militant agnostic

There is only one "theme" that lawyers are allowed to use in court as far as I know; Cause = Effect. They are required to show that the defendent either could not have been responsible or must have been responsible and show why it is impossible or extreamly unlikly that the situation is otherwise.
Lawyers will sometimes argue about whether or not a piece of evidence is fair to use or how much it actually proves but I have never heard of a court proceeding talk about "themes of evidence". Judges are certified by the state to know exactly what the requirments of a peice of evidence entail. Judges do not allow lawyers to question whether or not facts or evidence should be considered relevent or let them argue that a particular outcome should be endorsed because it is more emotionaly satisfying.

This as it happens is actually quite like how the vast majority of humanity views "facts". People on the street may be less knowledgable of a subject than an expert testamony and that can lead to a disagreement, but I don't know anyone who disagrees with court cases because the think that facts that can show that it's astronomically likely or unlikely that something is true are irrelevent. Eveyone I know believes that if an demonstratably true fact supports somethng then it supports it.

The rift you speak of either comes from a lack understanding from the public or because a jury made a dumb decision.

No. The "truth" that OJ was inoccent was not affirmed, it was fabricated. The general population did not believe he was innocent because they did not believe that there was evidence that the police were involved in a massive anti African American conspiricy. They are correct, the evidence does not support such an allegation. The jury however was made out of a portion of our population that used bad reasoning to conclude that such a thing exists, and because of that they factored in a piece of evidence that should not have been there. They did not come to a different conclusion because they had some metaphysical disagreement with the rest of the population. They believed that the evidence supported their verdict. Their truth was not counterinntuitive in any way to them.

This does not show that in some metaphysical way OJs innocence was proven. It mearly shows it was a kangaroo court.

No. The legal case for suing McDonalds because you spilt hot coffee on yourself does not make sense. Period. Our laws do not cover being hurt by products that people should have enough common sense to treat with care. If some idiot acidently mistook a bottle of acid I gave them for hand soap despite my products lable and warnings then they are responsible, not me.

All this proves is that the jury made an illogical decision.

But much of the historical circumstances that the Bible is not impliced. The Bible Explicidly said that Egypt was destroyed and was so thourougly devistated that no man or animal could walk upon its land for fourty years. That is an easly testable assertion. We can look at what the acheology of the ragion reveils about a recent disaster in the region and we find an impossible record of regular activity that does not indicate anything strange happening to the region. We can alos easily check surrounding nations and check if anything like trade with them was disrupted and again we find nothing.

Most of the claims in the Bible are about as explicid as it gets.

Also, whether or not the writter has a bias or agenda is irrelivant if the facts support what they say.

S.C.Carlson

Militant agnostic: do you have a law degree or practice law? I believe Gamera does.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

Though I wouldn't go so far to agree that (at least among the attorneys I know) that they are philosophically postmodernist, I can sort of see your point about being experientially so. One of the themes that postmodernism focuses on is that reality is more socially constructed than we (or modernists) assume. But what can be more socially constructed than law? Lawyers are used to dealing with socially constructed truths all the time.

Stephen

show_no_mercy

Have you considered the fact that the apostles were illiterate and couldn't write?

spin

Law degrees come in corn flakes packets these days. I bet even you've got one.


pisn

S.C.Carlson

Yeah, but I didn't know about the corn flake deal.

Stephen

douglas

(sch-wooosh!) This one went right over my head. I might be insulted by this if I actually understood what you were trying to say. Can you explain what you mean by "standard philological tradition" vs. "Postmodernism?"

Are you saying that most posters here are only interested in the translation of words and the meaning behind the words? How is postmodernism "helpful" to chrisitianity?

Celine

Here. This'll explain it better:

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/...disrobed.shtml

Casper

Trial by media?

"If the glove doesn't fit, you must aquit.."

Casper

In other words, you have no real knowledge of that case and are guilty yourself of the postmodernist "trial by media".