What is scholarly about discussing any aspect of religion?

[Brownie]

I looked up William Lane Craig, never heard of him before.
Reasonable faith aye? I shall read further.

[floo]

So shall we conclude God is the I AM 6 day creation is good and evolution case not proved.

~TW~

Definitely not!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Shakes,

It's also untrue - moral philosophy doesn't think it necessary for morality to be universally ordained to be valid (unless that is you're credulous enough actually to think William Lane Craig to be a moral philosopher).

No you're spinning it to exclude God from the discussion.After all it can be argued that anything less than a universal morality is made up arse pull.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Brownie,

I looked up William Lane Craig, never heard of him before.

Reasonable faith aye? I shall read further.

Well, he's come up a fair bit here in the past - Alan/Alien was/is in thrall to him. He's known in particular for pushing five arguments for god, all of which are bad arguments so I generally refer to them as the "flakey five" as a short hand. He's also morally contemptible re justifying some of the more gruesome bits of the OT by the way, though that's a separate matter to his reliance on broken logic.

Try him yourself if you have the stomach for it, but don't say you haven't been warned!

[Stranger]

I looked up William Lane Craig, never heard of him before.
Reasonable faith aye? I shall read further.

I wouldn't waste much time on it - check out eight seriously daft arguments for god here:-

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles-does-god-exist

[Gordon]

After all it can be argued that anything less than a universal morality is made up arse pull.

It could indeed, but only by the blinkered and thoughtless.

[Shaker]

No you're spinning it to exclude God from the discussion.After all it can be argued that anything less than a universal morality is made up arse pull.

No, not really.

Excluding God from the discussion is a pretty straightforward application of Occam's Razor, for one thing - don't multiply entities unnecessarily, or in the contemporary idiom, keep it simple, stupid.

In just about anything you can think of - let's use bluey's example of morality - you can have the interesting but complex and diffuse discussion with no guaranteed firm answers, or you can have the radically uninteresting discussion-terminating non-discussion by ascribing everything to God, as though that wraps it all up neatly with ribbons and bows. You can look to primatology to see inchoate moral behaviour in our closest relatives, a sense of right and wrong, of altruism, of fairness and unfairness (at equal or unequal sharing, for example); you can look to psychologists who study children who exhibit these very same behaviours even while they're still toddling ...

... or you can in effect say "Goddunnit', as though that's an answer to anything at all. Polyfilla, as I said.

I know which I prefer.

[floo]

I wouldn't waste much time on it - check out eight seriously daft arguments for god here:-

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles-does-god-exist

WLC doesn't make a good case, imo.

[Shaker]

I wouldn't waste much time on it - check out eight seriously daft arguments for god here:-

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles-does-god-exist

Dear me, this clown is an embarrassment. The first time I was unfortunate to read anything of his, it was an essay in an anthology of various pieces, many of the others by different authors being excellent - blimey, it was woeful. I felt embarrassed for him.

[bluehillside Retd.]

"Reification (from Latin res (“thing”) and facere (“to make”), also known as concretism, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a “real thing” something which is merely an idea. For example: if the phrase “fighting for justice” is taken literally, justice would be reified."

http://fallacyaday.com/2011/10/reification/

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, not really.

Excluding God from the discussion is a pretty straightforward application of Occam's Razor, for one thing - don't multiply entities unnecessarily, or in the contemporary idiom, keep it simple, stupid.

In just about anything you can think of - let's use bluey's example of morality - you can have the interesting but complex and diffuse discussion with no guaranteed firm answers, or you can have the radically uninteresting discussion-terminating non-discussion by ascribing everything to God, as though that wraps it all up neatly with ribbons and bows. You can look to primatology to see inchoate moral behaviour in our closest relatives, a sense of right and wrong, of altruism, of fairness and unfairness (at equal or unequal sharing, for example); you can look to psychologists who study children who exhibit these very same behaviours even while they're still toddling ...

... or you can in effect say "Goddunnit', as though that's an answer to anything at all. Polyfilla, as I said.

I know which I prefer.

Yes but I'm afraid no one has really successfully edited God out of moral philosophy without laying themselves open to the charge of doing so arbitrarily for suspect reasons. So moral philosophers realise you cannot go far in the exploration of moral philosophy without coming across absolute morality but wannabes like Hillside want to make us think moral philosophy excludes talk of objective or absolute morality.

But then you atomise this by just focus sing on one area of philosophy. I'm afraid Hillside is pretty much now committed to repeating his spin job across the whole of philosophy.So the question is this Shaker , have you guys got enough shite between you to decorate the whole place?...........I theng you.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Brownie,

Well, he's come up a fair bit here in the past - Alan/Alien was/is in thrall to him. He's known in particular for pushing five arguments for god, all of which are bad arguments so I generally refer to them as the "flakey five" as a short hand. He's also morally contemptible re justifying some of the more gruesome bits of the OT by the way, though that's a separate matter to his reliance on broken logic.

Try him yourself if you have the stomach for it, but don't say you haven't been warned!

Crikey Hillside you've actually gone and put someone onto Lane Craig.

[Rhiannon]

Less of the smug thank you.......

Er, only about 2500 years worf of filosofy, that's all.

It is smug because you are placing your morality as a believer above the morality of the humanists here.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

"Reification (from Latin res (“thing”) and facere (“to make”), also known as concretism, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a “real thing” something which is merely an idea. For example: if the phrase “fighting for justice” is taken literally, justice would be reified."

http://fallacyaday.com/2011/10/reification/

Hey what do you mean by real........and what do you mean by concrete.
I think you ought to explain yourself Hillside.

[ippy]

Morality and purpose since any humanist versions of those are arrant arse pull.

Of course you can look at the various religious manuals, if you want to study their version of moral and ethical ideas but there is really no special need to study them to learn about ethical and moral issues, there's plenty of much better, uncluttered with superstition, myth and magical information to be found elsewhere.

Ever heard of the ancient Greek philosophers? And I've mentioned them just for starters.

ippy

Sriram's article Vlad I'd quite like to read it, bit busy today?
 

 

[ippy]

I looked up William Lane Craig, never heard of him before.
Reasonable faith aye? I shall read further.

Sam Harris eat him for breakfast, it's on YouTube, be ready to turn the volume down when WLC is speaking.

ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course you can look at the various religious manuals, if you want to study their version of moral and ethical ideas but there is really no special need to study them to learn about ethical and moral issues, there's plenty of much better, uncluttered with superstition, myth and magical information to be found elsewhere.

Ever heard of the ancient Greek philosophers? And I've mentioned them just for starters.

ippy

Sriram's article Vlad I'd quite like to read it, bit busy today?
 

 

Yes but I think you are arbitrarily ruling anything religion has to say on morality. I'll come back with the Sriram post.

[Stranger]

Yes but I'm afraid no one has really successfully edited God out of moral philosophy without laying themselves open to the charge of doing so arbitrarily for suspect reasons.

And, by a staggering coincidence, nobody has included any gods in moral philosophy without laying themselves open to the charge of doing so arbitrarily for suspect reasons.

So moral philosophers realise you cannot go far in the exploration of moral philosophy without coming across absolute morality but wannabes like Hillside want to make us think moral philosophy excludes talk of objective or absolute morality.

"Moral philosophers" eh? I hope you are not seriously claiming that all moral philosophers agree?

How about you ditch the argument from (unnamed) authority fallacy and make the case yourself? No doubt you will find it easy as you are so familiar with the works of all these moral philosophers, of which you speak...

[ippy]

You don't have to do it if you don't want to Ippy.

Studying anything can be scholarly, Shakespeare and Chaucer for example.   Why not religious works?  They are interesting (if you are interested), full of fascinating characters, lots of big words.  Some bits are difficult to understand which necessitate a reasonable level of Comprehension.  Plenty of 'compare and contrast' questions.
RE used to be a good extra 'O' level too  .

I'm sure I inserted the word, 'parallels,' somewhere in that post of mine Brownie, the one you're referring to.

Yes religion would be an easy 'O' level it's so simplistic, as for good well that's up to you.

ippy

[Shaker]

Yes but I'm afraid no one has really successfully edited God out of moral philosophy without laying themselves open to the charge of doing so arbitrarily for suspect reasons.

The reason has already been given and there's nothing suspect about it. Quite the opposite. Positing a thing which is in itself unexplained and tossed arbitrarily into the mix explains nothing and merely kicks the discussion back a further step.

"What explains morality?"

"God."

"And what explains God, then?"

"God doesn't need an explanation."

"Why not?"

"Just because, that's why."

How often do we hear this played out on this forum? This travesty of reasoning may suit you, but it doesn't satisfy me.

So moral philosophers realise you cannot go far in the exploration of moral philosophy without coming across absolute morality but wannabes like Hillside want to make us think moral philosophy excludes talk of objective or absolute morality.

... which conveniently overlooks the fact that not every moral philosopher thinks that morality is absolute or objective.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course you can look at the various religious manuals, if you want to study their version of moral and ethical ideas but there is really no special need to study them to learn about ethical and moral issues, there's plenty of much better, uncluttered with superstition, myth and magical information to be found elsewhere.

Ever heard of the ancient Greek philosophers? And I've mentioned them just for starters.

ippy

Sriram's article Vlad I'd quite like to read it, bit busy today?
 

 

Ippy sriram so thread and the post in question is on the eastern religions board creation thread.

You say you like to read it which is funny because you seem to have responded to it already.

[ippy]

Yes but I think you are arbitrarily ruling anything religion has to say on morality. I'll come back with the Sriram post.

The difference with me about where ethics and morals are concerned, if it's a choice between a book about morality etc written by somebody that likes to think Elvis is alive, well and still among us and those silly old Greeks; not a difficult choice for me Vlad.

ippy

[Dicky Underpants]

Ever heard of the ancient Greek philosophers? And I've mentioned them just for starters.

ippy


 

Rather bad generalisation if you want them to support your case. Two of the most famous (Socrates and his promulgator Plato) believed in a spiritual realm of ideal forms, of which the items in the material world were only a representation. Plato in Timaeus also speaks quite directly of a divine demiurge. Not to mention that both of them believed in 'souls'  - an idea which greatly influenced the development of Christianity.
Of course there were others who were purely materialist. They're all worth reading, and when you've read them, you can make up your mind.
Homer's Odyssey is also worth reading, even though it deals with myths and gods. It remains a classic of world literature. Honestly, you can get something out of it without wondering that you'll end up believing in the gods of ancient Greece. What are you afraid of?
It's also possible to read the bible without necessarily ending up a confirmed believer - after all, many types of literature are contained in it - some of it is even provable history (though not much about Jesus is so provable, nor most of the very early part of the OT).

[ippy]

Ippy sriram so thread and the post in question is on the eastern religions board creation thread.

You say you like to read it which is funny because you seem to have responded to it already.

Well I'll be! no idea how I've done that, these Mods are a bit into moving the furniture, maybe that's how, I don't know.

ippy

[ippy]

Rather bad generalisation if you want them to support your case. Two of the most famous (Socrates and his promulgator Plato) believed in a spiritual realm of ideal forms, of which the items in the material world were only a representation. Plato in Timaeus also speaks quite directly of a divine demiurge. Not to mention that both of them believed in 'souls'  - an idea which greatly influenced the development of Christianity.
Of course there were others who were purely materialist. They're all worth reading, and when you've read them, you can make up your mind.
Homer's Oddysey is also worth reading, even though it deals with myths and gods. It remains a classic of world literature. Honestly, you can get something out of it without wondering that you'll end up believing in the gods of ancient Greece. What are you afraid of?
It's also possible to read the bible without necessarily ending up a confirmed believer - after all, many types of literature are contained in it - some of it is even provable history (though not much about Jesus is so provable, nor most of the very early part of the OT).

Yes I get your point, but I'm still not that into gods and all of the stuff that goes with those ideas.

ippy