Searching for GOD...

[ProfessorDavey]

Vlad,

And this helps you how do you think?

The Big Book of Leprechauns contains the data that they leave pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. Therefore you should agree with me when I make various claims and assertions about the meaning of this activity.

Do you see anything wrong with this line of reasoning?   

We clearly need to revise our assumptions on when the first heavier than air flight by a human occurred as there are clearly support-strong data to support Daedalus and Icarus, nearly 3,500 years before the Wright brothers.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

And this helps you how do you think?

The Big Book of Leprechauns contains the data that they leave pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. Therefore you should agree with me when I make various claims and assertions about the meaning of this activity.

First of all, congratulations on compiling your years of contribution to this forum and having it anthologized as ''The big book of Leprechauns''.(Published by Shilleligh books price £20). I'm afraid I find your Leprochology only convincing in parts.

When was the last time you read the New Testament. It feels like we read the bible and you disbelieve it. What a strange arrangement.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We clearly need to revise our assumptions on when the first heavier than air flight by a human occurred as there are clearly support-strong data to support Daedalus and Icarus, nearly 3,500 years before the Wright brothers.

Manpower flight has been demonstrated not to work. Where are those jerky black and white films of the impossibility of divine incarnation?

[Outrider]

From what Christ has been reported to have said about himself in the Bible,

So the poetic translations of translations of a subset of works (selected by a vested interest, well after the fact) which at best are third or fourth hand accounts; people who speak the original languages do not consider the divine claims to stand or, in some instances, to have ever been made at all.

By his assumption by Jesus of divine offices i.e. forgiveness of sins, Salvation,

Even if you could demonstrate that the notion of 'sin' was valid, what 'sins' were perpetrated that need forgiveness, and what sins have been forgiven?

The declaration that he and the father are one,

I have a book - a better read than yours - which tells me about how Gandalf explains that he travelled through darkness out of thought and time and was returned... I don't believe that one, either. He can be reputed to have said (see above) whatever you like, it's an unreliable account where the claim requires a substantial body of evidence to consider the normal activity of reality to have been bypassed.

The assumption by the holy spirit of divine offices e.g. conviction of sin.

Trying to bolster a claim of something unsubstantiated (i.e. holy spirits) by reference to something else unsubstantiated (i.e. 'sin') is not going to get very far.

By the experience of Christians of the transcendent father, the salvific son and the imminence of the holy spirit and the processing of these and biblical texts by formal ecumenical council.

I'll see you a 'history of Christian experiences' and raise you a 'history of [insert religion of choice] experiences'... their experiences validate to the same extent (i.e. not much) claims which are mutually exclusive with yours. Experiences of transcendent phenomena is a symptom of many things we can demonstrate, and the presence of an actual god isn't one of them.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

First of all, congratulations on compiling your years of contribution to this forum and having it anthologized as ''The big book of Leprechauns''.(Published by Shilleligh books price £20).

When someone repeats endlessly that 2+2=5, there are only so many ways to explain that he’s wrong about that. Evasion noted though.

I'm afr’id I find your Leprochology only convincing in parts.

The contents of leprechaunology aren’t the point. The point is that if you want assert stories in old books to be data (ie, objectively true rather than just subjectively appealing) with no further qualification at all then you have no grounds to deny the same status to any other stories in different books.
 
I’m intrigued though - which parts of my leprechaunology do you find convincing?

When was the last time you read the New Testament. It feels like we read the bible and you disbelieve it. What a strange arrangement.

Ah, the courier’s reply fallacy. It’s been a while since you tried that one.

We could both read the NT (and the OT) until we’re blue in the face, but that would tell us nothing about whether and why we should treat its contents as objectively true.

Try to remember this in future. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

“Data”? You can’t just reify folk stories into data. Try “According to the biblical story” if you don’t want to overreach. 

You choosing which definition is valid in a ''Bluehillside joint'' and which isn't is a bit typical of you.
So let's clear this up with the dictionary definitions

Data
[ˈdeɪtə]
NOUN
facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
"there is very little data available"
synonyms:
facts · figures · statistics · details · particulars · specifics · features · [More]
the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media.
philosophy
things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation.

You're most welcome.

[ProfessorDavey]

Manpower flight has been demonstrated not to work. Where are those jerky black and white films of the impossibility of divine incarnation?

Actually man-powered flight does work.

However I said heavier than air flight by a human - not that the human provides the power. The Wright brothers demonstrated this some 120 years ago and there is no evidence that anyone did so earlier.

Yet by your definition of 'data' Icarus and Daedalus have strong claim as there are data that they did, based in ancient mythical stories. Just as there are claims that Jesus came back from the dead in ancient mythical stories. The reality is that neither claims are 'assumed as fact', nor are they based on 'reasoning or calculation' and therefore neither stories contain data. They are just ancient mythology devoid of any credible evidence to support the claims as having actually happened.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

You choosing which definition is valid in a ''Bluehillside joint'' and which isn't is a bit typical of you.
So let's clear this up with the dictionary definitions

Data
[ˈdeɪtə]
NOUN
facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
"there is very little data available"
synonyms:
facts · figures · statistics · details · particulars · specifics · features · [More]
the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media.
philosophy
things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation.

You're most welcome.

And you're still not getting it. If you want to "assume" things to be facts then you need to explain why anyone else should assume that too; if you want claim to "know" things to be facts, then you need justify that claim rather than just repeat what the book(s) happen to say.

You're most welcome. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Actually man-powered flight does work.

So are you now saying that Icarus and Daedalus could have pulled it off for a short while?

However I said heavier than air flight by a human - not that the human provides the power.

so what have Icarus and Daedalus got to do with this then?

[ProfessorDavey]

Data
[ˈdeɪtə]
NOUN
facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
"there is very little data available"
synonyms:
facts · figures · statistics · details · particulars · specifics · features · [More]
the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media.
philosophy
things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation.

You're most welcome.

Firstly any definition that assumes data are singular rather than plural is deeply suspect - singular is datum, plural is data.

But from your definition - first we can remove the part about computers as it isn't relevant. And there is no way that the resurrection story in the gospels meets the definition criteria either of:

'facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis' - there are no facts, there are no statistics

nor

'things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation' - the resurrection is not known to be true, nor is it assumed as fact, nor are the claims based on reasoning or calculation.

There are no data in the gospel claims of resurrection.

[ProfessorDavey]

So are you now saying that Icarus and Daedalus could have pulled it off for a short while?

No - I'm saying this guy has:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Piggott

And since then there have been numerous other demonstrations, including a nod to Daedalus when MIT Daedalu was flown from Crete to Santorini in just under 4 hours.

[ProfessorDavey]

so what have Icarus and Daedalus got to do with this then?

Because if the bible claims classify as 'data' on human resurrection then there is just as much claim that the story of Icarus and Daedalus contain data on the first heavier than air flight by a human, indeed the first human-powered heavier than air flight.

The reality is, of course, that neither contain data -they are merely mythical stories devoid of any evidence or data.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Firstly any definition that assumes data are singular rather than plural is deeply suspect - singular is datum, plural is data.

But from your definition - first we can remove the part about computers as it isn't relevant. And there is no way that the resurrection story in the gospels meets the definition criteria either of:

'facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis' - there are no facts, there are no statistics

nor

'things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation' - the resurrection is not known to be true, nor is it assumed as fact, nor are the claims based on reasoning or calculation.

There are no data in the gospel claims of resurrection.

From the definition above Data does not have to be known to be true, merely assumed and some do assume it.

Let's look further

Data (US: /ˈdæˈtə/; UK: /ˈdeɪˈtə/) are individual facts, statistics, or items of information, often numeric.[1] In a more technical sense, data are a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects,[1] while a datum (singular of data) is a single value of a single variable.[2]

Although the terms "data" and "information" are often used interchangeably, this term has distinct meanings. In some popular publications, data are sometimes said to be transformed into information when they are viewed in context or in post-analysis.[3] However, in academic treatments of the subject data are simply units of information.source Wikipedia.

Data is simply units of information

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

From the definition above Data does not have to be known to be true, merely assumed and some do assume it.

I know that reasoning isn’t your “thing”, but by when you get it wrong you don’t hold back do you.

Yes, some do “assume” Bible stories to be true. Other people assume the stories in the Big Book of Leprechaunology to be true too. That makes them epistemically equivalent.

If you want to make an argument though, you need to do a lot better than “I assume X to be true, therefore you should assume X to be true too”.

Why is this hard for you to grasp?   

[ProfessorDavey]

From the definition above Data does not have to be known to be true, merely assumed and some do assume it.

Nope - just because some bloke down the pub assumes something to be true doesn't make that piece of information data (or rather a datum).

Actually the data there would be about opinions - so, of course there are data in the numbers or proportions of people that believe something, or hold an opinion on something. That doesn't mean the belief or opinion they hold are themselves somehow data - for that there needs to be a much higher threshold of verifiability.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So the poetic translations of translations of a subset of works (selected by a vested interest, well after the fact) which at best are third or fourth hand accounts; people who speak the original languages do not consider the divine claims to stand or, in some instances, to have ever been made at all.

Not sure they are poetic. CS Lewis wearing his expert on mythology academics hat describes the NT accounts as more like reportage. The earliest christian
doctrine is anyway found in the epistles and they make the claims too

Even if you could demonstrate that the notion of 'sin' was valid, what 'sins' were perpetrated that need forgiveness, and what sins have been forgiven?

all sin needs forgiveness. As far as I know there is only one unforgiveable sin. The final repudiation of the holy spirit

I have a book - a better read than yours

How do you know? At one time I would have agreed by then the bible, this forbidding dusty old book in it's scary cover became open to me and then I had to revise my opinion.

- which tells me about how Gandalf explains that he travelled through darkness out of thought and time and was returned... I don't believe that one, either. He can be reputed to have said (see above) whatever you like, it's an unreliable account where the claim requires a substantial body of evidence to consider the normal activity of reality to have been bypassed.

Again, we know Gandalf to be an invention so you aren't really comparing like with like. I think thinking that the new testament is replete with supernatural beings on a Tolkeinesque scale, that there is a comparison, shows an ignorance of the New Testament. And any literary expert would tear your comparison up for toilet paper.

We know Palestine existed and Middle Earth existed in Tolkien's head.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Nope - just because some bloke down the pub assumes something to be true doesn't make that piece of information data (or rather a datum).

Actually the data there would be about opinions - so, of course there are data in the numbers or proportions of people that believe something, or hold an opinion on something. That doesn't mean the belief or opinion they hold are themselves somehow data - for that there needs to be a much higher threshold of verifiability.

Data is described as a piece of information......and that's it.
Verification of Data comes after Collection of Data.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

I know that reasoning isn’t your “thing”, but by when you get it wrong you don’t hold back do you.

We were defining Data, Hillside. No need to drag in your greater struggle against the monstrous regiment of nutter, thick christians (I'd like to see that translated into German). And what we find is Data is pieces of information.......and that's it

Yes, some do “assume” Bible stories to be true. Other people assume the stories in the Big Book of Leprechaunology to be true too. That makes them epistemically equivalent.

Are you talking about Professor Seamus O'Toole, a four foot tall academic who had to retire after rumours of defrauding the faculty Secret Santa?

If you want to make an argument though, you need to do a lot better than “I assume X to be true, therefore you should assume X to be true too”.

All of which has nothing to do with the definition of Data.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Data is described as a piece of information......and that's it.

No they aren't, but no matter...

Verification of Data comes after Collection of Data.

Yes, but that’s the part you skip when you quote bits of the Bible and expect others to share your assumptions about their veracity. You need to justify your assumptions, and that requires a lot more than just telling us what they are.     

[ProfessorDavey]

Data is described as a piece of information......and that's it.
Verification of Data comes after Collection of Data.

From your own definition:

data (or rather datum)are individual facts, statistics, or items of information, often numeric - note not opinions or beliefs, unless the data is specifically relating to information on opinions (as I mentioned earlier).

A claim that Jesus was resurrected isn't data in the sense of supporting the notion that Jesus was resurrected - it may be data in terms of understanding whether people make that claim or even believe that claim - but that is an entirely different matter. There are numerous data to indicate that there is a claim that Jesus was resurrected, there are numerous data that some people believe that claim. There are no data in the claim itself as it doesn't meet the criteria for data, i.e. information assumed to be fact or based on reasoning or calculation.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

We were defining Data, Hillside. No need to drag in your greater struggle against the monstrous regiment of nutter, thick christians (I'd like to see that translated into German). And what we find is Data is pieces of information.......and that's it

Wrong again - the only "data" you've provided so far is to tell us what your assumptions are.

Are you talking about Professor Seamus O'Toole, a four foot tall academic who had to retire after rumours of defrauding the faculty Secret Santa?

Evasion noted.

All of which has nothing to do with the definition of Data.

For epistemic purposes you're confusing data with white noise, and in any case you've still crashed and burned again. How would you propose to bridge the gap from telling us what your assumptions are to justifying them to make an argument?     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

From your own definition:

data (or rather datum)are individual facts, statistics, or items of information, often numeric - note not opinions or beliefs, unless the data is specifically relating to information on opinions (as I mentioned earlier).

A claim that Jesus was resurrected isn't data in the sense of supporting the notion that Jesus was resurrected - it may be data in terms of understanding whether people make that claim or even believe that claim - but that is an entirely different matter. There are numerous data to indicate that there is a claim that Jesus was resurrected, there are numerous data that some people believe that claim. There are no data in the claim itself as it doesn't meet the criteria for data, i.e. information assumed to be fact or based on reasoning or calculation.

A written claim of Christ's resurrection is a piece of information and therefore Data. So that is settled. There is such a thing as the biblical data.

What you are talking about is the verification of that data. Did it happen? if it did happen what is the nature of it's happening? Is it an impossibility?etc.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

A written claim of Christ's resurrection is a piece of information and therefore Data. So that is settled. There is such a thing as the biblical data.

What you are talking about is the verification of that data. Did it happen? if it did happen what is the nature of it's happening? Is it an impossibility?etc.

You’re out of your depth again here. You’re conflating the “data” of the form (ie, that the story exists) with the (claimed) data of its content (ie, that the story is true). There’s data that the story exists (you can read it in a book), but no data that it’s true (which is your claim – “Jesus humanity was resurrected by God the father. According to the biblical data.”).

The same is true about “data” in the Big Book of Leprechaunology by the way.     

[Outrider]

Not sure they are poetic.

The King John translation, whilst popular, is widely considered in academic circles to be constructed more with an eye to the drama than to accurately trying to depict the meaning and context of the original, particular with regard to the culture in which it was originally written.

CS Lewis wearing his expert on mythology academics hat describes the NT accounts as more like reportage.

And many, many other people, people whose actual field of study was scriptural history (CS Lewis was an English Literature professor, and a lay theologian) do not support that interpretation.

The earliest christian doctrine is anyway found in the epistles and they make the claims too.

The earliest Christian doctrines that were considered by the body that selected texts for the New Testament; other works of the time were discarded for a variety of reasons, at least some of which we will likely never know. That the doctrine makes the claim 'sin' - from which, presumably, you've adopted the idea - doesn't change the fact that it's an unsubstantiated claim.

all sins need forgiveness.

But haven't we already been forgiven?

As far as I know there is only one unforgiveable sin.

As far as you believe; you do not 'know' that anything about 'sin' is fact.

How do you know?

That it's a better read? I read them both.

At one time I would have agreed by then the bible, this forbidding dusty old book in it's scary cover became open to me and then I had to revise my opinion.

I've never found anything scary about the Bible - the people that believe it, sometimes (and not, I hasten to add, your good self), but not the book itself. I just found it dull and ridiculous.

Again, we know Gandalf to be an invention so you aren't really comparing like with like.

Ok, Gilgamesh, then? Or Thor? Or Väinämöinen? You say that you know Gandalf to be an invention, but it seems clear to me that the Biblical Jesus is as much as invention - it's feasible he's based upon a real person, but all the magic...?

I think thinking that the new testament is replete with supernatural beings on a Tolkeinesque scale, that there is a comparison, shows an ignorance of the New Testament.

On the same scale? No, but they are present and integral to the tale. You have angels, you have demonic possession, you have Jesus the magician (much flashier than Gandalf, too)...

And any literary expert would tear your comparison up for toilet paper.

If it were a literary argument they'd have a case, but it's a theological argument, and a theologian would have to make a strong case to show the difference.

We know Palestine existed and Middle Earth existed in Tolkien's head.

Middle Earth was Tolkien's allegory for the world; the Biblical depiction of the Middle-East in the Bible is less than completely accurate - they're both models at one level or another.

O.

[Gordon]

Vlad

You're yet again painting yourself into a corner: by all means go down the route that all information is 'data' but you'll need to add something about the need to review and verify these 'data'.

If you don't then you run the risk of taking all information, or 'data' if you will, at face value - and even if you exclude acknowledged works of fiction you'll need to deal with the risks of mistakes, exaggeration and outright lies. So, what methods do you use to do this when it comes to Christianity?

The current events in Downing Street are an example that things may not be as portrayed by those with a vested interest in being less than truthful, are biased or are gullible.