For Wololo Re Critical Thinking About Christianity

[Wololo]

You can see that I love discussion...and I love to type...and I love walls of text. I cut a couple of the quotes so hopefully this post should be shorter.

 

 

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

Of course, Wololo must answer for himself. From what I used to think about this argumentum ad supplicia (appeal to their tortures)-- I used to think that it's not plausible that some of Jesus' disciples knew he had not risen from the dead, passed off this message anyway, and then, when faced with a choice of torture or recantation, would choose torture rather than give up what they knew was their own lie. This argument used to be convincing to me. The case of immediate disciples who may have stolen the body or otherwise concealed Jesus' non-resurrection is different from the case with later martyrs who were not witnesses to the (supposed) events of Easter morning and the immediately following days.

But this is probably obvious, Ravenstar, so we may not be disagreeing over replies to Wololo here.

Whether there were immediate disciples who were later martyred over their Christian testimony is at question. The historical basis for St. Peter's tomb's being beneath the Vatican, for example, is very sketchy (I looked into this in some detail).

 

 

You've pretty much got it. To me it's a pretty strong argument. I suppose the next step on that front is for me to look deeper into the historical records about the disciples, especially the ones who wrote the gospels and the martyrdom of eyewitnesses. If I can establish that they are in fact true (or mostly true), that would strengthen the argument. I'm just hoping I don't end up with only more uncertainty. Uncertainty compounding is a little unpleasant. Pure doubt is not going to convince me though...going to need an actual counter argument. I'm fine with agreeing to disagree though.

 

Just on to make the point that whatever points of RO Wololo is claiming to adhere to does not fit with what RO actually stands for. 

 

The 2 videos I've linked has the major figures of RO explaining the 'myth of the secular.'  We do not need any form of religion to influence any facet of government.  While Wololo is on record that he's for separation of church and state RO (in the John Millbank video) does not. 

 

This is not a minor RO point but one of its core beliefs. 

 

Another of his points that strike me.

Wol stated that for him, "His (jesus') divinity is certainly questionable."  It's quite rare for someone to declare themselves christian and then doubt that jesus was ever divine (although on the other thread he did say that if he were born in the mid-east he'd probably be a muslim).  I'm interested to know his reasoning on that point.

 

Please note the difference between Church and religion that is founded on a certain philosophy. The Church is an organized institution. It has its own motivations and the corruption of people throughout. It must be kept separate from the government because the government already has its own issues. It doesn't need more political influence. The government is already influenced by philosophy. Politics is FILLED with philosophy. Neoliberal economics practically worships people like Ayn Rand. Her philosophy has thoroughly influenced conservative politics. Communism is based on the philosophy of people like Karl Marx. RO is essentially trying to be another one of those voices. It's not so much an institution trying to meddle in the affairs of politics, as it is a different ideology trying to gain a voice. Sure, there are strong links to Christianity, but at its core, it is not controlled by any institution. It doesn't make dogmatic arguments. If you study it enough, you'll find that it's merely proposing an alternative to nihilism and the failure of our current political system.

 

Roz, your critique is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the philosophy stands for and what it hopes to achieve.

 

Wololo, thanks for responding to my post. I can't reliably quote for some reason.

So, you said God is outside the universe and has no mass. Then how can God interact with matter? matter interacts with matter, via energy.

Even to burn something, you need mollecules to vibrate fast enough that the composit breaks down.

RE: intelligent systems, there are companies in Japan and elsewhere working on what you're talking about. But since most machines are constructed by us to serve us, we don't create them with a whole lot of individuality and needs for emotions. The self-aware security sentry in the cloud knows what to watch out for, but behaves a lot more like the Cauldron-Born from Llloyd Alexander's Prydain series.

But anyway. To be outside of something is to be unable to operate within it. The only alternative is if God were outside the universe, but could operate it somehow by remote control. And were that the case, it would be detectable with instruments.

The whole idea of God being outside of spacetime never came into being until we understood the relationship between space and time. The whole idea of God being nonmaterial, or not made of matter, was only realized once we could describe matter. Even the new-age gods made of energy, are only possible due to the extremely elementary understanding of matter/energy relationships that the new agers apparently have.

In fact, when you read Genesis, it's apparent they thought the atmosphere was full of air ad infinitum. They had no concept of space. And, God couldn't just come out and explain to them what space was.

What we have is this god idea evolving, if you will, with our understanding of our world. If God were constant, he would have communicated this to us from day one. After all, I told my daughter at age 4 how a rainbow really works, what the moon is made of, and so forth.

I find some of your ideas interesting, and agree that you seem to really be thinking about it.

I'd also echo what someone else said: Be careful of how much you learn from us. You won't be able to unlearn what you find out, and deconversion is never a choice to disbelieve. You might end up realizing you really don't believe any of it anymore. And that, in the world we live in today, has its problems in relationships and family. Especially young people who can lose access to resources from their parents if they leave the faith, or at least be seriously hounded.

None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it.

 

I don't actually have a complete answer for you. I tried to explain one out and it wasn't fully coherent...so I can't.

 

What I will say though is that revelation over time is important. We can't say that we have a complete picture of something when we've been exposed for a short time. It's the same with God. Over time, we would learn more as our understanding of him and the universe becomes greater. We need to adjust our beliefs to include what we learn rather than rejecting forms of revelation (like science).

 

I don't fear questions. I don't fear a challenge. This may lead to deconversion, or perhaps ultimately it will strengthen my beliefs. I embrace uncertainty, even though I don't like it. When I have a more complete answer, I may come back to talk about it, but for now, it won't help.

[Wololo]

Wololo, your posts are still way too long.  Brevity is a good thing.  Less is more.

If they are shorter, they will be incomplete. I have to articulate myself, and even then, I don't have enough words to do it properly.

 

Wololo: You want us to respond to your points or questions. The questions in your IP appear to me to be rhetorical, as part of your overall thinking. I'm

going respond to your points as I see them. Otherwise this post would be too long. But first I want to point out that your last point, whether god exists, should be your first. That's because if he doesn't, all the other points are moot. Jesus is irrelevant, what you feel in your "soul" doesn't matter, nor do your convictions. Whether the religion resonates with your basic understandings is also irrelevant. Your conclusions about god are quite candid. You said

about god: "It is fundamentally unknowable as it is." That is certainly true. But then you say: "It has been my experience that he does."

 

What you really are saying, I think, is that you don't know, but you chose to believe in god. That certainly would be commendable in Xtian circles, but it means absolutely nothing if is wholly without basis. And it is without basis. Your belief in god is a feeling based upon non specified experience. You have

set forth your opinions without listing any supporting evidence. For, example, you have come to the conclusion that god created the universe because he is

outside of it. You have no evidence that god exists much less that he is outside of the universe. You have put together an essay based upon your opinions

which are based upon no evidence. But I understand your frustration in your search, since I went through basically the same process. Nice try. bill

 

What I mean is that it is unknowable with true certainty. That isn't to say one cannot be informed about it and think it is possible. I argue with logic and I study science enthusiastically. The problem is that all the evidence I supply, ALL of it, it dismissed immediately. You say I have no evidence because you won't let me have any. My experience is not something I can argue from reliably, but in the end it may be all that matters. Even if I'm wrong, I just die. That's it. I have nothing to lose through believing in God, even if I don't have enough evidence to be certain that it is true.

 

Note: We don't even agree on what determines evidence. I reject that empirical evidence is the only evidence in existence.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

I have 25 years experience in business writing and editing.  When we are starting out, we all think what we have to say is so important that it needs a lot of words.  With experience you learn that if you are wordy, people just won't read your stuff.  It's TL:DR.

[sdelsolray]

I am only going to address one of poster Wololo’s lines of argument at the present time.  I might address others later, or not.  The analyzed line of argument presented by Wololo centers around his use of the argument from popularity fallacy and a demonstration of how he twists it into the claim that the existence of his particular God is plausible, reasonable and not extraordinary.  

 

Part 1.

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005717

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “I’m actually going to start with your second point because that's the best starting point. God is plausible. Since time immemorial, humans have to some extent believed in some form of deity or deities. There seems to be something in us that is predisposed to that sort of belief. This is why it's not unreasonable or extraordinary to consider that there is a creator.”

 

Analysis:  Note how Wololo starts with the claim that “God is plausible”.  He follows this with apparent supporting evidence that humans have always believed in some kind of sky fairy.  While not to the fully fallacious level of, “Many humans believe in God therefore God exists”, his “evidence” is nevertheless a lukewarm version of the argument from popularity with a side salad of non-sequitur (the non-sequitur being the conflation of belief with plausibility).  Next, he concludes, “it's not unreasonable or extraordinary to consider that there is a [God] creator.”  He’s doubled down.  Now, he conflates belief with whether considering something is (or is not) reasonable and whether considering something is (or is not) extraordinary.

 

In short, Wololo makes the following argument:

 

P:  Many humans throughout history have believed in God.

C:  God is therefore plausible.

C:  The claim that God actually exists is considered reasonable and is not an extraordinary claim.

 

Simply put, Wololo’s entire argument here relies on the argument from popularity fallacy.  It is therefore rejected.

 

Part 2:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005717

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “As I understand it, the claim that there is a God creator is not extraordinary. Not only has it been a part of our humanity since time immemorial, but if there is supposed to be a beginning, it is most likely that there is a source or a cause.“

 

Analysis:  Now (as Wololo “understands” it), the existence of God is firmly established as a non-extraordinary claim.  Cute.  Note the addition of the first cause reference and the implied mere assertion (without evidence or argument) that this God of his is the first cause.  And, just for fun, if you read the remainder of that post, he is careful with his admonition of other posters about not listening to him in prior posts, or not having the courtesy to respond to him.

 

Part 3:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005922

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us. I'm saying that the idea of God is reasonable and not extraordinary. We have a predisposition to it, so to call it outrageous or absurd is just not true.”

 

Analysis:  Wololo repeats his fallacious argument.  Note how he equates the word popularity with reasonable.  No argument.  Just magic.  Popular belief somehow becomes reasoned argument.

 

Part 4:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65436-what-makes-us-different/?p=1006079

 

Quote:  “To claim there is a creator God is not extraordinary.”

 

Analysis:  Yes, firmly established.  Note how Wololo's God now has the added attribute of creator.  Because Wololo says so.  Do not question this claim.

 

Part 5:

 

Conclusion:  Wololo’s argument on this narrow point is fallacious from beginning to end, contains conflation and equivocation and is basically full of shit.  To the extent he relies on it in other arguments he renders those arguments suspect, if not outright fallacious themselves.

 

 

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Wololo, this is how to write with brevity, clarity and style:

 

 

Conclusion:  Wololo’s argument on this narrow point is fallacious from beginning to end, contains conflation and equivocation and is basically full of shit.  To the extent he relies on it in other arguments he makes renders those arguments suspect, if not outright fallacious themselves.

 

(sdelsolray)

[Wololo]

I am only going to address one of poster Wololo’s lines of argument at the present time.  I might address others later, or not.  The analyzed line of argument presented by Wololo centers around his use of the argument from popularity fallacy and a demonstration of how he twists it into the claim that the existence of his particular God is plausible, reasonable and not extraordinary.  

 

Part 1.

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005717

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “I’m actually going to start with your second point because that's the best starting point. God is plausible. Since time immemorial, humans have to some extent believed in some form of deity or deities. There seems to be something in us that is predisposed to that sort of belief. This is why it's not unreasonable or extraordinary to consider that there is a creator.”

 

Analysis:  Note how Wololo starts with the claim that “God is plausible”.  He follows this with apparent supporting evidence that humans have always believed in some kind of sky fairy.  While not to the fully fallacious level of, “Many humans believe in God therefore God exists”, his “evidence” is nevertheless a lukewarm version of the argument from popularity with a side salad of non-sequitur (the non-sequitur being the conflation of belief with plausibility).  Next, he concludes, “it's not unreasonable or extraordinary to consider that there is a [God] creator.”  He’s doubled down.  Now, he conflates belief with whether considering something is (or is not) reasonable and whether considering something is (or is not) extraordinary.

 

In short, Wololo makes the following argument:

 

P:  Many humans throughout history have believed in God.

C:  God is therefore plausible.

C:  The claim that God actually exists is considered reasonable and is not an extraordinary claim.

 

Simply put, Wololo’s entire argument here relies on the argument from popularity fallacy.  It is therefore rejected.

 

Part 2:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005717

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “As I understand it, the claim that there is a God creator is not extraordinary. Not only has it been a part of our humanity since time immemorial, but if there is supposed to be a beginning, it is most likely that there is a source or a cause.“

 

Analysis:  Now (as Wololo “understands” it), the existence of God is firmly established as a non-extraordinary claim.  Cute.  Note the addition of the first cause reference and the implied mere assertion (without evidence or argument) that this God of his is the first cause.  And, just for fun, if you read the remainder of that post, he is careful with his admonition of other posters about not listening to him in prior posts, or not having the courtesy to respond to him.

 

Part 3:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1005922

 

Wololo’s quote from the source:  “I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us. I'm saying that the idea of God is reasonable and not extraordinary. We have a predisposition to it, so to call it outrageous or absurd is just not true.”

 

Analysis:  Wololo repeats his fallacious argument.  Note how he equates the word popularity with reasonable.  No argument.  Just magic.  Popular belief somehow becomes reasoned argument.

 

Part 4:

 

Source:  http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65436-what-makes-us-different/?p=1006079

 

Quote:  “To claim there is a creator God is not extraordinary.”

 

Analysis:  Yes, firmly established.  Note how Wololo's God now has the added attribute of creator.  Because Wololo says so.  Do not question this claim.

 

Part 5:

 

Conclusion:  Wololo’s argument on this narrow point is fallacious from beginning to end, contains conflation and equivocation and is basically full of shit.  To the extent he relies on it in other arguments he renders those arguments suspect, if not outright fallacious themselves.

 

For claiming to be so rational, you people sure rely on straw men and distorting someone's statements.

 

Part 1: We need to establish what makes something believable or not. I'm NOT saying that the existence of God is proven by popularity. I'm saying that its continued popularity means that it is at its core, believable. It's not extreme or extraordinary to say it. That is all I was saying there. A logical fallacy is irrelevant to a statement about whether or not something is plausible or believable. It isn't extraordinary to claim God exists. This is partially due to its continued popularity. That is to say that the possibility of God's existence is not a gigantic claim. It certainly would need further evidence and I have not been trying to prove it. I am claiming that continued popularity means something is believable. In order to continue, of course you'd have to agree with that premise. If you don't agree, then nothing further would be worth discussing. Perhaps you want me to expand on that point or use examples.

 

Part 2: Here I am continuing after having made a point. In part 1 I was trying to establish that God is plausible. If you do not accept that, any continuation is moot. Anything further doesn't matter. Why bother? To continue, I started on a second thread concerning the beginning of the universe. There are a lot of assumptions (like the fact that there is a beginning and such). Do you really want to start arguing backward until we find an axiom we agree on? It's absurd. You people love to keep suspending ANY form of assent to the point where it becomes comical.

 

Part 3: See part 1.

 

Part 4: Merely restating my initial point. We still haven't moved past that, as you're making completely clear.

 

Part 5: It is a narrow point, and I dispute that it is fallacious because you're making a straw man. I didn't argue that God exists or God is creator because the concept of him is popular. Yeesh. Put that straw man in the trash bin.

 

EDIT: I wasn't even proving that God is creator. I'm merely stating that the concept is believable.

[Ravenstar]

Ravenstar, on 29 Oct 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

 

No, the ONLY thing I'm arguing on that front is that they didn't make the gospels up. If they had made it up, they most certainly wouldn't have been martyred for them. Nobody makes up a story and then dies for it. That's all I'm saying on that front.

 

 

I think you misunderstand me. First off.. the disciples did not write the gospels… they were written after the fact… much later. They are stories passed down by word of mouth and later written down. We don't know the identity of the gospel writers but we are pretty sure it was not contemporaries. That THEY believed the gospels were true… I will grant that. Were they martyred for their beliefs? Martyred at all? We can't establish that.. we can't even establish that all of them existed as real people. Maybe they were… but the Romans were not in the habit of executing people for religion in itself. Sedition? yes. Treason? Most certainly. Disturbing the peace or creating unrest? Maybe… in some cases, sure. (They might just have enslaved people and put them to work on building roads) The way the Romans ruled was to accept most of their conquered peoples as they were as long as they paid their taxes and didn't cause trouble… they weren't trying to convert people to the Roman pantheon - the Romans were NOT evangelists. Their empire was too vast, too diverse and it would have caused more problems for them.

 

Of course people die for their beliefs… what else would they die for? Doesn't make the gospels true… it just makes the belief in the gospels true.

[Vigile]

 

 

Hi, Ravenstar, true, but Wololo's contention is that the apostles (or most of them) did not die for what they believed was false. So their testimony gains credibility.

 

I can't see how a second hand story about what men who may have never even existed lends credibility.  We don't even have writings from any of them.

 

On the argument from the apostle's martyrdoms, here is what Candida Moss says in The Myth of Persecution. How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (Harper Collins 2013).  Moss teaches at Notre Dame;  as far as I know, she's a Catholic, though not right-wing.  Not enough is on Google Books, so I summarize/quote.

 

Moss acknowledges that "a lot is at stake in the martyrdom of the followers of Jesus" (p. 135).  "Even if we might not agree with the apostles' decision to die, we might still find ourselves conceding that they wouldn't have been willing to die if they hadn't really seen something.

     This entire argument hinges upon the idea that the apostles were actually executed for being Christians.  This means (1) that they thought of themselves as Christians, (2) that the motivation for their arrests and executions was that they were Christians rather than troublemakers, and (3) that they actually were arrested and executed.  Of these three assumptions, the third is the most important...

     The problem here is that our sources for these events are the stuff of legend, not history.  The documents that contain the stories of the deaths of the apostles, the apocryphal acts of the apostles, were written many, perhaps hundreds, of years after the events they purport to describe.  Even the five earliest apocryphal acts of the apostles -- the Acts of Peter, Acts of Paul, Acts of Thomas, Acts of Andrew, and Acts of John -- were composed in the second century under the influence of the Greek romance novel." (she gives a footnote on that influence)  "This is to say nothing about the unreliability of the stories pertaining to the other apostles."

  Continuing, p. 136:

15 different versions of deaths of Peter and Paul

Acts of Peter, the earliest, dated by most scholars to final decades of second century

Clement of Rome says Peter was killed "on account of jealousy" not  (p. 137) because he was a Christian, doesn't mention Peter as crucified upside down or indeed give any detail about his death

It's believable that apostles might have been arrested as seditionists if they attracted crowds or seemed to promote unrest.  They could have been executed as revolutionaries or for disturbing the peace

we don't know whether they were given chance to recant  (esp. if arrested for political/criminal reasons of the Romans)

Acts of other apostles filled with fanciful details like talking animals, resurrected smoked fish, flying magicians

 

Moss concludes that these stories cannot be used as evidence for the truth of the resurrection etc.  138  "The stories about the apostles tell us a great deal about how early Christians thought about and valued suffering and death, but they are not historical accounts and they do not demonstrate that Christians were persecuted."

 

Emphasis by Ficino:  if some apostles were arrested for political/criminal reasons, in the eyes of the Romans, and executed, they need not have been offered their lives in exchange for recanting their beliefs.  Or, if they did abjure their Christian testimony, we have no way of knowing, since we don't have reliable reports of the circumstances. 

 

The stories of apostolic martyrdoms are even more laced with elements of romance and legend than are a good chunk of the gospels.  Appeals to them in arguments for the truth of the resurrection accounts are not grounded in historically secure evidence.

 

One must remember that the second century is a period when there was a "market" for martyr stories of many kinds: Jewish martyrs, pagan martyrs, philosophical martyrs as well as Christians.  The notion that martyrdom is part of robust religion goes back at least to the Judaism of the pre-Maccabean period. 

 

 

Thanks.  In addition, just guessing here, I wouldn't be surprised if the martyrdom was more politically than religiously motivated.  If the Romans saw a threat to their empire in the form of a religiously-oriented political movement, they would have nipped it in the bud.  To me, this makes more sense, given my understanding of the Romans and their methods. 

[midniterider]

 

Deconversion is never a choice to disbelieve.

 

----

 

For a large majority, I agree. But I think I could choose either way.

[midniterider]

 

Wololo, thanks for responding to my post. I can't reliably quote for some reason.

So, you said God is outside the universe and has no mass. Then how can God interact with matter? matter interacts with matter, via energy.

Even to burn something, you need mollecules to vibrate fast enough that the composit breaks down.

RE: intelligent systems, there are companies in Japan and elsewhere working on what you're talking about. But since most machines are constructed by us to serve us, we don't create them with a whole lot of individuality and needs for emotions. The self-aware security sentry in the cloud knows what to watch out for, but behaves a lot more like the Cauldron-Born from Llloyd Alexander's Prydain series.

But anyway. To be outside of something is to be unable to operate within it. The only alternative is if God were outside the universe, but could operate it somehow by remote control. And were that the case, it would be detectable with instruments.

The whole idea of God being outside of spacetime never came into being until we understood the relationship between space and time. The whole idea of God being nonmaterial, or not made of matter, was only realized once we could describe matter. Even the new-age gods made of energy, are only possible due to the extremely elementary understanding of matter/energy relationships that the new agers apparently have.

In fact, when you read Genesis, it's apparent they thought the atmosphere was full of air ad infinitum. They had no concept of space. And, God couldn't just come out and explain to them what space was.

What we have is this god idea evolving, if you will, with our understanding of our world. If God were constant, he would have communicated this to us from day one. After all, I told my daughter at age 4 how a rainbow really works, what the moon is made of, and so forth.

I find some of your ideas interesting, and agree that you seem to really be thinking about it.

I'd also echo what someone else said: Be careful of how much you learn from us. You won't be able to unlearn what you find out, and deconversion is never a choice to disbelieve. You might end up realizing you really don't believe any of it anymore. And that, in the world we live in today, has its problems in relationships and family. Especially young people who can lose access to resources from their parents if they leave the faith, or at least be seriously hounded.

None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it.

 

 

"None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it."

 

 

What prohibitions on literature?

 

Please, give it a rest.

 

You seem to have God all figured out and in your pocket of disbelief.

 

I don't.

 

 

The Pentecostals never prohibited me from reading science books. Some didnt like that confounded rock and roll music though. I do remember one time there was a list of off-limits subjects someone compiled such as astral projection, Ouija boards and other competing spiritual stuff they thought was evil. But I don't live in the bible belt so maybe science learning is frowned upon elsewhere.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

Ravenstar, on 29 Oct 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

 

No, the ONLY thing I'm arguing on that front is that they didn't make the gospels up. If they had made it up, they most certainly wouldn't have been martyred for them. Nobody makes up a story and then dies for it. That's all I'm saying on that front.

 

 

I think you misunderstand me. First off.. the disciples did not write the gospels… they were written after the fact… much later. They are stories passed down by word of mouth and later written down. We don't know the identity of the gospel writers but we are pretty sure it was not contemporaries. That THEY believed the gospels were true… I will grant that. Were they martyred for their beliefs? Martyred at all? We can't establish that.. we can't even establish that all of them existed as real people. Maybe they were… but the Romans were not in the habit of executing people for religion in itself. Sedition? yes. Treason? Most certainly. Disturbing the peace or creating unrest? Maybe… in some cases, sure. (They might just have enslaved people and put them to work on building roads) The way the Romans ruled was to accept most of their conquered peoples as they were as long as they paid their taxes and didn't cause trouble… they weren't trying to convert people to the Roman pantheon - the Romans were NOT evangelists. Their empire was too vast, too diverse and it would have caused more problems for them.

 

Of course people die for their beliefs… what else would they die for? Doesn't make the gospels true… it just makes the belief in the gospels true.

 

Yes, we're in agreement on this.

 

BTW I think there's a quote function error in yours, Ravenstar;  "No, the ONLY thing ... on that front" are Wololo's words, which didn't make it into a quotation box.

[♦ ficino ♦]

This actually touches on something really important. No matter what we do with philosophy, it must be grounded in an empirical reality, because it's the world that we interact with all the time. Logic and mathematics (which are the only things we can be absolutely certain are real according to structural realism, which I am a proponent of) are what underlie everything. They should be the foundation of everything we believe.

Here's your platonism, heh heh, now as classic mathematical platonism. I've never really grappled with that. I think in yours above, though, "underlie" is vague and needs a lot of unpacking.

 

The central focus of Christianity is on love for others. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. From a Christian perspective, I can make a very very large argument to set up what many of us feel is the original thrust of Christianity (RO is really big on truly fundamental beliefs). Basically my objection is centered on the fact that we use our opposition to it to deprive those people of rights...to deprive them of equality. We oppress them instead of treating them like fellow humans. These people don't choose to be what they are...it's just what they are. I don't recall Jesus telling people not to be homosexual. In fact, I don't recall him judging the marginalized in society at all. It's supposed to be about love for others and love for everyone (just as God loved us...as it goes). There was a time when I tried to argue against homosexuality saying that it was unnatural. I later learned that I was wrong (through rigorous study), and reformed the belief. If they are going to be judged, it is not my place to do it anyway. My job is to love people regardless of who they are. We have a family friend that's homosexual. He's running for city council in a city nearby and we support him. We even went to his wedding (I'll admit it was hard to stomach though). In my favourite forum on the internet, there are several people that are transgender or have changed their gender from the one they had at birth. I care about those people irrespective of their orientation. My objection to condemning them is that not only are they still humans, but they are still capable of love, just like the rest of us. What I ask other Christians is: "Are those people incapable of expressing love like we do?" If the central theme in Christianity is supposed to be love, then why are we abandoning it to judge others?

Cool, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm guessing that full-bore proponents of Radical Orthodoxy, if they really want religion to dominate the public sphere, may side with those who seek to keep LGBT people in a second-class position or even deny them any position, but I don't know that.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

I used to think that it's not plausible that some of Jesus' disciples knew he had not risen from the dead, passed off this message anyway, and then, when faced with a choice of torture or recantation, would choose torture rather than give up what they knew was their own lie. This argument used to be convincing to me. The case of immediate disciples who may have stolen the body or otherwise concealed Jesus' non-resurrection is different from the case with later martyrs who were not witnesses to the (supposed) events of Easter morning and the immediately following days.

 

...

 

Whether there were immediate disciples who were later martyred over their Christian testimony is at question. The historical basis for St. Peter's tomb's being beneath the Vatican, for example, is very sketchy (I looked into this in some detail).

 

You've pretty much got it. To me it's a pretty strong argument. I suppose the next step on that front is for me to look deeper into the historical records about the disciples, especially the ones who wrote the gospels and the martyrdom of eyewitnesses.

 

It's actually a very weak argument. It amounts to trying to establish the plausibility of a HUGELY improbable proposition, sc. Jesus rose bodily from the dead, using an argument that relies on stories even less historically grounded than the gospels themselves. You basically need faith in the traditions of apostolic martyrdoms to support faith in the resurrection, so the apostolic martyrdom piece of the reasoning winds up doing no work. See my #44 in this thread.

 

Wololo, you've appealed to the long and widespread history of religious belief. I've noticed recently that there are studies of humans' propensity toward magical thinking and toward attributing intention to phenomena that intention does little or nothing to explain (e.g. "Everything happens for a reason..."). Researchers are postulating that these modes of thinking conferred survival advantages as we evolved. You need various assumptions to establish "God/gods exists/exist" as an Aristotelian endoxon.

[directionless]

Wololo, I wish you would describe your beliefs about God and Jesus instead of explaining step-by-step why you came to these beliefs. If we have a clear description of your beliefs then we can try to show how those beliefs contradict science, history, logic, etc.

 

I don't have the background in philosophy to understand your justifications and explanations for choosing your beliefs, but those justifications really don't matter (burning bush, philosophy books, whatever). I suspect that if you will simply tell us what you believe then somebody here can find some holes in your beliefs.

 

Here is a quote from a philosophy of religion website showing some of the possibilities:

Within the Arguments for Atheism section, the arguments are arranged under the following headings: The Presumption of Atheism, The Problem of Evil, Problems with Divine Omnipotence (including the paradox of the stone), Problems with Divine Omniscience, Problems with Divine Justice, Problems with Immortality, Problems with Original Sin, Problems with Petitionary Prayer, The Argument from Autonomy, The Psychogenesis of Religion, and Religion and Memetics.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-atheism/

[bornagainathiest]

Wololo wrote...

Perhaps that's why the vocab came back lacking...but you're on the right track. What I'm arguing is that regardless of cultural and scientific changes to our, the concept of God continues to exist, making it a plausible concept. I wouldn't say it goes unquestioned. Especially over the past few hundred years, it has been very heavily questioned. With the explosion of population on the planet, it's becoming even more popular to question it. Of course, you could certainly argue that the reason it exists still is because of dogma, and there is some truth to that...but dogma does not appeal to all of us. When I hear platitudes from the pulpit...and when I hear other people spouting doctrine like the purest of facts, I wrinkle my nose. If God exists, why should he fear my questioning? I'm a puny human, if there's a God, what threat am I to him? This is why we should question religion and question God...we have nothing to lose either way. Either he doesn't exist and we will confirm this is the case, or he does and we will be vindicated. To not question is just stupid. If I was afraid of questions and hard attacks, I wouldn't be here.

 

It's the way that you're using the word 'reasonable' that I'm taking issue with, Wololo.

Specifically in your response to Vigile in post # 22, yesterday.  Here...

 

Vigile, on 28 Oct 2014 - 06:36 AM, said:

People have always believed in gods (ad populum fallacy) and I can't otherwise explain why the universe exists (god of the gaps fallacy), in addition to appeals to emotion are quite the opposite of critical thinking my man. 

 

You appear to me to be a smart guy.  You're just not using your thinking cap. 

 

Wololo wrote...

Logical fallacies exist for proofs. I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us. I'm saying that the idea of God is reasonable and not extraordinary. We have a predisposition to it, so to call it outrageous or absurd is just not true.

 

This thread concerns critical thinking, not perpetuated popularity or human predispositions.

Critical thinking uses reason to discover what is reasonable and what isn't.  That which is found wanting is not called reasonable - it's something else.  In this thread you've changed the meaning of the word 'reasonable' to mean something else, like this.

 

1. If God is popular and his popularity is perpetuated, then God is "reasonable" and is therefore not extraordinary.

 

2. If we have a predisposition towards God, then God is "reasonable" and he is therefore neither outrageous nor absurd.

 

Both of these are wrong. Neither of them shows the use of critical thinking and reason.

The first relies on perpetuated popularity, not reason and so cannot be legitimately called, 'reasonable'.  Only something that is reasoned can be accorded the title, 'reasonable'.  If something both popular and perpetuated were reasonable (in the way that you're using that word) then SLAVERY would count as being reasonable.  Slavery has been popular for thousands of years and has been perpetuated for generations.  By your criteria of popularity and perpetuation, slavery is entirely reasonable.  Is that really the way you want the word reasonable to be used?

 

Example # 2 erroneously calls an innate human disposition towards God... 'reasonable'.

Unless you are employing the fallacy of Special Pleading to claim that ONLY our predisposition towards God is reasonable, by your logic, ALL innate human predispositions are reasonable.  Is that really what you're saying here, Wololo?  That our innate human predisposition towards violence is... reasonable? 

 

As mentioned above, only the proper use of reason and critical thinking makes something 'reasonable'.

Using that word in any other way in a thread about critical thinking is disingenuous and/or fatally flawed.   It therefore falls to you Wololo, to use your reason and your critical thinking skills... properly.  For you to define and use the word 'reasonable'... properly.

For you to do justice to the word reasonable.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[RipVanWinkle]

Evidence is that which can be scientifically verified. Otherwise it is either mere opinion or speculation. bill

[midniterider]

Good points, BAA, (message 65).

 

Foolishness can be legitimized through repetition and popularity. It's not that the absurd is reasonable, it's that the absurdity is so common it is not questioned. It raises no eyebrows.

 

Legitimized foolishness is only evidence of legitimized foolishness.

[florduh]

I'll take number 2:

 

 

I believe God exists.

 

I will never believe that this universe and the life I see on earth all came from nothing and just evolved.

Why would you "never believe" in evolution (for which there is overwhelming proof) yet believe (your) god is the only alternative to something you don't comprehend? Do you comprehend your god, or are his ways not your ways?

 

"I don't believe (understand) evolution or the big bang theory or geology or biology, therefore I do believe in an invisible and undetectable entity that invented and runs the universe." That makes no sense, and much less is it an example of critical thinking.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Wololo, I must say that this thread has demonstrated that you've put more thought into your beliefs than was apparent from the first several posts I saw of yours in other threads. I do commend you for being much further along than most Christians.

 

However, you're still demonstrating that you really are not the skeptic that you assert you are. You rely heavily on philosophical perceptions and unsubstantiated claims by the church, which are not real evidence. For example, you keep falling back to this argument:

 

 

People do not die as martyrs for things they know are lies. I'm not sure how I could be clearer. Every single one of the original followers after the death of Jesus went to his or her grave believing what they wrote. If they had made it all up, they would have recanted. Someone would have recanted. None of them did. Clearly they were fervent believers in their own writing. If they weren't absolutely certain in what they wrote, they would have given it up.

 

 

Like you, I used to think this was a strong argument. However, it only seems sound if you assume that all those unsubstantiated details are actually true. It requires that you assume that the Gospels are reliable sources of information (which is undermined by numerous problems in those texts), assume that the characters really existed and had seen a risen Jesus (despite those serious problems in the Gospels), assume that the church tradition of these characters being put to death is true (without any evidence), assume that their deaths were due to their religious beliefs (which is unsubstantiated), and assume that they had an opportunity to recant and refused (which is also unsubstantiated).

 

You've indicated that you don't believe a lot of things claimed by the church (the Trinity, etc.), so why would you blindly assume that the church is correct about their martyr stories? Even if those disciples existed and were put to death, it has been pointed out to you already that Rome didn't kill people for holding religious beliefs, but they did put people to death for being troublemakers. That would indicate that if those disciples existed and were put to death, then the most probable explanation is that their executions were because Rome saw them as troublemakers, in which case there would have been no reason to offer them an escape by recanting their faith. Simply put, the church's martyr stories are highly unlikely to be accurate accounts, and at the very least it renders the martyrdom apologetics claim to be an extremely weak argument.

 

If you were really as skeptical as we are (as you have claimed to be), then you would NOT be parroting that flimsy argument. So, even though you're more of a thinker than most Christians, you're still blindly swallowing completely unsubstantiated stuff that you were indoctrinated with.

[ironhorse]

 

I'll take number 2:

 

 

I believe God exists.

 

I will never believe that this universe and the life I see on earth all came from nothing and just evolved.

Why would you "never believe" in evolution (for which there is overwhelming proof) yet believe (your) god is the only alternative to something you don't comprehend? Do you comprehend your god, or are his ways not your ways?

 

"I don't believe (understand) evolution or the big bang theory or geology or biology, therefore I do believe in an invisible and undetectable entity that invented and runs the universe." That makes no sense, and much less is it an example of critical thinking.

 

 

 

Even Darwin had doubts on his theory. His letters, expressing this, and excerpts from his book are online to read.

 

Also, a lot online on recent discoveries that are causing questioning and doubts on evolution.

 

Reading is fun.

[Orbit]

Since time immemorial, humans have to some extent believed in some form of deity or deities.

Actually this is not true. Many primitive tribes do not have deities, but believe in animism, which is nowhere near a deity concept.

 

There seems to be something in us that is predisposed to that sort of belief.

Yes, evolutionary psychologists call this the "theory of mind" and we have it for evolutionary reasons; our tendency to attribute agency kept us from being eaten. It has nothing to do with anything else.

 

This is why it's not unreasonable or extraordinary to consider that there is a creator.

But it is more reasonable to be parsimonious and believe there is NOT a creator. Plus, as Lawrence Krauss shows in his book "A Universe from Nothing", no creator is needed for the universe to come into existence.

 

The rest of the post interestingly suggests a panentheistic God (immanent in and transcending Creation--not a Christian concept), but there's not much else I can really comment on.

[Orbit]

 

 

I'll take number 2:

 

 

I believe God exists.

 

I will never believe that this universe and the life I see on earth all came from nothing and just evolved.

Why would you "never believe" in evolution (for which there is overwhelming proof) yet believe (your) god is the only alternative to something you don't comprehend? Do you comprehend your god, or are his ways not your ways?

 

"I don't believe (understand) evolution or the big bang theory or geology or biology, therefore I do believe in an invisible and undetectable entity that invented and runs the universe." That makes no sense, and much less is it an example of critical thinking.

 

 

 

Even Darwin had doubts on his theory. His letters, expressing this, and excerpts from his book are online to read.

 

Also, a lot online on recent discoveries that are causing questioning and doubts on evolution.

 

Reading is fun.

 

This is a lie. Nothing is "casting doubt" on evolution. More evidence comes to light each day in support of it. Please spare us the link to creationist pseudo-science websites.

[sdelsolray]

 

 

I'll take number 2:

 

 

I believe God exists.

 

I will never believe that this universe and the life I see on earth all came from nothing and just evolved.

Why would you "never believe" in evolution (for which there is overwhelming proof) yet believe (your) god is the only alternative to something you don't comprehend? Do you comprehend your god, or are his ways not your ways?

 

"I don't believe (understand) evolution or the big bang theory or geology or biology, therefore I do believe in an invisible and undetectable entity that invented and runs the universe." That makes no sense, and much less is it an example of critical thinking.

 

 

 

Even Darwin had doubts on his theory. His letters, expressing this, and excerpts from his book are online to read.

 

Also, a lot online on recent discoveries that are causing questioning and doubts on evolution.

 

Reading is fun.

 

See Spot run.  

 

See Dick and Jane climb.

 

See willfully ignorant theist squirm.

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

I'll take number 2:

 

 

I believe God exists.

 

I will never believe that this universe and the life I see on earth all came from nothing and just evolved.

Why would you "never believe" in evolution (for which there is overwhelming proof) yet believe (your) god is the only alternative to something you don't comprehend? Do you comprehend your god, or are his ways not your ways?

 

"I don't believe (understand) evolution or the big bang theory or geology or biology, therefore I do believe in an invisible and undetectable entity that invented and runs the universe." That makes no sense, and much less is it an example of critical thinking.

 

 

 

Even Darwin had doubts on his theory. His letters, expressing this, and excerpts from his book are online to read.

 

Also, a lot online on recent discoveries that are causing questioning and doubts on evolution.

 

Reading is fun.

 

 

Telling the truth about yourself isn't so much fun, is it, IH?

 

Is that why you don't do it?

.

.

.

Posted 30 October 2014 - 01:28 AM

ironhorse, on 29 Oct 2014 - 11:02 PM, said:

 

florduh, on 29 Oct 2014 - 8:18 PM, said:

The men who wrote the Bible say that men have two arms and two legs. Men actually DO have two arms and two legs; therefore the Bible is the Word of God!

 

Got it, dumbass?

 

(See, the Den was the right place for this all along. I hope some lurkers can learn a lesson from reading it.)

 

 

I agree. I am praying the lurkers are reading these posts.

 

 

Since you're so concerned about the lurkers Ironhorse, no doubt you'll want them to know the truth about you?

 

That you can't be trusted, that you break your promises and that you've had a thread shut down for trolling, right?

 

So, here's your chance to fess up to these things.

.

.

.

The lurkers will now want to see how much this Christian loves the truth!

[♦ ficino ♦]

Too bad that this thread, which had some significant content when Wololo was involved, has degenerated into the usual bullshit with Ironhorse.