Chris Weimer

Peter, amice, we've done much together. Your biases haven't escaped mine, so I'm afraid neither has mine you. You know what advice I gave you and it still holds true. Disce Latinam!

Iocor! Iocor! Anyway, methinks it not be proper to spell out biases and whatnot openly.

Oh, and almost done...

Thomas II

See,right there might be your problem...I was not trying to use flattery!
Why would I kiss up to you? I don't need YOUR approval!
I was simply giving you my perspective, my honest opinion.

Let ME ask you...Where do YOU think you err and why?...

What would be the RIGHT approach to research?

Is there a particular attitude or frame of mind one should keep in order to
find the actual facts?

Peter Kirby

Per the OP, I will give my opinion last.

I especially seek the input of Jacob Aliet and Michael Turton before attempting to make my own remarks.

--
Peter Kirby

JoeWallack

JW:
I see bias, I see bias towards bias, I see biased plans within plans. I see two great Houses fighting, House Atheistes and House HarKohen. I see Timmy and Bobby and Jackie. I see London, I see (through) RT France. I see things being put on top of other things (for the 50th straight year). And most of all, I see that I've watched way too much Television. I also see two categories for young Peter to be concerned with:

1) Evidence

2) Conclusions

Evidence is the Objective one. It speaks for itself. Regarding Evidence one can be a Compiler or Creator. So far in your career Peter, I see you as a Compiler. But Creator is where the Glory is. Your Bias here is Fear. Fear of being Criticized by your Christian friends whose opinion you respect for being Creative.

Conclusions is the Subjective one. Evidence is most important to Professionals. Conclusions is most important to Amateurs. So while Theoretically, evidence is more important, in Practice Conclusions are more important because it's Amateurs that make the Important decisions. That's why Conclusions are where the Glory is. You have the same Bias here which leads to overly cautious Conclusions or even lack of any Conclusion.

Simon says, don't be afraid Peter.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Julian

You suck! You are a frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist of the atheist faith!

Brutal enough for ya?

Just kidding, of course.

As Gibson alluded to earlier in this thread, I think it is vital that we separate some ideas that really shouldn't be considered part and parcel of one concept.

I know I am biased against fundamentalist christians, against superstition, against the concept of detities, against the notion of faith, and against many other things of a similar nature. However, I do not believe that those things need be considered when we talk about the factual aspects of the study we are engaged in. The study of manuscripts, of textual variations, of the emergence and development of the church, of items and people and their historical likelihood, of doctrinal variations, and all the other factual elements that make up the non-ephemeral parts of christianity can be easily considered without the impediment of an agenda. While we all have biases, such biases should be confined to our assesment of the probabilities and degree of significance of the, sometimes conflicting, elements under scrutiny. Such biases are not only normal but necessary to promote discussion and advancements in the field.

I know for a fact that you have such biases. Any time you voice an opinion you are displaying a bias in favor of one position against another based on the material you have considered. Others will find the various arguments compelling to different degrees than you do and arrive at a conclusion different from yours. That represents their biases.

It is when we include those items of christianity that defy natural explanations and scientific reasoning that we display biases that are in no way useful to a sober understanding of the facts. I have never known you to display those biases.

You see lots of a priori assumptions (read biases) brought into study by many people, which frequently ruins what is otherwise knowledgable and competent research. Useful information can be extracted from such research, given that it is possible to arrive at a correct conclusion even if one works with flawed premises, but doubt generally constrains us from using such research for more than just extracting whatever factual information may be pertinent for our own, hopefully less biased studies.

Fundamentalist christians are especially prone to such errors although we see it from some atheists and agnostics as well, bringing their agenda to bear when considering the facts, biasing the proper weighing of data.

Facts are facts and our biases will never change the facts, only our understanding of them. Once one realizes this and proceed to where the facts are leading, leaving religious considerations and atheist agenda out of the process, we can hope to deepen our knowledge.

Boy, I do ramble on. So to summarize, I do not see you being religiously biased, which is good, but scientifically biased, which is better. You present the facts along with your subsequent opinions and by showing all of this you protect yourself from unreasonable criticism. The only thing that could be criticised would be your opinion but this is only valid when such a criticism can show additional data and/or a more likely interpretation of what was presented, using only factual and rational inferences. The rest are just sad ranting idiots who have lost their ability to think clearly.

I don't always agree with your conclusions but that doesn't mean that you are biased in a bad way, only that we disagree on the significance of the various data.

I apologize for my bombastic pontification, I just got carried away.

Julian

Dominus Paradoxum

Hi Peter,

I have to admit that I'm not really familiar with your writings--not nearly as much as others here, certainly--but based on what I have read, I'll express a tentative agreement with The Evil One that you seem to to have a strong preference for digging back to first principles and arguing from that, which is a kind of epistemology that philosophers call foundationalism. Though foundationalism may be the most common-sense epistemology, it isn't the only game in town, as you can see here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Peter Kirby

I would reword this without the language of "strong preference". If you had only ever seen me eat a banana and a pear, you might suppose me to have a strong preference for bananas and pears, when perhaps it is not the case. Here, you and The Evil One seem to be reading about three threads. I think you are using the language of "strong preference" just because that is what the OP asked for (what are my biases), rather than that it represents your belief. Either that, or you think everyone in the McDonald's has a strong preference for eating McD's. I don't know.

In any case, what are my philosophical and epistemological preferences, and how do they come to bear on my study of history?

The link you gave compares "Foundationalism" and "Coherentism". Would you suggest any third option to be considered? And, what would you say the effect of choosing Foundationalism or Coherentism (or the third option) is on historical studies?

Thanks for your contribution.

--
Peter Kirby

rlogan

Because I have seen you change your position on things, Peter - that signals an open mind.

It is not apparent to me in reading your material that there is strong enough recognition of what Christian fraud means for early Christianity, and most specifically how the fundamental motive of competition for adherents motivates fraud.

GakuseiDon

The dividing line is whether you provide nominal support for a historical Jesus or not. I saw Jeffrey Jay Lowder called a Christian apologist recently on an MJ board.

Rick Sumner

You are prone to hedging your bets to a fault. To be sure, there are times when such a tact is appropriate. There are others when it's not. There's such a thing as too much hesitance in saying "I'm right, because you're not." The end result is sometimes a wishy-washy, "all ideas are equal" feel. Not so much a bias, I suppose, but I think an appropriate comment here nonetheless.