You know that as concerns history I do use the scientific method as the propper measure of truth when concerning history. Historical accounts aren't merely claims to rationalized and scrutinized against evidence in the same way that theories and hypothesis are.
They most definitely are. In history, there is an objective, potentially knowable past.
Something either happened or didn't happen. As with all arguments, historical arguments are rated on their truth-values. For an historical argument, the truth value is dependent upon the probabilities that the premises and, thus, the conclusions are sound.
Sound historical premises are established by observation and validation. One cannot establish a "history" simply by reading a culture's mythology since this represents things like ideal states which the culture perceives as true. Instead, one need take references from the mythology and begin validating them independently with other documents -preferably competing or independent sources like other cultures- and by evaluating or observing the archaeological record.
I come at history from an archaeological and anthropological perspective and thus make predictions derived from hypothesis to which I look for confirmation. For instance, I said earlier that many of the writings in the Old Testament (Pentateuch) were later adaptations of the writings and cultural stories of other, older cultures in the region. This is an historical premise. If such a premise holds, then I should be able to show examples of such writings. I can actually list a multitude of them, Neitzefan did so above with the Enum Elish. There are many others found in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian texts among others. Most notably, and discussed a year or so ago between us, the Noachian Flood myth which was clearly derived from the Sumerian flood story in Gilgamesh.
For one those that wrote them were not scientist.
Which is the point I was making and its no small point. Not being a scientist means not understanding science and the methods of science the way we do and, thus, describing/explaining the world in terms of superstition. I'm glad we agree on this point.
Secondly there is no practical way to establish the actual truth or fiction surrounding events short of outfitting a Delorean with a flux capacitor and seeing for yourself.
Cannot one excavate sites mentioned in an ancient myth or text? Cannot one cross-evaluate the texts of other contemporary and even earlier cultures for similar themes and note the evolution of the motif? If one hypothesizes that a mythical tale is an embellished form of an earlier story from an earlier culture, would not the less-embellished version of the same (nearly word-for-word) tale indicate a confirmation of the hypothesis? Conversely, wouldn't an absence of similar tales, less-embellished versions and such in older cultures indicate an actual history and not a myth?
So there is no way to "experiment" your way to a conclusion which is what the "style" in writting argument seeks to do.
Why not. Experiments, after all, are simply hypothesizing, deriving expectations or making predictions and applying these rules to other situations. If they hold, they're
probably true. The alternative is the supernatural and that's just bunk to begin with. So
why wouldn't a rational explanation that's probable be favored over an irrational one that improbable?
But the enviroment, situations nor the people cannot be replicated to test the theory. In fact nothing can be done but ...discovery. And discovery is detective work that acknolwedges that the whole truth is unknown but seeks to find reasonable collaboration. That is the nature of a judicial system.
It has nothing to do with the judicial system, which is the poorest example of application of scientific thinking and method. It has everything to do with observing the material past and arriving at logical conclusions based on what is found. The past need not be "replicated." It sits, waiting for us to uncover it, excavate it, and measure it. When I look at striations of cut marks on a bone, I know whether the marks are teeth or blade -and if blade whether metal or stone. I know this through experimentation and observation and the culmination of data on the subject.
That is why when I hear people who already have irrational and baseless supernatural conclusions about the world around them speak, I consider them ignorant and undereducated because they rarely take the opportunity to consider where true information comes from. They're satisfied learning about the history of China and terra cotta warriors and accept the archaeological interpretation as valid, but they don't dare consider what genuine archaeologists have to say about the Levant. They're content with the scientific explanations for the construction of Athens, its pantheon of gods, and its democracy and rarely question how this information is derived, but doubt every single last word even when the data are compiled and made available if that word is contrary to their preconceived conclusions regarding their religion.
That my friend is ignorance and not science.
That is why I take all historical testimony from the perspective of truth first and then attempt to unseat it by finding contradiction or equilavent testimony which contradicts or even to discredit the source of the testimony as bias or with a history of untruthful behavior or even a history of truthful testimony.
What a sad, ignorant way to look at history. Even still, this is ineffective because the contradictory data are present and ignored. Religious adherents are superstitious first and scientific last. They compartmentalize their worldview such that cell phones, computers, and atomic energy are great, but once the sciences that supply these technologies are applied to claims of their superstitions, they're somehow no longer valid.
Regardless of religoius aherents of anyone...
I can not reject the reality of that which I was not able to witness myself.
By that logic, then, nor can you accept it. The best you can do is remain neutral. Would you say you are neutral to the question of these events?
Not based on speculation and assumption. That is the nature of discovery in science which confirms by test. Historical discovery can be unyielding and sparse in return. We can only go on the available facts.
I somewhat agree with this. The difference between you and I is that I actually see facts where you turn blind eye out of reverence for your religious ideology.
I would expect that a science forum stick to science, intellectual and academic exploration too. Literature is not a science anymore than art, music and cinema. They can be studied as everything can but there is no accuracy, precision or finite realm of closure that can ever describe them as science. Which is of course the whole point of them...the endless interpretations and creation of strokes, notes and words.
Ah, but literature can be evaluated and critiqued based on a scientific method. Trends, styles and linguistic devices can be seriated and the resulting data compared and contrasted with other data sets.
So don't blow the smoke of ignorance up my ass and claim its the sunshine of wisdom.
Regardless, the days of this subforum being a home to an
a priori assumption of the existence of gods needs to draw to a close. From here on out, I'll moderate with the eye towards science first and superstition last. If religious adherents want to provide their perspectives on the
literary value of the words -i.e. the authors of Book XX of the Bible intended this or that, then they are free to. But assumption that a god exists is going to start being interpreted as preaching and edited/deleted as such.
The exception might be those thread where a clear philosophical debate is occurring. Otherwise, threads like this one -a question about mythology- will adhere to just that: mythology.
