The illusion is that you or I can choose anything. When in actuality, anything we’ve ever done is the only thing we physically could have. There never was an actual choice.
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I have no preference regarding either. But you’re nitpicking over phrasing. The core of your accusation was that I sided with scholars whose conclusions about the authorship of Hebrews I liked; you were implying (as you have dozens of time here and on BioLogos) that I don’t make up my mind about such questions based on textual evidence, but based on whether I find particular conclusions congenial. And that’s simply false. I think the question whether Paul wrote Hebrews should be settled by observations of style and content, not by anyone’s desire to assign Hebrews to Paul, or to deny Pauline authorship. What someone would like to believe about who wrote Hebrews is irrelevant.
The context of my remarks implied that they could be. In fact, I said to Jeremy somewhere that narratological interpreters don’t reject what historical-critical approaches have to teach, but try to go beyond those approaches. In any case, I spent close to a decade in graduate study, and some of my closest student colleagues regularly published narratological stuff which clearly referenced the results of the historical-critical stuff. It wasn’t an either/or for them, and it isn’t for me.
Which doesn’t imply that the two methods can’t be used together. It implies only that the narratological approach is legitimate, and that the old-time source critics were wrong to try to strangle it in its crib. (An attempt I repeatedly observed over years of work in Biblical studies, throughout the seventies and eighties.)
Failing to justify it as far as you are concerned – but you have no advanced degrees in theology, biology, climatology, or any of the other subjects you regard yourself as an expert on – so your opinion is simply off my radar.
(In fact, the only subject regarding which you don’t pontificate as vastly learned is “Classics” – the subject your Arts degree was actually in! Very strange.)
Says the guy who rejects the plain and evident meaning of the demon-possession stories in the Gospels, precisely because they disagree with the dogmas of Christadelphian theology!
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And, by the same token, flawed to the extent that the process that has formed it is flawed.
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Ah, so Coyne and Dawkins are willful atheists, and your evidence for that is that they don’t say they are. Got it.
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your evidence for that is that they don’t say they are
No, that’s not my evidence . But it’s true that their non-admission of their motivation doesn’t prove that they don’t have such a motivation. In fact, it is exactly what we would predict of atheists who are as evidently filled with anger as they are, but need to convince the world that their position is based purely on “objective science.” Such people aren’t going to admit to even a smidgen of subjectivity in their thinking. Yet it’s pretty obvious that everyone who has read a significant amount of their writing – everyone except their small coterie of internet groupies – considers them to have motivations beyond the pure, disinterested love of the truth. Even some of their fellow atheists (e.g., Ruse) are embarrassed by their lack of detachment on the subject of religion.
Odd, since the rest of that comment confirms that it is indeed your evidence. Talk about being filled with anger: your comment is stuffed to bursting with bile.
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No, it doesn’t.
Then what is your evidence?
Actually this is what I said.
And it’s not a surprise when the scholars you side with, are the scholars who hold the same view as you do.
Oh so now you’ve downgraded your previous claim to “implied”.
Firstly I don’t need any such degrees to know whether or not you’ve justified it. Secondly I never regard myself as an expert on any scholarly field, and nor do I ever represent myself as one. I have corrected you on this repeatedly. This was the most recent occasion.
The fact that you keep repeating this falsehood, even after being corrected repeatedly, shows that you’re simply dishonest.
I don’t claim to be vastly learned on any subject, especially not Classics. A bachelor degree doesn’t make someone “vastly learned” on a subject.
Unlike you, I honestly acknowledge my theological biases. I am extremely biased against the “traditional” reading (not “plain and evident meaning”, but thanks for self-identifying as a fundamentalist), of demon possession in the gospels, due to my theological background.
But that’s precisely why I have made great efforts to see if my personal view is exegetically justifiable, and of course it has not been difficult to find scholarship which supports my view. Additionally, I have taken the step of writing up my own arguments for my own view, and submitting them to peer review. The result thus far has been acknowledgement of the scholarly merit of one of my papers, and its publication in a peer reviewed and refereed journal. This is what intellectual honesty looks like.
Spoken like a true fundamentalist. Ken Ham would be proud. You have totally avoided the real issue. The consensus is built on the strength of the process, not its flaws. The consensus has been formed through repeated observation, hypotheses, experimentation, accurate predictions, and the repeated validation of hypotheses, and their persistent resistance to falsification.
Then you come along, an autodidact with no relevant expertise, and say “I disagree with your science, because of my theology”, and you fly into a screaming rage when people don’t take you seriously.
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Wait, wait…
You are saying that these men, because they are filled with anger, are intentionally advocating atheism as a taunt and revenge against a God they secretly believe exists?
You should reconsider the underlying lack of reasonableness of this particular screed.
Not everything you personally “wonder about” automatically merits a full-voiced suggestion that it is true…
screed
[1] A long discourse or essay, especially a diatribe.
figuratively influenced from the Scottish meaning
(1) a tear or rip, especially in cloth; to shred.
[RELATED TERM]
diatribe
a bitter, sharply abusive denunciation, attack, or criticism:
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Hey guys, sorry to butt in, but you’ve hit on a hot button here with me. In the below article I reviewed a documentary about Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. I’m not familiar with Coyne, but the issue seems to remain consistent with him as well.
Here’s an excerpt from the article that sums up my central issue in a nutshell …
"Let’s start with what should be the most obvious of logical flaws. Why are these two intelligent men making the obvious mistake of speaking about ‘super-natural’ themes in the context of ‘natural science’? As if the ‘natural sciences’ could have anything to say on the topic? It’s like watching someone you know to be incredibly intelligent pushing on a door that clearly says “Pull”. Or like watching someone you respect intellectually struggling to remove a bolt with a screwdriver.
Now, it’s understandable considering how religious types tend to reject science and scientific thought as if it’s somehow a threat. So, it’s natural to want to promote scientific thought, and to sometimes think that means chopping away at religion. The mistake is in interconnecting the two at all, no matter which side of the conversation you’re on."
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Good quote! And it is this viewpoint that lead me, @swamidass, and many others here on this list to reject the idea that “Design can be Scientifically Demonstrated”.
In the zeal to try to “break” the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the US Constitution’s implied separation of Church and State, they are trying to bend the very theories of knowledge to insert
denominational metaphysics into the public schools!
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You didn’t “simply note” this; you noted it in such a way as to leave it to be understood by a typical reader that the reason for my disagreement with the majority was prejudice on my part. That is always the way you “simply note” things about me. You are quite obviously imputing motivation. At least you could be honest about that, and say you are imputing motivation. I’m quite honest about that regarding Dawkins etc.; I do impute motives to them. And there is nothing wrong with imputing motivation in itself, as long as it’s not disguised as “I’m just reporting what you said.”
And did you read the next sentence, where I added that I also said it directly?
By that reasoning, the fact that you keep calling me a fundamentalist, creationist, etc., even after being corrected repeatedly (not just by me but by others here who have confirmed that they do not regard my views as a fundamentalist) would show that “you’re simply dishonest.”
Thank you for admitting that.
“To see if” makes it sound as if you were ever truly open to renouncing your theological views, but that is not the impression you have given, either to anyone on BioLogos or to ex-Christadelphians you have debated with on the internet. Regarding demons etc., you have always sounded very much like a sectarian religious apologist, not like an objective Biblical scholar determined to let the theological chips fall where they may.
It is not difficult to find “scholarship” which supports any theological view. The question is why you write approvingly of scholarship which favors your view, and ignore the vast majority of scholars who don’t agree with it. When I do that, you explicitly or implicitly accuse me of letting my prior prejudices govern my conclusions. So why doesn’t that apply to you?
If it’s a peer reviewed and refereed journal, then it’s a public document and you should be able to tell us the journal title, volume, issue, and page numbers in which your article appears. You don’t hide your name (as benkirk used to do), so you should have no objection to providing this information.
All kinds of Christians have spoken of the plain meaning of the text, long before fundamentalism as we know it ever existed. Luther thought that the plain meaning of “This is my body” ruled out certain rival interpretations of the sacrament of communion; he was not thereby a “fundamentalist.” In the case of demons and demon possession, which is the example we are talking about, the people who have accepted what I have called the plain meaning of the text, i.e., that there were people who really were possessed by demons, and that Jesus cast those demons out, include the vast majority of Christians. Only a few sectarians have argued that these passages don’t mean what they seem to mean. The vast majority of historical Christians, including the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, etc.) have understood the demon-possession stories as historical reports of real encounters with really existent entities known as demons (or “unclean spirits”).
Which I have never done. I have always provided reasons for doubting the certainty of the alleged science based on scientific considerations alone. And I have never claimed to know that the science is wrong, but only that there is enough room for doubt that it is not irrational to withhold consent.
No, I’m discussing this with you quite calmly here, as you can see.
You are avoiding the issue. The point I was making was that you are persistently selective in terms of which scholars you agree with and cite. The ones you agree with and cite are those which align to your views. I have been completely clear about imputing that motive to you. I haven’t simply implied it or noted it, I’ve stated it explicitly more than once.
But you didn’t say it directly.
This is complete nonsense. I have not been corrected repeatedly by anyone here, who says they do not regard you as a fundamentalist. Not even one. Where are all these mysterious people? Please quote directly all these numerous corrections. I note you avoided addressing my point about your dishonesty, instead attempting a tu quoque fallacy.
The impression I give is that I’m firmly convicted of my views. That’s because I am. But if I didn’t want my views to be subjected to scrutiny, I wouldn’t place them in the position of being subjected to scrutiny. If I didn’t want them
For me the most influential evidence for my personal view is that my view conforms to reality, whereas the alternative view does not. Mainstream medical science no longer takes seriously the claim that demonic possession and affliction are responsible for illnesses and disorders. There is simply no evidence for it, and it flies in the face of reality.
Consequently, anyone attempting to change my mind on the matter must combine a theological argument with objective evidence for demonic possession and affliction. If they cannot provide such evidence, then I treat them the same way that Galileo treated those who claimed the sun orbits the earth. When people make claims about what the Bible says, yet those claims contradict reality, then I have no reason to believe their claims.
The fact that I’m making the kind of arguments which have already been made in mainstream scholarship, demonstrates that the arguments I am making are not confined to sectarian religious apologists. The fact that you don’t engage those arguments, demonstrates that you’re the one acting like a sectarian apologist, not me.
Yes. But I’m talking about mainstream scholarship. Surely you’re aware of the demythologization movement initiated by Bultmann? Today, even scholars who accept the traditional view of demons in the gospels (such as Graham Tweltree), approach the subject with some discomfort. Twelftree for example acknowledges that there are cases in the gospels which should be demythologized and understood as pre-scientific descriptions of natural illnesses, rather than supernatural demonic affliction. Additionally, when approaching the topic of demons he ends up hedging and qualifying his words repeatedly, to the point that he ends up arguing that we really can’t define what a demon even is, beyond extremely vague language. He says “we cannot define ‘demon’ or ‘evil spirit’ more precisely than to say that it is some form of evil agency often manifesting personal characteristics”.
The reason for this is that he knows full well that the traditional view of demons simply can’t be defended anymore, so he has to abandon the historic certainty on the subject, and hide behind handwaving.
It doesn’t apply to me because the circumstances are different.
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I don’t ignore the vast majority of scholars who don’t agree with my view. I engage them critically, in public.
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The majority of scholars who don’t agree with my view, is nowhere near as large as the majority of scholars who don’t agree with your views on AGW and evolution. In my case, the view I take is a respectable minority view in mainstream scholarship. In your case, the views you take are views which don’t even exist in mainstream science.
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My views are based on actual evidence, in particular socio-historical context and lexicography, evidence which has been acknowledged in mainstream scholarship. Your views are based on personal theology, and not on any scientific evidence.
The paper has been publicly available on my Academia profile ever since it was published about three years ago. See how I can substantiate my claim to having published in the literature, whereas you can’t?
Irrelevant. Today, the language of the “plain meaning of the text” is used by fundamentalists to oppose interpretations with which they disagree. You use the same rhetorical strategy as Ken Ham.
That is no longer the case today.
When your best argument for your position is “Lots of people have believed this for a very long time”, then your position is incredibly weak. Those so-called “first-rank Christian apologists” believed all kinds of stupid ideas, and had hardly a quarter of the knowledge of the Bible that we have today.
We could say that the vast majority of historical Christians, including “the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians”, believed in witches and witchcraft. Look where that ended up. Their arguments are now treated as an unpleasant footnote in the annals of theological bungling.
The same can be said for other doctrines, such as infant sprinkling, the immortal soul, the belief that Jesus was God, and penal substitutionary atonement. It is well recognized today in mainstream scholarship that the vast majority of historical Christians, including “the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians”, were totally wrong on these issues. They didn’t know what they were talking about.
It’s highly ironic to see you making arguments on the basis of what the majority of Christians have thought over time, and appealing to “first-rank Christian theologians”, while dismissing modern scientific consensus with the claim that it’s a mere appeal to authority or majority.
Your reasons have never been based on the science.
This is extremely disingenuous. You have consistently represented the science as wrong, using terms like “alarmist” to describe scientific consensus, and alleging that the consensus is based on error. You have cited scholars who claim the consensus is wrong. Your claim to 'withhold consent" is simply the thinly disguised denial of the pseudo-skeptic. It is not remotely rational to “withhold consent” on the issues of AGW and evolution, and scientists have been saying so for decades.
I’ll repeat what I said before, since you never addressed it.
Your position is not rational. You do not “withhold consent” on any rational basis.
Not in the least, and I’m not the first to note the fact. Look at this post earlier in this very thread.
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Forgive my interjection, but this bit caught my attention. I’m curious what the issue is with Eddie citing scholars whose views align with his. It’s not like there’s much consensus on much of anything. All views are subjective. So it would only make sense that you’d cite scholars whose views align. It shows that there’s support for his view from someone who presumably has an informed opinion.
I don’t know. Just seemed an odd thing to be accused of.
Because he does it when there’s a well established scientific consensus to the contrary.
Yes there is. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus on evolution and AGW.
When people only cite scholars who agree with them, and ignore the overwhelming scholarly consensus against them, then they are not being rational. This is not the sign of an informed opinion, it’s a sign of personal bias.
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My confusion continues. There seems to be some blending back and forth between objective and subjective content. When you’re speaking of “scholars” and “consensus” you’re speaking of subjective/philosophical debate. Where “scientific consensus” speaks of establishing objective truths that require no philosophical contemplation.
When I said there isn’t much consensus on anything, I thought this whole back and forth was primarily theological.
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No, not necessarily. Scientists are also scholars. Additionally, non-scientists are perfectly capable of reaching objective conclusions. Historians, lexicographers, archaeologists, and paleographers are just a few examples.
But as I’ve said more than once, I have objected to Eddie’s preference for fringe scientific commentary, in the face of a well established scientific consensus. That’s the point you seem to have missed.
Then you’re still wrong. There are many well established consensuses on theological matters.
Eh, wrong? I don’t know, Jonathan. There’s certainly enough there to justify still highly debatable topics and opposing views.
And I have to suggest maybe not saying “scientific consensus”. Scientists can agree. But for it to be “scientific consensus” suggests empirical confirmation. Hence, “objective”.
Really “scientific consensus” sounds redundant. If a conclusion can be replicated consistently, is that the consensus?
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That doesn’t change the fact that there are many well established consensuses on theological matters.
I have to suggest becoming familiar with the scholarship of science. The term “scientific consensus” is used widely in the scholarship of science. The term “consensus” simply means “agreement”. It’s used in the scholarship of science in the same way that it’s used in other fields.
A scientific consensus is formed through empirical confirmation. As I mentioned a couple of times earlier, scientific consensus is significant not because of the number of people involved, or the fact that they agree, but by the method by which the consensus is formed; repeated observation, hypotheses, experimentation, accurate predictions, and the repeated validation of hypotheses, and their persistent resistance to falsification.
Please advise the entire world of the scholarship of science. Write a paper or something.
Not simply by virtue of being consistently replicable, but it might become the consensus. It only becomes the consensus when it has been adopted by a sufficient number of scientists.
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