Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-01-2010, 02:29 PM

April DeConick on her Forbidden Gospels blog has not been part of this discussion, but her a post on a different subject seems applicable to this entire discouraging piece of mockery by McGrath.

Quote:

I have known for a long time that traditions are conservative and self-interested, but what is coming home for me in a very real way is just how much the traditions are safe-guarded by the dominant group - be it the mainstream churches or the academy - and how far the dominant group will go to protect them. The interests and preservation of those interests often become the end-all, even at the expense of historical truth. The rationalizations, the apologies, the 'buts', the tortured exegesis, the negative labeling, the side-stepping, the illogical claims accumulate until they create an insurmountable wall that preserves both church and academy, which remain (uncomfortably so for me) symbiotic.

The entrenchment of the academy is particularly worrisome for me. Scholars' works are often spun by other scholars, not to really engage in authentic critical debate or review, but to cast the works in such a way that they can be dismissed (if they don't support the entrenchment) or engaged (if they do). In other words, fair reproduction of the author's position and engagement with it does not seem to me to be the top priority. The quest for historical knowledge does not appear to me to be the major concern. It usually plays back seat to other issues including the self-preservation of the ideas and traditions of the dominant parties - those who control the churches, and the academy with its long history of alliance with the churches.

EarlDoherty · 03-01-2010, 02:34 PM

WOW! That says it all. I applaud April DeConnick for that. (Thanks, Toto.)

Abe and many others on this board, please take note.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe · 03-01-2010, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

WOW! That says it all. I applaud April DeConick for that. (Thanks, Toto.)

Abe and many others on this board, please take note.

Earl Doherty

I have heard variations of the same complaint many times already, but thank you. Advocates of weird propositions in any field typically believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with the intellectual establishment. They may believe that the wagons are circled in order to hide the real truth that would destroy the system if only people knew, or they simply claim that the establishment has an irrational dogma that precludes discussion of a more reasonable theory. Maybe it is true (anything is possible), but I think it requires evidence, not just the typical bluster.

Toto · 03-01-2010, 03:37 PM

Abe - April DeConick is part of the establishment. She has an endowed chair and teaches religion at Rice University.

This is not the typical bluster.

ApostateAbe · 03-01-2010, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Abe - April DeConick is part of the establishment. She has an endowed chair and teaches religion at Rice University.

This is not the typical bluster.

Toto, I knew that, and it doesn't relate to what I said. Are you saying that she is not an advocate of a weird proposition?

PhilosopherJay · 03-01-2010, 04:32 PM

Hi ApostateAbe,

I don't think her proposition is weird at all. Here is a weird proposition:

What Came 'Before' the Big Bang? Leading Physicist Presents a Radical Theory

Quote:

String theorists Neil Turok of Cambridge University and Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor in Science and Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton believe that the cosmos we live in was actually created by the cyclical trillion-year collision of two universes (which they define as three-dimensional branes plus time) that were attracted toward each other by the leaking of gravity out of one of the universes.

Online PR News – 01-March-2010 – In their view of the universe the complexities of an inflating universe after a Big Bang are replaced by a universe that was already large. flat, and uniform with dark energy as the effect of the other universe constantly leaking gravity into our own and driving its acceleration. According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets.

Turok and Steinhardt were inspired by a lecture given by Burt Ovrut who imagined two branes, universes like ours, separated by a tiny gap as tiny as 10-32 meters. There would be no communictaion between the two universes except for our parallel sister universe's gravitational pull, which could cross the tiny gap.

Orvut's theory could explain the effect of dark matter where areas of the universe are heavier than they should be given everything that's present. With their theory, the nagging problems surrounding the Big Bang (beginning from what, and caused how?) are replaced by an eternal cosmic cycle where dark energy is no longer a mysterious unknown quantity, but rather the very extra gravitational force that drives the universe to universe (brane-brane) interaction.

Suggesting that entrenched interests in an academic-religious field may dismiss theories because they may affect their financial interests isn't weird. Suggesting that our universe is a creation of two interacting universes that come together every trillion years, that's weird.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Abe - April DeConick is part of the establishment. She has an endowed chair and teaches religion at Rice University.

This is not the typical bluster.

Toto, I knew that, and it doesn't relate to what I said. Are you saying that she is not an advocate of a weird proposition?

Toto · 03-01-2010, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Abe - April DeConick is part of the establishment. She has an endowed chair and teaches religion at Rice University.

This is not the typical bluster.

Toto, I knew that, and it doesn't relate to what I said. Are you saying that she is not an advocate of a weird proposition?

Well, she does seem to think that there was a historical Jesus. Is that weird enough?

Why do you think she is an advocate of a weird proposition? She hasn't even outlined her project that led to these remarks yet.

ApostateAbe · 03-01-2010, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Toto, I knew that, and it doesn't relate to what I said. Are you saying that she is not an advocate of a weird proposition?

Well, she does seem to think that there was a historical Jesus. Is that weird enough?

Why do you think she is an advocate of a weird proposition? She hasn't even outlined her project that led to these remarks yet.

It is her interpretation of the Gospel of Judas. She has this blurb on her website:

DeConick contends that the Gospel of Judas is not about a “good” Judas, or even a “poor old” Judas. It is a gospel parody about a “demon” Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians – the Sethians. Whilst many other leading scholars have toed the National Geographic line, Professor DeConick is the first leading scholar to challenge this ‘official’ version. In doing so, she is sure to inspire the fresh debate around this most infamous of biblical figures.

I know very little about the Gospel of Judas, and she could be right for all I know, but she is kind of setting herself up in this persona of a lone voice in the wilderness.

Toto · 03-01-2010, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

...
I know very little about the Gospel of Judas, and she could be right for all I know, but she is kind of setting herself up in this persona of a lone voice in the wilderness.

The Gospel of Judas not a settled field, and I doubt that anyone in the field would say that there is a firm consensus on the question.

I think you are missing an important point about how a consensus is arrived at and what it means.

show_no_mercy · 03-01-2010, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Well, she does seem to think that there was a historical Jesus. Is that weird enough?

Why do you think she is an advocate of a weird proposition? She hasn't even outlined her project that led to these remarks yet.

It is her interpretation of the Gospel of Judas. She has this blurb on her website:

I think the quote that Toto posted has more to do with her more recent post.

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03-01-2010, 02:34 PM	#452
EarlDoherty Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,435	WOW! That says it all. I applaud April DeConnick for that. (Thanks, Toto.) Abe and many others on this board, please take note. Earl Doherty

03-01-2010, 03:37 PM	#454
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Abe - April DeConick is part of the establishment. She has an endowed chair and teaches religion at Rice University. This is not the typical bluster.

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