(December 21, 2017 at 12:21 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Yes, I'm an emotional being. Emotions guide my actions when I'm hanging out with friends and family, writing poetry, or expressing myself to a love interest. But when trying to figure out anything about the nature of the universe/reality, it falls way short. Logic is the right tool for that job.
You're painting with an overly broad brush. Logic alone can help us figure out the nature of reality in part. Logic leads me to belief in a creator god of some sort. Logic fails in other instances. I could logically conclude that disabled people are a drain on society and should be eliminated. In that case I defer to emotion and faith, which tells me otherwise. Regarding the physical, we tend to rely on observation and science rather than logic. Overall, logic is very limited regarding the nature of the universe/reality.
Quote:Unless you can prove that an atheist can't quit using for 20 years, this statement is meaningless. A drunk who found a rabbit's foot the day he quit drinking might credit the lucky charm for getting him to 20 years of sobriety. That's how confirmation bias works.
Christianity doesn't need to have the only solution to a problem in order to have a solution to the problem. Plenty of atheists have sobered up through 12-step programs by using the group or something else as their higher power. To say that they, or someone who sobered up through religion or some philosophy, are merely engaging in confirmation bias is ridiculous. A rabbit's foot isn't analogous to conscious lifestyle choices aimed at producing a desired effect.
Quote:You may be right here. I am assuming you follow the work of theologians more than I do. But I don't see why theology wouldn't be any different than philosophy, physics, science, psychology, or any other academic discipline where consensuses develop. I'm not talking about unanimous agreement (and I think we're on the same page here), but things are generally agreed upon in many areas. What about the dating of the Gospels? Several independent sources that I have researched myself have corroborated one another. There might not be unanimous agreement as to the dates, but there is continuity and a general consensus. But, again, theology ain't my wheelhouse.
Again, my main points with regard to this are:
1. We don't know the percentages of Biblical scholars' positions on any issue. People pretending we do are, well, pretending.
2. Even if we have a majority, that doesn't indicate truth.
You don't seem to contest those, so I'm not sure where you're going with the above.
A difference between Biblical scholarship and the other disciplines you mention is that those disciplines can publish on new discoveries. Aside from Biblical archaeology, Biblical scholars don't have new material to publish on. They have pretty much the same Bible they've always had. So, to publish articles and books, they need to invent new ways of looking at it. A book or article concluding that the conventional wisdom of the past 2,000 years is correct is less likely to be published than one challenging the conventional wisdom. So, people reading the latest journals and books (who are the type of people editing wiki pages) can end up seeing a false consensus.
