The Roles of Logic and Science in Questions of Theology

The upper-crust forum for scholarly, polite, and respectful discussions only. Heavily moderated. Rated G.
Post Reply
_richardMdBorn
_Emeritus
Posts: 1639
Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:05 am

Post by _richardMdBorn »

jak wrote
Armstrong is not going to be well regarded among those who wish their religious myths were right. She is well regarded in academic circles.
That's funny. KA strikes me as worse than superficial. Here's a review of one of her recent articles (link included).

Karen Armstrong, long famous for her description of Muhammad as the consummate “peacemaker” who “brought together the warring tribes of Arabia,” has assumed the mantle, yet again, not of the Prophet, but of the Prophet’s defender. In an article in The Guardian she retells in her inimitable fashion the story of European Christendom’s relations with Islam and with Muslims. In her retelling, the Muslims are innocent victims, and more than innocent victims, likened again and again to the Jews. They are also the only people who provided, in that bright shining moment of European history known as Islamic Spain, the only real tolerance and humanity to be found anywhere in Europe before the modern era. It is a tough job, but Karen Armstrong proves equal to the task. And her real theme is not history, but that Europeans should feel ashamed themselves for showing any signs of wariness or suspicion about the millions of Muslims who now live in Europe, having come among the indigenous Infidels to settle, but not to settle down.
The end of the review is classic.
Armstrong’s nonsense perhaps has to do with some rude and indigestible bits of history that she dimly recalls, about the story of Prester John, the mythical Christian king of a mythical Christian kingdom, placed first, in European imaginations, in India, and later transferred to Ethiopia – a fable, designed to hearten European Christians who were always fearful of Muslim assaults, the Arab raiding parties by sea, up and down European coasts, and the Turkish land armies of the mighty Ottoman Sultan.

Her every word adds to the absurdity. There is no evidence for Armstrong’s assertions about Columbus himself, or about what motivated him. History is putty in her hands, we said earlier. But the word putty does not do her infantile approach to history justice. History is for Karen Armstrong not so much putty as Playdoh. She can roll it about, she can pull it apart, she can twist and turn it with the same delight exhibited by a two-year-old when a-too-solid block of Playdoh is finally softened up for use by grown-up hands. But the two-year-old is an innocent at play, and even if he leaves a momentary mess, he has done no real harm. Karen Armstrong is not innocent, and manages to do a great deal of harm, careless or premeditated harm, to history. Too many people read that she has written a few books, and assume, on the basis of nothing, that “she must know what she is talking about” – and some of the nonsense sticks. And perhaps an enraged professor or two bothers to dismiss her, but mostly – this is how the vast public, in debased democracies, learns its history today. It is hearsay as history – “Karen Armstrong says” or “John Esposito says.”

And that is only her first paragraph.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=7158&sec_id=7158
_Calculus Crusader
_Emeritus
Posts: 1495
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:52 am

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

No objective, transparent, peer reviewed, testing here by other philosophers.

No evidence has been established “to prove (God) exists.


If you were not so obtuse, you would realize the existence of God is ultimately not an empirical question.

The very entity to be established by proof is actually assumed. God this, God that -- If God this, then God that, etc. There is no genuine proof here. There is a single and biased source.


If there is no such being, then the logic will bear that out by arriving at a contradiction.


His “if/then” construction is flawed as well.


Prove it.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
_Calculus Crusader
_Emeritus
Posts: 1495
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:52 am

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

richardMdBorn wrote:jak wrote
Armstrong is not going to be well regarded among those who wish their religious myths were right. She is well regarded in academic circles.
That's funny. KA strikes me as worse than superficial.



A trait JAK shares with his heroine.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
_JAK
_Emeritus
Posts: 1593
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:04 pm

Karen Armstrong & CC's Perspective

Post by _JAK »

Calculus Crusader wrote:
richardMdBorn wrote:jak wrote
Armstrong is not going to be well regarded among those who wish their religious myths were right. She is well regarded in academic circles.
That's funny. KA strikes me as worse than superficial.



A trait JAK shares with his heroine.


Ad hominem is the last resort of those who are not capable of addressing ideas, but attack a person rather than the ideas and concepts set forward.

Those who subscribes to ancient religious myth, as you have admitted you do, do not tend to function well in the arena of rational, thoughtful, analytical, perspicacious thinking.

And how many books have you published? Or just what is it that qualifies you to pass flip judgment one such as Karen Armstrong?

Your comments say much more quite negatively about you than they do about the author of the following books.

Through The Narrow Gate (2005) Karen Armstrong
A History of God (1993) Karen Armstrong
The Great Transformation (2007) Karen Armstrong
The Battle for God (2000) Karen Armstrong

Let me just list these and others in a more complete list.

Books by Karen Armstrong
· The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006)
· Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time (2006)
· A Short History of Myth (2005)
· The Spiral Staircase (2004)
· Faith After September 11th (2002)
· The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2000)
· Buddha (2000)
· Islam: A Short History (2000)
· In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (1996)
· Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)
· A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1993)
· The End of Silence: Women and the Priesthood (1993)
· The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (1991)
· Muhammad: a Biography of the Prophet (1991)
· Holy War (1988)
· The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West (1986)
· Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience (1985)
· Beginning the World (1983)
· The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (1983)
· Through the Narrow Gate (1982)

And richardMdBorn wrote:
KA (Karen Armstrong) strikes me as worse than superficial.

Public Broadcasting Host BILL MOYERS on Karen Armstrong: She was a spark plug in my PBS series on Genesis, her books are best sellers, "The History of God", "The Battle for God", "Jerusalem". She's written a biography of Buddha, and a short history of Islam. Soon we'll have her new memoir of her life after the convent where she spent seven years as a nun. Joining me now is one of the world's foremost students of religion, Karen Armstrong.

And Calculus Crusader wrote:
A trait JAK shares with his heroine.

My reference to this author was to demonstrate with evidence for you that Armstrong’s status is as Bill Moyers characterized her: “one of the world’s foremost students of religion.”

And CC continues to evade a discussion of analysis from Post: Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:20 pm

JAK
_JAK
_Emeritus
Posts: 1593
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:04 pm

Analysis in Context

Post by _JAK »

Calculus Crusader wrote:
No objective, transparent, peer reviewed, testing here by other philosophers.

No evidence has been established “to prove (God) exists.


If you were not so obtuse, you would realize the existence of God is ultimately not an empirical question.

The very entity to be established by proof is actually assumed. God this, God that -- If God this, then God that, etc. There is no genuine proof here. There is a single and biased source.


If there is no such being, then the logic will bear that out by arriving at a contradiction.


His “if/then” construction is flawed as well.


Prove it.


This format in a bb does not serve well direct and verbatim quotation followed by a response. But it can be done.

My analysis previously and in context was as follows:

Logic does not begin with the syllogism.

A faulty major premise contaminates logic. A “valid form” does not make for a reliable conclusion.

Example:

All women are stupid.
marg is a woman.
marg is stupid

The “valid form” does not make for a logically sound argument.

It is not established that All women are stupid.

Failure to establish the major premise makes anything which follows unreliable as my example illustrates.

Livingstone22 stated:
Logic doesn't come from observations or even true premises--a statement can be logically valid and have false premises.


Incorrect. You write as if logic (or logical thinking) begins with a major premise. Logic is comprehensive. Logic includes the inductive process which leads to a conclusion used as a major premise.

A major premise which is flawed or wrong was not constructed by use of logic.

Livingstone22 stated:
A logically valid argument is one that convinces people of the truth of a conclusion based on their accepted premises--but that doesn't have any bearing on what is actually true.


The statement is a very narrow application of “valid.” The most important part of your statement is the last: “but that doesn't have any bearing on what is actually true.”

Hence in totality, we don’t have logic by your own admission in this statement.

Livingstone22 stated:
A good argument, on the other hand, does have true premises (and is logically valid) and therefore necessarily leads to a true conclusion.


No parenthetical relevance here. “Good” is subjective more than is accurate, correct, or established through evidence.

Rational investigation begins at the start. It’s pajorative to suggest that logic begins with a {major premise}. And, it’s false.

It appears to me that you fail to appreciate what “logic” is as I have detailed here.

On a previous post of yours, you purport: “Gödel defines a God-like being, sets forth some axioms, then proceeds to prove such a being exists.”

The problem is a clear absence of objectivity.

“...such a being exists” is not established by Gödel.

Gödel “defines”
Gödel “sets forth some axioms”
Gödel “proceeds to prove such a being (God) exists”

No objective, transparent, peer reviewed, testing here by other philosophers.

No evidence has been established “to prove (God) exists.

It’s a word-game which you apparently fail to recoginze.

Livingstone22 stated:
I accept Gödel's Ontological Argument as valid and work from there.


Your acceptance is fallacious. The very entity to be established by proof is actually assumed. God this, God that -- If God this, then God that, etc. There is no genuine proof here. There is a single and biased source.

It argues God by default. That’s a fundamental flaw. And you accept it.

The problem is that the argument makes assumption. It assumes that it is possible for an omniscient rational individual to exist. That’s a leap to conclusion not established. It's assumed.

As you stated previously and I confirmed: Gödel “defines” God. His definition is not established in objective, logical fashion. To continue is pointless having failed objective, rational conclusion.

Gödel makes multiple assumptions which further errode his credibility with regard to proof for God.

His “if/then” construction is flawed as well.

To accept the ontological arguments of Gödel, requires an irrational leap. His ontological argument has often been said to ascertain God's existence by a philosophical sleight of hand or a ruse of words. Gödel’s arguments are flawed, if by nothing else, his assumptions absent evidence. The minutia of his arguments tends to be intimidating. In any case, they are not transparent and philosophers today do not accept (universally) his assumptions and application of those assumptions to agree with Gödel’s conclusion.

You are incorrect to: “accept Gödel's Ontological Argument as valid...”

JAK
_Jersey Girl
_Emeritus
Posts: 34407
Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:16 am

Post by _Jersey Girl »

CC
If you were not so obtuse, you would realize the existence of God is ultimately not an empirical question.


Hi CC! What type of question is it?

Jersey Girl
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
_richardMdBorn
_Emeritus
Posts: 1639
Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:05 am

Post by _richardMdBorn »

JAK

And richardMdBorn wrote:
KA (Karen Armstrong) strikes me as worse than superficial.

Public Broadcasting Host BILL MOYERS on Karen Armstrong: She was a spark plug in my PBS series on Genesis, her books are best sellers, "The History of God", "The Battle for God", "Jerusalem". She's written a biography of Buddha, and a short history of Islam. Soon we'll have her new memoir of her life after the convent where she spent seven years as a nun. Joining me now is one of the world's foremost students of religion, Karen Armstrong.

Richard Bill Moyers and Karen Armstrong are similar in that they are both superficial popularizers. Did you read my link? How can you take seriously a woman who makes so many historical mistakes in such a short article.

Answering a question you directed towards CC, I haven't written any books, but I'm working (slowly) on one. I published last year in an on-line journal an article on the invention of GPS and just published another one in a space history journal.
_Calculus Crusader
_Emeritus
Posts: 1495
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:52 am

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

Ad hominem is the last resort of those who are not capable of addressing ideas, but attack a person rather than the ideas and concepts set forward.


I attacked both, actually. It's called polemics.

Those who subscribes to ancient religious myth, as you have admitted you do, do not tend to function well in the arena of rational, thoughtful, analytical, perspicacious thinking.


Uh-huh. And what's your excuse for not functioning in said environment?

And how many books have you published? Or just what is it that qualifies you to pass flip judgment one such as Karen Armstrong?


I am well versed in Christianity; that's what qualifies me.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
_Calculus Crusader
_Emeritus
Posts: 1495
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:52 am

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

As you stated previously and I confirmed: Gödel “defines” God. His definition is not established in objective, logical fashion. To continue is pointless having failed objective, rational conclusion.

Gödel makes multiple assumptions which further errode his credibility with regard to proof for God.

His “if/then” construction is flawed as well.

To accept the ontological arguments of Gödel, requires an irrational leap. His ontological argument has often been said to ascertain God's existence by a philosophical sleight of hand or a ruse of words. Gödel’s arguments are flawed, if by nothing else, his assumptions absent evidence. The minutia of his arguments tends to be intimidating. In any case, they are not transparent and philosophers today do not accept (universally) his assumptions and application of those assumptions to agree with Gödel’s conclusion.

You are incorrect to: “accept Gödel's Ontological Argument as valid...”

JAK


Despite what you probably learned from Mormonism, repeating something ad nauseam does not make it true.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
_Calculus Crusader
_Emeritus
Posts: 1495
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:52 am

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

Jersey Girl wrote:CC
...the existence of God is ultimately not an empirical question.


Hi CC! What type of question is it?

Jersey Girl


Hello Jersey Girl. Ultimately, the existence of God is a question for modal logic, although other considerations may inform our reasoning, such as teleology or cosmology.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
Post Reply