[Gary Wassner]

Now let's bring this back to the topic of the thread. According to what you are saying, if I read you correctly HE, scripture may as well be history, because we really have no way of distinguishing between facts and fantasy to begin with. Both require belief and the veracity of both is measured by the same yardstick. So, the description of Moses parting the Red Sea and of Christ rising from the dead is perfectly logical and shouldn't be put to any tests that we would normally use to determine if we are understanding things in our world correctly.

[Hereford Eye]

I think what I'm saying is that as a history, the Bible is every bit as accurate as the following US history text books among those used in our schools to teach our children:
The American Adventure 1975
American Adventures 1987
American History 1982
The American Pageant 1991
The American Tradition 1984
and almost every other American history text penned between 1850 and 2000.
It has become an aphorism that history books, written as they are by the winners, lie. Okay, let's soften that, they fantacize.

As a means of supporting a belief system, the bible accomplishes its purpose extremely well and has done so for quite some time. If people want to believe in the parting of the Red Sea, t's okay with me. According to this science that is all the rage, my belief and dream and hope that the speed of light can be exceeded is just as far fetched.

We should begin worrying about the scientific accuracy of the Bible about the time we begin worrying about the scientific accuracy of Star Wars. It isn't meant to be a physics text book.

I don't care what people believe as long as I am free to belive what I choose to believe. I have no aspiration to messiahhood so I am not in the least interested in converting them away from their belief.

[kongming]

There was an interesting article by a fellow named Tom Harper in a The Toronto Star a Canadian newspaper. He has studied ancient greek and can actually read the orriginal bibles. In greek Jesus was answering a question about hell. He made an analogy with this dump on the edge of town that used to be a pagan alter but the jews had destroyed it. Anyway when the it was written in ancient greek they used words for the afterlife that Jesus was describing and one of those was Hades, the greek hell. So this is where the idea of fire and brimstone came from.

Harper went on to state that what Jesus was saying and had said in the past was misinterpreted. He claimed that the afterlife of Heaven and hell is the same place. Once you arrive you will relive the experiences of anyone you have influenced on the mortal plane. So if you were the reason 6 million people were exterminated then you relive the lives of each of those 6 million people and if you are not sorry for what you did once you have gone through it then you keep reliving these experiences until you ARE sorry. If you never hurt anyone or somehow understood what you had done and were truly sorry for it before death then there is no reason to live through the lives of people you hurt.

Anyway, this is the nature of the afterlife that I adhere to and I can easily see how it could be seen as two very different places by two different people. Also I can see where the idea of Purgatory came from.

no catholic should say Hell does not exist.

[Scott Bakker]

Given that the question begs the "1 + 1 = ?" case mentioned previously, my answer is that, yes, all claims are equal if they satisfy the need the claimant had when making the claim. Can't compare apples and oranges, can you? Must take apples in the context of the tree they grew on and oranges the same. It's not a competition as to who has the "correct" answer; it's a question if the answer serves its purpose.

Is this what you're saying: Since everyone comes from their own context, and since everyone generally argues in their own interest, everybody is right all the time, and all 'wrong' really means is 'disagree with me'? Does that mean Hitler was right about the Jews, or that Ptolemy was right about the planets, given their 'context'?

If you sincerely believe this HE, then there's absolutely no reason to debate, since debating somebody who make's 'agreement with his interests' the criterion of true and false beliefs is simple futility. Personally, I believe self-interests are the primary obstacle to finding better beliefs. And I don't think it's mere coincidence that so much scientific methodology is devoted to safeguarding results from the experimenter's interest.

The bottom line, though, is that if this your response, then it's philosophical, and philosophical claims seem to have a horrible track record, wouldn't you agree? All things being equal, I think it's more rational to suspend any commitment to this philosophical position you ascribe to, and wait to see what other, obviously more reliable institutions, such as science, have to say.

Do we get use the entire world or we confined to Eurocentric science? If we get to include China, the rest of the Far, Southeast and the Middle East as part of the history of science, then I'll accept science as the most powerful instrument of discovery. If we are limited to Eurocentric science, then, no, I'd rank the accomplishments of the rest of the world right up there with modern science because without the rest of the world, it couldn't have happened.

Huh? I think you're trying to undermine the functional veracity of scientific discovery by contextualizing it, and then rendering it definitionally contingent on those contexts (??), but what it really sounds like is a way to avoid answering the question. Does it make you uncomfortable?

Profound differences in agenda or mythos or faith, whichever term suits you best.

I thought the differences at issue were clear when I asked the question. The way critique is built into the claim-making process in science. The way scientific claims exhibit so many more theoretical virtues. If science and religion are essentially the same, as you say, you must have some way of explaining those away. Because if you can't it suggests that they're fundamentally different.

Since all these responses come down to this contextualist stance your advocating, I'll bring it all down to a single question. What is there in philosophy that warrants exclusive commitment to any philosophical claim, let alone this contextualism you're espousing?

You are, in effect, preempting all scientific claim-making on the basis of a philosophical claim, which kind of strikes me like convicting the Pope on Ted Bundy's testimony!

[kongming]

I recommend reading "A General Theory of Love" by Richard Lannon MD.

and then

"Plato: The Symposium."


This just occurred to me, something about which science has little to say. Does love between human beings exist? Let's distinguish here between love and procreation. I'm talking the love that has kept me sharing life with the same woman for 37 years. Is that real or is it a figment of my imagination?
Where did it come from and why? What's its purpose if there are no children?

[kongming]

That statement just seems false to me. At times Religious institutions have agreed and disagreed, sometimes groups of christians agree on one thing and then not on another.

Are you claiming that every scientist in the world tows the line and believes evrything that science has "proven". If so why do they keep running experiments, when they've already built a consensus?

And how do you build a consensus in a belief that is based as you say on skepticism?

As far as I'm concerned the difference simply couldn't be more stark. On the one hand you have an institution, religion, that still can't command consensus on its founding claims after thousands of years, and on the other, you have an institution that has been able, despite its foibles, to build on consensus after consensus, so that a few centuries after Gallileo, we can eradicate small-pox, generate thermonuclear explosions, and create the very computers you use to make your argument.

[Hereford Eye]

What is there in philosophy that warrants exclusive commitment to any philosophical claim, let alone this contextualism you're espousing?
I do not recall advocating exclusive commitment to any philosophical claim. I do recall talking at length on belief systems and the notion that I suspect modern science constitutes a belief system. There are many posts above that go to this matter.

I'd propose a counter question: can you please cite an example of a scientific fact that exists out of its context?

As to your bringing Hitler into the mix, I am miffed that you don't read my posts. I believe I stated quite clearly "I don't care what people believe as long as I am free to believe what I choose to believe." When my right to believe what I choose to believe gets threatened by an individual or a government, I get agitated. I am prone to stay agitated till the threat disappears. As you may suspect, I stay agitated.

Plato: The Symposium
No philosophy allowed; it isn't scientific. :rolleyes: :)

[kongming]

No all claims are NOT equal. Some scientists claims are greater than the claim of a Bishop or Monk based on who you trust is closer to the truth and vive versa.

And I think Bookies are far more accurate than science OR religeon.

They make some claims and alot of the time they disagree. Not everything science said is true in fact all of it could be wrong but we accept many things as true because we ourselves have the ability to perceive the truth. The same with the world's religeon's They make a claim and we shouldn't immediatly jump on board b/c they say it's true.

Anyway with science or religeon you can meditate or pray on the claim and decide for yourself what you will accept and what you will withold jedgement on.

1) Are all claims equal, and if not, what distinguishes better claims from worse claims?
2) If science isn't the most powerful instrument of discovery in human history, what claim-making institution beats it?
3) How do you explain the profound differences between science and religion as claim-making institutions?

[Hereford Eye]

I hereby unpropose my counter question presented above. There is an ancient US Army term to cover what prompted me to pose the question in the first place: I f**ked up. :eek: Sorry about that!

[Scott Bakker]

Contextualism is a philosophical position wherein claims are held to be relative to their pertinent contexts. Are you saying you don't hold this view? Because it seems to be what you keep coming back to in your preemption of scientific claims. And if you do hold this view, you have a bonified philosophical commitment to the nature of claims and truth.

For me, I don't hold much truck with the 'trumping power' of philosophical claims, especially ones that claim to erase the cognitive difference between claims (I see it as a self-preservational tactic, allowing people to have claims without really having to defend them). Unlike science, and very much like religion, philosophy as an institution hasn't been able to resolve any of its controversies (as an aside, Kongming, what controversies has religion definitively settled on the basis of evidence and reason (as opposed to attrition and authority)?). Like I say, using philosophy to impeach science is like convicting the pope on Ted Bundy's testimony!

As for your question, tell me what a 'context' is, HE, and I'll be more than happy to answer. I for one, haven't a clue, and I used to be a contextualist! Now, like I say, I just see a bunch of humans making a bunch of claims, and it seems pretty clear to me that the claims made by one's wearing the white coats tend to be more reliable, more useful, less flattering, more comprehensive, more inclined to progess, to command consensus, and so on, and so on, than the ones with the collars or the tweed jackets. If I wrong about that, then I'm open to how their claims tend to be all these things.

Otherwise, please don't get agitated! Certainly we have the freedom to believe whatever we want. But don't you want to have the best beliefs possible? Testing them in debate is all about that.