The role of the printing press in standardising texts

Ekancone

I posted this in the Christian forum, but i feel it maye be of interest to atheists too who question the validity of the bible. Feel free to delete it if you think i am spamming but i dont think it is.

Before the invention of the printing press the standards of copying in written texts was very sporadic. Generally, each time a copy of a book was made, mistakes were made and the writers allowed themselves a little room for their own interpretation. (Also considering the butchering of texts by council of Nicea, Latin Vulgate, etc) Following the invention of the printing press this led to greater circulation of texts and greater standardisation of these texts which could not be reversed, unless of course all books were burned ad Stalinism/Inquisition.

So considering this, how can any copies of the bible be considered to be true to the original pre-printing press? Also, how can any post-printing copies of the bible be considered when they are based on pre-printing press copies?

Zillah

They can't...?

Really, the entire thing is a nightmarish mishmash of Israelite history, creation myths, rewritten Sumerian tales, medieval theology and translation error. And then they ignore all the bits that make them uncomfortable anyway. There's no such thing as the true Bible, there never was, its like a snowball hurtling down a hill, gathering up bits and pieces as it goes.

Red Hand

I agree with Zillah. Plus, before it was wrtten down, much of it had been filtered through countless minds of oral story tellers-rather like the story of the Trojan war (which may have begun as just a story of one war involving Troy) may have grown until it involved Gods, Godesses and demi-heroes, with Homer as the Gospel dictator.

Ekancone

So how can people condider these texts as being true to the word of god when they are so clearly flawed?

MooseJam

Because they are irrational

Red Hand

You're on the wrong forum for that question!:p

Well, they'll justify it in many ways-God meant it to be changed/misinterpretated by those doing the writing/retelling, blind acceptance of "the word" without logic/commonsense coming into it, and the old chestnut-"we shouldn't question/it is part of God's plan".

Dades

MooseJam wrote:

Because they are irrational

Rather a broad sweep that one. Pretty much took out most of humanity right there.

Zillah

daithifleming wrote:

So how can people condider these texts as being true to the word of god when they are so clearly flawed?

Because they're utterly head-fected with a ludicrous thought-virus. Most will make up all sorts of excuses but they'll accept any pseudo answer as long as they can continue to convince themselves its all consistent and true.

The Atheist wrote:

Rather a broad sweep that one. Pretty much took out most of humanity right there.

They took themselves out to be honest, we just call it as we see it. They're all crazy

Tim Robbins

daithifleming wrote:

So how can people condider these texts as being true to the word of god when they are so clearly flawed?

1. They consider that parts of the scripture were written so close to the time of Christ that there is no way they would have become popularized if they weren't true.
2. They think that if the authors where making things up they wouldn't have used women as the witnesses to the empty tomb because at the time women had very little respect in society.
3. They think that if the gospels are fictitious, then so is any ancient history.
4. They read the scripture and think it speaks to them or connects with them spirituality.
5. It can't be prooved the Gospels are wrong.
6. Although there are no corroborating historial accounts to any of the miracles of Jesus Christ, there are no contradicting accounts in any majoy anicent historian e.g. Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus.
7. Apparently there are more copies of Christian scripture than anything written about Julius Caesar. They think if we are to believe the accounts of Julius Caesar ergo the accounts of Jesus Christ must be true.
8. They think the Dead Sea Scrolls vindicates the authenticity of scripture, even though the dead sea scolls apparently only contain scraps of the NT.
9. They think the Gospels all support each other in the key aspects Jesus Christ. So they think they have multiple sources and witnesses all saying the essentially the same thing about Jesus Christ.
10. Last be not least, there's "faith". So what if it can't be prooved that the gospels are reliable, it's faith afterall.

Sangre

The Atheist wrote:

Rather a broad sweep that one. Pretty much took out most of humanity right there.

Every human is irrational at some point about some things. Some people are just consistantly so on the same subject. Anyway, if you think all religions are blatently wrong then whats wrong with calling believes irrational? You can be very smart and at the same time be irrational regarding some subjects. Even the smartest man falls victims to his emotions.

Anyway, the more I see the more I'm convinced the world is full of idiots and religion is only a small reason for this.

pinksoir

Sangre wrote:

Every human is irrational at some point about some things. Some people are just consistantly so on the same subject. Anyway, if you think all religions are blatently wrong then whats wrong with calling believes irrational? You can be very smart and at the same time be irrational regarding some subjects. Even the smartest man falls victims to his emotions.

Anyway, the more I see the more I'm convinced the world is full of idiots and religion is only a small reason for this.

Indeed, people are idiots.

cavedave

8. They think the Dead Sea Scrolls vindicates the authenticity of scripture, even though the dead sea scrolls apparently only contain scraps of the NT.

Do the dead sea scrolls (and the gospel of Judas and other such historical artifacts) not contradict much of the new testament? If you start using the dead sea scrolls as evidence that the scriptures are authentic then you have to start asking questions about what else they show about the new testament.

Excelsior

Zillah wrote:

Really, the entire thing is a nightmarish mishmash of Israelite history, creation myths, rewritten Sumerian tales, medieval theology and translation error.

Which bits are which? Cos forgive me for reading the text a lot but it seems like there are 2 pages at the start where two interlocking creation tales are told that compete with the Sumerian concepts that held sway at the time (not that the rhetoric is pointed only in their direction) and then that is the end of the Creation story. There are a couple of hundred pages of history in the book of Moses and in Kings and Chronicles but less than half the Hebrew text could be grouped in that way. I find it hard to conceive of finding medieval theology in a collection of books that was finished by 95AD at the latest. And where are the translation errors that you so confidently rely on?

Basically Zillah, you might know your stuff about the Bible but in this post you have failed to show it. It basically all wrong.

Zillah wrote:

And then they ignore all the bits that make them uncomfortable anyway. There's no such thing as the true Bible, there never was, its like a snowball hurtling down a hill, gathering up bits and pieces as it goes.

What bits are ignored? I mean, can you really say that? Do you have a good grasp of Christian life in Ireland today so that you can genuinely say that there are bits ignored?

Furthermore, while I am fascinated (like most Christians) by how the texts came to be, surely when you say there was no such thing as the "true Bible" you are just stating an opinion based on what you think the Biblical texts ought to be like?

Jer16:1 wrote:

before it was wrtten down, much of it had been filtered through countless minds of oral story tellers-rather like the story of the Trojan war

Its hard for us as a culture immersed in the written word to acknowledge how effective oral history can be at transmitting data across generations. But even leaving this aside (that the Bible was not written like a game of Chinese whispers) you are again assuming a huge amount about the purpose of the text when you write it off the way you do. For one thing, you are assuming that it must be similar in intent to a Greek myth. Yet you don't support this with any argument. Why?

MooseJam wrote:

Because they are irrational

I guess there is a deep irony in someone hanging around the forum where heros of the web stand up for REASON and then write a post as categorically unreasoned (and unreasonable) as this. At the moment I am missing it though, since its getting mighty tiring to be caricatured constantly simply because I am a Christian.

Zillah wrote:

we just call it as we see it

That would fail the Enlightenment litmus test for reason, just to point that out.

Sangre wrote:

Anyway, the more I see the more I'm convinced the world is full of idiots and religion is only a small reason for this.

Amen brother! But I am debating with people on an internet forum about Christianity so maybe I am a big part of the problem?

CaveDave wrote:

Do the dead sea scrolls (and the gospel of Judas and other such historical artifacts) not contradict much of the new testament? If you start using the dead sea scrolls as evidence that the scriptures are authentic then you have to start asking questions about what else they show about the new testament.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the writings of the 2nd Temple Jewish sect, the Qumran Community. They are almost all Old Testament texts or commentaries on the texts advancing the communities eschatological views. They overwhelmingly support the veracity of the Hebrew Scriptures as we have them today, which is an interesting consideration for the Original Poster. You can buy a copy here.

My answer to the original post is here.

Dades

Howdy Excelsior!
Good to see ya back around these parts.

Zillah

Excelsior wrote:

And where are the translation errors that you so confidently rely on?

I don't have time to respond to all of this, but this bit is easy: The entire concept of the virgin birth was a mistranslation, it reads "young woman", not "virgin".

Here's a little about the links between the OT and older Sumerian stories: http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/Mesopotamia/Epic_of_gilgamesh/biblical_parallels_in_sumerian_l.htm

Furthermore, while I am fascinated (like most Christians) by how the texts came to be, surely when you say there was no such thing as the "true Bible" you are just stating an opinion based on what you think the Biblical texts ought to be like?

Ought to be like? As if I had a preference or something? My only point is that there is no single, complete Bible from which we can make a perfect copy, its a gathering of different bits and pieces that were brought together over a few thousand years, followed by a flurry of activity after the death of Jesus. They finally settled on four gospels as being genuine, quite arbitraily. If I recal, the main reason they went with four gospels was because Irenaeus of Lyons thought that four was a universal number...four winds, four compass directions etc.

What bits are ignored? I mean, can you really say that? Do you have a good grasp of Christian life in Ireland today so that you can genuinely say that there are bits ignored?

Who said anything about Ireland? I've spoken with hundreds of Christians from around the world and the vast majority of them haven't even read the Bible, and when confronted with details about it will frequently simply disregard the less pleasant parts, such as the annihilation of Sodom, or the strict dietary and hygeine requirements of Livicitus. Ironically, many will use the old testament as an argument for discrimination against homosexuals while ignoring the rest of the texts on either side of it, like being allowed to have slaves or being forbidden shell fish.

Fallen Seraph

Oh my, this brings back the memories. The first thread I ever read on christianity here at boards Excelsior thoroughly served Wicknight in a debate on the bible's validity. Deja vu.

MooseJam

Excelsior wrote:

I guess there is a deep irony in someone hanging around the forum where heros of the web stand up for REASON and then write a post as categorically unreasoned (and unreasonable) as this. At the moment I am missing it though, since its getting mighty tiring to be caricatured constantly simply because I am a Christian.

You want reasons ? Is you believe in sky faeries enough ? To attempt to note every reason Christians are irrational would be a gargantuan task that I'm not up to. If you are tired of being caricatured perhaps you should give second thoughts to being a Christian ?

Dades

MooseJam wrote:

You want reasons ? Is you believe in sky faeries enough ? To attempt to note every reason Christians are irrational would be a gargantuan task that I'm not up to. If you are tired of being caricatured perhaps you should give second thoughts to being a Christian ?

If you're not up to it - don't make the claim.
Or calm down. Or both.

Excelsior

Zillah wrote:

I don't have time to respond to all of this, but this bit is easy: The entire concept of the virgin birth was a mistranslation, it reads "young woman", not "virgin".

Zillah, that is a contested translation, a built-in ambiguity due to the fact that the Bible does have to be written in a language that evolved in human community. It is comparable to the very amusing fact that the Koran either says you get dozens of virgin brides when you die a martyr or lots of grapes. Both are valid. (In a linguistic and for many theological sense).

Also, I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, I really only want to show you that you shouldn't discard all Christian belief as a priori irrational but you have just given me one instance of "mistranslation"

Zillah wrote:

Here's a little about the links between the OT and older Sumerian stories: http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/Mesopotamia/Epic_of_gilgamesh/biblical_parallels_in_sumerian_l.htm

I know about the comparison between the Sumerian tales and the Hebrew texts but you derisively consider that a sign of the biblical inauthenticity? Do you perceive the same conflict when the New Testament writers reappropriate the imperialist terms like ekklessia, evangelion, kyrios and so on to express their message? You surely would expect a nation's writing to be influenced by their neighbours, both subconciously (I think Ireland's surrealist and absurdist literary tradition influenced for example, Britian's Monty Pyton) and conciously as they go to battle in the marketplace of ideas over what exactly is the right way to live (which is where most of the Sumerian comparisons would have to be grouped).

Zillah wrote:

Ought to be like? As if I had a preference or something?

Well you do have an idea of what the Bible is, don't you? You bring assumptions to the table. One of your assumptions is that Christians claim that the Bible is in a particular way singular. Read yourself here:

Zillah wrote:

My only point is that there is no single, complete Bible from which we can make a perfect copy, its a gathering of different bits and pieces that were brought together over a few thousand years

Now you might find some Christians who will make a claim this Koranic style Bible but you'd be dealing with a fringe group at best. (The kind of group that hang around internet bulletin forums instead of doing real work- oh no, its another warning sign for me about what I am doing here). What you have described here in terms of the gathering over thousands of year is actually, (toned down a little and made more specific) how I would view the formation of Scripture into the Bible and that is exactly WHY your first lines about single, complete perfection is so out of whack.

Zillah wrote:

followed by a flurry of activity after the death of Jesus. They finally settled on four gospels as being genuine, quite arbitraily

Oh come come! My Jewish friends would round on you since the post-Jesus writings are of a totally different order. It won't do to call it a flurry of activity and somehow imply that it is the same sort of activity. Furthermore, the quickly settled on four canonical Gospels. We have letters from around 150AD between persecuted church leaders talking about the surprise that they read the same Gospels in their respective churches. And it was the opposite of arbitrary. In today's world of self-selecting, long tail internet marketing world you can understand this- individual local church communities living under persecution spread out across the Roman empire in the days before ecclissiological centralisation chose to read the books they felt were in their own terms, edifying. It just so happened they read the same 29 books or so. 27 of these were almost universal. These 27 became the New Testament that were, and this is crucial, functioning as the sacred text before councils could ever get together and issue a statement from on high.

Zillah wrote:

If I recal, the main reason they went with four gospels was because a particular monk thought that four was a universal number...four winds, four compass directions etc. His name escapes me though.

Well he wasn't a monk since monks hadn't been invented yet. In fact, it was Irenaeus who wrote it in his pretty deadly little book Against Heresies in about 180AD, a good few centuries before Rome adopted Christianity and all the usual guff about Nicea and priests making up the Bible gets off the ground.

The early Church fathers were by and large a little too disposed towards analogy for our liking. This famous passage in chapter 3 (Against Heresies can be downloaded for free) is just an analogy, not the actual reasoning. Even Christians can't be that stupid!

Zillah wrote:

Who said anything about Ireland? I've spoken with hundreds of Christians from around the world and the vast majority of them haven't even read the Bible, and when confronted with details about it will frequently simply disregard the less pleasant parts, such as the annihilation of Sodom, or the strict dietary and hygeine requirements of Livicitus. Ironically, many will use the old testament as an argument for discrimination against homosexuals while ignoring the rest of the texts on either side of it, like being allowed to have slaves or being forbidden shell fish.

It is a deep shame that these Christians aren't familiar with the Bible. I am such a raving fan of the damn book that I think its a shame that everyone isn't familiar with it. I mean come on, as you say yourself, how can anyone avoid being fascinated by Genesis 19?! I have cited Leviticus' dietary laws in my church four times this year (I have preached six times) and preached on Leviticus 27 on Easter Sunday. I am not unusual. I worship in a mainstream PCI church. I think that the "talking" with you refer to is probably online and people can be assholes online. (I'm just an asshole online, in person I am perfectly charming ) So if you have a gay-hating, literalist shouting on a bulletin board it isn't really representative of mainstream Christian life, is it?

MooseJam

The Atheist wrote:

If you're not up to it - don't make the claim.
Or calm down. Or both.

that was a joke :rolleyes: , the existance of God is unproven therefore belief in him is irrational.

Excelsior

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Excelsior thoroughly served Wicknight in a debate on the bible's validity.

Ha! I wish. The only argument I ever won on the Christianity forum was the one where I convinced a friend to take over as moderator.

MooseJam wrote:

If you are tired of being caricatured perhaps you should give second thoughts to being a Christian ?

You are right. Maybe I'll go believe in er, sky faeries.

The Atheist- I'm having one last binge on the web before going away on holidays to a place where there is no mobile phone coverage, no broadband and no church I'd ever want to attend- Co. Leitrim.

Excelsior

MooseJam wrote:

the existance of God is unproven therefore belief in him is irrational.

I believe my wife loves me but it is unproven. I am irrational?

MooseJam

Excelsior wrote:

I believe my wife loves me but it is unproven. I am irrational?

are you joking ?, you know love exists because you have felt it and your wife I am sure has told you she loves you so your belief that your wife loves you is on solid ground , I'm sure you are glad to hear so

Excelsior

I feel like I'm on solid ground Moose, especially now you have reassured me.

But the problem is, I actually believe that God loves me, he likes me too. I think he has demonstrated this to me. But proving it in the way you use the word proof is as impossible (and maybe irrelevant?) as proving that my wife loves me.

Anyway, my point here is that Christianity is not actually irrational. Christians can be for sure! But its actually a particular version of Reason advanced by people who hold a specific worldview that causes people to say Christianity is irrational. At base, what is happening is a clash of worldviews, not that much vaulted human Reason we hear so much about.

(She just made me a toasted bacon bagel so I am definitely on firm ground)

Sapien

Excelsior wrote:

Christians can be for sure! But its actually a particular version of Reason advanced by people who hold a specific worldview that causes people to say Christianity is irrational. At base, what is happening is a clash of worldviews, not that much vaulted human Reason we hear so much about.

I think we should pretty much give up on all of this right now unless we can agree that, though it may sometimes be difficult to find, there is one Reason, or process of reasoning, that is more than merely the artifact of a worldview. Something like a means of weighing the relative strenghts of conflicting truth-claims, which depends on doubt, evidence, falsifiability and, the silver bullet, parsimony.

If Christianity isn't irrational, then I don't know what Christianity is.

MooseJam

Excelsior wrote:

But the problem is, I actually believe that God loves me, he likes me too. I think he has demonstrated this to me. But proving it in the way you use the word proof is as impossible (and maybe irrelevant?) as proving that my wife loves me.

Dude if he loves you he would have said so, not demonstrated it by things that are explainable in other ways, imagine the scene "O Hi, I'm God, and I really love you" see thats not so hard to imagine is it, of course it's never going to happen though is it, everything about Christianity is explaining why he doesn't show himself. I tell you one thing he doesn't love me and I'll not let anyone claim he does. For the record I know it's all a load of pants but as a character I think he's dispicable and as a charater I hate him.

Red Hand

Excelsior wrote:

Its hard for us as a culture immersed in the written word to acknowledge how effective oral history can be at transmitting data across generations. But even leaving this aside (that the Bible was not written like a game of Chinese whispers) you are again assuming a huge amount about the purpose of the text when you write it off the way you do. For one thing, you are assuming that it must be similar in intent to a Greek myth. Yet you don't support this with any argument. Why?

Similiar in intent? Nope, I didn't mean that there was any similarity in, say, overall message beteen the Iliad and the bible, however, what I was hoping to demonstrate is that tales and stories are often embellished and altered as they are passed down from generation to generation. There are ways of keeping the story on track-we see this again and again in various stories (not necessarily those of the bible) such as magic numbers (40 appears again and again along with the numbers 3 and 7) as memory nodes etc.

You must admit that the bible has been a good deal more static since it was written down and yet before that it must have been a bit more fluid due to the oral tradition?

Excelsior

I wouldn't put it that way Jer16:1 since it is much too simplistic. I think there are really only two books that would fall into your understanding, Job and Genesis, since they were pre-writing. But the rest of the books were written down in some form probably from the beginning. The history that Zillah thinks makes up so much of the Old Testament definitely comes under this heading.

But I am not arguing, nor are any serious Christians, for some simplistic Koranic understanding of the Bible. I am not saying that the Old Testament texts came down from heaven ready to publish. Once you remove the silly idea that we think the Bible is perfect in composition and transmission (there are all kinds of technical terms and ideas to go into which I obviously can't do here) then the oral transmission that you accept actually becomes more than robust enough to carry the data.

I was thinking about your post while washing up last night and I thought about it this way. Maybe it will help you see where I'm coming from: if we got a group of ten people together and asked them to recount their experience of June 4th 1989 they would not be likely to remember anything well. Even ask them to recall June 4th 2007 they would fail the test. But ask them to remember the day they proposed to their wife, their first son was born, they passed their final exam, their house burned down or something else pivotal in their own story and they'll recount it in great detail. Oral tradition is the basis of all history off the back of this kind of phenomenon. We might not remember generally, but we remember specifically.

Sapien wrote:

I think we should pretty much give up on all of this right now unless we can agree that, though it may sometimes be difficult to find, there is one Reason

I feel like a dad confronted with his teenaged daughter saying "Do you really love me?" and knowing that she is about to follow it with "Then you'd buy me a car". I think that is some definable idea called reason out there that is shared by all humanity, transcending cultures, but I fear that if we went into it I'd find your definition unsatisfyingly narrow and flat. Reality can be approached by many angles of intellectual endeavour and I would want to consider all of them reasonable.

The reason I have to hedge my bets on your question is not that I am messing you around. Rather it is that I think your definition of reason is a cornerstone of your worldview rather than an all encompassing, transcultural term.

Sapien wrote:

weighing the relative strenghts of conflicting truth-claims, which depends on doubt, evidence, falsifiability and, the silver bullet, parsimony.

Most truth claims can't be weighed effectively in these terms. An example would be the truth claim your sentence represents.

Sapien wrote:

If Christianity isn't irrational, then I don't know what Christianity is.

And here we see your worldview clearly exposed for all to see. You have a definition of reason that rules the supernaturalism of Christianity out of bounds before the game begins. You state it baldly as if it is a reasonable assertion and I am sure your assertion will carry the day in the Atheists and Agnostics forum. I can only hope that my posts in this thread might encourage you and others to reconsider the apparently arrogant blanket assertions which arise from your confidence in a philosophical movement, the Enlightenment (not in some mythical empirical truth-diving method).

MooseJam wrote:

Dude if he loves you he would have said so

You presume without basis that he hasn't because you have decided without due investigation that "mystical" experiences are invalid.

MooseJam wrote:

I tell you one thing he doesn't love me and I'll not let anyone claim he does

That isn't a rational statement by your definition since things that don't exist can't love. Why would you be offended at someone stupidly spouting nonsense about non-existent beings loving you? Pity seems more appropriate?

MooseJam wrote:

For the record I know it's all a load of pants but as a character I think he's dispicable and as a charater I hate him.

Well I think it curious that you can hate a non-existent thing. I also think its curious that you use the category hate that seems to me you presuppose in some sense that God ought to be good (if of course he did exist which you know he doesn't- that is a load of pants).

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

They think the Dead Sea Scrolls vindicates the authenticity of scripture, even though the dead sea scolls apparently only contain scraps of the NT.

cavedave wrote:

Do the dead sea scrolls (and the gospel of Judas and other such historical artifacts) not contradict much of the new testament? If you start using the dead sea scrolls as evidence that the scriptures are authentic then you have to start asking questions about what else they show about the new testament.

Excelsior wrote:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the writings of the 2nd Temple Jewish sect, the Qumran Community. They are almost all Old Testament texts or commentaries on the texts advancing the communities eschatological views. They overwhelmingly support the veracity of the Hebrew Scriptures as we have them today, which is an interesting consideration for the Original Poster.

Tim, I have never met any Christian who thinks that the Dead Sea Scrolls authenticate the New Testament, especially since most of the scrolls predate the New Testament.

As Excelsior points out, the Scrolls do demonstrate that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, despite been handcopied over centuries, has not picked up loads of alterations. That, of course, pretty well explodes the false notion expressed in the OP that distortion of copied manuscripts was inevitable prior to the printing press. So case closed there, I think.

Cavedave, the fact that portions of the Sciptures are copied accurately is a confirmation to Christians that those Scriptures have been accurately transmitted, even if those doing the copying were not in agreement with Christian doctrine. So, it would not matter if the Essenes (the Dead Sea Scrolls guys) were child-sacrificing cannibals who thought Jesus to be the flying spaghetti monster. The fact that they preserved copies of the Old Testament Scriptures that are identical to the manuscripts we use for our English translations is relevant whatever their beliefs.

The Gospel of Judas is a distraction & irrelevant to any discussion about the trustworthiness of the Bible. It was the product of a heretical splinter group and was written at least 100 years after all the apostles had died, and a century later than any canonical New Testament book.

Sapien

Excelsior wrote:

The reason I have to hedge my bets on your question is not that I am messing you around. Rather it is that I think your definition of reason is a cornerstone of your worldview rather than an all encompassing, transcultural term.

That much was, I think, already clear. I don't really intend much more right now than to strenuously disagree, which is about as much as I can do in the face of logical nihilism.

Excelsior wrote:

Most truth claims can't be weighed effectively in these terms. An example would be the truth claim your sentence represents.

How very Gödelian. Of course there are many claims to which not all of these criteria can be applied - hence the list. Either way, I think doubt and parsimony are the most important. You have started us off with doubt, now to parsimony. Suggest an alternative formula for reason and we'll see which is the simplest.

Excelsior wrote:

And here we see your worldview clearly exposed for all to see. You have a definition of reason that rules the supernaturalism of Christianity out of bounds before the game begins.

Nope. I have no particular problem with the supernatural, unusually for an atheist I suppose, so I'll forgive the presumption.

Excelsior wrote:

You state it baldly as if it is a reasonable assertion and I am sure your assertion will carry the day in the Atheists and Agnostics forum.

At this point I'm not sure whether that which you believe I am stating baldly I am actually saying at all, so I'll give you a chance to clarify before I defend myself too vigorously.

As a hint, parsimony and evidence are why I cannot consider anything that I have known of as Christianity to be reasonable.

Excelsior wrote:

I can only hope that my posts in this thread might encourage you and others to reconsider the apparently arrogant blanket assertions which arise from your confidence in a philosophical movement, the Enlightenment (not in some mythical empirical truth-diving method).

Well, I'm a physicist, and my epistemological standards tend to flow from that. Of course, outside of what is mathematisable, I have to compromise hugely, but never entirely. You see, not all "empirical truth-diving(?) methods" are mythical, and so my confidence that reason exists will be a little harder to budge than attempting to convince me that I am in thrall to some 19th century periwig wearing luftmenschen.

MooseJam

Excelsior wrote:

Well I think it curious that you can hate a non-existent thing. I also think its curious that you use the category hate that seems to me you presuppose in some sense that God ought to be good (if of course he did exist which you know he doesn't- that is a load of pants).

It's not curious, I also hate Harry potter and lots of people that don't exist, god is actually far down the list of characters I hate, Harry has him beat by a long way. I would presuppose that he ought to be good if there was one, there isn't however and you are on knees to nothing, seriously man have you no self respect .

Fanny Cradock

That massive chip on your shoulder must be a terrible burden to you, moosejam. I wonder are you having a bad day or are you naturally this belligerent.

Scofflaw

MooseJam wrote:

It's not curious, I also hate Harry potter and lots of people that don't exist, god is actually far down the list of characters I hate, Harry has him beat by a long way.

Harry Potter is a muppet - deus ex machina every time.

cordially,
Scofflaw

JC 2K3

Excelsior wrote:

You presume without basis that he hasn't because you have decided without due investigation that "mystical" experiences are invalid.

I think mystical experiences are invalid as proof of God due to learning about and taking psychedelic drugs. I've come to realise how easily manipulatable the human brain is and that mystical feelings and visions beyond one's wildest imagination and equivilant to any mystical experience occurring due to deep faith or otherwise are easily inducable and insignificant.