Sven

These childish semantic games fir perfectly to this shining example of Christian honesty, integrity, and loving his enemies.

Patriot7

Yes I have.

I eat dinner twice a month with two Mormon missionaries at my home, with my wife and kid. I can assure you they are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They would give you the shirt off of their back even if it was their last and they have more of a zeal to serve God then 65% of the people that attend the non-denominational Christian church I attend.

They not only believe TBOM is the word of God, but they have other sacred texts, including the KJV of the Bible, Pearls of Great Price, Doctorines and Covenants and all of the sayings of prophets, past and present. They do not believe the canon of scripture is closed, in otherwords they are open to the idea God is still writing His word, that He is still revealing His instructions to humanity today.

Why does my belief in the supernatural pose a problem for your disbelief? How does my believing in the supernatural make you insecure in your categorical skepticism?

Are you suggesting that someone has to have read every sacred text of all religions before they can formulate an accurate opinion? How does this not contradict your own standard?

Yahzi

I think, at this point, we'd be lucky to get even that.

It appears the response will be... (insert sound of crickets chirping).

Diogenes the Cynic

Which means it doesn't only work by induction which was what was being implied.
It's a different kind of deduction, though. It's based on provisional premises (predicates are assumed for the sake of argument) rather than predicates established empirically as fact. I don't consider that deductive so much as speulative. IF X Then Y (but we don't really have to prove X).
Yep.
That scientific method is deductive? Sure it builds on chains of inference from observed facts. How is that not deductive?

patchy

You're splitting hairs, here. Perhaps some of us got the idea you WERE making claims "about Luke", when you said the following:

You WERE talking about Luke here, not simply "the gospels," and you know it. All of which is beside the point that Luke IS one of the gospels--so by definition, when you imply that the gospels may not have been written chronologically, you are including Luke in that set. (Unless, of course, you make the effort to specifically exclude him, which you did not do.)

Instead of weaseling over the fact that you didn't specifically tie Luke to a particular "level" of..."consecutive-ness," why not just acknowledge that
Luke himself said he wrote it in consecutive order?

Is Luke lying when he makes this claim? If so, shouldn't we question other claims he makes within this same gospel?

And if not, shouldn't you take him at his word that he recorded the events kathexes, as Diogenes has just informed you?

Tell us this much, Buckshot...what specific parts of Luke are not written chronologically--if, indeed, you think ANY are not written so?

My guess would be: just the ones that get him out of a contradiction trap he seems to have wandered into...

Yahzi

There is one clear advantage to one approach: namely, that you use that approach in every other case.

Specifically, you are totally uinterested in presuming the truth of the Quran, and then trying to prove it false.

The entire advancement of science rests upon the recognition that we have biases, and must do something to cancel out those biases so we can see the truth. That is what a double-blind study is. That is why we always start by assuming our cherised theories are false, and seeking to prove them true.

When you are on trial for murder, you will of course endorse the rational method of investigation. In fact, in every case where the real-world consequence is significant, you will automatically endorse rationalism - save for one exception: when irrationalism gets you what you want.

Endorsing irrationalism in only those cases where it profits you, and rejecting it in those cases where it costs you, is called hypocrisy.

If you would liike to demonstrate your contempt for hypocrisy, you could begin by addressing the factual error WSJ3 pointed out.

Yes, indeed. It is the fundamental difference between reason and irrationality.

Sven

Perhaps this was being implied. But since we all beat Patriot for claiming that we imply things in our posts, we should be a bit careful about claiming what he implied.

Depends on how you define "fact". Everything we call a "fact" in science was established by induction.

Deduction is not about the soundness of the premises. Only about the validity of the conclusion.

P1) All Dragons are pink.
P2) I have a dragon in my garage.
C I have a pink dragon in my garage.

is a perfect deductive argument.


You said that the deductive method and the scientific method are essentially the same thing. Since most of science (apart from the pure theoretical areas of research) is inductive, most of science is not deductive. That's it.

cognac

Then do you believe what they believe about TBOM? If not, why not?

Yes, indeed, the more you believe, the more insecure I become. I feel another shiver coming over me now.:banghead:

No, that's not what I'm saying. First, I no longer have a supernatural worldview. I now think that the prior probability that any one claim of knowledge based on revelation is true is so low that I am epistemologically justified in dismissing these claims without having to read every single one of them.

Secondly, since you do have a supernatural worldview, why isn't it disengenuous of you to dismiss other claims of knowledge based on revelation? I'm not saying you have to read every single sacred text, but why wouldn't you give the other religions the same amount of effort you've put into Christianity before you dismiss them?

Diogenes the Cynic

What evidence would that be?
Of course it isn't. Your problem is that there isn't any OTHER evidence either.
You have experience of what most of the world's population is pre-wired to do?
Thankfully, scientific method controls for those biases.
I've done no such thing. Assuming the impossible is impossible is not a "philosophy," no matter how badly religionists want it to be.
It isn't really meaningful to talk about whethet the Gospels are "true or fase" in toto, and no assumption is made either way about them a priori. The Gospels are ancient documents which make some assertions about history. Each claim is evaluated on its own merits. Some of those assertions cannot have physically happened and so cannot be historical. This is not a "philosophical" or ideological conclusion. It's a simple recognition of reality. The same assumptions are made about other impossible claims by ancient historians, including Josephus and Herodotus. Just because some claims cannot be true does not mean none of the claims are true, though, so the non-supernatural claims are investigated to see if they can be either confirmed or falsified. Some of those claims can be falsified by other evidence (geographical and historical errors, for instance), sometimes the claims of the Gospels are in direct contradiction with each other meaning at least one -- and possible both -- of those claims are ahistorical. For instance, Luke places the birth of Jesus ten years after the death of Herod the Great. It is not possible for Jesus to have been born both during the reign of Herod and the census of Quirinius. Either Luke or Matthew has to be wrong (if not both) This isn't a "naturalistic" argument denying the possibility of a supernatural event. It's a recognition that two specific claims cannot be simultaneusly true.

Some claims in the NT can be independently corroborated and confirmed. These would include the existence of some figures like Pilate and John the Baptist, lots of place names, the existence of Temple in Jerusalem and similar minor details but nothing about the words or deeds of Jesus and only some very scant and disputed corroboration that Jesus existed at all.

I won't get into the narrative portions which can be demonstrated to have been derived from the Hebrew Bible because I'm sure you won't accept it. I'll just skip ahead and say that anything which can neither be falsified nor confirmed, and which is not inherently impossible, is not assumed to be either "true" or "false" definitively but is left as an unconfirmed claim.
Empirical method requires a logical default that no claim is assumed to be true without evidence. This is especially true for claims which are inherently impossible, like "miracles." It would be utterly irrational and anti-scientific to ever assume that the laws of physics have been violated without evidence. You've shown absolutely no indication in this thread that this is truly your intent.
What the hell is "radical skepticism?"
This strikes me as psychobabble.
"Dogmatic skepticism" is a contradition in terms.
What a stunning bit of sophistry. When you say that we should be "skeptical of our skepticism," what do you mean? That we should recognize we could be wrong? We do. None of that changes the integrity of the method.
Not really, no. Inherent bias can be controlled for. I think this is wishful thinking on your part.
Yes. And? What is your reason for supposing that a.) Papias was accurate in his claim or b.) that he was talking about Canonical Matthew? Also, how do explain the fact that Papias' description does not match Canonical Matthew?
None of the evidence presented was "theoretical," and the internal evidence, especially, was an itemization of indisputable facts mitigating against the authorship traditions. I think it also needs to be explained to you again, that if you are the one who wishes to assign a specific author to an anonymous ancient document, it is YOU who bears the burden to prove that claim, not anyone else's to disprove it. As it stands, there is no internal evidence to support those claims and frankly, no demonstrated external evidence either except for the dubious inferences from third hand claims made about unspecified books which don't match the descriptions of the Canonicals.
They're not theories, they're observations of very real problems for the authorship traditions.
No, that isn't the question at all. The question is were they correct in what the believed and/or inferred from previous statements.
This is all just another pointless strawman. Even if it is assumed without any dispute that not only the Church Fathers but the authors of the Gospels themselves believed every word they were saying, it still doesn't mean they were right and it doesn't get us one inch closer to proving that the authorship traditions are authentic, nor does it eliminate all the evidence against those traditions.

Patriot7

No I don't believe the TBOM is the word of God. I don't believe it is for a number of reasons. Given your worldview, perhaps you can appreciate the fact that modern archaeological has thus far disproved the claims of TBOM of battles that took place at the Hill of Cumorah:

http://www.irr.org/mit/smithson.html
http://www.irr.org/mit/natgeo.html

A rebuttal to the Smithsonian statement can be found here:
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/smithsonian.shtml

There is also a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, that I've lost the link to that discredits the LDS claim of Native Americans being decendant from ancient Israelites. Effectively this claim has been disproven by recent DNA evidence.

The claims of traditional Christianity are not to revelation. They are to the empirical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in history and as God has revealed Himself through creation. Thus far we have been discussing the reliability of the historical evidence.

Why do you think I haven't? Why is it that the assumption is I'm being "disengenuous"? I don't understand your line of questions. If I'm such a disengenous person, why are you continuing your communication with me?

Cognac, I understand your position. And I admire it more then I do a position of religous pluralism that clearly violates the law of non-contradiction. All of the world religions contradict one another, so clearly they can't all be right, but they could all be wrong or only one of them is right.

If the idea of exploring all of them is daunting, might I suggest to prioritize your investigation? Did Buddha claim to be God? Did Mohammed?