tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post2165351832982239280..comments2024-02-10T02:53:47.545-06:00Comments on Do You Ever Think About Things You Do Think About?: Why Is Paul's Honesty Taken for Granted?Vinnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-82244789922519361232023-02-28T04:23:54.851-06:002023-02-28T04:23:54.851-06:00Our debate is now here:
Debating Vinny, March 17 t...Our debate is now here:<br /><a href="https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/02/debating-vinny-march-17-through-april.html" rel="nofollow">Debating Vinny, March 17 through April 3rd in 2011</a>Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-83210494553045035272011-04-03T11:31:20.145-05:002011-04-03T11:31:20.145-05:00I rest mine.
Amen to that.<i>I rest mine.</i><br /><br />Amen to that.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-67912117760106238962011-04-03T06:10:03.687-05:002011-04-03T06:10:03.687-05:00@: I am denying the credibility of a supernatural ...@: <i>I am denying the credibility of a supernatural tale whose origin is impossible to determine.</i><br /><br />What about natural tales whose origins are still less possible to determine? Like in Tacitus?<br /><br />@ <i>Thus skepticism is the intermediate position between credulity and denialism.</i> (with the definitions of the three before):<br /><br />You claim to be sceptics and I claim you are denialists about certain miracles and - for Vinny's part - a cherry tree story I do not find very laudatory to the man concerned.<br /><br />I claim my credulity is "scepticism" as defined by you - though not by common usage - and you pretend it is not.<br /><br />@ <b><i>BOTH:</i></b><br /><br />You are - at this stage - in a clear preferrence for restating generalities I have not denied over proving my inconsistency with them. Or you own consistency with them. In the cases concerned.<br /><br />I rest mine.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-23934260929264448632011-04-02T20:21:53.360-05:002011-04-02T20:21:53.360-05:00And to the last post, I should add the third posit...And to the last post, I should add the third position, namely denialism. This refers to only looking at falsifying evidence without a sincere search for, and look at, confirming evidence. Thus skepticism is the intermediate position between credulity and denialism.Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-75925769092356051832011-04-02T19:55:13.980-05:002011-04-02T19:55:13.980-05:00HGL:
"Credulity" amounts to an over-rel...HGL:<br /><br />"Credulity" amounts to an over-reliance on confirming tidbits without any attempt to see if falsifying evidence exists. Skepticism, on the other hand, involves a sincere attempt to find and look at evidence on BOTH sides an make an evaluation based upon those.Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-73253949044441195392011-04-02T19:50:42.570-05:002011-04-02T19:50:42.570-05:00HGL:
My first comment to you on "methodologi...HGL:<br /><br />My first comment to you on "methodological supernaturalism" was in response to you saying <i> "But beyond martyrdom, there is another argument for St Paul's honesty. God does not make miracles for liars or nitwits so they can fool the world" </i><br /><br />This claim is an inference which takes some claims about supernatural processes as its strating point, not eyewitness testimony by Paul or "St. Luke" (keep in mind the Gospel of Luke is anonymous). For you to then implicitly accuse me of applying it to a claim of having naturalistically manifesting evidence of a supernatural postmortem appearance or vision is dishonest, plain and simple. That wasn't the context of my accusation.<br /><br />I thought I was being quite clear when I said on March 24 "The problem with this argument is that it is methodologically supernatural. By this, it is meant that inferences are being made which rely on some assumption about supernatural processes. Any time you attribute emotions or intentions to "God" you are employing methodological supernaturalism, that is, making an inference based on some assumption about supernatural processes."Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-67427774092071016152011-04-02T18:23:38.619-05:002011-04-02T18:23:38.619-05:00Denying credibility to a thing confirmed only by o...<i>Denying credibility to a thing confirmed only by one comparatively late testimony is another.</i><br /><br />I am not denying the credibility of anything that has been confirmed<br />by any testimony. I am denying the credibility of a supernatural tale whose origin is impossible to determine.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-45411250862745399882011-04-02T17:58:50.259-05:002011-04-02T17:58:50.259-05:00I can think of lots of differences and I'm sor...<i>I can think of lots of differences and I'm sorry if your small brain can't.</i><br /><br />Name one.<br /><br />But make it a logical one.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-71520753491109418822011-04-02T17:57:38.832-05:002011-04-02T17:57:38.832-05:00What I said was that nothing can be verified by ev...<i>What I said was that nothing can be verified by evidence claimed to have resulted supernaturally from what one is trying to demonstrate, without independent, natural confirmation that it happened</i><br /><br />No, you did not, but you are doing it now.<br /><br />Eyewitnesses giving their accounts, in own writings or interviewed by St Luke or St Paul are precisely the independent natural confirmation I rely on.<br /><br />Confer private revelation, where only Hesiod, Mohammad, Numa Pompilius, Joseph Smith had direct access to the supernatural content.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-81685621360612059172011-04-02T17:53:27.664-05:002011-04-02T17:53:27.664-05:00HGL:
I do not find your distinction between &quo...HGL:<br /><br /><i> I do not find your distinction between "thinking credulously" and "thinking critically" logically grounded. Unless perhaps it were to the detriment of "thinking critically". </i><br /><br />This is an argument from ignorance. Just because you can't think of a difference doesn't mean there isn't one. I can think of lots of differences and I'm sorry if your small brain can't.Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-63666969686413590642011-04-02T17:50:14.225-05:002011-04-02T17:50:14.225-05:00HGL:
Nightvid, saying miracles cannot be accepte...HGL:<br /><br /><i> Nightvid, saying miracles cannot be accepted after the event because they fall outside of ordinary course of events like Hume or saying miracles could be verified if they fell into a kind of automatic patterns - like non-sentient natural processes - like you just did is not a very big difference of statement. </i><br /><br />I never said miracles had to fit into patterns to be verified using evidence interpreted using naturalistic means. What I said was that nothing can be verified by evidence claimed to have resulted supernaturally from what one is trying to demonstrate, without independent, natural confirmation that it happened. This is akin to the "building turning into a statue" thought experiment I gave earlier: It is one thing to verify, using naturalistic reporting and obervation methods, that it supernaturally occurred, but another thing to use it to infer that the bathhouse photo came first. The former is what Hume objects to, the latter is what I object to. Very different.Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-58839993235647353132011-04-02T17:47:35.103-05:002011-04-02T17:47:35.103-05:00Desiring confirmation is one thing.
Denying credi...Desiring confirmation is one thing.<br /><br />Denying credibility to a thing confirmed only by one comparatively late testimony is another.<br /><br />I do not find your distinction between "thinking credulously" and "thinking critically" logically grounded. Unless perhaps it were to the detriment of "thinking critically".Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-88876286450370541752011-04-02T17:42:40.103-05:002011-04-02T17:42:40.103-05:00Those who think credulously are satisfied with lac...Those who think credulously are satisfied with lack of contradiction. Those who think critically desire confirmation.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-45524667803585590152011-04-02T17:24:45.698-05:002011-04-02T17:24:45.698-05:00Nightvid, saying miracles cannot be accepted after...Nightvid, saying miracles cannot be accepted after the event because they fall outside of ordinary course of events like Hume or saying miracles could be verified if they fell into a kind of automatic patterns - like non-sentient natural processes - like you just did is not a very big difference of statement.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-9542241689597803222011-04-02T17:19:37.983-05:002011-04-02T17:19:37.983-05:00If an early source and a late source contradict ea...If an early source and a late source contradict each other about a fact, I try to get to where there is a misunderstanding.<br /><br />But the cherry tree episode in Weem does not contradict what we know from say Lafayette - whatever that might be - or from English loyalist sources in the least.<br /><br />And the boiling in oil alive episode from Tertullian - if that is the earliest source for it - does not contradict what we know about Saint John from his spiritual grandsons Papias and St Irenæus the least either.<br /><br />Modern scholarship - whom you rely on - is not in the least in the same kind of position as the later of two near contemporary sources close to beginnings of Christian Church or United States.<br /><br />How much facts about Tiberius are actually different between Vellejus Paterculus (whose extant writings do not continue to the end of his reign) and the later ones Tacitus and Suetonius?<br /><br />Suetonius is later than Tacitus, by some decade or two, but how many contradictions about fact are there between him and Tacitus?Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-24185779743289280862011-04-02T14:11:43.276-05:002011-04-02T14:11:43.276-05:00HGL:
I am NOT pushing Hume's view at all. Hum...HGL:<br /><br />I am NOT pushing Hume's view at all. Hume's position was that it would be extremely difficult to epistemically justify a supernatural event claim. I am not relying on that to make my case. Stop setting up this kind of straw man, please.Nightvidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03320916322586904305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-40242127142419874622011-04-02T12:18:24.902-05:002011-04-02T12:18:24.902-05:00Asking every source to be contemporary as historia...<i>Asking every source to be contemporary as historians have done since 1890's, is making a big hole in the History of the Roman Empire too.</i><br /><br />It is hard to keep up with you when you change course so abruptly. Earlier you said that is was “more rational to look for the oldest historians and chroniclers who are likeliest to have had opportunities.” Now you are finding fault with historians who prefer the earliest possible source material.<br /><br />BTW, I had not realized that you were in denial about the moon landing as well. That clears up a lot and convinces me that there is no point in further discussion. Life is too short.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-46897915219981220582011-04-02T11:47:19.859-05:002011-04-02T11:47:19.859-05:00I am not at all oblivious of the possibility that ...I am not at all oblivious of the possibility that Tertullian might have been driven by this or that to state what he knew about St John. That possibility is not compatible with his inventing the story.<br /><br />As for being driven to lying, sorry, but there was not just one writer who lied and a later writer that believed his lies, there was a Church around the first writer, and if it had been a lie, how come the Church accepted him as truthful or his statement as truth?<br /><br />That is the kind of lazy methodology you accept when criticising old miracles, but refute single-handedly if someone attacks a new marvel like the Armstrong on the Moon.<br /><br /><a href="http://o-x.fr/1po1" rel="nofollow">My post on a blog, it deals with this in comments</a> - <a href="http://o-x.fr/9cke" rel="nofollow">post of other writer who had made the refutation on "moon hoax conspiracy theory"</a>.<br /><br />Asking every source to be contemporary as historians have done since 1890's, is making a big hole in the History of the Roman Empire too.<br /><br /><a href="http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/03/question-of-contemporary-evidence.html" rel="nofollow">Tacitus was no better than pastor Weem as "contemporary witness".</a><br /><br />And a good deal worse than St Luke or St Matthew, of course.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-14672033555200113422011-04-02T11:38:30.751-05:002011-04-02T11:38:30.751-05:00There are other unstated things than agendas.
Lik...There are other unstated things than agendas.<br /><br />Like prejudice. Or simple methodological laziness.<br /><br />This said, you have tried an argument by parallel, and I am as rejecting - and I think I should be and you should have been too - of the pseudo-scholarship in rejecting parson Weem's biography as of the pseudo-scholarship saying that the fact the first account WE, NOW find of St John being boiled in oil and miraculously surviving it proves this story to be spurious.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-53250955856049814402011-04-02T10:13:02.604-05:002011-04-02T10:13:02.604-05:00Sorry, but I never claimed that you found it to be...Sorry, but I never claimed that you found it to be their stated ground. I knew perfectly well by your use of the word “seem” that you were reading between the lines to divine some sort of “non-stated mission statement.” Of course the fact that people are known to have unstated agendas is the very reason for thinking critically about sources. <br /><br />You seem to be perfectly willing to categorically reject the consensus of historians about Parson Weems based on your ability to discern that their conclusions are driven by their unstated agenda rather than the evidence. However, in doing so you make yourself oblivious to the possibility that Weems himself may have been driven by an unstated agenda rather than evidence. In turn, you are oblivious to the possibility that Tertullian may have been driven by his own unstated agendas.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08955726889682177434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-46909790475004005472011-04-02T04:08:41.868-05:002011-04-02T04:08:41.868-05:00Besides, it is a bit prophetically symbolical that...Besides, it is a bit prophetically symbolical that a nation capable of dropping Little Boy and Fat Boy on a country whose most innocent pagan festival (I think licit for Catholics) is the cherry blossom feast, should have had a founder capable of clumsily killing a cherry tree.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-26763674074026881822011-04-02T04:05:41.591-05:002011-04-02T04:05:41.591-05:00Pastor Mason Locke Weems - what kind of father cou...Pastor Mason Locke Weems - what kind of father could he have to give him such atrocious names! - was too kind to the lady who spent her childhood often in the Washington house in thinking this a revelation of exceptional honesty.<br /><br />Modern scholars are too unkind to GW, the lady and Pastor Weems too:<br /><br />- to GW by saying at age six he would naturally have told a lie in such a case, which is unkind to six years old in general;<br /><br />- to the lady by saying her memories from childhood fooled her (it is quite possible she could by then no longer remember where she put her glasses, if she used such, but that is quite another matter: Alzheimer affects short range memory, not long range as in going back to childhood);<br /><br />- and to Pastor Weems, if they assume he invented the lady or that story from her.<br /><br />1890 was a very bad year for historical scholarship, if - as I think this is - the verdict on cherry tree story is typical.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-74941507000051854132011-04-02T03:53:35.875-05:002011-04-02T03:53:35.875-05:00Oh, after reading the story in the Pastor Weem art...Oh, after reading the story in the Pastor Weem article, it is not even very much to GW's credit.<br /><br />Nor as much to his discredit as I thought.<br /><br />It is not much to the credit technically, since it does not mean hacking down a tree, just wounding it so it dies. It is not as much to his discredit either, since it was an accident.<br /><br />But if he was six years old, not trusting his capacity for lying or not being cynical enough to chose it is no exceptional credit to his honesty.<br /><br />It does say two things about his father: that he could very well have smacked George's bottom thoroughly and made him weep very much if he had knewn the story from someone else and G had just confirmed it or in whatever manner would have pleased him less than the actual one - otherwise the words about heroism are meaningless - and it also shows he was also very effusive of affection when in a good mood to his son.<br /><br />Six years old is not an age in which children are generally capable of deliberate lies. Down's syndromers aren't, and they even get the intelligence level of eight or nine year olds, in some ways. Seven is the usual age counted as a man (=human being) getting to be "capax doli".Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-72834388104134869962011-04-02T03:32:08.029-05:002011-04-02T03:32:08.029-05:00The fact that they do not seem to think old chroni...The fact that they do not seem to think old chroniclers better placed than modern scholars for judging those matters. <br /><br /><i>You need to work on your critical thinking skill if you believe that is the reason that scholars find Weems’ work less than credible.</i><br /><br />Sorry, but I did not say I found that their stated ground, I say I find it their non-stated mission statement, actually stated by a scholar called Weibull - a Swede, a compatriot - under which they say that this or that man is 60 years too late to be considered a source for fact. Not sixty years as in exceptional cases, like born 60 years after deluge = not eyewitness to antediluvian culture, but they say anyone writing 60 years after the facts is too late to be taken into account.<br /><br /><b>The anecdote was first reported by biographer Parson Weems, who after Washington's death interviewed people who knew him as a child.</b> = "first reported" = "first reported in published writings known to us"<br /><br />Interviewing people who knew a man when alive is a very valid method of verifying things. It is not 100% excempt from some of them adding pious lies, more usually excusing what they though otherwise unexcusable than adding praises as if he was too little praised without them.<br /><br /><b>After 1890 however, historians insisted on scientific research methods to validate every story, and there was no evidence apart from Weems' report. Joseph Rodman in 1904 noted that Weems plagiarized other Washington tales from published fiction set in England; no one has found an alternative source for the cherry tree story, but Weems' credibility is questioned</b><br /><br />So much worse for scholars after 1890, then. As for specific argument proferred, the charge of plagiarising fiction includes the unverifiable assumption of the fiction and Weem having no common source in facts: just as with Genesis and Atrahasis, by same set of scholars, or approximately.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9118409153657833547.post-38805967810334756202011-04-02T02:56:20.018-05:002011-04-02T02:56:20.018-05:00Hans-George is Frances version of Ray Comfort. I w...Hans-George is Frances version of Ray Comfort. I wonder if he has a banana video also?<br /><br />Hans, you are one sad,deluded man.<br />What a terrible shame to live ones only life within the confines of religious absurdity. And what a terrible waste of a mind.kilo papahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15112057471953902453noreply@blogger.com