Sauron

No, they dismiss it because it isn't evidence. People have a habit of trying to insert opinion as evidence, and then get all offended when the audience tosses it back to them.

Please stay on topic. We're talking about the prophecy. Do you have any evidence for it?

Feel free. However, since the discussion is about my personal willingness to believe, I am an authority on that topic and you are not. Given that fact, I can state with certainty that you are, in fact, wrong.

No, that was an attempt to address your rudeness and arrogance in assuming that just because someone won't accept poorly supported arguments as evidence, that somehow means they fear a "life change". Instead of improving your argument, researching the evidence, building a better case, you try to shift the blame for a poorly argued position onto the audience.

Tangent

Much like

1) Person sees the Qur'an says Christianity isn't the one true religion.
2) Christianity feels "right" to the person
3) The Qur'an must not be true.


I'd hate to meet anyone who would use such god awful logic.

Sven

Thanks! Makes sense.

Sven

I suppose you mean the "baseless assumptions and speculation" published in scholary works of theologists and historians?

Sven

I'm not spin, but I suggest that sources from actual scholars are certainly better than sources from apologists. A second requirement is of course that the sources are not out-of-date, that is, were not proven wrong be more recent findings.

Seems to be a rational standard, don't you think?

hatsoff

You've finally touched on something meaningful here, but it's important you don't get into a pissing match.

Here at iidb "rightness" is never formally determined. We discuss, and hopefully through doing so we learn. It's not a popularity contest, although when someone is clearly in the wrong (as you are) others will jump on the bandwagon of pointing it out.

Usually what we use for sources is peer-reviewed literature. If that sounds daunting, don't worry: it's not as complicated as it seems initially. In fact, if you have an online account with your local library or school you can probably access a large database full of it. Some of it is even free on the net.

Good luck. Also, feel free to answer my other questions from this thread.

Jack the Bodiless

Why can't some folks grasp the fact that evidence is at the root of all this?

We don't have to simply accept the declarations of whichever "authorities" happen to express opinions that match our own. We can investigate these "authorities", and the basis of their claims.

Apologists are motivated by ideology, by religious fundamentalism. They do not derive their positions from the evidence. On the other hand, those who oppose them DO base their opinions on the evidence: they have no unified ideology, they include people with a wide range of religious beliefs. And we can sample the evidence and see if it stands up.

I have sampled the evidence, and the sampled evidence presented by skeptics stands up. Because of this, I have learned to trust those skeptical scholars even when they make claims which are beyond my ability to evaluate (such as the dating of the form of Aramaic used in Daniel). I have also sampled the claims of apologists, and have spotted the errors in every such claim that I have sufficient expertise (or basic logic: most are logical fallacies, or obvious misinterpretations, or mangling of context) to evaluate. This allows me to "have faith" that their other claims are similary erroneous, and this "faith" does indeed turn out to be supported: either because I eventually find the apologist's error myself, or because I find an article by a more qualified skeptic who has tackled the subject and who has evidently based his own opinion on the evidence.

mdd344

General question regarding "rightness."

Okay, taking what some of you have stated above, who decides who is an "actual" scholar verses an "apologists." And upon what basis does one become an actual scholar?

This sounds dangerously close to "let's accept all those who agree with us" and the rest are dumb religionists." Why is that not the case?

gregor

Exactly, Jack.

Mdd334, let me reinforce what Jack has said.

First, simply cutting and pasting a quote from Geisler the apologist is neither evidence nor proof. I have no doubt that you can find plenty of fundamentalist preachers with well-ground axes with claims of Daniel's antiquity. (Hint: this is not even an appeal to authority, because these folks aren't authorities)

Second, if you would like to convince anyone of your argument, please take each element that has been posted as contradicting a 6th Century authorship and rebut them. Let me give you a fill in the blank form for your argument:

1. The error with Belshazar not being the son of Nebuchadnezzar is not an error because ________________________, as demonstrated by Dr. __________________, who published an article in the Journal of Archeology on ____________, 200___.

2. There really was a Darius the Mede, as demonstrated by Dr. __________________, who published an article in the Journal of Archeology on ____________, 200___.

3. The greek terms in Daniel were known 400 years earlier, as demonstrated by Dr. __________________, who published an article in the Journal of Philology on ____________, 200___.

et seq.
ETA: "Scholar" - vernacular definition - relevant degree, primary work in actual field discussed, and publication of peer-reviewed articles.

Sven

Based on an education at an accredited university in the subject one writes about and based on having published articles in peer-reviewed journals. Again, it's simple. This is the standard in each and every professional field - be it chemistry, biology, physics, history or theology.

A small addition to what gregor has said above: These scholars don't have to have a PhD. It certainly adds weight at face value, but in the end it comes down to the evidence they present.

See above. Most apologists show a damning lack of education - it's not that they interpret the evidence wrongly, it's simply that they've never heard about the evidence (or pretend they've not heard it - this happens sadly much too often).