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Veteran Member
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Washington, DC (formerly Denmark)
Posts: 3,789
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Originally Posted by praxeus
First, Julian you should try to realize that "Divine Providence" is the historic view of the Bible, as from the Reformation authors like William Whitaker and many confessions.
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So what? How does that make it correct? I have stated that such premises are not scientific or based on ratiocination that can be agreed upon outside of opinion. I fail to see your point being served by this statement. Are you appealing to authority? Tradition? Both? Both are fallacies, of course.
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And clearly believers in the Bible are a smidgen more likely to embrace the concept of Divine Providence than those who 'believe' there is no God.
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And what does that tell you? You are arguing that believers are more likely to adopt an unscientific approach. Nothing new there but obviously central to the problem.
Also, you are saying that atheists believe that there is no god. That would be more correctly phrased as we don't believe that there is a god. Belief has nothing to do with it, just a consideration of the available evidence. If the evidence indicated the existence of a god I would happily believe.
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If your objection is that the Dean believed the Bible as God's word, he would likely give you a hearty amen, with a smile and a response along the lines of "guilty as charged, by the grace of the Lord Jesus".
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I don't object to his belief. I object to his methods. I do point out that they are based on his beliefs but that is entirely incidental.
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What you are kvetching about is that Dean John Burgon was not a Richard Dawkins or Bart Ehrman type of agnostic/atheist doing the textual analysis. Anybody could have told you that.
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Even though I don't 'kvetch,' as you so quaintly put it, it would seem that you are getting my general drift, albeit incompletely so. I don't really care what type of person he was. I talk about it because this is a discussion forum and not a peer-reviewed paper. Ehrman and Dawkins are scientists. What does that mean? It means that they follow a scientific methodology that can be agreed upon by other scientists, regardless of their individual beliefs. This is what you are missing. If a method cannot demonstrate its efficacy in a measurable way or neutrally justify its existence outside of a belief system or faith group, then it is not scientific but tendentious. Which part of that is hard to understand? One cannot assume a conclusion and expect to be respected by people outside of a community given to similar proclivities. Method must transcend tradition and emotion in order to embody general application (this is a trivial observation) and, more importantly, produce measurements that can be independently validated. A proper scientific theory can be applied and produce dependable results regardless of agent.
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And if you think true believers look to atheists and skeptics and infidels to tell them what is the inspired and preserved Bible, again maybe we should discuss a bridge for sale.
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Obviously, they wouldn't look to us for that. Nice strawman, though. It would be nice if they would look to us for how to apply reason and common sense.
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Or if you believe that modern textual criticism is a true science aptly applied to the Bible, maybe two bridges. This unruly 'discipline' is a mass of confusions and convolutions, as far today from having any idea what is the original Bible text as it has ever has been.
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Here we actually find some common ground. Textual criticism is quite resistant to a rigid application of clear methods. This is why we have some general guidelines that most people agree are reasonable. These would be the principles that you reject at every opportunity that you get. What you fail to understand is that you can reject them until the cows come home but until you propose principles that are superior to the ones currently accepted, principles that can be agreed upon by anyone and everyone examining them, you are just babbling. See, here is a funny observation of a fallacy that creationists (and the ID crowd) fall into again and again. They think that if they can destroy the existing theory then their theory wins by default. This is not just wrong, it is also amusing. A theory (or set of principles) wins by being demonstrably correct. The end.
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In fact, it is actually designed to never see or recognize God's pure word (if such exists .. which I believe with 100% conviction).
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Doesn't that worry you? That you believe something 'with 100% conviction?' It would worry me. Nothing in this universe is that certain, especially human perception and ideas. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty. But I am not certain of that. Conviction like that is frightening because you can never learn or grow, change or expand. You already know everything in this area.
See, all I see is insanity. Deep and profound insanity. There is neither humanity nor reason left in him. He is not even really human anymore, his mind has become completely dysfunctional.
Yet the WH text agrees extremely well with the modern text. You can use ad hominem all you want but that doesn't change anything. Propose better, universally agreeable principles and you might be taken seriously. Until then you merely sound petulant.
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In contrast, the Dean is actually one of the most consistent writers I have seen, [consistently wrong, --Julian] and truly can be given the title 'eclectic' in a respectful and positive sense. His ideas and sense of consistency led him to reject some King James Bible and Textus Receptus verses (wrongly I believe) yet he always did so with and spunk and intellectual integrity [what does that phrase mean, actually? --Julian].
So really you have the whole issue upside-down. However you painted yourself in a corner with your improper and unfortunate approach to the issue of the writings and views of the textual genius and giant, Dean John Burgon.
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Whatever. You babble and babble, on and on. Yet, you have presented no factual claims, no principles, no methodology, no counters, nothing at all. You are losing badly here. You just say, "he is really great and Westcott and Hort sucked. So there." Provide evidence or provide silence.
I will be gone for a week and half so I won't be responding for a while.
Julian
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07-27-2007, 05:48 PM
