leonarde

Posted by Malaclypse: I don't believe I imputed intellectual dishonesty to anyone here....

leonarde

Posted by Malaclypse (first quoting leonarde quoting Malaclypse):
It is unclear to me whether you are referring here to me
or to Juan Diego. Perhaps, by implication, both.
If we were to generalize your (half-implied, half-
stated) criticism it would go like this:

1)those who believe in god(s) tend to be credulous
and irrational and SOMETIMES possibly mendacious
(or grossly ignorant).

2)therefore we can pretty much discount their judgement(s) and (in the case of Juan Diego)their
testimonies.

If you follow 2) to the "t" then your non-belief
will be fairly safe: you won't get much of a challenge to it from your fellow non-believers.
But I wouldn't call it having an open mind either.
Cheers!

leonarde

Posted by Malaclypse: 1)Why the imputation of "intellectual dishonesty"?
Can't we disagree without being disagreeable?

2)About the sun: whether you look at the sun
glancingly (and thus safely) or stare at it (and
thus risk damaging your sight)thousands of people
aren't going to see the same amazing thing just
due to a physiological effect. Is there ANY documentation that there was a run on hospitals,
clinics, or doctors' offices in the Fatima part of
Portugal on that day in which patients suffered
damaged retinas or other signs of impaired vision?

The standard refrain of "mass hallucination" just
doesn't stand up to analysis: there are no such
things: people high on peyote, LSD and other hallucinogens, even when gathered en groupe tend
to hallucinate in individual ways.

Opponents appear to think that ALL of those thousands of people were already believers---in
God, in Mary, and in this particular apparition.
Yet we know that such events draw the merely curious, the doubting, and the religiously hostile
as well. Is there any record that THEY saw anything different than what the believers saw?

That is why I say that one must really look into
the details of such things.....

Malaclypse the Younger

leonarde

I don't believe I imputed intellectual dishonesty to anyone here....

You are wrong. I quote:

You are asserting that some people here adopt a position on a matter of fact because of prior belief, an intellectually dishonest activity.

It is unclear to me whether you are referring here to me or to Juan Diego. Perhaps, by implication, both.

I was referring to you. I don't know Juan Diego, he's never spoken to me.

If we were to generalize your (half-implied, half-stated) criticism it would go like this:

1) those who believe in god(s) tend to be credulous and irrational and SOMETIMES possibly mendacious

2) therefore we can pretty much discount their judgement(s) and (in the case of Juan Diego) their testimonies.

This generalization is entirely unsupported. My criticism of you personally was entirely explict and well-supported and has nothing to do with your belief in god.

I conclude that you are credulous and irrational because you believe obviously false conclusions, such as the Shroud of Turin. You are possibly mendacious because you implied an obviously false-to-fact assertion about Fatima. I say possibly mendacious because it is also possible you are merely ludicrously misinformed on the facts of an argument you yourself are presenting.

Therefore I am warranted in discounting your own opinions and unsupported assertions.

Why the imputation of "intellectual dishonesty"? Can't we disagree without being disagreeable?

Well, I don't know. Can you use ordinary rationality: valid argumentation and an accurate representation of facts?

About the sun: whether you look at the sun glancingly (and thus safely) or stare at it (and thus risk damaging your sight)thousands of people aren't going to see the same amazing thing just due to a physiological effect.

Why not? We all have similar visual and cognitive systems. Remember, the "amazing thing" is (IIRC) that that sun appeared to jump around. Of course, if the sun really did jump around, it would have been observed by many more people than those at Fatima.

There are also alternative explanations such as reporting bias and explanation convergence.

The standard refrain of "mass hallucination" just doesn't stand up to analysis

How would you know? You've never shown the slightest understanding of or capacity for performing rational, scientific analysis.

That is why I say that one must really look into the details of such things.....

You would avoid destroying your credibility if you didn't say stuff like this that contradicts every other statement in this thread.

You have not talked about details. You have made only assertions which you assure us--without detailed evidence--are true.

Show us, for instance, the actual accounts of each and every one of the people who asserted an unusual perception at Fatima. Show us that these accounts were independent. Show us that that the details were not explainable by alternative means.

Don't just sit there pontificating on things you show no evidence of understanding. The only conclusion we will draw is that you're not only incompetent, but too incompetent to realize you're incompetent.

[ March 30, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Yet I find at least SOME non-believers here are unable to do that in talking about the historical Jesus: somewhere, in the back of their minds perhaps, is the recognition that if they accept his historical existence that that MIGHT ramify into acceptance of certain religious claims.

Based on numerous discussions in BC&A and elsewhere, my perception is that most non-believers tend to think there is a person(s) at the base of the story. We just have different takes on how the 40 or 50 gospels and other writings, as well as the oral traditions and so forth, relate to the original figure(s).

Also, millions of non-believers such as Buddhists, Confucians and others believe that there was a wise teacher named Jesus, but he was not a divine person. What is it you mean by "non-believers?" Total skeptics like Mal and I? I've noticed that lots of people come here to argue against atheism but actually argue against metaphysical naturalism. The two are not the same.

Michael

leonarde

turtonm,
I agree that metaphysical naturalism and atheism
are not the same thing.
Do you feel that I have insulted you as Mal evidently does?
(Assuming you don't): what does the metaphysical
naturalist do when confronted with a phenomenon/
phenomena which apparently has/have no naturalistic
explanation?

Cheers!

leonarde

Mal,
Sorry I angered you. I wasn't trying to.

That would be thousands of people! If you read
my first 2 posts on this thread you know I was
bemoaning how little info I had found on the Guadalupe phenomenon. It is unrealistic to suppose
that ANYONE can come up with ALL THAT INFO on
Fatima. I will have to find a book or two though.
Cheers!

Malaclypse the Younger

leonarde

No worries. I'm not angry, just exasperated. It would help if you didn't draw or allude to unsubstantiated allegations about people's character.

Indeed it would be, that's my point. If you're going to assert that the independent experiences of thousands of people substantiate your claim, then you need to substantiate their experiences. You obviously cannot, therefore this "evidence" does not hold up.

Indeed. However, it's therefore unreasonable for anyone to introduce all that info as evidentiary support.

leonarde

Posted by Malaclypse: Still we had a least one link provided
on this thread (I've forgotten by whom)in which
a number of eyewitnesses were quoted, some at length, on the "miracle of the sun" phenomenon.
ALL of them were seeing some extraordinary optical
event: something they had never seen before.
I didn't see ANY link or source on this thread which quoted ANYONE present at Fatima on that day
(and there were journalists, and other curious and
skeptical people there)who said, in effect, 'Yeah,
I was there but I didn't see anything but a sunny
day: for some inexplicable reason some people were
looking at the sun and oohing and aaahing'.
In other words, I am unaware of ANY contemporaneous account by an eyewitness which
claims that the optical phenomenon in question did
not occur.....
Whatever historical record exists is our best bet:
most of the people alive on that day are deceased,
though one of the children-visionaries was still
alive, the last I read....

tronvillain

Are you going to stop pushing "enter"? It might get you a little more credit.