found in used record stores was created during the recent retro craze, with the appearance of age built in -- is being persecuted and ridiculed everywhere. We are not even allowed to present our ideas and let the younger generation make up their own minds. You cannot get a job at a major record label, or get your own record contract, or in some cases even get a job in a music store unless you take care to hide your YEC beliefs. Make no mistake, this is a religious issue. The choice between OEE and YEC is a matter of faith, and our faith is the one being persecuted.

The lack of fossil records isn't the only flaw in this system of "Beatlemania" that we are being asked to accept, either. I could go on for hours. To name only one single incident: John Lennon claimed that during their meeting with Elvis in 1965, he and the other Beatles 'jammed' or played music with the older star. George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr agree that there was such a visit but deny that the jam session ever happened.

What more do you want? These are the primary sources for the whole "Beatlemania" system, and they contradict each other. Either one of them was lying then, or three of them are conspiring to lie today. Either way, it casts doubt on the whole edifice we are expected to have faith in. And conveniently, both John Lennon and Elvis are no longer around to give their opinions. This bloated system is clearly one huge lie which exists only to provide income and ego boosts for Baby Boomer-generation musicians and music historians.

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Subject:    Re: Read this please!!!
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Date:       April 9, 1999
Message-ID: 7ekubv$p23@news.nd.edu

In article <19990409021433.06952.00000317@ng149.aol.com>, zeldag@aol.com (ZeldaG) writes:
[...snip...]
|> I would echo Mr. Oldridge's request thusly. Can you provide a quote from a
|> pre-400 A.D. source (relating to Judeo-Christian theology) which suggests that
|> Genesis is anything but literal?

     "'And God finished on the sixth day His works which He had made' (Genesis 2:2). It is quite foolish to think that the world was created in six days in a space of time at all. Why? Because every period of time is a series of days and nights, and these can only be made such by the movement of the sun as it goes over and under the earth; but the sun is part of heaven, so that time is confessedly more recent than the world. It would therefore be correct to say that the world was not made in time, but that time was formed by means of the world, for it was heaven's movement that was the index of the nature of time." 1.2.2
     "'And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he fell asleep; and He took one of his sides' (Genesis 2:21) and what follows. These words in their literal sense are of the nature of a myth [mythodes]. For how could anyone admit that a woman, or a human being at all, came into existence out of a man's side?" 2.7.19

(From the Loeb Classical Library edition of Philo, vol. 1, pp.147-149 and 237-239.)

--
Tom Scharle  scharle.1@nd.edu      "standard disclaimer"

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