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.
Not sure why you think this is a problem.
God miraculously raised Jesus from the dead, and later slurped up the body. Produce the body and demonstrate by DNA evidence that it belonged to Jesus.
Call it the Cambrian Rabbit of Christianity if you want.
It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.
– Kahlil Gibran
hotshoe:
Mung:
Sad to say, Mung probably doesn’t think it’s a problem.
Mung, see this.
Erik,
You’ve got it backwards. You are the one making the claim:
I am merely trying to understand what exactly it is you are claiming:
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 or retract your claim. There is no other honest response.
Erik,
No, no one knows what your claim is, because you refuse to clarify it. Let’s try again. When you wrote this:
and followed up with this:
what exactly are you claiming about this supposed historical event?
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.
Exactamundo. Obfuscation is his best friend.
Why?
Did you finally post something to support your claim? Is it a retraction and apology?
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” — Max Planck
This applies to all collectively held ideas – both true and untrue. Instead of pursuing and accepting greater insight, the majority within any given generation sticks with what they are familiar with.
Planck was wrong, as was Kuhn, who uses this quote to support his case. When Mitchell introduced his chemiosmotic hypothesis, nobody believed him. Did he have to wait for Lehninger, Slater, Racker et al. to die before his theory was accepted? No. He went off and generated the data, thereby winning the skeptics over. There’s a lesson for ID here.
No. Collectively held ideas that are untrue can be shown shown to be untrue. It’s an important distinction…
This may apply if only data matters. But theories have to explain both the data and the structure.
Copernican heliocentric model explained the structure of the solar system vastly better (more economically) than the Ptolemaic model, but it was less good with predicting data than the Ptolemaic model. It got better with data after the circles were corrected to ellipses. And it was accepted after a century of struggle, i.e. after the previous generation of scientists had died off.
If you think religious texts are (only) about the data, then you are not even wrong. You are off topic.
The concept of genre has not come about by examination of data, but by examination of motivations that underlie production of texts. In interpretation it’s at least as important to relate the text to its intention as it is to external data.
Or, an adaptation:
Or, yet closer to Lizzie’s (music to) empiricist apostasy:
Or yet against this silly atheist blog:
“NOOooo! 🙁 We’re on topic. We are atheists. We therefore *ARE* the main topic!” 😉 Yeah, that’s what makes this site TAMSZ – ‘m’ meaning miserable.
The topic is varieties of religious language. Atheists tend to wilfully deny themselves access to this topic.
Oh dear. You are making my point for me. The Copernican model, as originally proposed, was wrong; just wrong in a different way from the Ptolemaic model. Only with the circles -> ellipses modification did it have the data on its side. You do have a point, of course, that circles were favored for religious reasons.
I encourage you to re-read my post of November 9th. For comprehension. Stop trying to ascribe to me positions that I do not hold.
Not an atheist, btw.
You show an exceptional moment of clarity in that post. I say exceptional because you normally lack any comprehension and you ascribe to me young-earthism or some such, just like most others with whom I converse here.
The thrust of your post is this:
I would retract my statements in the face of pertinent evidence. But when the evidence ranges from “floods occur all the time” and “You.Were.Lied.To” then there’s no reason to.
This would be interesting. But since you show no signs of being anything else than atheist, I reserve my own opinion about this.
Actually Mung, Jesus ascended. Mary ,on the other hand, was slurped up.
Awesome! Now, in order for Patrick and I to figure out what evidence would be “pertinent”, we ask that you clarify the specifics of your claim.
🙂
Well, I find that you display great difficulty in writing clearly; I have never ascribed to you young-earthism, but I’ll concede that the woolly phrase “or some such” might cover the fact that you have claimed that “Genesis is as good as Herodotus.” wrt historical reliability…
That may well be true, with the extremely important exception that I have told you otherwise. Site rules apply…
You were already able to examine my claims in your Novemeber 9th post. So, nothing is unclear. Patrick is just playing the fool.
Otherwise I in turn must ask you to clarify the “specifics” that you want clarified.
Meaning: Some are permitted to stretch and abuse them, others not.
You see, I am being asked to “clarify” stuff. If I were to say “Everything is absolutely clear already” would you take it in good faith and consider the matter settled? Patrick has persisted rather long in his bad faith…
Erik,
Yet you do claim that at least one religious text is at least partially about the data. 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,
You should retract your claim if you are unwilling to clarify it. At the moment asking for supporting evidence is premature. Please demonstrate some intellectual integrity by answering these questions to clarify exactly what you mean:
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?
Direct and clear answers, please.
Erik,
No, I genuinely don’t understand exactly what you are claiming when you said:
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. Also, please follow the site rules and assume I am asking in good faith.
Erik,
No bad faith, I actually don’t understand your claim. You could finally man up and answer my simple questions or continue to demonstrate your bad faith, cowardice, and lack of intellectual integrity. Your call.
That does not show that Planck was wrong. It only shows that it is wrong to take Planck literally. I doubt that he intended that literally. I’ve always read Planck’s statement as deliberately exaggerated to emphasis the difficulty in having a new theory adopted.
Critics of science don’t seem to fully understand the issue. What we see in these cases, is evidence that science goes by pragmatic criteria rather than by a concern with ultimate truth. So when a theory has already proved its pragmatic worth, it is not at all surprising that people want to keep using it rather than try something different. So the younger scientists, who have not yet put the effort into mastering the older system, are more willing to try out the new.
Neil Rickert,
I agree: Planck was indulging in a figure of speech. Others, sadly, didn’t get the joke and took him literally.
For some values of “literally”.
Poor writing: it is unclear what “my claims” refers to: I did examine the claims you made in your First Statement, but I also noted that your claims about the historical accuracy of the Flood story were uninterpretable.
See my post October 23rd, repeated November 6th:
We are merely trying to understand the specifics of your claim “of course it occurred”. Were there, in fact, 8 survivors?
You really don’t understand what “assume good faith” means. You say “Nothing is unclear.” I assume, as I must, that you genuinely believe that “Everything is absolutely clear already”. That does not prevent me (or Patrick) from pointing out to you that you are wrong (you have been unclear), and demonstrably so. The “matter” that is “settled” is that you are refusing to clarify what you meant, so we cannot offer “pertinent” evidence to help you see the error of your ways.
Thus site rules compel me to the conclusion that you are clueless. You have my sympathy.
I completely agree with what you are deriving from the Planck quote. Except for the nuance about “ultimate truth”.
Pragmatic values are there because ultimate truth is there. These two (namely, pragmatic values on one hand and ultimate truth on the other), when properly understood, are in harmony, not contradictory. But their interrelationship is nuanced and it’s not easy to understand correctly and to convey it without loss.
In the moderation thread you said that I have brought Patrick’s questions on myself. Actually, immediately after my first post, long before Patrick, keiths got all excited about literalness. I replied to him and he mostly got the message, but Patrick never did. And never will.
I have been thinking how to deal with him without the silly “clarification” game. Patrick is not asking for clarification. His semantics is too self-contradictory for that; a different intent is clearly present. I should ask him to clarify what he means, but this would precisely be a silly “clarification” game.
Erik,
Not if you continue to evade the simple questions I’m asking. You made the claim. Either clarify it or retract it. Any other course of action is dishonest and cowardly.
Yes, I am. I have repeatedly stated that I am. The site rules require you to assume that I am asking in good faith (which, in fact, I am).
Once more, 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.
That is where we are bound to disagree.
As I see it, we tend to use the label “ultimate truth” when it supports what we pragmatically value.
From my perspective, our primary way of making judgments is pragmatic. And our concept of truth is itself a pragmatic invention.
That’s a nice way of putting it.
I was going to say ultimate truth is made-up bullshit.
Made up by people who — historically — have wanted to force other people to submit to their beliefs.
We see things around us. Are they real or apparent? If real, they are certainly not the only reality. Namely, our seeing of the events is also reality, and whenever we fail to see them, this is also reality (a fact). So, to put the things properly into perspective, they are apparent only, because they are not all there is to reality. Reality versus appearance is a useful distinction. What we see is apparent, and appearances are indicative of reality.
Similarly, pragmatic truths do not work in isolation. They work because of ultimate truth which is the overarching reality within which everything works the way it works. Ultimate truth is another pragmatic truth, a very useful distinction. You can call useful distinctions an invention, but since it’s impossible to live without them, then for all pragmatic purposes they are undeniably real.
I am indeed puzzled in what way you are not an atheist. By all signs, you are an atheist who refuses the label “atheist”.
How can you demand me to retract the claim that literal reading of scripture is true? Don’t you see how it would reduce the value of scripture to the level of fiction? What kind of non-atheist would think of scripture as mere fiction? Are you a militant anti-theist agnostic?
Kantian Naturalist similarly sees no contradiction in assuming that the literal level is false while the spiritual level is, well, insightful. I doubt he would say “true”. If he would, he doesn’t mean “true” the way I mean it, approximately like his notion of “spiritual” is without any identifiable spiritual content. That’s atheism and he knows that it’s apropriately descriptive of him. For someone with spiritual commitment, no level of scripture can be false.
Why am I not answering Patrick’s questions? I actually have answered this. My claim is clear enough – I believe the flood literally occurred. I believe this because there’s no evidence against it. When multiple sources testify to it, then to deny it requires more/other evidence. Additionally, as a theist, it’s my duty to be committed to the truth of what I identify as scripture. I am familiar with Bible and I see no reason to dismiss its divine inspiration.
The problem with Patrick’s questions is that they are about the specifics of my belief about the flood, not about (my beliefs concerning) the varieties of religious language, i.e. the questions lead away from the topic. I don’t have specific beliefs about the flood. I would care very little about the historical flood (about as much as I care about the dinosaurs), if scriptures didn’t mention it in a fashion that indicates historicity. But they do, which leads to me believe that the flood literally occurred. The specifics of the flood are up to our interpretation of evidence about the flood (and evidence includes the flood stories). The more important point in the scriptural flood stories concern spirituality, not the historicity of the flood, as should be clear from my very first statement in this thread.
So, anything unclear here?
On the other hand, it’s clear to me how Patrick’s questions are disingenuous. He wants to separate the “clarification” of my “claim” from the scriptures and evidence, but these things cannot be separated – the scriptures are the evidence. He wants to know the date, as if the Bible were not clear about dates (this is exceptional, by the way, exclusive to the Bible; usually when scriptures also function as folklore, which they commonly do, dates are unspecified, as is normal in folklore). He wants to know if the flood covered the whole planet and if only eight people survived. In Genesis, the flood is surrounded by events like “sons of God” marrying human daughters, people habitually living close to a millennium, and rainbow seen for the first time ever after the flood. This indicates a sharp and thorough transformation of the atmosphere, biosphere, and geophysics of the planet. Events like this would not happen in isolation cosmically. At the same time, Jewish tradition says that the earth was visited by many deluges, and that Noah’s deluge only extended to “Barbary”. This would indicate that the text tells about several historical events at once and refers to multiple people by a single name – a known feature of mythology and scriptures. They are multi-layered for many good reasons, one of the reasons being to serve as a prime example of intricate multi-layered narrative and synthetic genre that should not be mistaken for journalism.
And Petrushka’s question about the religious or spiritual meaning is also disingenuous. Even KN doesn’t have a notion of spirituality that would inform us about the distinction of folklore and scripture, or illuminate our reading of the flood story more particularly, much less anybody else here. When the literal reading hopelessly clogs the discussion, there’s no reason to expect anything better from spiritual.
I did say that we were bound to disagree about this.
This does not make sense to me. There is no single “level of fiction”. Some fiction can convey important moral truths, while other kind of fiction may offer only entertainment.
Erik,
Yes. What’s unclear is exactly what you mean by saying “the flood literally occurred”. Hence Patrick’s questions:
What is clear is that you are terrified of those questions, that you have no confidence in your ability to defend your beliefs, and that you are dishonestly pretending that Patrick’s questions are “disingenuous”.
Not very impressive, Erik.
I hope you realize that you aren’t fooling anyone.
And half a billion christians worldwide claim that a literal reading of scripture is not true. There was no flood as described, Jericho’s walls were not brought down by the sound of trumpets, the Jews were never slaves in Egypt. It’s okay that those things literally never happened, because christians have metaphorical and spiritual readings of the texts which make them meaningful even when they know they are literally not true.
Erik is astonishingly out of touch with the mainstream of modern christianity. Only the most regressive idiots still claim that they have to take a literal reading of the bible as true. It’s not so much a surprise in the poor backwoods of the USA, but it’s truly bizarre in a person who is supposedly educated and intelligent as Erik otherwise seems to be.
Just goes to show, there’s a sucker born every minute, and a backwards religion ready made for them to get sucked into. Too bad.
Erik,
It is apparent to me that you made this claim about a supposedly historical event:
You then doubled down:
I’m trying to understand what you are claiming actually happened. I’d like to discuss it with you in more detail. 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 you, please answer these 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?
Alternatively, you could retract your claim. You have no other option that demonstrates honesty and integrity.
Neil Rickert,
Terry Pratchett manages both.
And Game of Thrones raises serious political and ethical issues!
because I know there has never been an eight-survivor global flood, and I have the evidence to back me up.
fiction can retain important messages: Aesop, Dickens, Marquis, Harper Lee, etc. The majority of Christians view parts of the Bible as allegorical.
Jefferson.
No, on all three counts.
Quite so. And that’s roughly the view I’ve been maintaining here throughout this whole conversation, first with keiths and then with Erik. (I say “roughly” only because I think within a Jewish tradition, not a Christian one.)
I’m puzzled by Erik’s insistence that a genuinely spiritual reading of a text requires that it be true at every level, including that of literal meaning. The more I think about it, the more this requirement looks to me like a peculiarity of his commitment to Neoplatonic emanationism, and not something that is simply a matter of good philology.
In any event, I simply disagree with him on this point: there is no contradiction in regarding a sacred text as false if taken literally and still true if taken metaphorically.
Erik,
You’re the one who made a positive claim about a supposedly historical event. If you’re unwilling to explain exactly what you mean by that claim, the only intellectually honest alternative is to retract it.
It is what it is.
Once more you seem to be repeating your claim:
I would still like to know exactly what you mean.
This is not “clear enough.”
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?
You made a claim about a supposedly historical event. If you’d rather not discuss that claim, retract it. Unless you do, it is intellectually dishonest not to answer simple questions about it and, once it is understood by other participants, support it.
The topic in this case is your claim about a supposedly historical event.
This contradicts your claim that “Anyway, of course it [the biblical flood] occurred. The Bible has been found historically reliable.” Your claim is specifically about the biblical flood. 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 am trying to understand if this is what you mean by your claim. Please answer my simple questions so that I can understand what you are claiming.
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?
Your claim, however, is about the historicity of the flood, not about spirituality. Please clarify exactly what you mean when you claim “Anyway, of course it [the biblical flood] occurred. The Bible has been found historically reliable.”
Yes.
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 clear up your claim by answering these simple questions.
That accusation is pure projection, unsupported by anything I’ve written. You made a claim about a supposedly historical event. I asked for clarification, hoping to have a discussion about the evidence for your claim once I understood exactly what you were claiming. You’ve behaved like a dishonest coward since then, refusing to answer simple questions.
No, I want to understand your claim. It is premature to talk about evidence until you’ve explained exactly what it is you are claiming.
If the biblical flood actually occured, there would be evidence for it. The nature of that evidence depends on the time of the flood, its extent, and the number of people affected. Hence my questions. Please answer them.
I’m not asking about your holy books, I’m asking about the claim you made. When are you claiming this supposedly historical flood took place?
You made the claim. I want to know if you are claiming that the flood covered the whole of the Earth simultaneously and if, after the flood, there was a point in time where only eight people were alive on the entire planet. You made the claim, you have the obligation to explain what you mean.
None of this explains what you mean when you claim “Anyway, of course it [the biblical flood] occurred. The Bible has been found historically reliable.”
Once again, 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, please answer these 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?
It’s well past time for you to man up and answer.
Yes, I also find that puzzling.
I considered myself a Christian from roughly age 12 to 23. And those who knew me would have considered me a devout Christian. I was in a somewhat conservative evangelical tradition (Churches of Christ in Australia). Yet I never saw a need to consider Genesis literally true. It seemed obvious that the Adam and Eve story was a fable (or “Just So” story) — the magic tree and talking snake give that away. Similarly the Tower of Babel story was obviously a made up “Just So” story — we see language evolving and dividing into different dialects in our own time. The Noah’s Ark story was obviously fiction — Noah’s family was too small to take care of that many animals. And the Genesis 1 account was pre-scientific and got a lot wrong.
None of that was a problem for me. What mattered was that the bible be inerrant as a source of theological and spiritual truth. It didn’t matter that it was neither science nor history.
It was when I began to question the theological and spiritual truths, that I began to question Christianity.
So I find it difficult to understand Erik’s position on the need for some sort of literalism. And I’m still not clear on what he even means by that.
Neil Rickert,
You should ask him to clarify! Since we all assume each other to be posting in good faith, he’s sure to address your questions.
You already have some experience in how well that works out.
Neil Rickert,
I’m really optimistic this time!
It matters (to me, not maybe to you) whether you have a good reason to disagree.
So scripture at best offers important moral truths? (while at other times it offends with invitations to slaughter) When scripture is indistinguishable from fiction, then how is it scripture?
Are we talking about my beliefs or about varieties of religious language?
I defend the thesis that scripture is a distinct genre, to be interpreted as laid out in my first post in this thread. You can dishonestly pretend that the discussion is about whether the flood was global and if eight Hebrews survived it.
ETA: But if you want to discuss it, feel free to present your evidence, as I have mine.
Yes, I do have good reasons, based on my attempts to understand human cognition. But it would take a long time to explain, and you would not accept it anyway. We have very different ways of looking at such questions. Perhaps my response to KN is slightly relevant.
Well, it’s a matter of good philology to honestly acknowledge the similarities of folklore and scripture. But to distinguish scripture from folklore is a matter of good spirituality, not simply of good philology. Wisdom of the forefathers is distinct from word of God (or words of the Buddha, if that be your preference).
Take Iliad for example (your example originally, IIRC, and a very good one). It’s about gods meddling in a battle. Is it historically untrue? Hadn’t archeologists found Troy, would it be correct to say “It’s just an old story about gods taking sides. There’s no historical basis to it.”? The element of historicity is not strictly required of folklore (or of scripture – the text should indicate when it’s required or not), but to deny it flimsily would be a mistake. You have to have reasons to deny it. One of the reasons would be when the reader has no spiritual commitment and reads it like regular fiction.
Erik,
We’re talking about your repeated claim:
and about your failure to engage in good faith discussion.
The dishonesty and lack of integrity is entirely on your part. Please stop behaving like a coward and answer the simple questions required to clarify your claim:
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?
If you won’t, the only honest alternative is to retract your claim.