Yes. I’ve read it a number of times in considering it.
Then what is your litmus test for? Admittedly not to establish whether the historian is doing her job well. So then for what?
No doubt you see a difference between the types of statements you are making, when you say that Israel was elected by God, and that Jesus was resurrected.
Assuming you do, you surely see that historians would approach either statement differently.
Or as “pagan”.
Again, or “pagan”.
It can be calculated quite nicely.
Of course, just as if you want to argue about making pies you have to talk about baking.
Whoa – I’ve never encountered that one!
Except it doesn’t – the inspired writer tells us that the result of very cast of a die (lot) is from God.
Why? He does it in casinos, right? and in the cores of stars.
So you get to dismiss anything from the OT that you don’t like as “Jewish”?
Doesn’t work. And besides, go read James.
Especially since God could have intervened a thousand times between thee first cell and humans and it wouldn’t stand out from the background.
Even when the previous accounts were written in stone.
Generally one uses mathematics. On occasion this also is done with history.
Of course – just as only skilled bakers get to join international competitions. Or only skilled rock climbers are allowed to tackle Halfdome.
This is something that drives me crazy when it comes to people such as Tim Mackie and Michael Heiser: they get attacked repeatedly not on the basis of the history or language but generally on the basis that some idea doesn’t conform to a certain interpretation of the King James version.
Nice perspective!
With a mountain, a pendulum, and some stars.
The Schiehallion experiment was an 18th-century experiment to determine the mean density of the Earth. Funded by a grant from the Royal Society, it was conducted in the summer of 1774 around the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion, Perthshire. The experiment involved measuring the tiny deflection of the vertical due to the gravitational attraction of a nearby mountain. Schiehallion was considered the ideal location after a search for candidate mountains, thanks to its isolation and almost symmetrical shape.
Wrng. God does not control every flip of a cin, or roll of a dice or flip of a roulette ball.
The use of lots or the Ephod was transitroy, Whether God used it at the time is subject to debate, In Truth The answrs David got were more complex than yes or no. The Ephod could not tell him that God’s army would be in the trees above him.
We have been here before. Chance exists. Maybe sometines what we see as chance was by God’s design but it is not always the case. I do not think God throws mwteors around or guides tornados.
No. Why d toy always take things in black & white?
Except you don’t.
One minute yoy are extolling tthe differences between Ancient views and mordern and the next you are accpeting doctirnes like they were written in stone by God.
Scriptrue has always been debated. That is its blessing and curse.
There is no 100% view of any of it, incuding chance.(and Paul)
Richard
PS there are litterally thousads of untrained bakers who produce perfectly decent food.
T is not on any “high horse”. He’s on the reality horse that most sane persons would consider level ground. He’s trying to help you up out of your deep pit of reality denial where conspiracy theorists hide from any examining light and try to pretend that “all opinions are equal” because we’re all biased anyway.
I am not aiming at T, and have even said so.
I
I have no problem with reality, in fact my posts reflect a reality that others seem to pass on.
That is the extreme or hyperbola of the argument.
As usual there is amid point between I am right and You are wrong because truth is nt as clear cut as many would suppose. It is more like a pie to which we have slices. Somethines they overlap and sometimes they do not. The point being that the Scientific methd will favour some concepts and overlook or deny others.
it is about extremes,as in Ecclessiates, concentrating on one methodology is a fallacy.
Science cannot answer everything, nor can it claim sovereignty over any truth.
Richard
That’s good to recognize. And most (all?) scientists here would agree with you in that, I think.
Maybe not "sovereignty over truth* … but how about allegiance to truth? Might we do well to put a whole lot more stock in some system of knowledge (i.e. science) that at least takes more interest in truth (and it does so even while, and through acknowledging the ideological vulnerabilities of its own practitioners - in need of the very self-skepticism that science itself aspires to), rather than in other systems of knowledge that give undue (and largely unchecked) privilege to favored ideologies?
Your comment reminded me of something I read recently in a book on Mendeleyev by Paul Strathern
Previously science had been characterized by two approaches. ‘Those who have handled science have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.’
To elaborate: the first method was followed by the ‘empirics’, who simply built up a jumbled body of unrelated facts. (For Bacon alchemy fell into this category.)
I think that is still a little presumptious in terms of value. That is saying that what we see, or can identfy is prefferable where as it is a known fact that our senses can and often are decieved. Our brains have a habbit of rationalising input to fit with knowledge already known. Optical illusions are a prime example of how we can easily be fooled. The probem being, we usually can identify an example optical illision but that does not migrate outside the classroom.
I guess that also applies to ideologies whereby we might identify the obvious but not necessarily outside religious contexts.
Richard
Yep! Everyone agrees with this around here. It’s why science is important. But questioning our senses is different than questioning whether our sensory experiences are ultimately deceiving of all of us - as in … they are then no good for ascertaining anything real or true. I know you don’t buy into that since you’ve survived into adulthood, which you would not have if you refused to believe your senses everytime you wished to cross the street. So you ultimately also do what science does … go with the assumption (the ‘ideology’ then if you prefer) that there is something real to be known, and that something impinges in a very real way on our senses, even if we are sometimes individually (or maybe even collectively!) deceived. But yet that potential for deception and misunderstanding does not constitute any reason whatsoever to then throw up our hands and deny that some opinions are not much more well-evidenced than others, and to try to hide weak and unsupported conjectures behind basic sensory-denial. Science ideology simply acknowledges that. Can you acknowledge that?
You ask a loaded question.
Generally speaking , obviously, science and scientists must have the appropriate method for the field they are in.
I am not going to be bamboozled into back tracking, thank you.
The intent was never to belittle or negate science or scientists.
There is a great deal of emotion here. Perhaps people need to lighten up.
Richard
I wasn’t aware anyone was being “heavy” or emotional! I (and I think others here) are just wanting to help people acknowledge reality and the best sorts of tools for successfully observing and understanding reality. Emotions (or accusing others of ‘being emotional’) seems to be yet another tactic of those wanting to shield conspiracy theory or unsupportable propositions from the critical examination that exposes them for what they are. There are many ways to try to ‘print free passes’ for one’s self and one’s tribe. But as @jammycakes tirelessly and rightly reminds us … science has rules - one of them being basic honesty. And that’s a much more solidly biblical foundation than anything had by those Creationists who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge even just that.
You claimed that scientists are using algorithms that are biased towards the results they want.
“Even your alogorythms are presupposed to prove what you expect to see. it is not impartial. It is subjective on ToE.”
You falslely claim genetic matching is subjective:
“the thrust of Genetic matching is based on a subjective environment within which ToE is deemed a fact.”
You also seemed to falsely claimed the mass of the Earth is subjective:
“The point is that science abstracts principles such as mass related gravity that are based on data. You cannot weigh the earth but I am certain someone has decided what it is.”
You want to take down scientists, and you don’t seem to care if what you say is true as long as it insults scientists.
Usually by considering what evidence should be available if the possibility had actually occurred, and noting the absence of that evidence.
Or, formally, if (P) then (Q) → if (not Q) then (not P)
If there is an elephant in my fridge (possibility), I expect to see footprints in the butter (evidence); so if there are no footprints in the butter (lack of evidence), there isn’t an elephant in my fridge (possibility disproved).
An alternative, if there is a lack of evidence for any possibility, is to look at the relative likelihoods of the various possibilities, and discount any that are significantly less likely. If a man were to approach me in the street and says he’s an emissary of the High Council of Saturn and that I owe him £300 pounds rent for use of the outer ring; I’d weigh the possibility that such a body really exists against the possibility that he’s deluded or lying, and discount the former even without asking to see his credentials.
I notice that you’ve shifted from asking about rejecting something as a real possibility, to disproving something as any possibility, which isn’t the same thing at all. Determining that something is unlikely is much much easier than proving that same something to be impossible, especially if miracles are allowed.
When you accuse scientists of using biased algorithms, that’s exactly what you have done. When you claim the mass of the Earth is just a subjective opinion your are belittling scientists. When you claim genetic matching is subjective and meant only to bolster the ToE you are belittling scientists.
Yes, the scientific method will prefer conclusions that are supported by objective facts. That’s why we use it. If a method allows anything to be true then it is a worthless method. We need a method that can differentiate between what is supported by facts and what is not.
No one here is saying science can answer everything. What science can answer is how the physical universe functions. I would say the scientific method has been very useful in this pursuit.
Yet you do it all the time.
Here’s a claim for which there is a lack of evidence:
“Justin Beiber is being mind-controlled by an invisible cyber-warthog.”
Can you dismiss it out of hand?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.