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Old 10-07-2008, 12:59 PM   #21
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I thought ad hominem tactics were always considered irrelevant and immaterial in any debate? If this is Holding's method why would anyone take him seriously?
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Old 10-07-2008, 01:42 PM   #22
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I thought ad hominem tactics were always considered irrelevant and immaterial in any debate? If this is Holding's method why would anyone take him seriously?
Humans are naturally drawn to those who express overt confidence, and many continue to be drawn to confidence even if the confident person is proven to be an obvious fake. Many are emotional, and thus don't care if the confidence comes with bad or misused scholarship.

Men that beat women and boss them around, are obvious fakes and not acting the way a real man should. But what kind of guy do you see the hot girls with all the time? If he's not rich or naturally good looking, it's most often the guy that is cocky and confident when in fact his accomplishments are ho-hum. The fact that the confidence is too high for the list of deeds accomplished, doesn't stop the girls from being attracted to it.

We all love to watch tv and listen to the radio, yet every last look and word on those mediums is hyped to express overt confidence, in the hopes of making people willing to buy the product. Big companies wouldn't be spending big money on such advertising if it didn't work. It's nothing but baseless hype, but it sure works to sell shit, eh?

I equate Holding's followers with Benny Hinn's and Jan Crouch's followers: they get far too much glee watching their clown perform, to care whether anything they say or do is the truth.

The only difference is: clowns don't wear as much makeup as Jan Crouch.
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Old 10-07-2008, 02:04 PM   #23
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Written debates are far superior to oral debates, in general.
Which is irrelevent to my oral debate challenge to Holding. The point of the oral debate is to put his claim to scholarly-level knowledge of the bible to the acid test.
I know plenty of scholars who are not quick on their feet. Unless you have some reason to believe that scholarly = can answer instantly, this is all unwarranted.

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then shut up about it, because that was exactly my point.
Please do get at least half a clue before telling folks here to shut up; it makes you look like Holding.

Notice that what you quoted from me -- scepticism about the equivalence of scholarliness and being quick on one's feet -- is not "exactly your point". It is precisely opposed to your point. If you can't keep track of your own point, then I fear that even a twit like Holding would tie you in knots in a real-time debate.

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It's absolutely nothing but CHEATING in a school "closed-book" test.
And what on earth makes you think that such a debate is remotely worth having? It would prove little about either the credibility of the positions at stake nor the intellects of the people involved.

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The questions Holding would get thrown at him would require him to make use of his true level of scholarly knowledge, and just like in a school classroom test environment
School classroom tests are not debates, and are not typically thought to be ideal tools for revealing scholarship.

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he cannot google the answer or look it up in a book. He'd be saying "I don't know" many times...
The Bible is a big book. There are many scholarly issues associated with it. Why doubt that anyone could prepare questions that would wrong-foot or stump a genuine expert? No scholars of my acquaintance, and I work with hundreds, are ashamed to say "I don't know" on issues that fall within their expertise; all of them "look it up in a book" on a regular basis. Far from disqualifying them, that's what makes them scholarly. Again, Holding's being a jackass and an ideologue is one thing; but you wouldn't show it by making him say "I don't know" (which no moderately capable rhetorician would be forced to say in any case).

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it's the audience's job to think critically enough to detect such failings of argument
It's hard to imagine why you think this does not apply in general. Can you think of any reason to think that anyone currently impressed with Holding's written bullshit would think critically about his spoken rhetoric?

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nothing changes my initial observation: any idiot can produce scholarly -sounding articles on any subject if they have several days to research, go to the library, search google, etc.
Aside from being false -- not just any idiot can do this -- this claim is hard to distinguish from the claim that one can get it right by doing research in advance.

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Nothing changes my other observation either: All schools and colleges and seminaries require students to pass CLOSED BOOK tests.
Most institutions as a whole do, contingently, though many, many very difficult courses within them do not require any such thing. But the point of such requirements is not plausibly to test scholarship -- which is more obviously established by independent research projects like theses and dissertations.

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Obviously, the entire education system of America and most of the world is against anybody who downlplays the importance of committing facts to memory before a claim to being "expert" can be upheld. The more facts you have committed to memory, the more expert you are according to standard testing environments. The less facts committed to memory, the less expert.
This is true to some extent, but extremely naive in other respects (about, for example, expertise that consists in knowing how to answer questions, rather than simply having the answers in your head). If you're serious about discussing the varieties and subtleties of scholarship and expertise, we could discuss that. But I'd like to see more evidence of such seriousness before putting any more effort into it.
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Old 10-07-2008, 02:08 PM   #24
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I thought ad hominem tactics were always considered irrelevant and immaterial in any debate? If this is Holding's method why would anyone take him seriously?
More to the point, why embrace such tactics by making the point of the debate an explicit ad hominem?
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Old 10-07-2008, 02:24 PM   #25
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When i posted the following over at theologyweb, that childish theology-playground that the fearless JP Holding confines himself to

Just be happy that his kind don't have the right to burn you at the stake anymore. When they lost that power they lost a lot!
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Old 10-07-2008, 02:39 PM   #26
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It's good to see that you predicate your response on what Rohrbaugh "seems to suggest". How about what Rohrbaugh actually stated? "people like him give Christianity a bad name."
I would agree, and I've pointed this out here and on TheologyWeb. Though I'm not sure you are doing skepticism much good, along those same lines. Look, I have no problem if you want to discuss how insulting posts are counter-productive, or riposte is non-biblical, or that oral debates are somehow better than written debates to evaluate scholarly knowledge. All are reasonable topics (though I'd disagree on the last). But my advice is that if someone posts in a way you don't like, far better to just ignore them.
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Old 10-07-2008, 09:06 PM   #27
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. . . .
The thing to remember about Holding is that for all the scholars he quotes to prove things he then says should be "obvious" to others, (and for which he calls his critics stupid for disagreeing with him), he never can find any legitimately qualified non-self-published bible scholar that agrees with his consistent use of riposte, which of course would be the one thing Holding must think is the most obvious factoid in the bible.

If consistent use of insult toward critics is so clearly justified from the bible, perhaps even by the example of Jesus and Paul, how come no bible scholar, not even those most highly praised and favored by Holding himself (the Context Group) thinks such conduct has biblical justification?

. . . . .

Rohrbaugh thinks one aspect of Holding's theology (partial preterism) is "nonsense." Holding speculates that because Rohrbaugh is a scholar and not a theologian, he might not have heard the better arguments from partial preterism.

. . . . .
I wouldn't try to reason with him. He clearly regards his maverick position as a sign of his superior understanding of what is and what is not allowed or endorsed by the Bible or as a sign of his closer affinity with the mind of God. When others agree with him he can claim support; when they disagree they are fools or blind. There are lots of people like that. I'm more worried about the numbers who appear to support him.

Neil
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Old 10-07-2008, 09:50 PM   #28
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One point deserves special emphasis:

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spirit5er:
>Do you believe the doctrine of full biblical inerrancy? Do you believe the information on the >actual parchment and papyrus that Moses, Isaiah, apostle Paul, etc, actually set their pens to, >contained no mistakes whatsoever? Please explain why you take the position you do.

Rohrbaugh:
This is a purely modern notion that makes no sense at all. Biblical authors were people and the Bible is a human product. That is easy to demonstrate and is one of the most secure results of modern scholarship. But it would take a book to explain it here. Suggest you do some reading in modern critical study of the Bible.
J.P. Holding has dedicated his life to reconciling every alleged discrepancy in the bible.

When he debates bible critics, he insults them for being too stupid to realize the bible has no errors. He obviously thinks the full inerrancy of the bible is some "obvious" truth that only idiots, morons, the wilfulfully ignorant, and those of diminished mental capacity would reject.

Holding's favorite and most often cited bible scholar, Rohrbaugh, states that bible inerrancy is a purely modern notion that makes no sense, and says the fact of the bible's human origin is one of the most secure results of modern scholarship.
It's more complicated than that. There were certainly pre-modern theologians who made statements about the bible which appear to be claims of inerrancy.

For instance, see the entry on John Wyclif in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wyclif/#5.1

Also, while most of the modern doctrine of biblical inerrency does seem to come from A.A. Hodge and B.B. Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, their position did not in any way deny the human origin of the bible. Holding is somewhat fond of quoting the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which is pretty much in line with, and leans heavily on, the position of Hodge and Warfield.

I personally find the idea a strange one and note that some of the early Fundamentalists (James Orr for example) came out strongly against the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.


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How long do you think we'll have to wait before we see Holding saying that Rohrbaugh is an idiot, moron, etc, for failing to see the inerrancy of the bible as the obvious truth Holding thinks it is?
I doubt he would. He'd be more likely to point out that Rohrbaugh doesn't appear to understand what the doctrine is. He would actually have a point.

I don't like Holding's abrasive style one bit, but attacking him this way does not make him look worse, if anything it makes his behaviour more understandable. (Still wrongheaded but I understand the normal human tendency to attack when attacked.)

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As you contemplate this, keep in mind that Holding has recently qualified that he was serious when he stated, several times in the past, that he doesn't really care whether the bible is inspired by God or inerrant. Yes, that doctrine he obviously dedicated his life to defending, he actually doesn't care about, eh?
Not that hard to understand really. He thinks it is true, but not vital. There are things I am willing to agrue for because I think they are true, but if it should turn out that I was later persuaded that they were wrong wouldn't really affect my main beliefs very much.

Peter.
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Old 10-08-2008, 01:31 AM   #29
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Does Rohrbaugh actually say that riposte is unbiblical, though? Or just Holding's use of it (which, to be fair, he seems to have only the view that you are giving him there)?
Rohrbaugh first read an accurate sample of debate correspondence between me and Holding, then concluded that people like Holding give Christianity a bad name.
Is Rohrbaugh aware that you have published his statements?

There are atheists who are quite willing to have a "private" email exchange with someone, with a view to extracting some unguarded comment or piece of private information. Having done so, they then gloatingly publish it all around the web, and other atheists endorse it, without any regard for the fact that it was obtained by means of deception and breach of confidence. I know that JPH has had this done to him.

I suggest that if someone can refute what JPH has to say they do so. Sitting around trying to attack him personally may be effective, or more likely counterproductive.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
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Old 10-08-2008, 04:07 AM   #30
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There are atheists who are quite willing to have a "private" email exchange with someone, with a view to extracting some unguarded comment or piece of private information. Having done so, they then gloatingly publish it all around the web, and other atheists endorse it, without any regard for the fact that it was obtained by means of deception and breach of confidence.
They are by no means alone in this.
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