Gadianton wrote:
Even if I just gave you one example, you should think to yourself, how did Gad find that one example in the first place?
You might have figured that I was able to predict JAK's plagiarism based on having seen many instances in the past. You can't just say, "that's one example, so what?" How in the world would I have just happened to stumble on it? And would it make sense that I'm suspicious of everyone, and copy and paste line after line into Google looking to catch someone of plagiarism? JAK's track record of plagiarism stretches far into the distant past. And it's based on that track record that I know when to be suspicious of what he writes. It was having seen many incidents of it before that gave me the ability to predict that one incidence I cited.
2 things here. One I do remember from 2 think some newspaper article he didn't cite. So I am aware that occurred there. And it was pointed out at the time, and frankly I don't remember what he said about that. My impression is he doesn't think it big deal to cite in discussions on the net from web sites. Second, to your comment about me asking how would you stumble upon an example, well it has happened to me, where I was reading what someone wrote and it didn't sound like it was from them. That was kevin actually and when I searched on some phrases it turned up he was taking the words and ideas from a book by some Christian apologist called Spencer who himself quoted the pope and kevin actually also quoted the pope same quote as the author used as well as the author, but did not attribute ideas and word either coming from the book or the pope. At the time I didn't say anything, because quite frankly it's not a big deal to me. Many months later when Kevin was accusing JAK of plagiarizing with that encyclopedia article, I brought it up. So yes, I can see someone stumbling across an example of plagiarizing.
I have not asked JAK anything about copying portions from web sites, so I don't have his perspective. On the whole, I don't get too judgmental of people who do take portions elsewhere without attribution, particular factual type information. The net is so easy to google for information that it almost seems silly citing where one got the facts from. So whether someone puts it in their own words or directly copies I'm not very judgmental about it.
I also believe I know JAK's style. He's like a broken record with his lectures on evidence, "you have no evidence, you have speculation". Yeah, that's JAK, the original. So I can scan his posts very quickly, and as long as the points he's making are on about a 9th grade level and phrased like Babelfish translating a page of Spanish into English, I know it's good old JAK. But once what he says begins to sound mature and thought out, I know it's time to at once, copy and paste into Google.
I don't look upon repetition and keeping it simple negatively as you do. To begin with for many people it's not repetition, if they haven't been reading JAK's posts for years. Secondly keeping it simple again is not necessarily a negative, especially when he's talking to people who have accepted a number of axioms they've never questioned or thought much about. So to go to the basics makes sense. And people learn by repetition. For many things in life it takes lots of repetition to sink in to where it will become second nature. But I understand where you are coming from, your point.
Ok well I took a look, I was rather lazy, and haven't looked into the background of Nicene creed and Arius, so I'm just going by vague memory. I do think JAK misunderstood and botched it up. So yes that was a big mistake. If one is going to take information from a site they should understand that information they are quoting and I don't think he did.
Note that this isn't even a standard Encyclopedia source for his material. It's just an off-the-wall reference that probably just happened to come up in his rushed word search. Like his Godel material, it isn't first rate scholarship, just someone's home page, and it's hit or miss whether it would reflect any scholarly consensus at all.
Well the problem isn't so much that the site wasn't some well known source, apparently it is from some vicar. As long as the information is correct and one knows this then where one takes the information from as a copy & paste is not that important. But in this case, it doesn't appear JAK has much knowledge of the information from the site and as well changed some things and made an erroneous assumption.
But let's take a deeper look, because his little tricks most certainly betray one who is stealing someone elses material and presenting as his own rather than someone who forgot to put the quote marks in. The highlighted green are word for word. Blue is JAK.
Nicene Councils were two councils of the Christian Church held in Nicaea (Nice) in what is now Northwest Turkey. The first Council was called in 325 by Emperor Constantine to settle the dispute caused by the Arian views of the Trinity. Arius was a priest of Alexandria who believed that Christ is
So when he plagiarizes word-for-word, he starts sounding smart. But once he interjects his own thinking in:
/was not the same essence as God, but of similar substance (whatever that means).
It just shows how his career of plagiarism has stunted his ability to learn. Clearly, Arius did not believe God and Jesus were of "similar substance". I'm not a theologin, but I'd bet the author being plagiarized here should have used "substance" instead of "essence". And why the parenthetical? It's just bizarre.
I think what he did is assume erroneously that the Nicene Creed which talks about "substance" was also the same position of Arius.
The Council also fixed the time for observing Easter.
It was questioned whether the Christian Easter should be on the same day as the Jewish Observance (Passover) or on a Sunday.
Again, an interjection by JAK seeking to interpret what the author says, and again, once his own thinking enters the discussion, it's one false statement after another. If you read the text in the article, it doesn't say at all that it was "questioned" whether easter should be on passover or the following sunday, it mentions that different traditions had arisen celebrating Easter on two different days. That doesn't necessarily imply there was a "question" about it.
Well obviously if the council discussed what day to fix Easter for all regions, to some extent they were questioning the day to be used. That I don't have much problem with. Sure you can nit pick and say they weren't questioning they were just deciding on the day, but that's getting trivial.
The Nicene Creed summarized the chief articles of the Christian faith of that time. It’s next oldest to the Apostles’ Creed. It was adopted originally in
a particular form.
Of course in this case, since the original text says "following form" and then presents the creed, he had to modify to keep the length down.
Right, well he's not putting in the post the entire original Nicene Creed..not a big deal.
The second Council was called in 787 by the Empress Irene and her son Constantine. The Emperor Leo, Irene’s deceased husband had forbidden the use of images for any purpose. The Council was called because of the opposition to that decree. The Empress revoked the decree after the Council had laid down principles governing the veneration of images.
462 years in that era was progressively a relatively short time space compared with that number of years today.
I take it he means society progreseed very little in that time. I'll leave it to Shades or Scratch to judge grammar, but this is hardly the careful expression of a professor. You have to really strain at it to make any sense out of it. And out of place?
I don't know what he means actually. Whatever he means it's not obvious, what he is attempting to get at. I suspect he's talking about the evolution of "nature of God". That between the 2 councils there was 462 years to evolve to a different "nature of God" than between then and now but I don't understand his point or relevancy to anything, other than his focus on addressing Jersey Girl's words "nature of God".
“The nature of God” has been evolving ever since the invention of God was constructed.
Another sentence I didn't bother to search for in that article or on Google. Awkward, wouldn't you say? When is the last time you've seen an articulate professor speak of the time when the invention of something was constructed? Oh, the modern world has been going downhill, ever since the invention of the automobile was constructed.
Well "nature of God" is from Jersey Girl's sentence. Her question is simply did the council come to an agreement about what God and Jesus were..their nature relative to each other. JAK's is attempting I believe to elaborate further on the concept of "nature of God" that mankind's notions of God are continually evolving into different notions of "nature". I don't find that relevant to Jersey Girl's question.
I won't color the last three sentences which obviously aren't plagiarized. No ma'am. I didn't google those. No chance of those sentiments showing up in an encylopedia or even a homepage someone found worthy to put money into.
Hence, the “nature of God” was not the issue under discussion as the Second Council was called in 787.
On your question as to right vs. wrong, the “nature of God” was simply not relevant specifically to the convening of that Second Council.
The issue was (what we know as) the official position of what has been the historical evolution of Christianity at the time
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I could do this all night. But I've got to get up for work soon.
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Frankly I think that's one of the worst posts from JAK I've ever seen. Sorry JAK if you are reading. I don't think JAK is an expert on details of any one religion. His forté, is stepping back and looking at religion from the big picture. His forté also, which you find to be a negative is repetition of principles and keeping things simple. Frankly Gad, I'd much rather see that than to see issues made so complicated, so convoluted, that it's next to impossible to understand, which is my problem with you. His forté is as well, in attempting to get individual to appreciate that every religious belief system, is built upon asserted claims or axioms unquestioned. And for the most part, it seems many believers don' t see this. but will argue endlessly over issues which can never be worked out without an appreciation the basic premises are unresolved or unresolvable.
As far as the plagiarism goes, yes if he's presenting information from elsewhere that he's not familiar enough to judge critically or he's changing or adding to it when he's not very familiar with the material, I agree, that's not good critical thinking. As far as citing goes, I don't know why in those instances he didn't. For me, it's not necessarily a sign of intellectual dishonesty. I give a lot of slack to people on the net for that sort of thing. I don't perceive it as a big deal. I do perceive though copying a post and changing it and then misinterpreting it or making erroneous assumptions while adding and changing it, as being sloppy in approach and thought.
As I've said this post by JAK, appears to be a botched job, and yes I agree the critical thinking is very poor in this case. I'm not ready to judge all his posts on this poorly constructed, uninformed one. JAK in my opinion is a good conceptual thinker, not one for technical details on an issue. He's very good in discussion with being careful with use of words, coming to agreement on meanings of words, attempting to reach consensus, attempting to look at the big picture and he's quite rational and objective. He's got a lot of pluses I admire but yes, he most definitely should stop cutting and pasting portions from web sites and then adding his own words. That's definitely not good, if one is uninformed or poorly informed about the subject matter.