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.
You mean different religions should consider each others’ scriptures equal to their own? This makes about as much sense as that different countries in the world should consider each others’ constitutions equal to their own.
And what about all of those areas of human life that ‘science’ doesn’t ‘deal with’, like art, music, sports, literature, politics, cuisine, religion, etc. You sound as ‘scientistic’ as denial-proud (Sell-ars-out) KN on this topic.
Cultural science is *not* normally effective at ‘prediction’ or ‘control’. Don’t you agree, BruceS?
Far too many ‘skeptics,’ apparently just like you BruceS, have religiophobically made ‘science’ into an IDOL. “Oh, please, Science help us defend our nice decadent comfortable rational western nihilism!” Comfortable Canadian bigotry doesn’t hide this.
For Alan Fox who apparently never believed vertically in his childhood but only horizontally ‘attended’ church out of obligation, the choice may not not closed, but is still open. petrushka used to sing beautiful hymns, intentionally ignorant of the words, angry hard now at his religious ‘unmusicality’ impending (late-age) atheist doom. Or is there anvil-like ‘no hope’ for either of them?
“Let me tell you a story…”
Without endorsing Aronovsky’s cinematic interpretation entirely, this scene is one of the most powerful on screen of the Genesis flood and will likely be for many years. Only idiots would take it ‘literally’; of which there are many in the USA.
This thread has been eye-opening especially for the ‘literalism’ displayed by skeptic-atheists and for their almost complete incapacity to experience different genres; so great it seems is their hatred of ‘creationists’ and ‘creationism’. Erik has presented a better way to understand ancient texts. But no one (except for tokenly KN) has acknowledged any other way is even possible than their immature myopic reading.
So many ‘skeptics’ aka atheists here have “followed the temptation of darkness” rather than “holding on to the blessing of light.” Yet, like KN’s quasi-wicked philosophistry, they claim to be ‘enlightened’. Such self-righteous folly ‘skeptic’.
Gregory,
Literal readings of Genesis have a well-established pedigree. It is certainly not a straw-man position. That your sainted Erik is not a literalist is actually hard to divine. He’s certainly a selective literalist. He claims historicity for the Flood – that it really involved a (local) event. He claims that the peoples of the world descend from the survivors of this local event – as evidenced by the supposed ‘universal’ flood myth. I am not alone in detecting inconsistencies with real-world data in this reading. How about you? Real event or not? Global or local? The peoples and animals of the world derived from the survivors of this not-as-described cataclysm or not? I’m certainly not insisting on doggedly literal readings (they are of course low-hanging fruit) but do wonder at the glaring inconsistency of it all.
OK, if that is the box you want to put me in, I acknowledge your input.
I agree that science does not address all human knowledge and that other areas of human knowledge may have different standards, perhaps even none.
I’m not sure what you mean by “cultural science”, however.
And I’ll add further that even in areas science deals with, people can choose how to use its results according to how they want to live their lives.
I am just trying to understand Sensus divinitatis. For example, is it is something that yields the same conclusions for all who are able to use it.
I understood you to say there were processes for reconciling world religions, and I took this to include what should be Scripture from among all religious text. If the Scriptures of each religion can only be determined only Sensus divinitatis, then I am trying to understand if that can be used to do that reconciliation.
I said it works like any other sense. By a sense (sight, hearing, taste,…) you obtain sense-data. What you do with it is another matter. Same with sensus divinitatis. You can acknowledge the presence of the data or you can ignore it. It’s a subtle sense, so it’s easy to ignore or deny it, just like many here deny the importance or even the very existence of intellect.
Let’s back up a bit. It was you, not me, who sought to reconcile personal spiritual intuitions. It was not even about scriptures back then.
Whereas my claim is that sensus divinitatis is just like any other sense. Whenever people comprehend that they are talking about the data provided by a given sense, then this is already the relevant reconciliation where rational (and so-called objective) analysis begins. Just like two people discussing whether the apple they see is more red or green are sharing and analyzing their impressions about objective reality, similarly people who discuss the genre of a religious writing based on the impressions of sensus divinitatis are being objective (or at least inter-subjective). How objective? This depends on how well you know what sensus divinitatis is and what it does, just like you can assess the state of your sight by knowing what your eyes are supposed to do and by paying attention to how they work right now.
Similarly, you should detect inconsistencies in your selective denial of the flood. Ice age is okay to you, more-than-abundant global ocean water too, but they are in no way related to anything we could call flood, right?
Is Allan denying that floods occur and that floods must have occurred in the past?
I suspect Allan is about as skeptical as I am of the Biblical account of a flood describing an actual global event where “The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.” It seems most plausible that, in the past, groups of people living on flood plains would have experienced catastrophic floods as still happens for example in Bangladesh today. It seems reasonable that these events could be incorporated into legend and history (with embellishments). It seems less plausible that there was ever enough water on Earth to cover the highest mountains.
What conclusion should we draw from these stories other than considering avoiding flood plains when granting building permits?
Moved a post by Gregory to guano.
Thanks, I think I understand your point of view a bit better.
This upgrades the story from lie to folklore. This is good enough given the audience.
Alan Fox is a coward.
Well, I don’t look for trouble.
“I am just trying to understand
Sensus divinitatissight”, said the blind man. “Would you please explain color to me so I can understand it? Why are you being so evasive and using such incomprehensible language? Just tell me what color is, for crying loud! How hard can it be, unless you’re just making it all up?Gregory,
Calling a fellow commenter a moron is guano-worthy. If you want to defend calling Bruce a moron as being within the rules, do it in the moderation issues thread.
yes yes, atheists are not really atheists they are just pretending.
And yes, wjm, you are special! You know what Sensus divinitatis is and have it so are super special! Super super special!
This is more black-and-white argument. I hope for more nuance. Nobody is arguing that the Biblical flood story may not have elements based on a real flood event. Some of us are skeptical of the globality.
I keep getting this suspicion of being “Poe’d”.
Fetish, fixation perhaps? Pooh, pooh, little anti-YEC. Outdated.
Everyone is in a ‘box’, not only according to your atheist ideology. Yet when people accurately describe that box you’re actually (psychologically) in, as you’ve presented it to them digitally, you cry foul. Who then could be ‘real’ to challenge your ‘skepticism’?
That’s quite obvious. Might have missed a world then? Horizontal blind atheist.
CHOOSE – so then stop your idiotic anti-human ‘enlightened’ Toronto attitude. We humans choose. Yes.
Stop vamping this as necessarily scientific reductionism when the broader conversation of Science, Philosophy and Theology/Worldview is available. You shrink obviously when this trialogue is on the table. You are not ‘home of the brave’, BruceS.
“Horizontal blind moron.”
“idiotic anti-human ‘enlightened’ Toronto attitude”
Neil Rickert,
Do you really want to compare at TA/SZ, atheist piece of ‘moderation’?!
Your ‘moderation’ policy actually supports intentional hatred and meanness by atheists towards theists. (!)
Yes, let’s actually see the atheist venom show in the Moderation thread. Alan Fox’s trite moderation is un-excusable given what has been excused already by 100% atheist-skeptic moderators.
This site is a pro-atheist moderation joke. Are you all too messed up by Joe to be reasonable?
See what comes of your approach, Bruce and KN?
These guys not only have nothing interesting to say, they don’t actually know how to play nice, either.
Your approach is really more Chamberlain than Gandhi, IMHO. The latter knew the importance of making (and how to make) life extremely difficult and unpleasant for uncivilized savages who think they are above courtesy and humility.
I am skeptical of the following elements:
1. A flood that covered the highest mountains (even those in the middle east.)
2. A regional flood in the middle east caused by rainfall alone.
3. A flood caused by a deity.
4. A flood that bottlenecked the human population to a family or two, and killed everyone in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
5. A regional flood that left no geological evidence. (We know that the Mediterranean and Black seas were once dry.)
6. That the Noah story has anything useful to teach about morality.
That is really the crux.
Gregory,
Since I don’t advocate a purely literalist reading, I guess you are talking to someone else. Of course when I am talking to a literalist, I inevitably talk of literal interpretations. When I am talking to a selective-literalist, I discuss that. I don’t tell them how to interpret; I respond to how they do.
If literalism became outdated since lunchtime, fair enough.
It’s so five minutes ago.
Glen Davidson
I find it odd that everyone is focusing on Christianity. The majority of the world’s believers are not Christian, and the overwhelming majority of people who reject a scientific worldview are neither Americans nor Christians.
Christianity mostly exists in secular nations, or at least nations that are primarily governed by secular laws.
Sounds reasonable, it just seems if the the purpose is to drive home and help one realize His message ,the means He choose seems an odd way to achieve that goal. An omniscient God could easily demonstrate His truth beyond any reasonable doubt without requiring knowledge of ancient Hebrew nuance. It seems He wants man to take the leap of faith based on spotty evidence relayed by an unreliable means of transmission. Giving man a undeniable direct perception( sense) as evidence would defeat that goal.
The more evidence the less faith is required to believe something, if sensus divinitas is a direct perception of God then that would require the least amount of faith since empirical evidence is always conditional. The quote seems more to say” yes it is totally reasonable to doubt the Resurrection,but believe not thru the senses but thru what we tell you is true( testimony) , this is the higher form of faith.
It was Marx who said ” Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes” in describing the ultimate faith
I learned a lot about what Erik thinks. I don’t agree with some of it, but so what?
I’m not bothered by what I read as sometimes sarcastic tone of voice in some posts. I’ve had a lot worse interpersonal situations to deal with in my life.
I admit I was surprised by Gregory’s outburst, but perhaps I can at least chalk it up to something to check off on my bucket list (be a target of a Gregory Guano post).
My question about what he meant by “cultural sciences” was meant exactly as it read. It was not intended as any kind of backhanded insult to sociology or anthropology, if that is what he meant, both of which I consider sciences (as long as their practitioners want that label).
Both do prediction (or retrodiction), explanation, and manipulation and control in experiments on people (which must of course be subject to ethical standards). In fact, aside from the need for ethical standards in experiments, I don’t see much qualitative difference between them and scientific work in biological evolution. Of course, people and societies are very complicated and the science is therefore harder than biology.
Why are references to appeasement in the context of WW2 so popular these days? They are wrong on Iran, and I would say over the top in a internet forum. AFAIK, I ceded no Czech territory.
Are they? I didn’t know that.
As a friend on another site says (he actually uses it as his tagline) “Without hyperbole I’ve really got nothing.”
I say, “Without hyperbole, I would literally blow up in a nuclear explosion.”
Glen Davidson
I got a chance to watch that PBS Nova special on Noah’s Ark I linked to earlier in the thread.
It was mainly about the (cuneiform) text analysis of Babylonian flood myths. These were understood to be based on occasional catastrophic floods in Mesopotamia.
Similarities to the biblical flood story were noted (eg both have three birds sent out to check for dry land and both involve a sacrifice by the survivors). The theory is that the Hebrews learned of the myths while they were exiled in Babylonia which is where some of the writing of the bible was done.
I take the preceding as a historical analysis of the text. (Not claimed to be new, by the way).
The program also briefly mentioned a key difference in the texts. The Babylonian text is about a spat between two of their deities with the deity that saved humanity intending it as a lesson in compassion. The flood story can be read to be about God making a new covenant with humanity, and also perhaps as a lesson in obeying God’s commandments or facing the consequences. I take these as folklore interpretations.
The program also noted that Babylonians built round boats; that is what their text describes (the biblical, rectangular ark was explained as a copyist’s error). Any real-life boat used in a catastrophic Mesopotamian flood would have been round. Some of the program was based on work by some scientists to try to build a large round boat using materials available to the Babylonians.
I take that as an archaeological experiment.
Of course, it also provided a nice personal story and a plot element, ie the suspense about whether they would succeed. So it may have also been intended as something which can help programs like Nova gain a wider audience.
The anti-deal (mostly) blather:
Let me Google that For You Appeasement Iran
Not blather:
An Atlantic analysis
Erik,
There are no inconsistencies in my denial – or, you could point them out if you spot them.
I accept that ice ages happen, and changes in sea level due to changes in ice volume/isostatic rebound, and tsunamis and ice dams bursting. What I don’t see is how one is compelled to draw a definitive line between these general phenomena and the events reported in the Bible.
1) Ice. Last ice age finished c12000 years ago, the latest retreat of dozens. Sea level changed dramatically – but ‘dramatic’ means a foot or less a year, over a range of 200 feet or so. This doesn’t really need anyone to build a boat and put every living thing in it. Anyone living more than 200 feet up was untroubled. I have an amusing mental image of those inhabitants in deckchairs watching the Ark sending out a dove and raven to check for dry land, claiming landfall on Ararat as they beached. Yet only the Arkites left descendants, so who’s laughing now …
Then there is the matter that the Biblical waters receded.
Ice dams are more rapid, and do recede, but are very restricted in area.
But the biggest suggestion that ice was not involved is that the Bible is quite clear about the liquid water aspect. You’d think if the flood story was reliable, they’d mention the ice.
2) Tsunamis. Happen all the time. Why should just one become the source of a factual tale which is transmitted to the descendants of the affected peoples when those spread to all corners of the earth? What hapened to the descendants of people who were not affected by that particular tsunami? How does one address the possibility that there were many tsunamis, each separately the source of a flood myth?
And what does God, or wickedness and corruption, have to do with any of it?
The genetic evidence, to repeat, argues against population bottlenecks for any of the supposed Ark species. The geological evidence preserves no cataclysm suitable for destroying the entirety of the peoples of the earth such that they are replaced by descendants of Noah et al. Simply talking vaguely of floods and ice does not address these particular inconsistencies with the accessible evidence. We just have common stories, but the very requirements for those stories to be considered reportage are decidedly fishy.
Where, conversely, do you detect inconsistency in my approach?
Or you could learn from your science that water has three states.
It’s not just one tale, but a family of tales around the world. And if you are into the folklore or myth kind of interpretation, “factual” should have nothing to do with it. But since it does, don’t be a factualist of the gaps. You know, fossil evidence for evolution has gaps, but you accept evolution entirely. Do the same with the flood story.
Moved
atwothree content-free, insulting posts by Gregory to Guano.Gregory,
This topic belongs on the Moderation Issues thread. If you have complaints, they can be addressed there.
I would think that if folklore really went back to the ice age it would mention… ice.
What exactly do flood stories have to do with religion?
petrushka,
To make the curing the lepers thing look more reasonable?
Well naturally Noah had to build an ark.
The ice was coming!
Glen Davidson
Well yes.
An honest person will treat the same kind of evidence with the same degree and kind of respect. An eyewitness for an eyewitness. A Trvth for a trvth.
For whatever it may be worth, I have no objections at all to spiritual interpretations of sacred texts. There are many interpretations that are personally meaningful to me. I was only objecting to the positing of a sensus divinitatis as a way of accounting for our ability to generate such interpretations.
I can think of many ways of explaining color to a blind person. For example, talk about the properties of light, of workings of the human eye, of color processing in the brain. Compare perhaps to timbre in music.
I would agree that understanding would be incomplete without experiencing color, but incomplete is not the same as none.
There is a sizable philosophical subfield devoted to the related thought experiment of an all-knowing color-deprived scientist and what her first experience of color might tell us about knowledge and physicalism.
John Candy was Canadian too.
One might refer to Oliver Sacks’s story of the artist who became color blind due to brain injury.
What does spiritual interpretation consist in?
The point of my question is: What does “spiritual interpretation” mean when you deny sensus divinitatis? Your statement makes as much sense as saying “Sure there are visible things. But there are no eyes or sense of vision.”
I understood the point of your question perfectly well. I didn’t respond immediately because I was on vacation.
I’ll write more later on today, but a preliminary response is that spiritual interpretations of texts (and of experiences) involve a complex interplay of cultural traditions, histories of language, previous texts regarded as exemplars of spiritual experience, and a wide range of moods, emotions, and feelings all of which pertain to one’s conscious and self-conscious sensitivity to suffering, despair, gratitude, and joy.