Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ben C Smith · 12-05-2008, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

pat seems to be equating "scholar" with "good scholar".

Agreed, but, more insidiously, he also seems to be equating good scholar with nonreligious scholar. As if atheists and agnostics do not have to keep their biases out of historical religious studies, too!

Ben.

spin · 12-05-2008, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

pat seems to be equating "scholar" with "good scholar".

Agreed, but, more insidiously, he also seems to be equating good scholar with nonreligious scholar. As if atheists and agnostics do not have to keep their biases out of historical religious studies, too!

The problem with agnostics is that they can't get worked up enough in any direction to have biases.

spin

No Robots · 12-05-2008, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

The problem with agnostics is that they can't get worked up enough in any direction to have biases.

Agnostics can get worked up when asserting that agnosticism is the only reasonable position on a question. Witness your own militant agnosticism on the question of whether or not Christ ever lived.

spin · 12-05-2008, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

The problem with agnostics is that they can't get worked up enough in any direction to have biases.

Agnostics can get worked up when asserting that agnosticism is the only reasonable position on a question. Witness your own militant agnosticism on the question of whether or not Christ ever lived.

This is just more of your usual attempts at back-atcha.

Obviously when there isn't enough data on which to base a case, agnosticism is the only reasonable position. When there is enough data, then it is a different situation.

Given your perennial failure to provide any data, preferring your rehashings of the greats, you won't be able to appreciate the notion of argumentation based on data and where you are without sufficient data.

(One day, instead of hitching rides in others' vehicles, you might open the shutters and take your mind for a spin.)

spin

No Robots · 12-05-2008, 02:57 PM

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!

--"Life of Brian"

spin · 12-05-2008, 04:17 PM

See what I mean?

patcleaver · 12-06-2008, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

Quote:

Originally Posted by pat cleaver

A scholar employs wisdom to honestly pursue knowledge for the sake of its distribution. A scholar has to overcomes his prejudices and biases, to gather evidence, to adopt effective methodologies for analyzing the evidence, and to critically analyze evidence to reach accurate conclusions. He has to provide a careful detailed explanation of exactly what the evidence is, what methodologies he is using to analyzed it, and how he analyzed it to reach his conclusions, so they can be independently verified, and obtain the opinion of other scholars prior to distribution.

A quack is a person who pretends to be something that they are not. A quack scholar is someone who cannot overcome his prejudices and biases, ignores evidence, substitutes presuppositions for evidence, adopts inferior methodologies, uses logical fallacies to justify false irrational conclusions, or refuses to explain the evidence or his methodologies or how he analyzed the data to reach his conclusions.

Someone who cannot overcome their prejudices and biases in their field of scholarship cannot be a scholar – they can only be quacks or quack scholars.

How can a religious person claim to be religious scholar without being quack?

pat seems to be equating "scholar" with "good scholar".

Agreed, but, more insidiously, he also seems to be equating good scholar with nonreligious scholar. As if atheists and agnostics do not have to keep their biases out of historical religious studies, too!

Ben.

Sorry, what I said above was slightly ambiguous - let me clarify.

Someone can not be a scholar in a field in which they can not overcome their biases. Religious people can be scholars in fields in which they can overcome their biases, but they cannot be scholars in fields in which they cannot overcome their biases.

A person with biases, that he can not overcome and that regard a field of scholarship, can not honestly pursue knowledge in that field of scholarship. When a person has conflicts of interest, between his biases, that he can not overcome, and the purpose of scholarship, to pursue and distribute knowledge, then that person can not be a scholar. Someone who has presuppositions and biases that he can not overcome regarding a field of research, then his work in that field is not trustworthy, and we can not trust his data or his methods or his conclusions without independent confirmation.

Most Christians who claim to be bible scholars or bible archeologists are not scholars - they are simply quacks.They are quacks because they can not overcome their biases and honestly pursue knowledge, and they are quacks because they are working in those fields for the glory of their imaginary God instead of for the purpose of honestly distributing knowledge.

patcleaver · 12-06-2008, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!

--"Life of Brian"

But was there an historical Brian on which The Life of Brian was based?

No Robots · 12-06-2008, 10:54 PM

History is the unfolding of the spirit of Christ in dialectical tension with its antithesis, absolute materialism. The antithesis finds its ultimate expression in the dematerialization of Christ into myth or into the unknowable. Historical praxis, the act of making history, is the struggle against the antithesis.

spin · 12-06-2008, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

History is the unfolding of the spirit of Christ in dialectical tension with its antithesis, absolute materialism. The antithesis finds its ultimate expression in the dematerialization of Christ into myth or into the unknowable. Historical praxis, the act of making history, is the struggle against the antithesis.

Don't be a refractory backslider. If you want to communicate meaningfully with other people, you have to provide the means to facilitate the understanding of your communication. That requires you not to use terms in a manner different from your interlocutor.

You provide another definition to the term "history" -- let's call it history2. History2 bears little relation to the commonly used scholarly term which we'll call here history1, which is the effort to elucidate what happened in the past in the closest manner available to the historian, using evidence based on primary sources wherever possible.

History1 is based on attempts to demonstrate the past. I can't see what history2 is based on.

spin

12-05-2008, 02:57 PM	#605
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say. The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them! Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals! The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals! Brian: You're all different! The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different! Man in crowd: I'm not... The Crowd: Sch! --"Life of Brian"

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12-05-2008, 04:17 PM	#606
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	See what I mean?

12-06-2008, 10:54 PM	#609
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	History is the unfolding of the spirit of Christ in dialectical tension with its antithesis, absolute materialism. The antithesis finds its ultimate expression in the dematerialization of Christ into myth or into the unknowable. Historical praxis, the act of making history, is the struggle against the antithesis.

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