Kantian Naturalist and I have been hopscotching from thread to thread, discussing the nature of religious language. The main point of contention is the assertoric/disclosive distinction: When is religious language assertoric — that is, when does it make claims about reality — and when is it merely disclosive, revealing attitude and affect without making actual claims?
I’ve created this thread as a permanent home for this otherwise nomadic discussion.
It may also be a good place for an ongoing discussion of another form of religious language — scripture. For believers who take scripture to be divinely inspired, the question is when it should be taken literally, when it should be taken figuratively or metaphorically, and whether there are consistent and justifiable criteria for drawing that distinction.
This doesn’t make any sense: the idea that the universe was created by God and is sustained in its existence by God is a metaphysical claim, not an empirical one.
To say that God created and sustains the universe is to say, in part, that the existence of contingent beings depends on the existence of a non-contingent or necessary being. But what is physically possible is determined by the laws of physics, and those only govern the behavior of contingent, finite beings within the actual universe. The theological claims are metaphysical ones that lie beyond any possible empirical verification.
The problem with rationalistic metaphysics, whether theistic or atheistic, is that it asks us to accept as true (or false) claims that can neither be proven within any deductive, formal system nor empirically verified by any inquiry that finite beings can undertake.
However, one can endorse the Kantian critique of rationalistic metaphysics (as well as some aspects of Hegel’s critique of Kant and Nietzsche’s critique of Kant) while at the same time upholding the importance of natural piety in human life.
Personally, I am ambivalent about that. I cannot see any reason to believe that idea. And I cannot see any reason to disbelieve that idea. How I live my life does not seem to depend in any way on whether it is true or false.
Erik,
Sure you did, and you’ve spent the majority of this thread wavering between defending it (you even invoked the “vapor canopy” nonsense, fercrissakes!) and downplaying it.
Scientifically literate folks understand that the Flood did not happen as described in the Bible. You have yet to come to grips with that.
In any case, my interest is in how savvier Christians — the ones who recognize and acknowledge the problem — deal with the Flood account and other absurd Biblical texts. From the OP:
keiths asserted that I made a false claim. keiths was invited to provide evidence to support his assertion that I made a false claim. keiths was either unable or unwilling to do so.
Mung,
My offer still stands.
There is a fundamental asymmetry here: you are afraid of my questions, while I am unafraid of yours.
The value of a metaphysical system is measured both in terms of internal consistency and in terms of the explanations that it provides for phenomena.
An ongoing discussion at Feser’s blog has been pointed out, where Vaal raised the question how classical theism can increase the probability of specific miracles. In my view the question is metaphysically misguided.
Metaphysically, it’s not the purpose of theism to increase the probability of miracles or to empirically “prove” them. It’s the purpose of theism to explain miracles, if/when they occur, whereas the system allows for that they may occur. Atheist metaphysics cannot do this because miracles are excluded by definition. Or if an apparent miracle occurs, atheists suspend explanation or engage in denial until they come up with a naturalistic explanation. The most extreme development in this area is re-definition of the term “explanation” itself, which denies the legitimacy of why-questions.
I’m sure you missed the rather lengthy debate meanwhile what “science” is. If philology is science, then there’s something *you* have to come to grips with. If philology is not science, then the philological (in)competence of physicists and geologists really does not give any relevant scientific verdict to the biblical flood story.
It’s the philologists who have determined that ancient flood stories are myths, not geological or historical textbooks. If geologists read them as textbooks, then they are (1) reading it wrong and (2) engaging in something beyond their own area of competence, something that is not necessarily even science according to some.
Eric, you are confusing “atheist” with “scientist”. There is no scientific way of examining miracles because there is no evidence that can be tested scientifically. As an atheist, I have no problem discussing miracles and whether they do, could or should happen. My personal view is that they don’t and claims that such have occurred never amount to more than uncorroborated personal testimony or reported testimony.
Until we have a likely candidate for a miraculous event, I guess there is little point in theists’ explanations.
Whether an approach is scientific or not can usually be decided on whether hypotheses, conclusions, explanations are based on evidence. If philologists are forming hypotheses about the content of texts and the identity and meaning of their authors by first carefully studying those texts, that is undoubtedly a scientific approach.
And you are blatantly confusing your “personal view” with scientific, empirical, and metaphysical. You conflate even more than Vaal.
Given such lack of necessary distinctions, I can see how you can easily claim that you “have no problem discussing miracles”, while at the same time firmly holding that there never was and never will be “a likely candidate for a miraculous event”:
Agreed. But e.g. KN and Neil Rickert have disagreed. Neil even denies there is such a thing as scientific method (more or less the same thing that you call scientific approach).
Now, one of the things that philology sets out to scientifically determine is the genre of texts. Interpretation of a specific text crucially depends on its genre. If philology is science, and you ignore the genre when trying to interpret a text, then you are being unscientific. Don’t let that happen to you.
There are reasons why I say that the biblical flood story can be read literally, but I never meant you can read it like CNN news report and forget that it’s a myth. There’s a difference between taking CNN news literally, taking a traffic sign literally, and taking a rumour literally. Taking literally, you obey the traffic sign, whereas the news item is “for your information only” and usually prompts no reaction. Interpretation of a rumour depends a lot on if it concerns you or not. Myth is relevant, first and foremost, to the people who carry it. Major myths are often (rightly) assumed to have a historical factual basis (historicity), but this basis is left over after extracting from it the ethnic and cultural specificity, which is complicated because it’s integral to it. This is the way to read myths literally, almost opposite to the way lay people understand literal reading.
I have found your posts over the last few days very helpful.
What do you think about the role of “big data” in philology?
Well, that is the problem with metaphysical concepts. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish metaphysics from reification. Plus one of the points I see Vaal as making is, given a miracle, what should we learn, interpret or assume from it. Say I accept for the case of argument that Jesus (with God’s help – though I guess that involves how the Trinity fits in here) transformed water into wine. A miracle doesn’t explain anything about God. I’d define a miracle as an occurrence that is a discontinuity in the fabric of reality. How that can be linked to a particular version of God and how that links to a particular received dogma is the issue that I’d be interested in seeing you addressing
Justifying distinctions are necessary would be a start. Scientific endeavour is empirical in its approach. I’m tempted to ask what truth about life, the universe and everything has the metaphysical method brought us.
You can of course prove me wrong by proposing a candidate for a miracle.
No, that’s not right.
What I deny, is that there is such a thing as the scientific method.
That is, I deny that there is a singular method that characterizes science.
Erik,
What are the reasons why you evade clarifying your actual claims regarding the biblical flood?
You made this statement about the biblical flood some time ago:
You further emphasized that more recently:
Two of the distinguishing, essential features of the biblical flood story are that it covered the entire planet and that only the people and animals on the ark survived.
I’m trying to understand what you are claiming actually happened. I’m not at this time interested in analyzing the story. It is necessary to understand your claim before it makes sense to consider what evidence you can provide to support it. To be sure I understand your claim, I’ve asked three simple questions:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
Please answer these questions directly and clearly.
Erik,
Your avoidance of Patrick’s questions has become quite conspicuous, to say the least.
Likewise. The idea of a personal Creator deity plays no role in the natural piety that infuses my affective openness to the world as I experience it. Put otherwise, a sense of natural piety does not require any ontological commitment to the existence or non-existence of such a deity.
Lots of thoughts. One of them is that philology will likely end up being used, rather than being useful for those who master it. The same has happened in other sciences as they became highly technologized. For example physics has been over the head of all physicists after Einstein, Bohr, et al. The usefulness of science is perceived when the science is in perspective, seen in relation with other sciences, the world, humanity, and the philosophical fundamentals. Interdisciplinarity, digitization and quantification are fascinating, but “big data” brings about the loss of the big picture.
What this means, I think, is that you don’t read myths literally, in the sense that Patrick and Keiths and everyone else here understands “literally.”
As a trained philologist, you have a different understanding of what “reading myths literally” means than everyone else here. As a result, when you say there is a literal meaning in the text, you’re expressing a different set of commitments than the commitments that Patrick (for example) is attributing to you.
When Patrick is talking about “the literal meaning” of a text, he is talking in the lay person’s sense — the sense that is “almost opposite” to the philological sense in which you talking.
Yeah, but there’s still no reason for Erik not to quit mumbling about his actual beliefs about the reality of a Noachian flood. And the fact that he’s here, voluntarily, yet wants to keep mumbling is not a good thing for him. He should choose. Either answer openly in this discussion with everyone else, or go home where he can mumble to his heart’s content all by himself.
If he doesn’t believe it happened in our real world, water covering the highest mountains, etc, he can simply say so. Easy peasy. If he believes it happened in our real world, say so.
It’s not his moral obligation to say so, but it’s the only interesting thing to say about that particular myth: did it occur in our real world as it was written, or did it not.
Anything else about that myth/folktale/scripture is no more interesting than how many angels can dance on a pin.
So he can either keep mumbling and being boring, or he can be forthright and interesting.
I know which I would choose, but then again, I’m not a pompous “philologist”.
KN, to Erik:
If that were the case, then he wouldn’t hesitate to answer Patrick’s questions.
The truth is more embarrassing. For example, Erik wrote:
Erik is obviously taking the text literally (in the everyday sense of that word) in regard to pre-Flood lifespans. That error is embarrassing enough scientifically, compounded as it is by Erik’s invocation of the ludicrous “vapor canopy” idea, but it isn’t merely a scientific error. It’s also a profound philological error. Erik has pre-committed himself to the truth of the text he is examining. He’s thrown objectivity out the window.
It’s bad science and bad philology.
Rule of thumb:
Any given theist’s specialty is bad science plus bad whatever-discipline they claim to be studying.
Like any rule of thumb, there are exceptions of course. But we haven’t had a theist exception here since Cordova decided to learn something about SLoT. Even that’s not really any exception, because thermodynamics isn’t his specialty to begin with.
For positives, we’ve got Gregory and his angry fake sociology, Erik and his pompous bad philology …
Barry Arrington and his law practice. Or is it a collection agency?-
Erik, dear, you have repeatedly made allusions to ‘evidence’ that you believe supports a historical reading of the Flood. Some of these are so hilariously wrong that no-one who has thought about them dispassionately for a minute could possibly believe they support the global flood.
Where did you get the idea that a vapor canopy could have been the source for the Flood waters? Or that fossils in the Himalayas support the Flood? Did you come up with these ideas on your own or did you read them in a Creation Science book?
You.Have.Been.Lied.To.
I can see how philology could be useful to history and sociology of science, but I am unclear on how it can be used in actually doing science, say physics to be specific.
I would agree that the metaphysics of quantum mechanics, that is how to interpret what it tells us about the world, is an unknown. That’s an area of active study by those with expertise in both philosophy and physics. I am not sure if you are saying philology also bears on this question; if so, I am unclear on how it could.
Of course (?), actually doing physics is not over the head of physicists who can treat it instrumentally in that situation. That’s the “shut up and calculate” school of interpretation.
I asked about this because I would have thought big data would be a tool to help with the empirical aspects of philology as a science.
I agree that, like most tools, it can be misused.
But if used correctly, would it not help in understanding the big picture?
Kantian Naturalist,
And Erik knows this, yet continues to be deliberately evasive.
Erik, please answer my three simple questions:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
I look forward to your clear and direct response.
Wrong. The points concerning life spans and what you call “water canopy” are something I have heard literalists state and, the same as you are highly interested in historicity, I am interested in how atheists would respond to such points. I got the answer: The data is off the chart. That’s not interesting at all.
The way I personally believe the flood stems from the way I build support for the historicity of the flood stories. Namely, if flood stories are a textual universal about the same flood, then the flood is global, but it’s not about Noah or Hebrews, because Noah and Hebrews are a local ethnospecific feature. The date is fairly unknowable, but ice ages are relevant here, because for example retreating ice melts (=flood) and flood waters can obviously turn into ice. Other flood stories are not concerned about dating the way the Genesis story is.
As far as I know geology, detailed dynamics of ice ages are known worse than the current so-called global warming or climate change. What’s known is that for every piece of evidence there’s also erased evidence: Floods and ice ages leave tracks, but they erase prior tracks. Just like fire: You can see that something has burned, but you cannot tell in detail what it was.
Is this what you call dispassionate?
Again: Who lied? What’s the lie? And what’s your preferred version instead of the lie?
I have never read a creation science book. In which geology textbook did you read that there were no fossils in Himalayas and other mountains? As to the “vapor canopy”, it’s traditional Jewish cosmology, one of those things I don’t trust you to read rightly.
By “end up being used” I meant “end up being used for anything”, like physics is taken to be solid proof for the claim “There’s no God” even though physics does not even study gods, big or small.
Not if my school of thought is right. I take it that the right means of putting data into perspective is the big picture and no amount of data can change this. When you stop putting data into perspective (e.g. understanding that for every piece of data that you see there’s other data that you don’t see; that data is not an end in itself, but always data of something, and we are really interested in the something, not the data per se; etc.) and you “shut up and calculate”, you have lost the big picture and God knows what will become of the calculations. There may be a fundamental miscalculation, but it may go undetected because of the loss of the big picture…
Erik,
And yet you said this:
And you further emphasized that more recently:
Two of the distinguishing, essential features of the biblical flood story are that it covered the entire planet and that only the people and animals on the ark survived.
I’m trying to understand what you are claiming actually happened. I’m not at this time interested in analyzing the story. It is necessary to understand your claim before it makes sense to consider what evidence you can provide to support it. To be sure I understand your claim, I’ve asked three simple questions:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
Please answer these questions directly and clearly.
I see these sentences as highly self-contradictory.
1. You say you are trying to understand what I claim actually happened. I claim a global flood happened.
2. You say you are not interested in analyzing the story, but at a later point you will consider “evidence”. From my point of view, the story is the evidence and multiple stories corroborate each other just like multiple witnesses build a more solid case in court.
So, back to your first question: I am not claiming anything just so by myself. I’m interpreting what’s been told. If you are not interested in the story, we are not on the same page.
Erik,
Great, this is the third time you have made this claim. I would like to understand exactly what you mean by that. Here are the questions I’ve been asking to clarify:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
I am doing you the courtesy of taking your claim seriously enough to attempt to understand it. Please in return do me the simple courtesy of answering these questions directly and clearly. Doing so will take far less time and effort than all the other writing you’ve been doing in response.
Let me echo Patrick.
What are we to understand by “a global flood happened”? Should we take you literally to mean at some point in time all land on Earth was submerged under water? I can’t think of any other way to read “global” in this context.
What I’m trying to get at (maybe Patrick and others too) is that some historical or folkloric accounts can be supported with consilient evidence. Pliny the Younger’s description of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius has been considered somewhat fanciful prior to the modern understanding of pyroclastic flow. It is now acknowledged to be an accurate visual account of such an event.
There are many flood myths and many candidate events to account for them. The Persian Gulf was an apparently fertile and quite densely populated delta of the Tigris and Euphrates prior to 7,500 years ago when sea level rose around 120m following glacial melting. Neither this nor any other event proposed as a basis for a flood story could be considered “global”.
I don’t think such a claim is any part of physics. The claim is metaphysical; such claims belong to philosophy. So if a physicist, or a philologist for that matter, made such a claim, the supporting arguments for the claim must be judged on their philosophical merit.
For me, if it’s science, then its theories have to be measured against and possibly revised n the light of data. The revision process includes ascertaining the reliability of the data and deciding how theory should be revised.
Of course I agree that data and theory cannot be separated, that data is always interpreted in the light of the overall theoretical structures of a science. But that does not prevent data from putting part of that theoretical structure into doubt.
I read that as suggesting that you cannot do both. But to me science is about doing both: gathering the data, understanding how it influences the appropriate pieces of the big picture, and then deciding what new data is needed to confirm any theories that may be open to revision in light of the data.
“Shut up a calculate” is a phrase used to mean that physicists can make successful predictions of the results of experiments without answering the metaphysical issues of QM. I agree that we are not interested in the data per se. But that does not mean we ignore the data.
Erik,
For a philologist, your reading comprehension is sadly lacking [assumption required per site rules].
The lies:
1) That a vapor canopy could be the source of the Flood waters. Assuming that you do not believe that the sky is a solid inverted bowl, you therefore pick and choose which aspects of Jewish cosmology you find credible. What leads you to lend credence to a vapor canopy as the source of the water, ignoring, as you do, the physical consequences of such a canopy? Where did you get the idea that the canopy would shield earth from harmful radiation, thereby allowing the patriarchs to live for hundreds of years?
(Since your citation of Jewish cosmology is irrelevant, I won’t bother asking you to support the “vapor” aspect, which was news to me. I may not be reading Ps 148 “rightly”, I guess.)
2) That the presence of fossils in the Himalayas supports the Flood. Your “In which geology textbook…” question displays your lack of reading comprehension: no-one is disputing the presence of fossils in mountains, just how they got there.
Did you really come up with these ideas on your own, or did you uncritically accept them? Textual universals and all that, y’know.
Who lied? Whoever fed you this particular rubbish. That could be you yourself, but the philology suggests otherwise…
What’s my “preferred version”? It’s all a myth, inspired by local flooding.
Ah, sorry Erik, I didn’t see this before responding to your later comment
You seem to be saying that the various flood myths may all be based on rapid sea level rise due to the glacial melting that happened around 8,000 years ago. Whist sea level rose 120 metres, this was over a period of several hundred years which is I suggest ample time for people to retreat to higher ground.
Oh goodness, now we’ve got a secular Jew, a turn-away confused pan-cake (pan-anything on any given day of the week) atheist talking about ‘natural piety’ and ‘horizontal transcendence’ as if he thinks his language (to himself) is humanly fruitful (within myopic analytic wanna-be continental philosophistry). It goes to great lengths to avoid the vertical and presumably at some point pious religion of his family, apparently.
And then we’ve got toe-deep USAmerican blog commenters here who probably hadn’t even heard of the term ‘philology’ before Erik mentioned it now claiming he is doing ‘bad philology’ and ‘bad science.’ Yeah, right! 😉
This ‘skeptical’ place is full of shallow human duds, who say ‘dear’ and ‘sweetie pie’ and ‘honey’ trying to condescend upon people who simply have faith in more than materialism, naturalism and scientism will ever allow them to experience. At least the ‘religiously unmusical’ Max Weber was respectful of world religious, in contrast with spewing empty atheist talk at ‘skeptical’ TA/SZ. I only wish there was more inspiration and wisdom here in this anti-IDism venue, but apparently there is very little, mostly by guests.
Check out “Philosophy in Science” which places focus on the meanings of scientific concepts and percepts.
Yes, while the danger of reductionism and even informationism lurks around many corners of exploration. I taught a course on ‘digital humanities,’ btw, and ‘big data’ is indeed a hot topic these days. That doesn’t make it ‘humanising’, a theme which is highly lacking at TA/SZ with its majority atheist population.
Gregory,
So let me ask again, Gregory…
You seem to think atheism is a rather bankrupt view. Assuming, for the case of argument I was considering moving from an atheist view to a religious one, is there a religion you can recommend? One you subscribe to, perhaps.
Yeah, that’s a large majority human position. Not just ‘seem to’, but ‘actually.’
This site gets & deserves little. Bottom-dwelling anti-Design conspirators. It is largely a waste of time.
Lizzie has gathered her ‘fellow travellers,’ a few apostates among them. And no, I’m not going to ‘apologise’ (apologetics) to you or them. Your thin humanity, Alan Fox, demonstrates itself in the way you communicate your flippant atheism here.
Your ‘for the sake of argument’ deviousness mirrors John 18: 33-34. Open your Bible, Torah or Koran ready to learn more than simply ‘Science’. Live beyond ‘horizontal’ despairing ‘skepticism’ in the information-electronic epoch. We will all die (transhumanist utopias aside); some of us unnecessarily hopelessly. You don’t need a (capital) ‘subscription’ for greater belief than anything an ideological (stunted) ‘skeptic’ has *EVER* offered to humankind.
Anglo-French atheism smells ugly so far. But other beauties remain.
I feel right at home.
Erik: I claim a global flood happened.
Patrick: Was the flood global?
/facepalm
I think that when Erik says he claims a global flood happened he means that the global flood was not global. That seems to make the most sense.
Think Gregory likes wasting time here.
What do you think? Was there a global flood and was Noah’s ark, as described in the bible, real?
Gregory,
Wow! That covers rather a large swathes of varying concepts. You don’t favour a particular flavour of Christianity?
Well, I hope it’s a long way off as I am getting a great deal of enjoyment out of my life now. But at some stage, surviving accidents, something will eventually give out. I hope my exit will be as pain-free as possible. I may feel a little regret for things not done but I don’t see where hope fits in. The thought of not just ending but continuing as some sort of formless wraith for ever has no appeal whatever. I’m mystified why theists sell this as some sort of bonus.
But you’re still being completely vague on the details… What belief are you promoting?
What I particularly enjoy about Gregory’s recent waste is him whining about the shallow people who call someone “dear” or “honey” — all the while he continues his frothing McCarthyite indictments of anyone who’s ever had the courage to stand up for their own point of view.
Yes, calling someone “honey” is obviously a heinous moral failing, and a literal crime as well. Surely Gregory should have the power to find, arrest, and stone to death anyone who commits that crime. Well, it’s a big job; he’ll need a committee to help him punish everyone who deserves it. Maybe he can name it the House Un-Theistic Activities Committee.
II think it’s time Gregory stopped pissing around just wasting time here, and takes some real steps to accomplish his agenda. Whaddya think, Gregory?
It’s a lot more than just ‘concepts’, Alan. It is life. Check out Gilson’s “From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again” in original French or English.
Well, obviously not. That would count as ‘religious language’ and ‘musicality’, which you (intentionally or from lack of effort or capacity?) apparently are not able to speak.
Go find the details for yourself, Alan. I’m not your online confessor. Your dehumanising atheism is not impressive by a long shot, no matter what little pocket of France may now ‘enjoy’ you.
Baby Darling Doll Face Honey
🙂 🙂 🙂
Band of Skulls. Them’s my kind of boys.
I do like “pan-cake”. Very cute.
These days I’d say that my attitude towards religion is pretty much what Dewey was getting at in A Common Faith: a religious attitude without supernaturalism.
Kantian Naturalist,
But you have no ‘religion’, do you KN? Your attitude is anti-Jewish religion as much as it is anti-supernatural (philosophistically), isn’t it. Maybe not overtly, but covertly as an atheist you secretly hate God who is dead to you.
It seems, though correct if wrong, that Dewey died an atheist/agnostic (or at least some USAmericans think so, one of their flat ‘freethinking’ heroes). Your role models, the ones you’ve chosen (like Sell-out-ars) are sadly dehumanising, KN. Ya, hello – it’s true! It’s just strange that you don’t seem to care and even may enjoy displaying yourself with such a dehumanising anti-fore-mothers beliefs embrace.
p.s. I was just having blinys with good folk, which translates usually as ‘pancake’ into your Anglo-centric environment
Gregory
I’m seeing this as a personal attack and an accusation of lying. Please make an effort to stay within the rules. Continue in this vein and subsequent comments will find their way to guano