Perfect Fool: Recent Comments

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

The Fool — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:46:56 GMT

I can't be bothered even to read this. How on Earth can you have an email discussion that takes place at a slower pace than if it were conducted via semaphore?

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

Tyler — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:36:02 GMT

(part 2)

-The 'works of antiquity' that you refer to are a problematic lot.

i said "all the works of antiquity". are all the works of antiquity problematic? I don't think we are referring to the same things here. No one would take you seriously if you meant that.

-Yet there has been a great deal of legend-building around [Jesus]
False. There are over 5000 copies of the Greek NT documents alone. The originals were produced within, from the standpoint of historical research, a satisfactorily short span of time after the events occurred. There are also writings by enemies of Christians and the Early Church Fathers. In all of these, even in the apocryphal gospels written by later sects with axes to grind, there is a consistent picture of Jesus the Messiah, and the messianic significance of all that He said and did. If this was Legend, where are the historical documents that point to Jesus as "just a man"? To conclude that Jesus as God was a later addition would be intellectually dishonest. The first Christians and the Apostles certainly believed Jesus was God; and that is no small point. The evidence for the NT writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning.

-Washington Irving and ..repeated for generations.-
Misinformation about GW is clearly traceable and/or disprovable by historical record. The same goes for misinformation about Jesus (the gnostic gospels for example). Here you are comparing GWs teeth to JW's divinity though. That's an apples to oranges comparison in terms of historical records. A more suitable comparison might be GWs presidency to JW's divinity. We can sight some legend about GW's teeth that is historically shaky, that doesn't discount or even compare to the historical attestation to his presidency. We can cite some legend about Jesus being married that is historically shaky, that doesn't discount or even compare to the historical attestation to his divinity.

"But failure ... be true…"

i agree. at what point do we accept anything from history though? we accept many other things as fact from history that have exponentially less information to back them up.

It's one thing to choose not to believe the historical record, but it's quite another to say the record is inaccurate. The evidence for the historical accuracy of the NT is rather daunting, and attempts to discount its authenticity as legend lack any real substance. I might recommend F.F. Bruce's “New Testament Documents, Are they Reliable” (which I have used to help me write this reply) if it would not offend you.

At any rate, I know we disagree on this, and that's ok. It makes for good debate when it remains respectful. No point in going round and round on it though. Perhaps, precisely because we can struggle with our faith at times, we have events like Our Lady of Guadalupe, Fatima, Lourdes; the conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne etc. today.

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

Tyler — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:31:56 GMT

(part 1 of 2)

Why so condescending? Is it necessary?

I'll apologize in advance for the multi part reply, but you've levied quite a number of accusations now that have to be addressed. Perhaps we can stick to fewer points per post for the sake of brevity.

-I'll ignore the disingenuous first comment.
actually, i wasn't trying to be disingenuous, I sincerely did not understand how you were getting bifurcation from my response, but now i think I see where our miscommunication was. one could read my original statement as a bifurcation, or one could read it as I intended it which was inquiring as to one option in a given set of options without making an assumption as to the other options. the latter was the case here. sorry for any ambiguity on my part.

you know what's interesting that i just thought of though? everything is technically a bifurcation. there is always some "other" option we are excluding (though that option may not be probable). I think Descartes perhaps went down this line of sorts before he finally arrived at “i think therefore I am”.

i actually learned a lot from your article. i found it when i was searching for logical fallacies online. then it started attacking Christianity etc and here we are. :)

-Leaving aside the absurdity of anyone thinking the writers of the gospels actually saw the events they describe
that depends on the book right? Genesis? no.. Paul's letters? Yes. The NT was substantially complete within the lifetime of the Apostles (~100 AD).

-does this mean you're.. because that presents .. --of some of his accounts.

Roman Catholic. Since the Church's authority determined the canon of Scripture at the Synod of Hippo, I'll quote the same authority in regard to discrepancies:
"In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things that he wanted. Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth that God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" (Dei Verbum 11: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html ).

Thus, the Bible is inerrant in the truths it teaches for the sake of salvation. As an aside though, many of the discrepancies we might be thinking of result from translation difficulties between Aramaic and Greek. In many places where the Greek differs, the underlying Aramaic is the same. I think you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

(to be continued...)

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

The Fool — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:11:56 GMT

I'll ignore the disingenuous first comment.

I love this comment: "of course the details don't line up--it's an eye-witness account." Leaving aside the absurdity of anyone thinking the writers of the gospels actually saw the events they describe, does this mean you're not one of those "the-Bible-is-the-inerrant-word-of-god" people? Because that presents a problem for the believer. If the Bible IS inerrant as so many claim, why don't the accounts line up? And if it is NOT inerrant, then in how is it God's word? And in what sense can it be used as a reliable source of belief? I mean, how do you decide what's a simple, unimportant discrepancy (if there can be such a thing) and what is a steaming pile of crap designed to lead people astray? It's not as if John wrote footnotes to explain the silliness--not to say impossibility--of some of his accounts.

The "works of antiquity" that you refer to are a problematic lot. Many have been doctored by pious gits. Others are used to say more than the actually do. In total, non-biblical references to Jesus (typically they say "Christ" or some version of that word; they seldom actually use his name--a telling detail in itself) are thin evidence of anything. Whether a person named Jesus existed is not really the point. The point is whether the stories about him are true.

You mention George Washington--an excellent example of what I mean here. No serious person, and certainly no historian, would dispute Washington's existence. Yet there has been a great deal of legend-building around this august personage. Washington Irving and Parson Weems both created stories about Washington that passed into the "knowledge" about our first President--that he had wooden teeth, that he could throw a dollar across the Potomac, that he chopped down his father's cherry tree and uttered the famous words, "I cannot tell a lie...I did it with my little hatchet." And so on. All widely known stories, written down and repeated for generations. They are in your public library. Many people today believe them implicitly.

They are complete bullshit. They are made-up stories, intended to magnify the myth and, in some cases, to provide moral instruction. (If that sounds familiar, it should.) Sure, Washington really lived and really did a lot of remarkable things which we should remember. But failure to discriminate between what we know and what we merely want to be true cheapens the memory and debases knowledge.

So, how will you determine which stories about Jesus (or anyone else in the Bible) are historically reliable? It can't be done. The Bible is a mess, and to assume anything else is to surrender intellect and discernment for a very unreliable outcome.

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

Tyler — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:34:04 GMT

ehh? how in the world did you get bifurcation from my question? i was just wondering what you thought of the martyrdom of the Apostles?

i don't know what you think of Christ's followers, that's why i was asking dude. how do i know?

of course the details don't line up--it's an eye-witness account. ask a cop about an accident report and they'll tell you none of the eye-witness details are ever exactly the same, but they're all essentially the same. the details not lining up in fact lend credibility to the texts. if they were just a story or a narrative, they'd be perfect.

i'm having a hard time buying the fictional option also because i'm thinking of all the works of antiquity which talk about Christ and His followers going to their deaths. works by Tacitus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Ignatious of Antioch, etc. works outside the Bible by Roman Historians and enemies of Christianity who wrote about Christ.

Tacitus wrote more about Christ than he ever wrote about Ceasar, yet no one thinks Ceasar was a myth?

anyways, i was just trying to gauge your thoughts on these additional historical works. sometimes people think the Bible is the only thing that ever talked about Christ. it's funny, no one ever questions that George Washington existed, but the same science of history that tells us GW and Julius Ceasar existed, tells us Christ existed.

take care

-Tyler

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

The Fool — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:24:27 GMT

Do you seriously suppose those are the only options? I suggest you re-read my original post. It's all about bifurcation, which is exactly what you have done here. There are several much more reasonable explanations that you are not considering, including the "fictional" option, which you seem to think I intend to apply only to Jesus but not to the other people in the story. It's a story. It's a narrative. It offers no substantiation, no evidence, no attempt at consistency. A lot of the details don't line up from one gospel to another. Pretty bad for a true-life account by people who claimed to have seen all this stuff firsthand, but exactly what you would expect from an aggregation of popular mythology that's being molded into a single religious system.

Comment on Logical Fallacy #4: The Excluded Middle

Tyler — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:24:35 GMT

and what do you make of his followers who went to their death claiming to have seen Christ risen from the dead?

were they all lying and crazy too?

Comment on How Does the Mayan Calendar Actually Work?

Kerry — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:04:20 GMT

How can the Mayan Calendar be right? If the Bible says the Anti Christ makes a 7 year peace treaty with Israel and breaks it half way at 3 1/2 years, The Anti Christ has less then 3 1/2 years to make the peace treaty before he breaks it half way through according to the Mayan Calendar. So do people believe the Mayan Calendar is right over the bible? So now a calendar is our book or wallpaper of truth?

Comment on I.H.C--"Idiots Have Computers"

Kathee — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:20:13 GMT

I think this movie publicity is priceless! Doesnt anyone remember War of the Worlds?

Comment on Contest Winner: Best Bible Verse

Codswallop — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:47:46 GMT

Just email me your snail mail address along with your choice of prize, and I'll drop it in the mail on Monday.