Athiest are the dumbest people. No Offence its just true.

[sdelsolray]

Why do you folks keep responding to Les, Gorm?

I put the self-appointed napoleon on ignore.

[Hydra009]

We can't trust it as a direct eyewitness account or as a dispassionate description of what took place. So we handle what it says with care. Otherwise it's OK!

Gerard

Wait a sec.  We can't trust the bible as a direct eyewitness account?!  So you mean we've got to take stuff like a talking donkey and walking on water with a grain of salt and not just assume this stuff to be the unvarnished truth simply because other people do?

Just more atheist closemindedness!

[Gerard]

Wait a sec.  We can't trust the bible as a direct eyewitness account?!  So you mean we've got to take stuff like a talking donkey and walking on water with a grain of salt and not just assume this stuff to be the unvarnished truth simply because other people do?

Just more atheist closemindedness!

Hydra, the walking on water and the donkeys, go together with the loaves of bread and the fishes and a lot of other stuff that isn't even about miracles,  on the big heap of stark tales that were told since time immemorial to embellish a good (or even a bad) story. That was done in those days.

Gerard

[reasonist]

This forum makes the distinction between scientists and apologists clearer every day. The first pursue knowledge through experimentation, calculation, testing and re testing. There is no pre determined outcome and the result can change with new evidence. Science is committed to the discovery of truth; it is not obliged to defend any particular set of beliefs at any cost. It's called an open mind, adapting to newly discovered factual evidence.
The theologian on the other hand adopts a position, a dogma, and then commits himself to a defense of that position come what may. Theology as a discipline is concerned with the defense of a particular set of beliefs, not with finding the truth. That's called a closed mind.

[Gerard]

This forum makes the distinction between scientists and apologists clearer every day. The first pursue knowledge through experimentation, calculation, testing and re testing. There is no pre determined outcome and the result can change with new evidence. Science is committed to the discovery of truth; it is not obliged to defend any particular set of beliefs at any cost. It's called an open mind, adapting to newly discovered factual evidence.
The theologian on the other hand adopts a position, a dogma, and then commits himself to a defense of that position come what may. Theology as a discipline is concerned with the defense of a particular set of beliefs, not with finding the truth. That's called a closed mind.

Yes, but theology isn't exactly the same as apologetics. I suppose it depends on the theologian or the training but many theologians have been accomplished historians or philologists. But I don't know much about what happens in the field as such. In most serious universities they call it different these days. Religious studies or something else.

Gerard

[Randy Carson]

We can't trust it as a direct eyewitness account or as a dispassionate description of what took place. So we handle what it says with care. Otherwise it's OK!

Gerard

Cool.

I've always wondered about the whole "objective/dispassionate v. biased" thing. I mean, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the Jews are VERY passionate about making sure that no one ever forgets the Holocaust?

But in order to make sure that its memory is not discredited (thereby opening the door to outright denial) and that it never happens again, aren't they careful to document every atrocity in painstaking detail so that no one can ever deny that the Holocaust really happened?

So, they're biased in the sense that they are "convinced" of the truth of what happened.

With that in mind, would the authors of the New Testament have been any less diligent in recording what happened accurately to avoid bringing disrepute upon the One they considered to be God?

Ehrman addressed the subject of NT bias this way:

"Consider an analogy. We don't dismiss early American accounts of the Revolutionary War simply because they were written by Americans. We take their biases into consideration and sometimes their descriptions of events with a pound of salt. But we do not refuse to use them as historical sources. Contemporary accounts of George Washington, even by his devoted followers, are still valuable as historical sources. To refuse to use them as sources is to sacrifice the most important avenues to the past we have, and on purely ideological, not historical, grounds. So, too, the Gospels. Whatever one thinks of them as inspired scripture, they can be seen and used as significant historical sources." (Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 74)

[reasonist]

Yes, but theology isn't exactly the same as apologetics. I suppose it depends on the theologian or the training but many theologians have been accomplished historians or philologists. But I don't know much about what happens in the field as such. In most serious universities they call it different these days. Religious studies or something else.

Gerard

I have a very hard time separating theologians from apologists. Anytime you (study and) adhere to a religious dogma, you have to be an apologist. How else can one justify belief in the irrational?

[Gerard]

Cool.

I've always wondered about the whole "objective/dispassionate v. biased" thing. I mean, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the Jews are VERY passionate about making sure that no one ever forgets the Holocaust?

But in order to make sure that its memory is not discredited (thereby opening the door to outright denial) and that it never happens again, aren't they careful to document every atrocity in painstaking detail so that no one can ever deny that the Holocaust really happened?

So, they're biased in the sense that they are "convinced" of the truth of what happened.

With that in mind, would the authors of the New Testament have been any less diligent in recording what happened accurately to avoid bringing disrepute upon the One they considered to be God?

Ehrman addressed the subject of NT bias this way:

Ehrman is absolutely right when it comes to the historiography of say, the US Revolutionary War. But we do judge the sources in more way than one. We must ask ourselves if the sources could verifiably have had access to direct information. And when it comes to sources about religious matters, that also took place in a time and era when people had a very different attitude towards stories and how they were or were not believable, we're in a very different territory that might be not so easy to understand for people who think, like we are used to in this day and age. Diligence that, for whatever reason,  distorts the information involved can be weighed much more easily when we actually have more information. That's a luxury we don't have when the NT is concerned.  I happen to think that the Gospels, to some extent, are historical sources. But they have been much more distorted than any tales about the Revolutionary War. Because the authors embellished these stories in a way that would have been unimaginable even in the late 18th century AND because they weren't actually eyewitnesses.

Gerard

[Baruch]

I have a very hard time separating theologians from apologists. Anytime you (study and) adhere to a religious dogma, you have to be an apologist. How else can one justify belief in the irrational?

Christian theology was invented, so that predecessors of Randy, aka apologists, would stand a chance in debate with a smart pagan.  This is why they initially had to bring Plato into it, and later Aristotle.  It is also useful for polemic.  But it is useless to determine truth, because it is biased ab inito.

[Gerard]

I have a very hard time separating theologians from apologists. Anytime you (study and) adhere to a religious dogma, you have to be an apologist. How else can one justify belief in the irrational?

Well, in the end, whatever you do or don't believe, that's a question of integrity. Or as some people call it, cognitive dissonance (that's a joke by the way). If you are a (believing) theologian but your field of investigation also involves history or textual criticism, you have to draw a line. Many succeed in doing that. It's possible as long as you're not also a fundamentalist.

Gerard

[Baruch]

Human beings can maintain incompatible beliefs and behaviors indefinitely.  This is not a flaw.  Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Still, these reports are from the Bible, and we can't trust it, can we? 

Fools can trust the Bible. Rational people demand better evidence.

[Gerard]

Christian theology was invented, so that predecessors of Randy, aka apologists, would stand a chance in debate with a smart pagan.  This is why they initially had to bring Plato into it, and later Aristotle.  It is also useful for polemic.  But it is useless to determine truth, because it is biased ab inito.

Well, I don't see it entirely that way. Plato (or at least neoplatonism) paved the way for monotheism in the Greco-Roman world.

Gerard

[Gerard]

Human beings can maintain incompatible beliefs and behaviors indefinitely.  This is not a flaw.  Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson.

Hihi...

Sorry, but I don't know what hobgoblin is......

Gerard

[Gerard]

Hihi...

Sorry, but I don't know what hobgoblin is......

Gerard

Ah... I just googled it....

Gerard