- So are you saying that a fact which claims to be nothing more than a belief is better than a fact which claims to be something more than a belief?

(I'm going to turn this over to @Janus now...)

- Okay, interesting. 'Looks like I was all wrong.

- An explication of the relation between facts and beliefs in itself does nothing to distinguish better facts from worse facts, so I don't see how you "already did that work."

(And I assume you meant "controvertible" rather than "incontrovertible")

- In the sense that it provides no information about how or why some facts are better than others.

A couple of generations back, yes, amongst other things. — Banno

Now I'm curious. Did you move to Australia a couple of generations ago, or did your ancestors merely live in England? I'd love to be half-right.

Ooo I stand corrected. I was looking after my mental health by forgetting the onion eating dropkick ever existed. — Banno

:grin:

The latter type of 'fact' is BETTER in some way than other 'facts' are. — Chet Hawkins

An important but vague claim.

Dow nunder, we have had a fair run of atheist Prime Ministers, back at least to Whitlam in the early seventies. — Banno

I had you pegged as an Englishman. :gasp:

Only two PM's since then have been overtly Christian, Rudd and Morrison. — Banno

Not Abbott?

- 70% of your posts contain no arguments at all.

There's still going on that original science stuff, no matter how much studies are directed by grants. — ssu

If science is just a means to technology, and science is funded almost entirely by a desire for technology (or other forms of power), then science is not about speculative knowledge in any real sense. We have seen science moving in this direction for hundreds of years now.

You are right that in theory science should be this separate, autonomous thing. But in practice it turns out not to be.

- The scientific method derives in large part from Francis Bacon and the desire to manipulate nature. Modern science was a shift away from speculative knowledge, or knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It moved in the direction of practical knowledge, or knowledge for the sake of power, namely the power to manipulate nature.

Why use scientific progress and not simply technological progress? — ssu

Because almost everyone today is a Baconian, thus, "scientia potentia est" ("knowledge is power"). "Science" in our modern lexicon often just means, "The thing that provides us with technology."

But the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and so is the population only as mature as it's most immoral (or insane) individual. — SpaceDweller

Yes, I realize you are thinking along the lines of liberal individualism, which is why my last paragraph began, "Prescinding from liberal individualism for a moment..."

If you want to think in terms of individualism then consider the fact that three year-old children are "weak links." If the three year-old gets hold of a gun or a button that launches a nuclear missile, then we will be in a great deal of trouble. So do we address this weak link by destroying it or strengthening it? No, we just keep guns out of the hands of three year-olds. This is easy as long as the adult population is able to control the toddler population.

So you could think of the individualism-framed problem as a problem of the ratio between adults and toddlers, and the ensuing probability that any given random individual will be a "toddler." The government solution is based on the idea that a minority of adults will maintain control over time, thus preventing toddlers from accessing dangerous weapons. But as a society degrades and the proportion of toddlers-to-adults grows, the chance that a toddler is able to grab power will increase. The only long-term solution to this problem is to raise the average moral IQ, because that is the only way to address the proportion of toddlers-to-adults directly.

Or in other words, we need to think about this issue in abductive terms, as searching for the best possible solution; rather than in deductive terms of finding the perfect solution. There is no perfect solution.

He's not making a moral argument at all, at the end of the day. — AmadeusD

We've seen this claim over and over, and O'Connor makes it as well. The claim is, "That's not a moral claim, and I am unable to define what I mean by a moral claim." This is not a serious objection.

What Harris has demonstrated is a "should" that is necessary and universal. If that's not a moral claim then I don't know what is.

He did not. — AmadeusD

You probably missed it. Watch the section I pointed out above.

One of the key disagreements here relates to the idea that there is a universal human end (happiness). If all humans ultimately desire happiness, and if Harris' doomsday scenario is the epitome of unhappiness, then it logically follows that we should try to avoid this doomsday scenario. I don't think there is anything controversial about this; I think Harris merely underestimated the sophistry of Anglo-American moral philosophy that is now roosting at Oxford. Still, Harris did well, and he basically got O'Connor to admit that one could deny that 2+2=4 on the same Emotivist basis on which he denies Harris' claim. Requiring infinite justification for any claim is always an epistemological error, whether in mathematics or ethics.

I would not be surprised to see O'Connor abandon his Emotivism in the next 6-7 years.

The traditional Judeo-Christian Biblical view says that the demons give humans precocious knowledge so that the human race will destroy itself. The weaponry aspect is especially seen in the line of Cain, culminating in Tubal-Cain.

I think this traditional narrative is instructive with respect to your OP, for powerful knowledge is dangerous precisely insofar as it is precocious. Someone who is mature is able to wield powerful knowledge in a way that is safe and wise.

my primary question here is what do you think, which other methods do you think might yield same or better options to prevent self-destruction or major destabilization? — SpaceDweller

I think maturation is needed, including moral maturation. As far as quick fixes go, I'm not sure, for they are all problematic. Government is not a terrible quick fix. Perhaps it would be possible to discover technologies that can only be used for good and never for evil, but I doubt it.

Prescinding from liberal individualism for a moment, I do not think our cultural intelligence is sufficiently attuned to these dangers in a way that allows us to avoid them. We are apt to rush ahead, blindly grasping after the newest and most powerful technology, with no regard for side effects or deleterious consequences. We lack a robust recognition of our own destructive capacities, both as individuals and as groups. Rectifying this situation would go a long way towards inculcating the sort of moral maturation I have in mind.

The followers of pagan gods didn't take the position taken by Jews and Christians regarding God or religion. A pagan didn't claim that the god they were worshipping at any particular time was the only god, nor did they believe that all must worship that god and no other. That wouldn't occur to a pagan, nor was it the position of the Empire in pagan times. — Ciceronianus

Well, like I said, the God of Abraham is more "jealous" than the pagan gods, but you are inferring from this that Abrahamic religions necessarily impose their God/religion on everyone else, which is theologically and historically false, although there were certain circumstances in which forced conversions occurred.

and led Christians to kill Hypatia — Ciceronianus

Hypatia's death was largely politically motivated, as almost always holds in these cases. Religion and culture go hand in hand, and therefore political leaders have a vested interest in a unified religious/cultural landscape. The Roman executions of Christians were also politically motivated in this way.

See: Hypatia: Myths and History

So I don't know why you obsess on the fact that Craig does not embrace Catholic dogma. — Relativist

Me neither. This thread began without an OP and continued lackluster.

- :up: I think it's a fair thesis to say that theistic personalism derives from the univocity of Scotism. There is a rather good philosopher who leverages the analogy of being more broadly, Erich Przywara. You might be interested in him. John Betz and David Hart recently translated his Analogia Entis into English, but Betz also has a number of articles overviewing Przywara's position.

For Przywara the analogy of being was encapsulated at Lateran Council IV:

The doctrine of analogia entis was given classic and authoritative formula-
tion by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (cap. 2): Inter creatorem et crea-
turam non potest tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos major sit dissimili-
tudo notanda. — Przywara's Analogia Entis, by James Collins

• "between the Creator and the creature so great a likeness cannot be noted without the necessity of noting a greater dissimilarity between them" (Denzinger 432)
• "One cannot note any similarity between Creator and creature, however great, without being compelled to note an even greater dissimilarity between them." (Stephen Webb)

- I don't think either of the two are very good philosophers in general, but I think Harris trounced O'Connor in this discussion. If you watch from about 1:20:00-1:30:00 they get into the thing you are talking about, and O'Connor falls into sophistries typical of skeptics.

I thought Sam Harris did a good job arguing for morality as a form of well-being, along the same lines as this thread:

You don't need to change the text of the Constitution to change the meaning and religions do the same with their documents. — Hanover

I would be wary of pushing this too far, and doesn't this just end up in the Originalism debate?

Even if we say that all rules are malleable, it will remain true that some rules and some traditions are much more malleable than others. Further, when the recipe calls for divine revelation the dish will be a great deal less malleable.

@Hanover, do you follow Reform Judaism?

But suppose that dogma is true. — BillMcEnaney

This is the question that you continue to beg.

Specifically as to a comparison with the Abrahamic religions, I refer to the tolerance of other religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean before and while Christians began stamping them out. Members of the Mithras cult, or that of Isis or Cybele, for example, weren't prohibited from worshipping other gods or becoming initiates of other mysteries. Rome was generally tolerant of all forms of worship provided they weren't believed to be a danger to its rule. It didn't require that all people within its empire worship Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Jews were considered peculiar, but were allowed to worship their peevish god and avoid the homage demanded by the Roman state as they wished until they revolted against Roman rule and were ruthlessly repressed or exterminated.

The so-called persecutions of Christians have been wildly exaggerated, and were in response to actions, or we might say omissions, of believers deemed to be threats and a rejection of the Roman state, e.g. the refusal of military service or refusal to make an offering generally in form of incense to the well-being of Rome or the reigning Emperor, a problem pagan believers didn't have as they weren't intolerant — Ciceronianus

Well I'd say you are omitting the fact that the Christians, once separated from Judaism, were no longer allowed to "avoid the homage demanded by the Roman state," and this is one reason the relations between Christianity and paganism became complicated (relations between Christianity and Judaism had already become complicated).

It is strange to note the execution of Christians, and then claim that the Christians were executed because they were intolerant, not being willing to venerate pagan gods. "We had to kill them because they intolerantly refused to worship our god and/or emperor." This argument will always fail for a modern mind. It would be like saying, "We had to burn the heretic at the stake because they intolerantly refused to accept Christian dogma." This is backwards.

I will concede that you make a fair argument for the relative intolerance of the Abrahamic religions and their "jealous God." On the other hand, the central cultural dogmas are always non-negotiable, and historically culture and religion go hand in hand. Later Christian cultures very often permitted a latitude that was comparable to the earlier pagan cultures. To a lesser extent this was also true of Islam. But I will concede that pagan gods are less jealous, and therefore there is a sense in which paganism is more tolerant.

- No, that's fair. I don't have any strong objections to the arguments you have offered. I think they are reasonable. I think the difficulty is related to what said, for you are trying to salvage and pacify an exchange between Banno and Hanover that became polemical. That's a tall task.

But even the Pharisees and their intellectual descendants, the Rabbis of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods would have more-or-less accepted the plain meaning of this text... — schopenhauer1

So on the one hand I think there is a bit of begging the question with respect to the "plain meaning of the text." On the other hand, I think you are correct that obedience is central to the text, as I've noted above. I'm not quite sure what you and @Hanover are disagreeing on. Again, I think Hanover was disagreeing with Banno, and I think Banno's posts have created a thread context where Hanover is suspicious of your claims.

Relativist, Dr. Craig believes that God is simple. But he rejects the absolute divine simplicity that Catholics must believe in. For us, the doctrine about absolute divine simplicity is a dogma. — BillMcEnaney

Arguing from Catholic dogma does not work against non-Catholics, and it does not work on a philosophy forum. Instead of appealing to Catholic dogma, what you need to do is address Craig's arguments:

See the discussion between Bishop Robert Barron and William Lane Craig on divine simplicity. In his response Craig explicitly targets the Thomistic view: Symposium Part 1 - Divine Simplicity. Craig's rejection of divine simplicity is apparently well-known. — Leontiskos

It seems as though, with our one example of this situation on this forum, one has to be willing to see contradictions before one is able to see contradictions. Our one test example on the forum, when faced with the contradiction, can just will themselves out of seeing it — flannel jesus

Yes, "bumping up against" involves noticing. Note that you asked how someone could discover they are bad at reasoning. They could do so by noticing contradictions in their own thought. This doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to notice contradictions in their own thought, or that there is a method which provides such a guarantee.

So what is this debate about? That was the question at hand.. Is this about obedience? — schopenhauer1

Banno began the debate and set the tone, making claims such as, "Faith [...] is obedience even to committing abominations" (). His thesis goes far beyond the simple idea that the text lauds Abraham's obedience.

Speaking for myself, the problem with @Banno's interpretation is the claim that the text is referencing what Abraham would view as an unequivocal abomination. Banno is saying something like, "This teaches us that we should obey even to the point of violating our conscience and engaging in things we hold to be pure evil." In light of the historical period this interpretation fails, for in Abraham's age and setting child sacrifice was not uncommon. Child sacrifice does figure in the text and its reception, but the more prominent aspect of this sacrifice is God's promise to Abraham and Isaac's status given Sarah's advanced age. Obedience is a central part of the text, but not in the way Banno claims.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshat — schopenhauer1

"Peshat interpretations also note the importance of context, both historical and literary."

I think the point here is that the literal meaning of a text isn't necessarily what an uneducated atheist takes away after reading a translation a few thousand years later.

Now, I do think the text lauds Abraham's obedience. That is part of the meaning. I'm not convinced that @Hanover was disagreeing with this.

Where do the Abrahamic religions fall in your genealogy of modern tolerance? — Leontiskos

I'm uncertain what you mean by this. — Ciceronianus

Where does your virtue of tolerance come from? The American Revolution? The French? Romanticism? The Enlightenment? The humanist revival? Christendom? The Roman Empire? Greek philosophy? The Hebrew scriptures?

This would be like you citing a Georgia statute and refusing to consider any other statute, federal authority, prior judicial interpretation, or any constitution, and your insisting your interpretation was correct because the literal text says what it says. — Hanover

Exactly right. It doesn't bother me much that modern atheists balk at the binding of Isaac, but modern atheism does seem to be the flip side of Christian fundamentalism. In each case the text is just a prop for some ulterior end.

Meaning is use.

So, if you wish to know what people mean when they speak, you'll have to endure their translations. They speak a different language than you. — Hanover

:smile:

Thank you Rabbi Banno for that comprehensive and contextualized analysis. Thousands of pages and hundreds of years of interpretation crystallized. — Hanover

An ad hom already. That was quick, even for you. — Banno

How could you construe that as an ad hominem? :chin:

- Makes sense. One aspect of this has traditionally been called natural theology. In the West we do seem to have a difficult time distinguishing natural religion from revealed religion.

Differentiates syncretism (which he likes) from perennialism (which he doesn’t). Describes John Hick as a ‘well-meaning syncretist thinker, not a perennialist’. Sees value in syncretism and says the different faiths complement each other (as did I). — Wayfarer

Interesting. I actually think that is a helpful video for showing why Hart does not follow Hick. I am not familiar with the term "perennialism" as Hart and @Tom Storm are using it, but when Hart here says that Hick was not a perennialist he is more or less saying that Hick is not a proponent of a "cult" (in the pejorative sense). Of course this is true. (Hart's adjective "well-meaning" is a clue that he does not agree with Hick. It's hard to say why the interviewer inserted Hick into this topic. Hart assumes that the interviewer is under the impression that Hick was a "perennialist.")

Some quotes from the video:

That whole tradition [of perennialism] can be tossed in the waste basket.

I am much more interested in... Not trying to deny what differentiates [religious traditions] from one another, and not being afraid to discover what unites them to one another. — David Bentley Hart

Throughout this video Hart is doing something that Hick's thesis does not allow Hick to do. Hart is making value judgments between different religious traditions. As I understand it, Hick is committed to a kind of non-hierarchical religious landscape. All religions are differently interpreting the self-same divine reality, and no one interpretation is better than another. To begin placing religious traditions within a hierarchy would be to begin slipping away from pluralism (and this would require knowledge of the noumenal).

Hart's vision is hierarchical, as is the vision of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism in their traditional forms. I actually think most religions are hierarchical in the sense of believing that some religious expressions are better and truer than others, with the possible exception of something like Hinduism.

It has been many years since I visited the debates that resulted from Hick's thesis, and obviously Hick does try to respond to some of these fundamental objections. But in cases such as this I don't think counterarguments will succeed. Hick is either a pluralist or else he is committed to religious hierarchy. He can't be both, as these are opposed poles of meta-religious thinking. As many have noted, Hick's trajectory must be understood in terms of a reaction against the exclusivist fundamentalism of his youth.

To be clear, the problem in these debates is a false dichotomy: pluralism or exclusivism. This dichotomy was broken down explicitly at the Catholic Second Vatican Council, but it was surely present before the Council in various religious traditions. What the Council proposed (in Lumen Gentium #8 & #16) was a form of religious hierarchy, where both disjuncts of the dichotomy are avoided: it is not that all religions are equally true (pluralism), nor that one religion is true and all others are false (exclusivism). Instead there obtains a hierarchy of religious truth and value.*

* I am aware that this idea is hard for secular folks to countenance, lol. Regardless, in truth I believe the secular mind also ranks religions.

- Yes, and I would emphasize that Hart is not Hick, but it would be interesting to try to find a passage where Hart opines on Hick.

- As far as I know, Hart does not hold that all religions worship the one infinite source. He certainly does not believe that all religious adherents worship the one infinite source. Hart's pluralism is therefore "localized" ().

Is he also falling into Hick's 'barren relativism'? — Wayfarer

I'm not sure who you are quoting, but I just explained why I do not think Hick is a relativist ().

Whether there is one or more ‘sacreds’ is kind of a silly question, which is also the point. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that if there is only one "sacred" then everyone must be worshipping the same god; the phenomenal elements of each religion each derive from one and the same noumenal reality. Metaphysical polytheism is logically incompatible with Hick's theory, no?

- Now we seem to be entering flat-earther territory, and that's where I get off the train.

Either way, yes, I would be inclined to say that there is a natural explanation for it; whatever it may be; for we there have been many examples similar to this that were explained naturalistically. — Bob Ross

Faith in naturalism. Gotta love it.

I already conceded with amendment to my position in my previous post. I already conceded I was using naturalism too liberally. In principle, if a phenomena is seemingly violating the laws of nature; then, prima facie, all else being equal, that counts in favor of supernaturalism. — Bob Ross

Leontiskos, let me refurbish my earlier statement: a phenomena that consistently or demonstrably violates the laws of nature in a manner that indicates divine intentionality should be considered supernatural, all else being equal. — Bob Ross

And how is it that you believe Gideon's test does not do this? Do you believe that the natural phenomenon of dew will affect a fleece and nothing else on one day, and then it will affect everything except the fleece on the following day?

Religious pluralism also suffers from something similar to the paradox of tolerance. Religious pluralism by definition views religions exclusivism to be wrong. So it ironically ends up excluding the great majority of religious people in this important aspect of their faith. Ofcourse, people who believe in religious pluralism won't ever likely persecute those who believe in religious exclusivism, but there is definitely an intellectual confrontation. — Sirius

I think this is a good point, and there is also the fact that religious pluralism universalizes a move that had already been localized by various religions. To give a simple example, some Christians might say that Jews worship the same God they do, but Muslims do not. Hence there is a kind of Christian-Jewish pluralism going on, but which excludes Islam. In the ancient world this was very common, where it was believed that the same god could be worshipped by a number of different peoples and regions under a different name. For example, Zeus and Jupiter.

When you have these very old and developed traditions of discerning when the same god was being worshipped and when a different god was being worshipped, Hick's novel thesis that everyone is worshipping the same god comes across as flat-footed.

I agree. Question for you. Can we say that Hick is a relativist of a sort? Seems to me there's an overlap between pluralism and relativism. — Tom Storm

In some ways we might say that, but in general I don't tend to view Kantians (like Hick) as relativists. The reason is that the noumenal will impose some aspect of normativity on the Kantian pluralism. For example, I am guessing Hick might say that there does not exist any religion which self-consciously worships an evil god, because the one reality that is being mediated by religion excludes this interpretation. Or if we take the analogy of the various colors of light that get diffused by a glass prism, we do not find the color black among the colors dispersed, because the normative form enforced by the light source does not permit the color black. Although in Hick this normativity is very thin and subtle, on my view true relativism includes no such normative form.