(October 15, 2014 at 1:12 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: That’s a fair question. I think the same rules apply to religious instruction as they do to all other topics. Based on our own judgment and those of people we trust, we study known experts. Generally, we defer to their opinion until we feel sufficiently educated to challenge those opinions. Of course even experts disagree and we generally defer final judgment on an issue we feel is questionable until we have given them a fair reading.

That's the problem with religion, isn't it? The question of who are the known experts and how do you know it? In other fields when experts disagree, we have real world experiments and tests to help determine who is right - what is the test in religion?

(October 15, 2014 at 1:12 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I believe having a consistent hermeneutic matters more than a consistent results. The criticism that believers are cherry-picking is valid only to the extent that they do not have an overall methodology for determining how things should be “rightly divided.” This applies to all holy writ and sacred texts regardless of tradition.

The practice of "I'll pick what I feel is right" is an overall methodology for determining how things should be “rightly divided.”

(October 14, 2014 at 9:23 am)Rhythm Wrote: Isn't it common knowledge that the religious don't exactly toe the line to their own horseshit (not even limited to any holy book) with any regularity? Frankly, I'm relieved that they don't.

Not just that, but so many of them follow it by rote, and therefore the way that they represent their faith or their religion can change from person to person, even among adherents to the same denomination. Grab two people from any specific denomination and ask them questions about their beliefs and you might get very divergent accounts and explanations. Even for things that might seem as important as "who is god" or what god's nature is.

Even the theists who visit here --most of whom have given far more thought to those questions than your average believer, IMO-- cannot agree on such questions or explanations and have a fairly broad range of beliefs on various topics and questions. That does two things: it gives theists a way to avoid some of the discussion by concentrating on the things that atheists "get wrong" about them regarding their individual beliefs, and it confirms to the atheist that those beliefs are an incoherent mess that cannot be reconciled even by the people who claim to adhere to them.

Two options for the Muslim:

1. The Quran IS The Word of God.
2. The Quran IS NOT The Word of God.

There is no "sorta kinda" option.

(October 15, 2014 at 1:19 pm)genkaus Wrote:

(October 15, 2014 at 1:12 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: That’s a fair question. I think the same rules apply to religious instruction as they do to all other topics.

That's the problem with religion, isn't it? The question of who are the known experts and how do you know it? In other fields when experts disagree, we have real world experiments and tests to help determine who is right - what is the test in religion?

Do you consider any of the humanities knowledge? Not all forms of knowledge can be isolated under controlled conditions. Only the narrow-minded would make experimental verification a requirement of knowledge. People can reason from general experience to gain knowledge about the nature of reality and the absolute principles that govern it. If particular experiences appear to violate the deduced absolutes then further inquiry is justified. This applies to everything, holy writ included.

(October 15, 2014 at 1:19 pm)genkaus Wrote: The practice of "I'll pick what I feel is right" is an overall methodology for determining how things should be “rightly divided.”

But not a good one. Are you even capable of making value judgments? Black and white thinking is a sign of borderline personallity disorder. You might want to get that checked.

(October 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(October 15, 2014 at 1:19 pm)genkaus Wrote: That's the problem with religion, isn't it? The question of who are the known experts and how do you know it? In other fields when experts disagree, we have real world experiments and tests to help determine who is right - what is the test in religion?

Do you consider any of the humanities knowledge? Not all forms of knowledge can be isolated under controlled conditions. Only the narrow-minded would make experimental verification a requirement of knowledge.

Maybe it just depends on what sort of knowledge it is we think we've found. When you read a novel in which you think you realize something true about the human condition, that's more a kind of self-knowledge than it is the interpersonal knowledge science is known for. If the 'knowledge' is the sort the humanities is famous for, then it will always be the kind over which people can reasonably disagree. We may think their stance indicative of an impoverished state of self. They may think the same of us.

The truths of the humanities are elective and persuasive, if at all, only in a rhetorical way. We may feel that others should be swayed, as we ourselves are, by some insight or other. But we can't reasonably be surprised when others are not moved.

I don't see any reason to mix these kinds of knowledge. It can only cause confusion.

(October 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Do you consider any of the humanities knowledge? Not all forms of knowledge can be isolated under controlled conditions. Only the narrow-minded would make experimental verification a requirement of knowledge. People can reason from general experience to gain knowledge about the nature of reality and the absolute principles that govern it. If particular experiences appear to violate the deduced absolutes then further inquiry is justified. This applies to everything, holy writ included.

What a confused mess:
Yes, humanities are forms of knowledge. No, isolation under controlled conditions is not required to gain experimental knowledge. Knowledge without experimental verification leads to most of the misconceptions about reality today. Reasoning from general experience is a form of experimental knowledge - where those experiences are subject to verification. Without it being so, the knowledge is not sound. And if it applies to the holy writ, please provide details of experiential experimental tests to verify the knowledge.

(October 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: But not a good one. Are you even capable of making value judgments? Black and white thinking is a sign of borderline personallity disorder. You might want to get that checked.

Its as good and valid as any of the other methods you might have.

(October 14, 2014 at 2:41 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Unmoved Mover. Next.

An unmoved mover is, for all we know, synonymous with "forces of nature."

Doesn't really get you anywhere beyond that. Nice try though.

(October 16, 2014 at 1:59 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: An unmoved mover is, for all we know, synonymous with "forces of nature." Doesn't really get you anywhere beyond that.

You might be stopping short if you think of the forces of nature as limited to the four known physical forces and handful of constants. The regular operation and universal applicability of the physical laws are contingent more fundamental metaphysical principles, like the nature of causation, known only by rational reflection. The unmoved mover falls into this category of rationally because it necessarily links the potentials of sensible objects to their actualizations.

(October 15, 2014 at 10:56 pm)genkaus Wrote:

(October 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: But not a good one. Are you even capable of making value judgments?

It’s [“pick what you like”] as good and valid as any of the other methods you might have.

Your statement makes no sense apart from the ability to evaluate what is bad, good, and better, with respect to method.

(October 15, 2014 at 10:28 pm)whateverist Wrote:

(October 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Do you consider any of the humanities knowledge?

If the 'knowledge' is the sort the humanities is famous for, then it will always be the kind over which people can reasonably disagree…The truths of the humanities are elective and persuasive, if at all, only in a rhetorical way.

You are right when it comes to the arts. It is a different story with many other disciplines. Historical facts are discovered, not invented. Likewise, linguistics and semiotics fall within the purview of the humanities and their conclusions are as solid as many accepted in some other branches of natural science.

(October 15, 2014 at 9:14 am)Chas Wrote: Ridicule is not justification. The book itself is ridiculous - that is the justification.

And even if they were to disavow the book, their theology is ridiculous and worthy of being dismissed.

Of course it's ridiculous. The point of this part of the discussion isn't to get you to buy into Islam.

It seems to me to be about 'what shall be done about Islam?'. Do we distinguish between Islam and Islamism and try (in what little ways we can) to shift the center towards a more liberal Islam which in the long run will be more amenable to members becoming atheists, or should we direct our efforts towards convincing the average Muslim that their religion is basically crap and they ought to be atheists? I think it's true that the vast majority of Muslims would be better off as atheists. But attempting to accomplish that seems both a tad ambitious and disrespectful of their autonomy and likely to result in a backlash and a jutifiable perception that we just hate Muslims and want to 'cure' them of being Muslim. There are a LOT of Christians who think that's the best approach, only with the goal of making them Christians, of course.

(October 16, 2014 at 12:53 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: You might be stopping short if you think of the forces of nature as limited to the four known physical forces and handful of constants. The regular operation and universal applicability of the physical laws are contingent more fundamental metaphysical principles, like the nature of causation, known only by rational reflection. The unmoved mover falls into this category of rationally because it necessarily links the potentials of sensible objects to their actualizations.

And? Your reasoning applies only to events in time, not time itself. Whereas you're attempting to establish the existence of God, all you can really accomplish is the logical demonstration of the absolutely necessary existence of some metaphysical principle or natural law.

As Schopenhauer pointed out, "The word God, honestly used, expresses such a cause of the world with the addition of personality," a move not even your Unmoved Mover can justify.

"The law of causality is therefore not so obliging as to allow itself to be used like a cab which we dismiss after we reach our destination."