Johnny Skeptic

Do you believe that God chose Abraham? If so, why? Why is such a claim plausible?

Because your viewer profile says that you are a trinitarian Christian. So, why do you reject Deism?

What was my supposition?

Which proves what?

CJD

You miss the point about plausibility structures altogether. Bantering about the plausibility of the minutae of any given tradition is not what I am going to be wasting my time here doing. Consider the following (paraphrased from here):

In The Sacred Canopy Peter Berger introduces an important concept into his discussion of religion as dialectic: the idea of "plausibility structures." Any religious system remains plausible only as people articulate it in their conversation and dramatize it in their social interaction. The conversation and interaction that maintains religion, then, becomes its plausibility structure. For many, participation in religious institutions such as churches or synagogues serves as the plausibility structure for their religion. Kinship ties, friendship networks, and local communities may also serve the same purpose. As individuals discuss their beliefs with like-minded individuals, these beliefs become more believable, more compelling than they might otherwise seem, especially to someone outside the community of faith.

That Deists have no tradition (and I quote: "And, what about Deists? They don't have any traditions."). This is patently false. Their tradition clearly hearkens back to the orthodox Judeo-Christian one, however far they have 'deviated' from it.

CJD

Amaleq13

Please avoid personal attacks and try to stick to the arguments presented.

Thanks in advance,


Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

CJD

Assuming a deist who knows his/her heritage would want to discuss such a thing, I would show how in the undisputed letters of Paul Jesus is identified with YHWH (not ontologically, of course, but in terms of indentity and personality). I reject deism because either the apostle rejected monotheism outright or he considered Jesus to be wholly identified with the one god of Israel.

CJD

Dharma

I don't see any theistic tradition saying it's all an accident -- it is you who claim that one theistic tradition is more plausible than another theistic tradition -- not I.

Everyone is curious as to why you would think, one tradition is more plausible.

Biff the unclean

The intellectual dishonesty is in the form of a “bait and switch.� The initial claim (the bait) is that the traditions are being judged on their plausibility. That would indicate that there was an external standard of what is and what is not plausible and tradition A was a closer match than tradition B to this standard.
Then the switch comes when we find that there is no standard and the choice is one solely of prejudice and not of plausibility at all.

Biff the unclean

[QUOTE=CJD]I didn’t assume that it was convoluted, I observed that it was.

Thank you, but my face remains unsmacked. And it remains so because while someone is claiming to have done the same thing I did that someone will not show the standards that they used to reach their conclusion.
Just like back in college, if you don’t show your work you don’t get credit for the answer.

Why not? All you have to do is show what makes one of these two very similar traditions more plausible than the other. You said that was how you made your decisions, you said you were knowledgeable about the Trinity. All you need do is show why the older Trinity isn’t plausible and the newer is.

I don’t know if anyone is arguing for an “uncaused� cosmos above the quantum level. It’s just that the jump from the laws of physics to magical invisible super beings from primitive middle eastern superstitions isn’t plausible. How does one get from a firmament and an ocean in the sky to energy and subatomic particles?

CJD

Cross-posted.

The issue is not between theistic traditions, but traditions in general. You needn't be curious any longer; the point about "plausibility structures" above is why I adhere to one tradition over against another. This is no different than any one else alive, including everyone on this forum. To repeat: "Any system [religious, naturalistic, etc.] remains plausible only as people articulate it in their conversation and dramatize it in their social interaction. The conversation and interaction that maintains religion, then, becomes its plausibility structure. For many, participation in religious institutions such as churches or synagogues serves as the plausibility structure for their religion. [For others, it may be this very forum, or meeting with Peter Kirby in Santa Monica, or …?] Kinship ties, friendship networks, and local communities may also serve the same purpose. As individuals discuss their beliefs with like-minded individuals, these beliefs become more believable, more compelling than they might otherwise seem, especially to someone outside the community of faith [or non-faith, for that matter].

Does this not make sense to the reader? This is no bait-and-switch; this is an honest admission of how we all face the relativizing effects of reality as socially constructed. If you deny this, the joke's on you. You're the emperor with no clothes. I am not sure if Biff just doesn't like this, or if he's pissed off that he's being told by an irrational religionist that he has no more ground to stand on than anybody else. Clearly, the choice or "standard" is not individual prejudice, for a number of factors play into the decision and sustaining process (see above). Moreover, recognizing this has the advantage of not suffering under the pretense that a system of thought (theistic or atheistic) can be autonomous or totally objective, for ideas shoot off from many other ideas, and balance is at best momentary before we set off again looking for it once more. In short, it keeps us from making decisions in 'bad faith', or taking for granted our presuppositions about what we believe and why we believe it.

CJD

Biff the unclean

The jokes on me then. I'd always heard that reality was what didn't go away when you stopped believing in it. Now I see that YOU make it up as you go along and it's anything you want it to be. That explains why you are sure that you are always right.

Good luck to you then, this conversation is over. "It's been (socially constructed) real."

Chaupoline

So the intellectual dishonesty is not in backing the hometown flavor because it based around your culture, but just making the claim that we are number 1. Stating that we are correct is the basis of how we develop though. In metaphysics everyone is lacking in evidence to back their claim, so it would be better to acknowledge that it is all specualtion. That is understandable.

Well I see Absolute Truth as what does not go away when you stop believing in it. What you make up as you go along is your interpretation of Absolute Truth.