Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ted Hoffman · 04-17-2003, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan
I see. Lacking arguments, Metacrock is now seeking swamp us by weight of numbers.
Vorkosigan

Vork, relax, I doubt that anyone here can be fooled by popularity appeals. Given the lack of a clear, sound methodology, the numbers mean absolutely nothing.

Vinnie · 04-17-2003, 07:00 AM

PK quoted Feldman as saying:

Quote:

Louis H. Feldman writes (Josephus, Judaism and Christianity, p. 57): "The fact that an ancient table of contents, already referred to in the Latin version of the fifth or sixth century, omits mention of the Testimionium (though, admittedly, it is selective, one must find it hard to believe that such a remarkable passage would be omitted by anyone, let alone by a Christian, summarizing the work) is further indication that there was no such notice..." I regard this as an important and powerful piece of evidence, although one that doesn't get much attention.

If Feldman accepts the authenticist of a partially reconstructedtestimonium how does he deal with this issue?

Vinnie

Vorkosigan · 04-17-2003, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vinnie
PK quoted Feldman as saying:

If Feldman accepts the authenticist of a partially reconstructedtestimonium how does he deal with this issue?

Vinnie

It's a partially authentic table of contents, of course.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie · 04-17-2003, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan
It's a partially authentic table of contents, of course.

Vorkosigan

:notworthy :notworthy

Metacrock · 04-17-2003, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by IronMonkey
Metacrock posted in this thread :

I dont have info concerning the religious affiliations of all these scholars and the argument from popularity aside, I would apprecaite any info on their theistic/non-theistic positions and if someone can make additions to make the list comprehensive, the better. Inertia and consensus for social reasons has been mentioned by me among others to be a factor influencing HJ appeal . Lets see whether we can establish any pattern. For example, back at ARN and ISCID, its clear that scholars who conform to ID are all theists.

[color=blue]It's a very broad cross section, they are coming from all parts of the spectrum. [/blue]

John P. Meier

[color=blue]More or less moderate[/font]

Raymond Brown

Moderate theolgoically, major scholar. One of the biggest names in the filed. He's credited with proving that Gospel of Peter did not barrow from Matthew in its trial of Jesus senerio, and also for many other major discoveries. he helped to start the trend of examining extra canonical works for the light they shed on the canonicals. Major work Death of the Messiah

Graham Stanton

Not sure

N.T. Wright

British, by standards of American Evanglicalism he would be considered a mild liberal, but in Britian he's an Evangelical. Major shcolar in his field. The only Evangelical chosen to be on Ted Kopple's thing about Jesus.

Paula Fredrickson

[color=blue]I think she's a liberal[/font]

John D. Crossan

Catholic, arche liberal, you forgot to point out he's the leader of the Jesus seminar. He's also considered to be a major scholar.

E.P. Sanders

Somewhat conservative. major scholar

Geza Vermes

Jewish Liberal scholar, very very major. He was on the original DDS committee and is a legeond in the study of the scrolls.

Louis Feldman

Jewish liberal

John Thackeray
Andre Pelletier
Paul Winter
A. Dubarle
Ernst Bammel
Otto Betz

Major liberal

Paul Mier

My impression is that he's conservative but respected.

Ben Witherington

conservative, but fairly respected.

F.F. Bruce

Very much in the middle of the Evagelical camp, a giant among evangelical scholars, probably was their most respected among liberal scholars. British Protestant. Very respected among liberals.

Luke T. Johnson

Somewhat liberal. Catholic, Candeller School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta. Preist. We used his text at Perkins, so he's very much respected in the liberal camp, but a fairly conservative theolgically in the liberal camp. WE wouldn't use his text at Perkins if he wasn't cool with the liberals. Very big named guy, very respected.

Craig Blomberg
J. Carleton Paget
Alice Whealey

Jewish liberal, I quote here in the same post

J. Spencer Kennard
R. Eisler

R.T. France
Gary Habermas

Very Evanglical. He's an apolgist, but one of the better ones.

Robert Van Voorst
Shlomo Pines

U of Chicago I think. Jewish, legond among Jewish scholars.

Edwin M. Yamuchi

Evangelical

James Tabor

Moderate, very respected. I quoted him in the post too.

The two I've met and spoken with in real life are Tabor and Johnson.

Metacrock · 04-17-2003, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by IronMonkey
Vork, relax, I doubt that anyone here can be fooled by popularity appeals. Given the lack of a clear, sound methodology, the numbers mean absolutely nothing.

ahahahahahaahhahaah! You don't even know what appeal to popularity is! you don't even know the difference in saying "the vast majority of scholars in the field accept this," and an appeal to popularity.

No it's not! expert testimony is not a fallacy. The infomral fallacy known as "appeal to popularity" is only a fallacy when the reason to support an idea turns on the notion that the general public, or "everyone" agrees. It doesn't apply when highly dedicated shoclars who spend their lives sutdying something all reach the same conclusion. that is not appeal to popularity. that is a case of You don't know what you're talking about.

You have no expertise. You haven't benen to seiminary, you aren't a historian, persoanlly I doubt that you have been to colege at all. So you don't know what you're talking about. But I know one thing, you are bothered by it. The cognative dissonance is setting in, because you see that your postion is one of ignroance.

TiConTiki · 04-17-2003, 01:52 PM

What's a 'shroudie'?

lpetrich · 04-17-2003, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TiConTiki
What's a 'shroudie'?

Someone who believes that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial shroud of Jesus Christ and not a medieval fake.

Egoinos · 04-17-2003, 07:39 PM

I can add info about another to the list.

Helen Bond - who's been appearing fairly regularly in BBC programmes about religious matters, like Son of God and Betrayal (which was on tonight), and the thing about the Virgin Mary which was on at Christmas. Has an article at Ecole about Pilate.

She's a Catholic.

(Did anyone else watch those programmes, btw?)

Vinnie · 04-17-2003, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock
ahahahahahaahhahaah! You don't even know what appeal to popularity is! you don't even know the difference in saying "the vast majority of scholars in the field accept this," and an appeal to popularity.

No it's not! expert testimony is not a fallacy. The infomral fallacy known as "appeal to popularity" is only a fallacy when the reason to support an idea turns on the notion that the general public, or "everyone" agrees. It doesn't apply when highly dedicated shoclars who spend their lives sutdying something all reach the same conclusion. that is not appeal to popularity. that is a case of You don't know what you're talking about.

You have no expertise. You haven't benen to seiminary, you aren't a historian, persoanlly I doubt that you have been to colege at all. So you don't know what you're talking about. But I know one thing, you are bothered by it. The cognative dissonance is setting in, because you see that your postion is one of ignroance.

To drive in Meta's point on fallacies I refer you to these tidbits from the fallacy page on the secular web:

Quote:

Argumentum ad numerum
This fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct. For example:

"The vast majority of people in this country believe that capital punishment has a noticeable deterrent effect. To suggest that it doesn't in the face of so much evidence is ridiculous."

"All I'm saying is that thousands of people believe in pyramid power, so there must be something to it."

Argumentum ad populum
This is known as Appealing to the Gallery, or Appealing to the People. You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. For example:

"Pornography must be banned. It is violence against women."

"For thousands of years people have believed in Jesus and the Bible. This belief has had a great impact on their lives. What more evidence do you need that Jesus was the Son of God? Are you trying to tell those people that they are all mistaken fools?"

And to quote a bit more, this time on appeals to authority:

Quote:

Argumentum ad verecundiam
The Appeal to Authority uses admiration of a famous person to try and win support for an assertion. For example:

"Isaac Newton was a genius and he believed in God."
This line of argument isn't always completely bogus; for example, it may be relevant to refer to a widely-regarded authority in a particular field, if you're discussing that subject. For example, we can distinguish quite clearly between:

"Hawking has concluded that black holes give off radiation"
and

"Penrose has concluded that it is impossible to build an intelligent computer"

Hawking is a physicist, and so we can reasonably expect his opinions on black hole radiation to be informed. Penrose is a mathematician, so it is questionable whether he is well-qualified to speak on the subject of machine intelligence.

As meta said, "expert testimony is not a fallacy" and neither is an appeal to a scholarly consensus in such a case. Of course, its probably not going to win many arguments here but a fallacy it is not.

Learning fallacies can be useful. Here are two good starting points:
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

Vinnie

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04-17-2003, 01:52 PM	#17
TiConTiki Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: USA Posts: 28	What's a 'shroudie'?

04-17-2003, 07:39 PM	#19
Egoinos Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 423	I can add info about another to the list. Helen Bond - who's been appearing fairly regularly in BBC programmes about religious matters, like Son of God and Betrayal (which was on tonight), and the thing about the Virgin Mary which was on at Christmas. Has an article at Ecole about Pilate. She's a Catholic. (Did anyone else watch those programmes, btw?)

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