Why the state must stop funding faith schools

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Chunderer,
Aw bless – and still you blunder into the mistake of your own making about category error. C’mere a minute – no, closer than that…Comfy? OK, now I want you really, really to concentrate just for a bit until this finally sinks in.

OK then. Let’s say that Fred claims that not walking on the cracks in the pavement increases the chances of Arsenal winning.

Still with me? Righto…

Now let’s say that Mary claims that not walking on the cracks in the pavement keeps her bad dreams away.

Now Arsenal winning and not having bad dreams are different categories of experience right? Yes indeedy they are. Here’s the thing though: the two claims that not walking on cracks in the pavement can affect future events are precisely the same category of claim.   

Still with me? Good – hang in there, we’re nearly done now…

So, on the one hand you seem to think for some reason known only to yourself that your personal “intuition” about a god is a reliable guide to an objective truth for the rest of us, yet you deny exactly the same category of claim – personal intuition as a reliable guide to something else (ie, the FSM) to someone else. Even if you think the outcomes of this process to be in different categories, that’s neither here nor there – the point rather is that the process in both cases is one and the same.

I really can’t think of a plainer way of explaining this to you. If you continue to career off the rails with your misunderstanding of category error though, there’s really not much more I can do for you.

You fail to make the distinction that one is testable and the other not.
With Fred we can test his hypothesis. With Mary we are reliant on trusting her word.
And cannot finally say that her method of avoiding bad dreams is not efficacious.

Your argument suffers from your own ruthless reductionist agenda.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Chunderer,

You fail to make the distinction that one is testable and the other not.
With Fred we can test his hypothesis. With Mary we are reliant on trusting her word.
And cannot finally say that her method of avoiding bad dreams is not efficacious.

Your argument suffers from your own ruthless reductionist agenda.

AAARRRGGGHHH, AAARRRGGGHHH, AAARRRGGGHHH...

You can look at the Arsenal scores after the event to see whether or not they won. You can attach electrodes to Mary's head to see whether or not she had nightmares.

In neither case though would you be able to test whether not stepping on the cracks in the pavement had changed anything at all.

That's the point - if you seriously think that "personal intuition" is a reliable method or process to establish objective truths, then that's the beginning and end of the matter. That claim stand or falls on its merits - you cannot though just use special pleading to claim that it only works in respect of one set of claims but not in respect of another.   

Good grief. I need a lie down with a wet towel wrapped around my head... 

[Outrider]

Good grief. I need a lie down with a wet towel wrapped around my head...

How will you convince Vlad that will help, though? I think you'd be better off praying...

O.

[Gordon]

Which is 17 or 18 years after the event talking to established communities.

Yep - plenty long enough for content changes to creep in during the re-telling of stories that, and let us not forget, may contain mistakes or lies to start with, where these risks haven't been meaningfully excluded, and where we can only see the end point of this process (the NT) but not the detail of the original oral accounts.

On that basis I'd say that those who treat the NT as being historical fact are unjustified in doing so in view of the problems surrounding its provenance.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Chunderer,

AAARRRGGGHHH, AAARRRGGGHHH, AAARRRGGGHHH...

You can look at the Arsenal scores after the event to see whether or not they won. You can attach electrodes to Mary's head to see whether or not she had nightmares.

In neither case though would you be able to test whether not stepping on the cracks in the pavement had changed anything at all.


That's the point - if you seriously think that "personal intuition" is a reliable method or process to establish objective truths, then that's the beginning and end of the matter. That claim stand or falls on its merits - you cannot though just use special pleading to claim that it only works in respect of one set of claims but not in respect of another.   

Good grief. I need a lie down with a wet towel wrapped around my head...

Hang on though. If both assertions are testable.Then Fred and Mary may be just giving hypotheses rather than personal intuitions. Why are you leaping to the latter conclusion.

In which case you are using an example of two testable ideas and comparing it to untestable ideas.

I think you need your towel.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yep - plenty long enough for content changes to creep in during the re-telling of stories that, and let us not forget, may contain mistakes or lies to start with, where these risks haven't been meaningfully excluded, and where we can only see the end point of this process (the NT) but not the detail of the original oral accounts.

On that basis I'd say that those who treat the NT as being historical fact are unjustified in doing so in view of the problems surrounding its provenance.

That is of course true.

And the first few hours are probably critical in themselves. Ask 10 eye witnesses to an event what happened, even just hours after the event, and you are likely to get very varied answers. Add in a sprinkling of confirmation bias and people ended up swearing blind that something happened which never did. Add evolution of stories through transmission one to another over decades and what comes out is likely to bear little resemblance to what actually happened. And this is, of course, even less likely if the people reporting decades later see a particular 'happening' as critical to their faith.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yep - plenty long enough for content changes to creep in during the re-telling of stories that, and let us not forget, may contain mistakes or lies to start with, where these risks haven't been meaningfully excluded, and where we can only see the end point of this process (the NT) but not the detail of the original oral accounts.

On that basis I'd say that those who treat the NT as being historical fact are unjustified in doing so in view of the problems surrounding its provenance.

The only thing is that the communities are established.
Paul though talks about 500 witnesses available for consultation.

[Outrider]

The only thing is that the communities are established.
Paul though talks about 500 witnesses available for consultation.

Paul talks about lots of things, but no-one corroborates his story from the time. Decades later documents turn up alleging the events of the day - which is convenient - yet the local authorities of the day have no recollection of this, and unfortunately anyone who was alive at the time is already dead.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That is of course true.

And the first few hours are probably critical in themselves. Ask 10 eye witnesses to an event what happened, even just hours after the event, and you are likely to get very varied answers. Add in a sprinkling of confirmation bias and people ended up swearing blind that something happened which never did. Add evolution of stories through transmission one to another over decades and what comes out is likely to bear little resemblance to what actually happened. And this is, of course, even less likely if the people reporting decades later see a particular 'happening' as critical to their faith.

An interesting post which drops the distinction between supernatural and natural claims......and therein lies the problem since the inevitable process of information becoming incorrect must have happened in events which you take for granted as true.

Particularly in history where there was not video evidence and even there where evidence could not be mocked up......which probably makes it never.

[Outrider]

An interesting post which drops the distinction between supernatural and natural claims......and therein lies the problem since the inevitable process of information becoming incorrect must have happened in events which you take for granted as true.

No, that argument is showing why your confidence in the claims is unwarranted, not why the claims themselves are nonsense.

O.

[Gordon]

The only thing is that the communities are established.

So! There are lots of Mormons in Salt Lake City so does that confirm the truth of Mormonism?

Paul though talks about 500 witnesses available for consultation.

So! How do you know he is correct, and even then how do you know what these witnesses might have said, and even then how do you know that what they might have said was true?

[ProfessorDavey]

The only thing is that the communities are established.
Paul though talks about 500 witnesses available for consultation.

The 500 people claim really undermines him. Why - because if 500 people (a significant proportion of the population in those days) had actually seen a person they knew to have died be alive again, that would spread like wildfire. Each person telling perhaps 5 others of friends and family and in a couple of transmission steps much of the population would know. Yet this astonishing 'revelation' lies dormant for decades, and tends to resurface not locally but in distant parts.

So you'd either need to conclude that seeing a dead man alive again was no big deal and therefore not something to become the 'talk of the town'.

Or that it never happened - or that the claim of 500 witnesses at one point is a massive exaggeration aimed at enhancing his claim (but it actually undermining it).

Even if we accept that 500 people thought they saw a dead man alive again, but were mistaken (e.g. because they saw someone who looked like Jesus or he never actually died) it would still surely have become the talk of the town, unless dead people becoming alive again was commonplace - yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the purported resurrection became the 'talk of the town'. And don't try to play the - oh but it would have been only communicated via oral routes. Why because had the 500 told 5 people each and they also told 5 each, we'd have 12,500 people talking about it within hours of days and that would surely have come tot he attention of the authorities, whether Jewish or Roman, who given the political sensitivities would no doubt be interested and probably concerned. They were, of course, assiduous record keepers.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Paul talks about lots of things, but no-one corroborates his story from the time. Decades later documents turn up alleging the events of the day - which is convenient - yet the local authorities of the day have no recollection of this, and unfortunately anyone who was alive at the time is already dead.

O.

Non corroboration is common in ancient history which acknowledges that material is no longer extant. The difficulty is who writes letters concerning aspects of a faith that nobody knew about? Is that feasible.

Jeremy p is a recent convert to the possibility of no longer extant record by suggesting it when I said we had zero record of a Jesus Myth sect.

[ProfessorDavey]

So! There are lots of Mormons in Salt Lake City so does that confirm the truth of Mormonism?

So! How do you know he is correct, and even then how do you know what these witnesses might have said, and even then how do you know that what they might have said was true?

If it were true it would have undoubtedly have been a big deal at the time (30-ishAD) and place (Jerusalem) yet there is no evidence whatsoever that it was.

[Outrider]

Non corroboration is common in ancient history which acknowledges that material is no longer extant.

It's not uncommon, but typically it's only used to justify commonplace events or events where there's non-documentary (archaeological, say) evidence.

The difficulty is who writes letters concerning aspects of a faith that nobody knew about? Is that feasible.

It's more feasible than them being true, certainly. As a comparison I offer you Joseph Smith - he wrote letters concerning aspects of a faith that nobody knew about, now there are millions of them. Is it feasible... yes, I'd say it most certainly is.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Chunderer,

Hang on though. If both assertions are testable.Then Fred and Mary may be just giving hypotheses rather than personal intuitions. Why are you leaping to the latter conclusion.

In which case you are using an example of two testable ideas and comparing it to untestable ideas.

Oh FFS! The incidence of Arsenal winning/nightmares are both testable after the event; whether not stepping on the cracks in the pavement has anything to do with it in either case is not. It's the same process though - just as personal intuition is the same process regardless of where it leads - which is why there's no category error in respect of the process in either case.

If though you want to claim an objective god by some method other than your personal intuition, then by all means finally junk that stupidity and knock yourself out with something different.

I think you need your towel.

No, you do. You really, really do...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The 500 people claim really undermines him. Why - because if 500 people (a significant proportion of the population in those days) had actually seen a person they knew to have died be alive again, that would spread like wildfire. Each person telling perhaps 5 others of friends and family and in a couple of transmission steps much of the population would know. Yet this astonishing 'revelation' lies dormant for decades, and tends to resurface not locally but in distant parts.

So you'd either need to conclude that seeing a dead man alive again was no big deal and therefore not something to become the 'talk of the town'.

Or that it never happened - or that the claim of 500 witnesses at one point is a massive exaggeration aimed at enhancing his claim (but it actually undermining it).

Even if we accept that 500 people thought they saw a dead man alive again, but were mistaken (e.g. because they saw someone who looked like Jesus or he never actually died) it would still surely have become the talk of the town, unless dead people becoming alive again was commonplace - yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the purported resurrection became the 'talk of the town'. And don't try to play the - oh but it would have been only communicated via oral routes. Why because had the 500 told 5 people each and they also told 5 each, we'd have 12,500 people talking about it within hours of days and that would surely have come tot he attention of the authorities, whether Jewish or Roman, who given the political sensitivities would no doubt be interested and probably concerned. They were, of course, assiduous record keepers.

What was the population at the time though since your thesis is dependent on that.
Our comparison here of course is the resurrection of Elvis and how many had heard of it and how many believed it.............and of course those numbers now we are .......as they say in God delusion Belt.....several decades away from the events.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Population of Jerusalem in Ad 70 was 600,000 according to Tacitus I think.

But that isn't corroborated so it.s probably nearer to the couple of thousand suggested in God delusion belt 2000 years later.

[Outrider]

Population of Jerusalem in Ad 70 was 600,000 according to Tacitus I think.

But that isn't corroborated so it.s probably nearer to the couple of thousand suggested in God delusion belt 2000 years later.

Josephus (who is less reliable) suggests well over 1,000,000.

Archaeological evidence - which is much less susceptible to the exaggerations of the historical references of the time - suggest something in the region of 20,000 in the period immediately prior to the destruction of the city in 70AD.

O.

[ProfessorDavey]

Population of Jerusalem in Ad 70 was 600,000 according to Tacitus I think.

But that isn't corroborated so it.s probably nearer to the couple of thousand suggested in God delusion belt 2000 years later.

Way off the mark (as usual).

Historical estimates put permanent population of Jerusalem at about 40,000, perhaps up to 80,000 - so the 12,500 people I mentioned might have been as much as one quarter of the population.

Your 600,000 was much later and at a time of war, so effectively swelled massively by the presence of soldiers.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Josephus (who is less reliable) suggests well over 1,000,000.

Archaeological evidence - which is much less susceptible to the exaggerations of the historical references of the time - suggest something in the region of 20,000 in the period immediately prior to the destruction of the city in 70AD.

O.

Citation

[ProfessorDavey]

Citation

http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/jremias2.pdf

See P83 amongst others.

[Gordon]

Our comparison here of course is the resurrection of Elvis and how many had heard of it and how many believed it.............and of course those numbers now we are .......as they say in God delusion Belt.....several decades away from the events.

Elvis is actually is good comparison here, Vlad, since he died and stayed dead.

I'm not aware of anyone claiming he was resurrected, but if they did I doubt even you would take them seriously since you know that dead people do stay dead: no exceptions, so reports to the contrary can be easily dismissed - right?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/jremias2.pdf

See P83 amongst others.

So we have a skeptical and a minimalist figure for the population of Jerusalem.
The problem of establishment of population is also the transitory population, soldiers,merchants,slaves and pilgrims etc.

[ProfessorDavey]

Our comparison here of course is the resurrection of Elvis and how many had heard of it and how many believed it.............and of course those numbers now we are .......as they say in God delusion Belt.....several decades away from the events.

Shot yourself in the foot there I think.

Elvis died and remained dead.

The 'fact' that apparently he works down a chip-shop now is neither here nor there - he is dead and it doesn't matter if people write 'Elvis lives' all over the place, he is still dead.