The God Delusion - ongoing review

[GeoffP]

Based only on cooling.

Saints are too demi-gods in everything but name. They represent certain aspects of life, like the patron saint of women or craftsmen. It's just like polytheism, and they are in denial about it. They can perform miracles, they are inhumanly perfect...

No they aren't, they just got past the hump to get into Heaven. As for their miracles, a word: intercessory.

I will agree with Dawkins that the whole saint thing is out of hand and silly, but it's hardly polytheism.

After all, doesn't he himself point out - in a stirringly misthought attack on monotheism and Trinitarianism, bless him - that Lord Brahma and Lakshmi and all the rest of the Hindu "pantheon" are really all different facets of the same god after all? But Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God are not, seemingly, according to Richard. Hmmmmm. :bugeye:

Now, I'm more a dualist than a triunalist, but it seems to me a strange sort of an unusual Razor he seems to be applying here. Definitely not an Ockham standard, that's for sure. It strangely seems to cut to different lengths in different places, and at different times. Many gods can be one god, but then they can't? Odd.

Fairly sure I'd chuck out a razor like that. Ah well; curious hypocrisy. Thankee, Richard.

Best,

Geoff

 

[GeoffP]

Ah! We move on in the predicted direction.

"Excuse me!"

"Yes?"

"Are you a virgin?"

"...WOTt?"

"Are you a virgin? If it's not too personal a question."

"If it's not too personal a question? How much more personal could it get? None of your business! Get lost, the lot of you!"

*crowd mumbles, wanders away*

"...Yeah, must be."

"Yeah."

*general agreement from crowd*

Was Jesus' mother a virgin? Or did he have a human father? And is this not a strictly biological question anyway?

...well why is it, exactly? Look, producing dozens of loaves and fishes from SFA is a bit miraculous, but also could be argued as biological. Why this one to harp on, then? The centrality of it to Christian dogma? Ah - a little scratch on the surface and the whole thing is really blithely obvious. Of course that's why he picked it. But aren't all the miracles biological or medical or physical or chemical questions, ultimately? Dawkins mentions Lazarus and all the rest, but describes it strictly as a scientific question.

Again: it isn't really. He does make a point that Christians would be only too happy to swarm over the borders of Non-overlapping Magisteria if biological evidence came up that Jesus was, indeed (if not too heretical to say) "haploid", but in fact, isn't the issue the actual truth instead of the ongoing and pointless war between theists and atheists?

Oh, and the comments about why it is a mystery that any sophisticated people should remain in religion (notably, he says "church" rather than temple or mosque or anything else) was, frankly, absurd and insulting. He makes the point earlier himself that believers number among the realm of science (a point he seems a bit horrified by) and then backs off. He plays on the numbers game again about belief; but he misses the point that while one can damn belief as it extends into public life, the average belief of believers has nothing at all to do with the reality of supernaturalism, whether real or not. Extremist beliefs in a given religion have little, insofar as they are isolated from comparative theology, to say about whether or not they're right or what version of god should be accepted. I can go so far as to say that I have my own, personal belief, and that that is that. Anything more is pleading on a special version of argumentum ad popularum.

Best,

Geoff

 

[GeoffP]

That's all for now. More tomorrow, Darwin willing. I must attend to my personal fitness, or be cast out of the gene pool.

Geoff

 

[SnakeLord]

First: could I have an ultimate source for this graph? I need to address some of the underlying assumptions about it, but unfortunately I don't know where it's from.

Hi. As embarrasing as it might be I cannot unfortunately remember the source anymore, but don't let that dissuade you from addressing any assumptions you find contained within.

Your argument makes the assumption that there was any Chinese whispering at all, or that it was necessarily progressive.

While that can be determined by looking through the relevant text and dating, it could certainly be called an assumption - but it must at least be recognised that the 'assumption' has good grounding based upon knowledge of humans in general. There is nothing to suggest that these people, (humans), wouldn't be prone to the very thing we are all guilty of at some stage in our lives. That Chinese whispers is observed and attested to and is by it's very nature progressive makes the notion perhaps slightly more than an assumption.

First, is recollection after the fact not permitted in so refined and ordered a setting as a court of law?

Ok, I apologise for butting in but I wanted to just express that I always have a slight chuckle when someone debating religious matters uses a 'court of law' to somehow support what he says. Let me be frank in saying that if a man walked into any court of law, or indeed any law establishment, and brought up a god, demons, prayers or miracles as a factor he would be considered either a liar or a lunatic and summarily put in a place appropriate for 'those kind of people'.

As such I would simply ask that we leave courts of law out of the issue, not only because of the above but they work in a manner not really suitable for these discussions.

It is, as I recall; so the omission of Mark and Luke in Paul is not proof of anything, frankly. New evidence occurs all the time. This, I might add, is the basis of science itself.

You'll find I really don't use the word 'proof' in any context, including a scientific one because there's aint no such thing. Last time I used the word proof was with relation to a bottle of lemon vodka.

The picture is merely a case of suggestive evidence and would show itself as quite appealing in that court of law you mentioned.

Further: Paul's document is a letter, rather than a history. If the point of his letter is the encouragement (castigation, really) of a particular Christian community, why is it that we expect to see mention of Christ's miraculous deeds therein? Why would that necessarily come up?

Quite possibly not, (although he covered everything else ). Indeed I would even submit that it should be dismissed altogether as it is not a claim to history but one man's personal opinion.

What then, precisely, were these Christian communities believing and listening to at the time?

Oh, I do not doubt that there were christians bothering other people at their homes 8 am every Saturday morning and handing out leaflets in the town square. If there are earlier versions then maybe they'll be found and we'll know what they say. For now we have to go with what we have.

One thing I note, unquivocally, is this: Paul's time point is identified only as "0".

No no, the time point goes along the top. The 1-9 on both sides is amount of extraordinary claims.

A "Chinese whisper" (an offensive term, in fact; I have Chinese cousins) refers to the degradation of a message over time.

Not so much degradation, more 'distortion'. Anyway, if it offends you have my apologies, it isn't used as an insult in my country, indeed it's no more harmful than saying 'French fries'.

Why are the ideas only included and subtracted in toto, instead of being mangled and distorted? This would be quite an odd round of "telephone", if I were to whisper in your ear "The elephant has two dollars" and for you to pass on "The penguin skates by night."

I think perhaps the term is used slightly differently, but it is generally the case that additional data is added. When that story passes on the same occurs and so on. The time scale in the graph would indicate such a thing.

I don't know: at stage does one accept these claims?

I'm asking you. At what stage would you accept a persons claim to having been abducted by aliens?

In actual point of fact, is it the business of logic to exclude something even as (to me) ludicrous as alien abduction simply because we don't like the position?

Exclude? Do you mean reserve belief in until convincing evidence is given? If so then yes, that is the business of logic.

There's any number of beliefs even in my profession held on little stronger than an abberrant correlation and a lot of faith

And that most certainly is not the business of logic, it is however the business of emotion.

This might well impugn the issue of Noah - in which I don't believe per se - but why is it applied to the rest of the topic?

The "messiah" story is not an original. Indeed the myth of jesus comes on the back of many earlier stories regarding ressurrections, virgin births, december 25th etc etc and so on. The same is true of Adam and Eve that featured thousands of years beforehand as Adamu and the tree of enlightenment. The same is true of the ram caught in the thicket, the same is true of a boy being put in a basket and floated down stream where he was then taken about by royalty. You will find that as far as the majority of the bible goes it's about as original as a 'why did the chicken cross the road' joke and thus is its ultimate downfall.

It is not to say that the story isn't based on a real instance, but then to get a more accurate version of that instance would you go to the source or read the version written 1,500 years later?

I may get back on my review of Dawkins now; the man is truly infuriating. Which he prefers over fair reason, seemingly.

I guess that's all about personal perspective.

 

[Bells]

About Paul - thankyou. This was precisely my point. His complete omission of any mention of the miracles of the Gospels but - and mind this - his inclusion of the mention of "miracles" illustrates again my point that his tract reflects both a different objective and audience. His divergence from them is not so much as the absicca versus points in the X-Y field (as a difference of degree), but rather of kind altogether - in other words, not to the same ends or audience. The Gospels tell a story, believable or not. Paul's letter to the inimical Romans is a warning and a denunciation, as Bells also pointed out.

Saint Paul is also suspected to have suffered from a form of epilepsy (temporal lobe epilepsy) which can at times, give sufferers what they deem to be a religious experience... Bright flashing lights and a sense of the 'divine'.

According to Dr. Jerome Engel, a number of men and women who have attained religious prominence may have done so in spite of, or perhaps due to, their epileptic signs and symptoms. In fact epilepsy, as "the sacred disease," has been profoundly intertwined with religious practices throughout the ages and the world.

Saint Paul's seizure-like experiences are the best documented of the major religious figures. On the road to Damascus he saw a bright light flashing around him, fell to the ground and was left temporarily blinded by his vision and unable to eat or drink. Paul is thought by some physicians to have had facial motor and sensitive disturbances coming after ecstatic seizures; they have diagnosed him with temporal lobe epilepsy which occasionally developed into secondary tonic-clonic attacks.
Source
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Hmmmmmmm interesting, isn't it?

In old Ireland, epilepsy was known as 'Saint Paul's disease'. The name points to the centuries-old assumption that the apostle suffered from epilepsy.

To support this view, people usually point to Saint Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, reported in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament (Acts 9, 3-9), in which Paul, or Saul as he was known before his conversion to Christianity, is reported to have a fit similar to an epileptic seizure: '...suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: ''Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?''...Saul got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but he could not see a thing... For three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink anything.'

Saul's sudden fall, the fact that he first lay motionless on the ground but was then able to get up unaided, led people very early on to suspect that this dramatic incident might have been caused by a grand mal seizure. In more recent times, this opinion has found support from the fact that sight impediment-including temporary blindness lasting from several hours to several days-has been observed as being a symptom or result of an epileptic seizure and has been mentioned in many case reports.

In his letters St Paul occasionally gives discreet hints about his 'physical ailment', by which he perhaps means a chronic illness. In the second letter to the Corinthians, for instance, he states: 'But to keep me from being puffed up with pride... I was given a painful physical ailment, which acts as Satan's messenger to beat me and keep me from being proud.' (2 Corinthians, 12,7). In his letter to the Galatians, Paul again describes his physical weakness: 'You remember why I preached the gospel to you the first time; it was because I was ill. But even though my physical condition was a great trial to you, you did not despise or reject me.' (Galatians 4, 13-14) In ancient times people used to spit at 'epileptics', either out of disgust or in order to ward off what they thought to be the 'contagious matter' (epilepsy as 'morbus insputatus': the illness at which one spits).
Source
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In fact, it is estimated that a lot or religious figures of the past may have suffered from the same illness. Sufferers today have reported similar experiences during seizures.. hearing voices, seeing bright flashing lights and feeling as though they were somehow outside of their body.. feeling as though they were in the presence of the divine... or as religious folks call it, a 'vision from god'.

Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy.

Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology.

The connection between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious feeling has led one Canadian scientist to try stimulating them. (They are near your ears.) 80% of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental subjects report that an artificial magnetic field focused on those brain areas gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some of them describe it as a religious sensation.
Source

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The above link gives an interesting insight into the illness.

No they aren't, they just got past the hump to get into Heaven. As for their miracles, a word: intercessory.

I will agree with Dawkins that the whole saint thing is out of hand and silly, but it's hardly polytheism.

"Out of hand and silly" does not even come close to it. Especially when one considers just how saints come about now days. The Church even has a fast tracking system where if you pay enough up front, you get your saint. I wonder if that system will change under the present pope.

 

[iceaura]

You can say that they're dealt with in the books but I don't think my version is abridged, or at least not terribly. His disrespect in the audio version - which, I point out, benefits over the written word in that I can hear his tone - is not at all infrequent, and not at all exaggerated by me. Tell me directly: does he spend so much as a single chapter in the written version damning the pecunities of Wotan? Ra? Ares? Anything in the Kalevala? No?

Well if your version is not abridged then possibly you have simply forgotten the paragraph early on where he explains his choice of examples. And as far as the tone - your description doesn't match the written version. I think the advantage you claim may be one of pushing yoru own buttons somehow - not what I would call an advantage. Does he have a naturally supercilious soundign accent, to an American ?

“ The common overreaction to Dawkins's generally mild and civil approach rather illustrates his point, than opposes it. ”
Ahem - hardly. His approach is not fair-minded. Even I, the apparently abberant and sub-intelligent theist (according to Dawkins' own definitions), could have treated both theism and atheism with a much, much, much fairer hand.

You seem to have missed the point, of his unfairness certainly.

And third, you have apparently misread the graph. Paul is not labeled "0" on the time line, but on the miraculous event scale. And the points are in order of the probable establishment of the present content of the writings graphed. ”
About Paul - thankyou. This was precisely my point.

Then you badly misstated it. You stated the 0 was on the timeline, and wondered at its placement there and what it could mean.

His complete omission of any mention of the miracles of the Gospels but - and mind this - his inclusion of the mention of "miracles" illustrates again my point that his tract reflects both a different objective and audience.

Or a different environment - one in which the miracles were not core features of the mission, and not yet things that would even be known to that audience, however strong in their new faith.

His divergence from them is not so much as the absicca versus points in the X-Y field (as a difference of degree), but rather of kind altogether - in other words, not to the same ends or audience. The Gospels tell a story, believable or not. Paul's letter to the inimical Romans is a warning and a denunciation, as Bells also pointed out.

So?

In short: it really isn't comparable to the later events, whether you want to describe them as actual events or not, and ought to be removed from the discussion of the "telephone game" analogy.

The analogy appears to have confused the issue. The question is the appearance of the legendary material in the Bible, not the degradation of material that has appeared. All failures to exhibit such material in contexts allowing for it are data points.

“ The analogy is not perfect, and breaks down if you use it to anticipate gradual degradation of the information, rather than successive inclusion of legend into different accounts. So don't do that. ”
But you should; in fact, you absolutely must.

First, we're describing the purportedly fragmentary persistence of apparently written memes here.

Not persistence (tht is explained by the writing) -successive inclusion. Possibly invention, or borrowing, or compilation, but all over time.

It's a bit harder to obtain the scrambled inferential results of "telephone" when the words are written down in front of you. I think the resorts of your argument are limited to faithful (pardon the term) representation or deliberate deception. Both are hard to prove, I would think.

The analogy breaks down when used like that. Don't do it. Drop the analogy entirely.

The whole point of the "telephone game" is the lower-than-stepwise (it's on a quantitative scale, really) degradation of the message.

That wasn't the point of the apparently confusing attempt to use it here. Not degradation, but elaboration, is being explained.

As a more general question, has there been such an example of the "telephone" analogy creeping into transmitted history to the extent of wholesale deletion or addition of units, especially on the written medium? I would think not .

I think it has been common for legends to acquire anecdotes and expansions and exaggerations from various sources over time - or for two differently sourced histories to merge into one more complicated and somewhat altered one after landing on the same scribe's desk. - various histories of Vlad the Impaler come to mind, or the gold of El Dorado.

The resort, again, becomes that of deception or intact transmission.

Or sincere belief incorporating different stories, visions, ecstatic revelations, etc, into one account ? .

But oral tradition exists in other cultures all across the world, and we don't have Oxford professors running about trying to make them feel bad about themselves.

We don't have Oxford professors taking them as literal history or physical fact, or accepting the storyteller's spiritual authority over modern scientific and political life, either. If the clerics and theists of the modern industrial states want their selves and stories to be treated by Oxford professors - not Dawkins or his ilk, the more "respectful" ones - as the shamans and oral historians of the less industrialized world have been, they have only to speak up, I think.

And what about the incorrect positioning of Luke then?

The last estimate I saw agreed with the graph here.

 

[GeoffP]

Well if your version is not abridged then possibly you have simply forgotten the paragraph early on where he explains his choice of examples.

Actually, he directly explains that he isn't out to pick on any particular religion, but thus far appears to be doing a volte-face on that committment.

I reiterate: at what point in the written version does he deal with Thor and Hera? Isis and Osiris? Zeus? Ki? Uller? Freya? This is a point that doesn't depend on the audio version at all. What is his range and scope of attack in the written version? Your seeming hesitance to comment explicitly suggests to me that his bias is also quite specific in the text version as well.

And as far as the tone - your description doesn't match the written version. I think the advantage you claim may be one of pushing yoru own buttons somehow - not what I would call an advantage. Does he have a naturally supercilious soundign accent, to an American ?

As I am not an American, I would have little idea. I imagine my own accent may sound supercilious also at times, although I also slip into my father's rougher mannerisms when pressed, which is hardly RP. Again: I could do a far fairer job than that, and possibly even include something about theology without its wholesale dismissal, as well.

You seem to have missed the point, of his unfairness certainly.

Disagreed. The range of opinion on the thread so far covers both fair and unfair. So is he then fair or unfair? He criticizes theists as having lower IQs than atheists, which I thought was a point curiously evocative for someone on such close speaking terms (his "good friend", I think it was) with James Watson, keeping in mind some of the latter's commentary on race and intelligence. His attacks are unfair; possibly coloured by intolerance directed at him and evolutionary theory by theists, but which do not absolve him of the obligation of fairness.

Then you badly misstated it. You stated the 0 was on the timeline, and wondered at its placement there and what it could mean.

My apologies for the confusion, but I meant to attribute neither a quantitative nor qualitative value to the point as given. Clearly, if "0" or "O" is not defined on the chart, then it cannot be objectively analyzed, except at the greatest inference.

Or a different environment - one in which the miracles were not core features of the mission, and not yet things that would even be known to that audience, however strong in their new faith.

This is possible, but the claim of support is as strong on the disbeliever as the believer. Paul does explicitly mention "miracles", as I recall. The comparison being made at that point in the graphical plot does not prove correspondance, but it cannot be used as evidence for the "telephone" scenario relating to the Gospels. It is a disconnect.

So?

I restate: so if the target audience and issues are not at all the same in the case of Paul vs. the Gospels, why would you expect Paul's letters to the Romans to deal with the issues of the miracles of Christ? One is a collection of stories, the other a warning about the nature of mortality and sin.

How shall I explain this? Bill Clinton sits down to write a letter at his desk. He is writing to the Iraqi Ambassador. He does not mention the "Cigar incident" with Monica Lewinsky, even though his present correspondance is well after this incident is purported to have occurred. Has it then not occurred? Or is that subject matter too far removed from the present missive? Any number of analogies could be conceived with a similar structure, but I think you get my point. The issue of relating the miracles of Christ were not particularly pertinent to the morality of the Romans in question per se. Does a parking ticket in Philadelphia come attached to a complete codex of the parking laws of Pennsylvania? Or is the recipient already assumed to be familiar with the latter? The comparison of Paul to the Gospels is, by description, a dead letter.

The analogy appears to have confused the issue. The question is the appearance of the legendary material in the Bible, not the degradation of material that has appeared. All failures to exhibit such material in contexts allowing for it are data points.

Not persistence (tht is explained by the writing) -successive inclusion. Possibly invention, or borrowing, or compilation, but all over time.

The analogy breaks down when used like that. Don't do it. Drop the analogy entirely.

*bows* I would dearly love to do so, but it is not my analogy. Are we then dispensing with it altogether, since it cannot fit the facts?

That wasn't the point of the apparently confusing attempt to use it here. Not degradation, but elaboration, is being explained.

Well you could argue both, since the state of the Gospels relative to Paul's Epistle - and from the chart - both includes the "gain" of material and the "loss" of old material. Yet the methodology is incorrect, as I've pointed out: accidental gain or loss of information via a "telephone" scenario (which I note you are refuting, yes) should have fragmentary loss and gain, which is not evident. Again: it would be difficult to have the incidental transformation of a written source, although I don't know why you haven't brought up the virgin vs. maiden issue. You could certainly argue that, I think.

We don't have Oxford professors taking them as literal history or physical fact, or accepting the storyteller's spiritual authority over modern scientific and political life, either.

No, but the issue here is faithful and accurate transmission without mutation.

The last estimate I saw agreed with the graph here.

From the wiki entry, the second oldest copy of Luke is in the area of 200 years AD:

The text is internally anonymous. One of the two oldest surviving manuscripts P75 (circa 200), has the attribution According to Luke [4]. The other P4 which 'is probably to be dated earlier than P75 ...'[5] has no such (surviving) attribution. Tradition holds that the text was written by Luke the companion of Paul (named in Colossians 4:14) but scholars are divided on this issue.[6]

"Probably to be dated earlier" does not sound very early to me. I submit that the Luke point is incorrect, and requires revision.

Best,

Geoff

 

[GeoffP]

Snake and Bells:

Thanks for your comments.

Snake: I agree that the "telephone" effect occurs, naturally, but even as a generality in humans I'm leery about assigning it to this specific event. Not because of my attachment to it, but because of the perceived importance. You might call that a modification of Pascal's Wager, but it's a serious and important issue all the same. I don't think the evidence holds up for it. If we're going by the number of events, and if we accept - as we should - that Paul's Epistle is simply unrelated to the recounting of miraculous events, that still leaves the issue of the Angels for Mark. If the others were indeed added after the fact, the existence of a written record in Mark would reduce the available choices for variance in the latter books to falsification or veracity. Also, I appreciate the interest in miraculous recounting, but what is the tally for non-miraculous similarity among the books? Are they more or less related in message? I think this would be revealing of something, at least. I think we need to ascribe a reason for the presumed differentiation of Luke, Matthew and John to decide further, however. I'm glad we agree that Paul is unrelated to the issue of the later Gospels, at least, on a correlative scale, if I've read you right. Sorry I don't have time for more: tempus fugit.

Bells: epilepsy, you say? Interesting. I've always been suspicious of Paul, coming a bit after the Disciples as he did. His parts always strike me as being after the fact. I think I would have included different books; the canonization of his Letters smacks of regional politics.

Sorry: will write more later.

Geoff

 

[TW Scott]

That's a rather poor strawman of the BBT. Why does adding an anthropomorphic ghost make the scenario more plausible? When we do not know how or why something has happened, the best thing to do is to admit that we do not know how or why it happened.

Exactly, we have no reason for the cuase. Of course we have no framework for understanding God either. Who is to say that the whole universe is not God? Who is to say the first Big bang was God coming to conciousness? We do not have enough answers to make definative claim one way or the other.

So for now we are left with belief. You either believe there is some higher power or you believe there is not one. Some people can claim not to have made a decision but they have a leaning. This does not make any group any less competent than the others. The sooner people understand that the better.

 

[iceaura]

Actually, he directly explains that he isn't out to pick on any particular religion, but thus far appears to be doing a volte-face on that committment.

I reiterate: at what point in the written version does he deal with Thor and Hera? Isis and Osiris? Zeus? Ki? Uller? Freya?

He also directly explains why he doesn't do that, and how he is going to proceed most effectively (in his opinion) for his intended audience. It's not hidden, and not an about face - you are treating the matter as if he had pulled some kind of bait and switch.

Again: I could do a far fairer job than that, and possibly even include something about theology without its wholesale dismissal, as well.

Then you would be making a different, not fairer, argument.

My apologies for the confusion, but I meant to attribute neither a quantitative nor qualitative value to the point as given. Clearly, if "0" or "O" is not defined on the chart, then it cannot be objectively analyzed, except at the greatest inference.

The "0" is perfectly clear, as a quantiitative value, on the chart. You can read it off the vertical axis, if the label on the chart confuses.

This is possible, but the claim of support is as strong on the disbeliever as the believer.

What ?

Paul does explicitly mention "miracles", as I recall.

For which he may well be counting his own conversion, and other such events not relevant to the chart. We don't know. The implications of the chart remain.

Any number of analogies could be conceived with a similar structure, but I think you get my point.

I do. It's not relevant.

The issue of relating the miracles of Christ were not particularly pertinent to the morality of the Romans in question per se. Does a parking ticket in Philadelphia come attached to a complete codex of the parking laws of Pennsylvania?

I don't know about Philly, but a parking ticket in Minneapolis does come with reference to the laws of Minneapolis and Minnesota both - they being relevant to the fate of the victim. The miracles of Christ are quite often mentioned by later Christian counselors dealing with the issues Paul was dealing with - even to this day. I would be surprised to find any so extensive and so intended later collection of letters to be without a single mention of any of Jesus's miracles. They come in handy. But not for Paul.

I restate: so if the target audience and issues are not at all the same in the case of Paul vs. the Gospels, why would you expect Paul's letters to the Romans to deal with the issues of the miracles of Christ?

Our expectations are beside the point. He refers to none of them - not as illustrations of points, not as encouragements for the wavering, not as arguments backing advice.

*bows* I would dearly love to do so, but it is not my analogy. Are we then dispensing with it altogether, since it cannot fit the facts?

It is your badly confused and apparently self-confusing use of the analogy that should be dropped. It was apparently a mistaken approach, in the first place, but the arguer probably did not anticiapte your employment of it. Such as

If the others were indeed added after the fact, the existence of a written record in Mark would reduce the available choices for variance in the latter books to falsification or veracity.

The others were not necessarily copies of Mark, and there is no reason to assume they all trace back to a single written account.

No, but the issue here is faithful and accurate transmission without mutation.

Not really. Nobody is looking at mutations of the story of Lazurus, say - its appearance in the legend is what interests, here.

"Probably to be dated earlier" does not sound very early to me. I submit that the Luke point is incorrect, and requires revision.

"Probably to be dated earlier" means that an earlier date should be assigned by anyone requiring a specific estimate - the one on the chart is what I've run into before as one of the standard, defensible estimates.

 

[Barry Flannery]

I read this book a few days and would recommend it to all theist and atheist alike.
It's good to see a well constructed argument against religion due to the fact that everyday life is pro religion.

Barry

 

[GeoffP]

Not in my field it isn't, Barry. It's viciously anti-religion.

Ice, it is a bait and switch. He says he won't go for any particular religion, since he's not biased against any religion, then immediately bares his jugulars for Christianity. What more shall I say?

I could certainly argue the issue more fairly, because I have no underlying bias against atheism. My father is an atheist. My brother is an atheist. I was once an atheist. By default, even, my treatment would necessarily be fairer. Please don't tell me I can't see bias; I can.

Now as for the "0" or "O" - if it's a quantitative point, why is it a red numeric, the same colour and font as the red letters which indicate factorial or unique statements rather than linear ones? If it's meant to be read against the right Y-axis, then by all means, let's have that. The chart is poorly constructed.

I must put the halter of onus on you for this statement:

I do. It's not relevant.

Explain how the "Clintonian example" isn't relevant. You cannot perform wholesale dismissals without logical construction. This would be akin to me simply saying "You're all wrong." How? On what basis are you all wrong? It is an unfair statement.

I don't know about Philly, but a parking ticket in Minneapolis does come with reference to the laws of Minneapolis and Minnesota both - they being relevant to the fate of the victim.

They mention explicitly the importance of the laws, and the reasoning they're based on? I rather doubt it.

The miracles of Christ are quite often mentioned by later Christian counselors dealing with the issues Paul was dealing with

Ah - but they are preaching to those they perceive as the unconverted, rather than remonstrating the already converted for their behaviour. Not the same thing.

I would be surprised to find any so extensive and so intended later collection of letters to be without a single mention of any of Jesus's miracles. They come in handy. But not for Paul.

I would be far more surprised to find Paul's needless recitation of theology they were all familiar with. It's unreasonable. It doesn't follow; a non-sequitur of sorts.

Our expectations are beside the point. He refers to none of them - not as illustrations of points, not as encouragements for the wavering, not as arguments backing advice.

Our expectations in the scientific process are everything. They are the impressions of hypothesis. How can you say our expectations - guidelines of purported reasonability, I might add here - are unimportant in this case?

The others were not necessarily copies of Mark, and there is no reason to assume they all trace back to a single written account.

This is a remarkably fair point, and I thank you: that the similarity among the Gospels doesn't imply identity by descent. I also believe that they were independent observation of related events. But if you in this argument make this point, how then can one invoke the "telephone" analogy at all, whether or not it has been overextended? How can the graph be of any importance or evidentiary to anything, if we are admitting to independence among Mark, Luke, Matthew and John?? You naturally see the importance of your statement here to the argument.

As for the dating, I got it from wiki. So there.

Best regards,

Geoff

 

[Barry Flannery]

Geoff,

As an individual who has read the book the I would have hoped that you learned something from the first chapter. Why should religion be put on such a high position, who cares if it's anti-religion, there are tons of religion things that are anti science...

 

[GeoffP]

Which, I might add, I also disagree with. Many of them are founded on utter ignorance; a fact that seems to have sadly coloured his bile.

I don't see the need to either attack religion or science specifically in aid of or defense of either view. If nothing is to be put on a high pedestal, and then uniformly derided, then why not Richard himself and his work? And his wife? After all, and as Richard himself alludes to, we honour only that which provokes our sense of fair play, lives, loves, wives and children all. So what is to prevent me from - quite rightly - opining that Lalla Ward is nothing more than a slightly fancier version of a Hammer Horror wench? Yet, it can be indisputably said that my treatment of his writing is far fairer than his treatment of religion, since I'm both religious and an evolutionary biologist.

Anyway, we are moving on as soon as I have the wherewithal to review more of the audio version.

Geoff

 

[GeoffP]

Oh, and by the by, Barry: let's have an end to the "learning" condescension. This is a polite thread - at least, among its occupants. Richard is fair game.

 

[S.A.M.]

Reminds me of this talk I attended by Francis Collins. He was very amused at the condescension from the "intellectual elite" that comprise the Dawkinians.

 

[(Q)]

I don't see the need to either attack religion

Religion has caused great harm to mankind and continues to do so. The cycle of cult indoctrination is a form of child abuse. Religions don't pay taxes.

You see no good reasons for attacking religion? :shrug:

 

[iceaura]

This is a remarkably fair point, and I thank you: that the similarity among the Gospels doesn't imply identity by descent. I also believe that they were independent observation of related events. But if you in this argument make this point, how then can one invoke the "telephone" analogy at all, whether or not it has been overextended?

It was not my analogy, and I have recommended dropping it rather than using it as anything other than the heuristic apparently intended. One cannot argue from it.

But our choices are not merely two - all the Gospels descend in an unbranched chain directly from one original: the Gospels are independent accounts each based on first hand observation.

There is also the possiblity that the Gospels are similar in nature to what they resemble in life - elaborated, fantastical legends with a variable and increasingly less coherent foundation in some past event or person.

As someone with Scot ancestry, I can proveide you with any number of such legends - compare Mel Gibson's movie of William Wallace and Mel Gibson's movie of Jesus Christ with the more likely physical facts, for example. Or the various accounts of Count Dracula.

Ice, it is a bait and switch. He says he won't go for any particular religion, since he's not biased against any religion, then immediately bares his jugulars for Christianity. What more shall I say?

You shall attend to his explicit dealing with exactly that objection, and show why it does not explain his approach or announce his intentions.

They mention explicitly the importance of the laws, and the reasoning they're based on? I rather doubt it.

They make enumerable reference to specific laws, such as would appear on the chart, and such as do not appear in Paul.

Ah - but they are preaching to those they perceive as the unconverted, rather than remonstrating the already converted for their behaviour.

They are preaching and writing to members of Christian churches and fellow believers. Exactly the same thing.

Our expectations in the scientific process are everything.

OK: that particular expectation is irrelevant. It is based on a description of the New Testament different from the one used by the makers of the chart.

Reminds me of this talk I attended by Francis Collins. He was very amused at the condescension from the "intellectual elite" that comprise the Dawkinians.

A condescension he has by turns exaggerated and earned, as well as displayed.

There is another source of the flaw of condescension in arguments, besides the a priori assumption of elite status and unwarranted arrogance by one of the arguers. There is also the exemplified debasement of argument and adoption of nonsense by the other, and the too easy presumption that such foolishness extends throughout their understandings.

 

[S.A.M.]

A condescension he has by turns exaggerated and earned, as well as displayed.

There is another source of the flaw of condescension in arguments, besides the a priori assumption of elite status and unwarranted arrogance by one of the arguers. There is also the exemplified debasement of argument and adoption of nonsense by the other, and the too easy presumption that such foolishness extends throughout their understandings.

Are we talking about Francis Collins? If so, that is not the man at all. In fact, IIRC, he substituted John Watson in the HGC due to (the lack of) these very qualities.

I'm curious, between the theist Collins and the atheist Dawkins, who has advanced the understanding of science further, in your opinion?

 

[iceaura]

I'm curious, between the theist Collins and the atheist Dawkins, who has advanced the understanding of science further, in your opinion?

Dawkins, easily. Collins has not dealt much, if at all, with science itself - or even evolutionary theory, within science - from an understanding or philosophical viewpoint. To the extent he has, I haven't seen anything from him more "advanced in understanding" than the medieval Constantine Reply: "it's a divine mystery".

His advances in genetics, especially his technological employment of genetic theory, are of course of the highest order - far beyond anything Dawkins has accomplished in that field.