Comparative Religion - a meaningless term?

[Shaker]

Not sure I understand how that explains that it's nonsense to compare the world's religions on an equal footing.

Simply saying "relativism" is surely a near-perfect vindication and illustration of the point I made in #8; if you adhere to one religious tradition as the only absolute truth and the rest in error, what are the chances you're going to treat it as even-handedly as all the others?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Find out, Vlad.

Found out.

Courtiers reply assumes God does not exist......Begging the question what.

No, it makes no such assumption. It's a refutation of the widely-held and oft-heard but groundless accusation that the "New Atheists" (whatever they might be) "observably lack religious knowledge" and especially that this knowledge they allegedly lack is crucial in determining if there's a God or not. (Terry Eagleton's spectacular point-missing review of The God Delusion is the exemplar of this kind of irrelevance). You'll find that that's the only assumption at work here.

I think you were looking at something else entirely, goodness only knows what. Try again.

Dawkins fails to shake of the picture of God as a huge kind of chap and relegates him to a force of nature...something about trillions of fingers manipulating individual protons. In fact that is crucial to the thesis. That is not the view held.

Feser refers to the courtier's reply as the Myers shuffle. constructed to defend Dawkins from any criticism in any case isn't it at best a warmed over accusation of argument from authority designed to promote the hagiography of New Atheism.

[Shaker]

Dawkins fails to shake of the picture of God as a huge kind of chap and relegates him to a force of nature...something about trillions of fingers manipulating individual protons. In fact that is crucial to the thesis. That is not the view held.

Not held by whom? It seems to me fair to say that the concept of a personalistic god with human-like attributes - desires, likes and dislikes, who makes judgements, who has preferences and suchlike, a god capable of dialogue of some sort with human beings  - is extremely widely held amongst theists. You need only listen to the way that theists talk about what they think their god is and does to pick up on this.

It's not universal, but it's extremely common. An impersonal, abstract sort of deity has only ever had limited appeal for a relatively small number of people, historically.

Feser refers to the courtier's reply as the Myers shuffle.

Better than than the Feser Five Knuckle Shuffle, at which he's obviously a master.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Dawkins fails to shake of the picture of God as a huge kind of chap and relegates him to a force of nature...something about trillions of fingers manipulating individual protons. In fact that is crucial to the thesis. That is not the view held.

Not held by whom? It seems to me fair to say that the concept of a personalistic god with human-like attributes - desires, likes and dislikes, who makes judgements, who has preferences and suchlike, a god capable of dialogue of some sort with human beings  - is extremely widely held amongst theists.

But then a New Atheist who cannot think outside the materialist box concludes that since desire. liking, judgment and dialogue must be only traits of material for that is all that exists.....it must be OK to talk about God as a giant force within nature.

But monistic materialism is just one philosophical option and others are available e.g. dualism.

Dawkins has an unshakable belief in his monistic materialism. It is merely that which makes make God invisible. For the dualist God was never conceived as visible and had Dawkins done his homework.....Never presented as that.

You are trying to turn every believer into a fundamentalist literalist.

Feser and others argue that you guys use argumentum ad ridiculum a lot so I am probably being charitable about the self celebrated ignorance of the New atheists.

I agree with them though that in terms of five fingered shuffling the New Atheists definitely have expertise.

[Shaker]

But monistic materialism is just one philosophical option and others are available e.g. dualism.

Oh, there are loads. The issue is, which ones are internally consistent and justified by the evidence.

If you care about such things, at any rate.

Dawkins has an unshakable belief in his monistic materialism.

News to me.

I think it would be incredibly easy to shake it. In fact, so does he.

You are trying to turn every believer into a fundamentalist literalist.

Nope.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But monistic materialism is just one philosophical option and others are available e.g. dualism.

Oh, there are loads. The issue is, which ones are internally consistent and justified by the evidence.

The big tragedy for monistic materialism is that it cannot be established by methodological materialism.

[Shaker]

Lovely.

[jeremyp]

Comparative religion as something to get into for the non religious is a bit of a challenge because of the dangers of becoming religious.

Any evidence of that?

There is evidence ...

Then provide it.

The observed lack of religious knowledge in the New Atheists and the self celebrated ignorance of such matters by Richard Dawkins in particular.

What observed lack of knowledge?

[jeremyp]

The observed lack of religious knowledge in the New Atheists

P.Z. Myers coined the Courtier's Reply for that, didn't he?

I don't know? What is the courtiers reply?

It's what one courtier said when the small boy observed the emperor had no clothes. He criticised the boy's lack of knowledge of tailoring.

There's no point in understanding theology if there isn't a god.

[jeremyp]

monistic materialism

Oh look, Vlad's learned a new phrase. Can you tell us what it means Vlad?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But monistic materialism is just one philosophical option and others are available e.g. dualism.

Oh, there are loads. The issue is, which ones are internally consistent and justified by the evidence.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2014/02/12/fsm/

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The observed lack of religious knowledge in the New Atheists

P.Z. Myers coined the Courtier's Reply for that, didn't he?

I don't know? What is the courtiers reply?

It's what one courtier said when the small boy observed the emperor had no clothes. He criticised the boy's lack of knowledge of tailoring.

There's no point in understanding theology if there isn't a god.

1: Then there is no point in the plays of Shakespeare if the characters don't exist.

2: If you haven't read theology then you've merely decided a priori that God doesn't exist.

3: The Boy in the story knew what a coat was supposed to be. Dawkins either doesn't have fundamental knowledge of theology or is trying to get down wiv. da kid's by pretending he doesn't.

4: The real courtiers reply situation is anyone who argues that the invisible pink unicorn in spite of it's logical collapse due to it's title is in the same category as God. Oh Jezzer...that's you.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

monistic materialism

Oh look, Vlad's learned a new phrase. Can you tell us what it means Vlad?

Yes thanks.

[jeremyp]

 If you haven't read theology then you've merely decided a priori that God doesn't exist.

Not necessarily, but if you are trying to answer the question of "is there a god", all the theology in the World isn't going to help because it is based on the a priori assumption that God does exist.

The Boy in the story knew what a coat was supposed to be. Dawkins either doesn't have fundamental knowledge of theology or is trying to get down wiv. da kid's by pretending he doesn't.

Richard Dawkins knows what a god is. You do not need to understand theology to know what a god is nor do you need to know how to weave to know what a coat is.

4: The real courtiers reply situation is anyone who argues that the invisible pink unicorn in spite of it's logical collapse due to it's title is in the same category as God. Oh Jezzer...that's you.

Try to keep it relevant Vlad.

[jeremyp]

monistic materialism

Oh look, Vlad's learned a new phrase. Can you tell us what it means Vlad?

Yes thanks.

So you don't know what it means.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Richard Dawkins knows what a god is.

He isn't exercising any differentiation between God or gods. Which kind of betrays any differentiation between arse or elbow.

Let's unpick the Hans Christian Anderson story.

We have a king, a crowd who know the king is bollock naked but are too frightened, a boy who doesn't realise the possible retribution that could be visited on them if they spill the beans.Pretty piss poor analogy.

Not only does Myers not understand the story he casts Dawkins as the antitheist equivalent of Private(stupid boy)Pike.

What a fucking disaster.

[jeremyp]

Richard Dawkins knows what a god is.

He isn't exercising any differentiation between God or gods.

From the perspective of somebody who hasn't bought into the mythology of a particular religion, they are very much the same. It's only because you have the arrogance of a believer that you think your particular god is special.

Let's unpick the Hans Christian Anderson story.

No, let's not. The minute details do not alter the basic facts:

Theology is all about what God is like and what he wants. It's a house of cards built on the unfounded assumption that God exists.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Richard Dawkins knows what a god is.

He isn't exercising any differentiation between God or gods.

From the perspective of somebody who hasn't bought into the mythology of a particular religion, they are very much the same. It's only because you have the arrogance of a believer that you think your particular god is special.

Let's unpick the Hans Christian Anderson story.

No, let's not. The minute details do not alter the basic facts:

Theology is all about what God is like and what he wants. It's a house of cards built on the unfounded assumption that God exists.

Nice try P but asking us to ignore the story and seeing it as a treatise by H. Christian Andersen  on theology is stretching it a bit.

[jeremyp]

Nice try P but asking us to ignore the story and seeing it as a treatise by H. Christian Andersen  on theology is stretching it a bit.

The story is a bit of imagery meant to illustrate the point, which you are ignoring as usual.

[ad_orientem]

Not sure I understand how that explains that it's nonsense to compare the world's religions on an equal footing.

Simply saying "relativism" is surely a near-perfect vindication and illustration of the point I made in #8; if you adhere to one religious tradition as the only absolute truth and the rest in error, what are the chances you're going to treat it as even-handedly as all the others?

They can't all be true. Only one of them can or none.

[Shaker]

Not sure I understand how that explains that it's nonsense to compare the world's religions on an equal footing.

Simply saying "relativism" is surely a near-perfect vindication and illustration of the point I made in #8; if you adhere to one religious tradition as the only absolute truth and the rest in error, what are the chances you're going to treat it as even-handedly as all the others?

They can't all be true. Only one of them can or none.

Not sure how you can dismiss the option that different religions are partially true, i.e. contain 'bits' of the truth.

Regardless, how does this bear on comparative religion?

[Shaker]

He isn't exercising any differentiation between God or gods.

Basic set theory. There isn't any differentiation. The former is one of the set of the latter. As JeremyP has pointed out, those who buy into one specific brand of theism may think it's the only sort, but that's no more than brand loyalty. Nobody else is forced to think so.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

He isn't exercising any differentiation between God or gods.

Basic set theory.

Obviously not a strength amongst New Atheists.

[Shaker]

Obviously not a strength with you if you think that God isn't a single and solitary part of the general class of gods. Your approach is akin to saying that although Norway is a part of the much larger set of nations, in fact only one nation exists and that's Norway.

Ridiculous, isn't it?

[Shaker]

Let's unpick the Hans Christian Anderson story.

We have a king, a crowd who know the king is bollock naked but are too frightened, a boy who doesn't realise the possible retribution that could be visited on them if they spill the beans.Pretty piss poor analogy.

Not only does Myers not understand the story he casts Dawkins as the antitheist equivalent of Private(stupid boy)Pike.

What a fucking disaster.

The only fucking disaster here is in your woeful misapprehension of the story and the calamitously inept analogy you've just used. In Dad's Army Pike was a likeable but simple soul, long on heart and short on nous, an amiable duffer. In Andersen's tale the small boy is the one with the courage to pipe up and speak the truth irrespective of consequences.

Sometimes it's almost as though you expend effort to get things as bollock-twistingly wrong as this.