Why respecting Christianity without friction is so dangerous

JemyM said:

I know that your job and family's income are depending on you defending this book, but couldn't you at least be honest here?
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I think accusing people of lying because they see things very differently from you is a fairly nasty and unnecessary way of presenting an argument.

Corwin said:

It is clearly understood by anyone with even a modicum of intelligence, that the PURPOSE of Matthew is different from that of Luke, but there is no inconsistency from my PoV. You are aware, that Herod was the name of most Jewish kings of that time!!

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It seems you are making stuff up as you go along. There was a Herod. One significant question was if he killed children or not, which it seems by historical evidence that he didn't.

lghartveit said:

I think accusing people of lying because they see things very differently from you is a fairly nasty and unnecessary way of presenting an argument.

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I think you need some good arguments for that position.

Corwin said:

You are aware, that Herod was the name of most Jewish kings of that time!!

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I'm not. I though there was only one -- Herod I. He had three sons named Herod, but none of them were actually kings -- Herod Archelaus was Ethnarch (and only ruled for two years anyway), whereas Herod Antipas and Herod Philip II were tetrarchs. I'm not aware of any Herods preceding Herod I, nor of any succeeding the tetrarchs.

Besides, what's that got to do with anything?

JemyM said:

I think you need some good arguments for that position.

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First of all, I think that accusations (whether it's "you're lying", "you're thick", or whatever) are counterproductive, because they make the climate of the debate more hostileand less inviting. That's the "unnecessary" part.

Now to the nastiness. In my ears "I know that your job and family's income are depending on you defending this book, but couldn't you at least be honest here?" insinuates that - in this case - Corwin chooses to argue against what he knows is right because of external factors. His motives are thus dubious.

I perceive this type of argument as patronizing and it reminds me of traditional master suppression techniques, a term which has been important in, but not restricted to female liberation debate in Scandianavia. Especially the fifth one: "Heap Blame and Put to Shame" (I obtained the english term from Wikipedia).

But then I realize, the same can actually be said against my use of the word "nasty" about your argument. This insinuates that your motives are dubious. And I have no reason to claim that.

So I 'm sorry for using the word "nasty". I still think it's unnecessary and counterproductive, though.

lghartveit said:

First of all, I think that accusations (whether it's "you're lying", "you're thick", or whatever) are counterproductive, because they make the climate of the debate more hostileand less inviting. That's the "unnecessary" part.

Now to the nastiness. In my ears "I know that your job and family's income are depending on you defending this book, but couldn't you at least be honest here?" insinuates that - in this case - Corwin chooses to argue against what he knows is right because of external factors. His motives are thus dubious.

I perceive this type of argument as patronizing and it reminds me of traditional master suppression techniques, a term which has been important in, but not restricted to female liberation debate in Scandianavia. Especially the fifth one: "Heap Blame and Put to Shame" (I obtained the english term from Wikipedia).

But then I realize, the same can actually be said against my use of the word "nasty" about your argument. This insinuates that your motives are dubious. And I have no reason to claim that.

So I 'm sorry for using the word "nasty". I still think it's unnecessary and counterproductive, though.

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Ok then. My comment was an accusation, not an insult. And it was actually a far more serious accusation than what is apparent on the surface, with more thought behind it. I was inspired by this video. But I do not accuse someone to be nasty. I actually have understanding for those who invested so much work in something when it just begins to crumble down.

I could have picked better words though and for that I apologize.

More on the issues with Luke's version:

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm

The author can't even get his bibliography correct!! Terrible scholarship.

Yeah probably. Anyway i found my answer at www.creation.com.

a) The census: One of the many objections to Luke’s account is an alleged mistake concerning the census in Quirinius’ day (Lk. 2:2). The alleged problem is that Quirinius did not become governor until c. 7 AD according to Josephus, while Christ was born before Herod the Great died in 4 BC. However, the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright34 points out that πρῶτος (prōtos) not only means ‘first’, but when followed by the genitive can mean ‘before’ (cf. Jn. 1:15, 15:18). Therefore the census around the time of Christ’s birth was one which took place before Quirinius was governing Syria (Acts 5:37 proves that Luke was aware of the latter). Another possible solution is that Quirinius twice governed Syria, once around 7 BC and again around 7 AD, which is supported by certain inscriptions.35 Under this scenario, Luke’s use of prōtos refers to the first census in 7 BC, rather than the well-known one in 7 AD.

One should be sceptical of charges of error in Luke, for the archaeologist Sir William Ramsay stated: ‘Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy … this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians

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We have very good Roman records about who was in charge and when censuses occurred. Quirinius couldn't have been governor twice - he was busy being named a Consul by Augustus and waging war in modern-day Turkey around the time your god's son who is the same person as the god was supposedly born. Once again, even most modern Bible scholars (which is like being an expert in unicorn husbandry, IMO) think Luke was mistaken. Why? Because it's the most likely explanation.

And even, if, if, all of what you believe was true, it does not prove several key things:
1) Jesus existed
2) Jesus had magical powers
3) Jesus did anything with said powers
4) Jesus was crucified
5) Jesus rose from the dead
6) Jesus was the son of a god.

Damian Mahadevan said:

Yeah probably. Anyway i found my answer at www.creation.com.

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No. You didn't find an answer. You copied a block of text.

While I leave to others to comment the rest, if they want to, I would like the opportunity to tell you a thing or two regarding "History" as a subject. I do so because you decided to include the last quote:

One should be sceptical of charges of error in Luke, for the archaeologist Sir William Ramsay stated: ‘Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy … this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians

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That comment is a misrepresentation of not only history as an academic discipline, but also science itself.

In history there are no "authority" and no "greatest of historians" and no one within the academic field would ever use such comments standalone as a reason for trusting a position. Such labels might work in authoritarian systems, but not in science. In science and current history, evidence and observations, carry the highest authority. Suggesting that something is true because "a historian said so" is complete and utter garbage and willfully dishonest.

And I'm not finished! William Ramsay himself was born 1851 and died 1939! Well, guess what; History at that time had more to do with nationalism than science, and archeology hadn't even begun to develop into the rigid scientific method it is today. The 20nth century have lead to several complete breakthroughs, especially in the second half!

It might surprise you that "old history" is actually considered outdated! You would never pass as a history student if you relied on a "historian" from the 1800, you would be chased out of the classroom, or at best be asked to return with a recent historical examination of the same work that went through the current standards of what can be presented as history or not. And you would be asked to provide the evidence and observations, not comments made by other historians.

JemyM said:

And I'm not finished! William Ramsay himself was born 1851 and died 1939! Well, guess what; History at that time had more to do with nationalism than science

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Still does, all too often.

However, the revolution had already started by then. Leopold von Ranke had done his seminal work by then, and his ideas had penetrated pretty deeply.

William Ramsay was most definitely not Rankean in his philosophy of history, though, and definitely not qualified to pass judgment on anyone's place among "great historians" -- not to mention that the entire term isn't readily applicable to anyone in antiquity. Herodotus, Tacitus, Polybius and the rest were as far from what we understand by "historian" as, say, Democritus was from what we understand by "scientist" -- their goals, their standards of evidence, their techniques, and their worldview were all profoundly different. That's why it's really, really problematic to read ancient sources -- you have to be extremely well-versed in the context to even hope to understand them at all as they were intended. And most likely you'll still get it wrong a lot.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/quirinius.html

Does this website help?

It's a good example of apologetics -- i.e., trying to fit, and bend, if necessary, the facts to support a previously held position. It's in quite dramatic contrast to historiography, where the process is the exact opposite -- trying to devise a hypothesis to fit the facts.

Put another way, apologetics asks the question "Could Luke have been historically accurate, given the other sources we have from the time?" whereas the Rankean historian would ask "What sequence of events is most likely, given all the sources we have from the time?" Since the sources are inevitably patchy and often secondary, there's a quite a bit of room for interpretation. Therefore, the apologist will be able to answer "Yes, if we bend this and fill in that and discount the other as unreliable, and bridge a few gaps with some imagination." The historian will come up with a reconstruction of events that may or may not bear some resemblance to Luke on some points, but will pretty certainly diverge from it on significant points.

Exactly what Prime Junta said, only I believe that apologetics ask "How could Luke have been historically accurate, given the other sources we have from the time?"

That's the problem with having the starting position of "the Bible (or Koran, or any other document) is completely infallible, and all other evidence to the contrary must immediately be discarded or rationalized in order to support my world view." It's why I love modern science (and social studies like politics or history to a lesser extent) - if someone could somehow, say, prove the Laws of Thermodynamics wrong, they would be showered with money (in the form of grants and I assume patents) and praise and win a Nobel prize and be on the cover of Time. Science doesn't cling rigidly to what's come before. If new, valid evidence comes up that shows a previous belief to be wrong, said belief is thrown out or altered to fit with the evidence provided.

Science has given me super awesome things like medicine, electricity, and the spork. Understanding history and politics have given me the ability to think critically about what I see in the world today and to not take everything I see on the news or come from politicians on either side of the aisle at face value. Science and its softer offspring have given me a fuller, more complete, more comfortable life. Religion's given me some awe-inspiring art, music, and some really beautiful buildings on the one hand, but has made it so I legally can't run for office in several states in addition to being unable to serve as a witness or a juror in Maryland.

Rithrandil said:

Science has given me super awesome things like medicine, electricity, and the spork.

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And it's philosophy that gave us science! Go philosophy!

Übereil

Those were the times. When philosophers were still useful for something

Ubereil said:

And it's philosophy that gave us science! Go philosophy!

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This is a common claim, especially by philosophers. Is it true, though?

The founders of science as we understand it were people like Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Sir Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Christian Huygens, Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, and Gottfried Leibniz. Only a very few of these (Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal) were philosophically minded, and fewer still made contributions to philosophy that helped science along (Descartes, Leibniz); the rest were just tinkering with instruments, scratching up tables and equations, making careful measurements and observations, and inventing the process of making up and testing hypotheses against them. Enlightenment philosophers were more concerned about the humanities -- ethics, society, what have you -- than science.

It might even be that Aristotle, Plato, and Thomas Aquinas were holding them back rather than letting them proceed -- the philosophy of science as applicable to modern science was formulated after the fact, even if it borrowed ideas and concepts from the ancients. In my opinion, modern science came first, and philosophy was dragged along with it -- sometimes kicking and screaming. This attitude still persists in many circles; most modern-day French philosophers are terribly focused on language -- you know, Lacan, Derrida, that bunch of jokers -- and many are noticeably hostile towards scientific thinking, as well as being as ignorant of it as it is possible to be without actually living in a cave somewhere.

I think philosophers do derserve some credit for being the first who professionally though about reality on an abstract basis.

But even in the ancient world, Archimedes of Syracuse, an ingenious physicist, mathematician and engineer, was not a philosopher. One of the first and most influential modern scientists, Galileo Galilei, got early education in theology, started out studying medicine and turned to mathematics later.

On the other hand, Isaac Newton, Tycho Brahe and Gottfried Leibniz 'officially' studied philosophy, although at the time, the distinction between science and philosophy was far less apparent. Unlike today, scientifically minded students of philosophy would in reality concern themselves with mathematics and physics more than anything else.

We have two courses on logic at my university. One held by the faculty of philosophy and one by the faculty of mathematics and computer science. In the course given by the mathematicians, you start out with simple things like Boolean algebra and logic with quantifiers but end up with wonderful topics like Gödel's incompleteness theorems. I participated in this lecture during my studies and it still counts among my personal favorites. I know about the lecture in the department of philosophy from students who enrolled there or just did not like mathematics, and according to them, they never get to the interesting stuff! They learn a lot of intelligent sounding names like "disjunctive syllogism", though, and can tell you the names and writings of many philosophers who worked in the field. They mess up their minds with all this useless stuff and in the end, they could never handle advanced concepts with the convoluted clutter that they get. When philosophers arrive at weird and contradicting conclusions, I ascribe it to useless lectures like this.