I bet you lot are a barrel of laughs down the pub, come the glorious revolution you know who'll be first up against the wall don't you.
If Jesus were alive today would he be listening to this........ that's what I want to know.
To be fair he'd probably spend most of his time campaigning against greedy capitalists and corrupt clergymen ....... and healing the sick of course, that goes without saying.

"Hey doctor, heal thyself."

I will only be healed when all man has been healed. I may only draw breath when all draw breath with me.

"For example, the value system could just be, implicitly, "We should only do what makes logical sense and what hasn't been shown to fail," and then that would appear to consist, in practice, just of criticisms of other theories without an alternative theory in its place."

That's not a value system. What constitutes 'failure'? What constitutes 'logical sense'?

"That's not a value system. What constitutes 'failure'? What constitutes 'logical sense'?"

What constitutes constituting something?

Putin, sure, sorry. You're quite right (and I almost edited to make this explicit) that those are value-laden choices themselves. But choose one. Say, for example, classical western logic (no fallacies, as greysoni suggested), and define success by, oh, I don't know. Mean income ro whatever the heck you want. I'm not arguing for any such position here. I'm just saying that if you flesh those out in some way, then you have somebody who does have an alternative theory, but who will, in th emain, appear just to be criticiziing other theories most of the time, and who, in particular, won't very frequently suggest actual positive ways forward.

Ironically I'm making the same argument many theists do regarding good & evil & god.

You cannot say something is evil if there is no barometer for judging good & evil.
In order to have evil, good has to exist. In order for a system to be 'flawed', some idea of a properly working system has to exist.

Well, if said person was honest about mean income being the basis for determining whether a system was suboptimal, that the system which as led to the highest mean incomes that we know is the most optimal, so they do have an alternative theory.

Yes, Putin, which may be why I'm agreeing with so many of your claims. I'm just saying that the "theory" one has might well, in this case, be not that robust or determinative. In particular, a lot of the milksop noncommitals whom you excoriate might be argued to have a (value-laden) theory that just is insufficiently developed to point out an actual way forward. But that would be enough for them to escape the specific critiques you have raised.

Possibly. But we might not know. We might be in a situation where things have gotten enormously complex, and any path that is on the table is tied, in different ways, to things that have historically led to lower mean incomes, and the analysis might be too tricky to say which would do so the most or the least. In which case they might reject them all without proposing something else.

The Theory of Cats In Microwaves.

There is nothing to oppose it.

My argument here is that such people are not driven by any value-system, now matter how poorly developed. We're not waiting with bated breath for these people to come up with something better. Most are driven by the desire to be well-liked. You cannot have a value system which only regards your own popularity as a value. Values are social.

The theory of Sarg not being funny hasn't been replaced by anybody else who is funny.

Typical pro-Jewish response.

Maybe, putin. But I think I would argue something quite different. When they make specific criticism, they do indeed have an implicit such theory -- one which can be inferred based on the content of the criticism, perhaps. The problem, I would formulate as the fact that they change theories all the time, and are not in any way consistent from one criticism to another.

Which is itself, of course, a criticism.

But we may be down to splitting hairs.

Here's philosophy for you. If all these people were alive today and in the same room:
Einstein
Socrates
Plato
Jesus
Marx
Charlie Chaplin
Robespierre
Rasputin
Stalin
Hitler
Marley
Elvis


Who would have the biggest willy?

"I'm a firm believer that in order to critique a theory, you have to have an alternative one."

This explains a LOT about our interactions if I understand it properly. How do you define a theory?

"Values are social" are you saying that values are derived from consent or are you saying that values are the exclusively within the domain human interrelationships ( I think you mean the latter.)

I agree with the above. If somebody offers up a bullshit theory/opinion, I'm more than content to critique it on its own (lack of) merit. Burden of proof is on the claimant.

Oh...do I have some catching up to do! :D

I'll join this present fun in just a moment, first, let me check these other 47 posts...

"I'm a firm believer that in order to critique a theory, you have to have an alternative one."

I do, it's called "Captialism," check it out...well, it's not MY theory, but it's one I endorse, moderated, of course...

Also, for schnicks and giggles--

A zero-state? Really? That's what we want out of a state--the cessation of a state?

I get the idea of small government--I disagree in some places and to some extents (it's a 21st century nuclear superpower we have here, I'm sorry, a "small Enlightenment-style government" isn't going to cut it anymore) but I get the desire, I do...

But the desire for a withering away of the state...why?

And, also--implausible, I'm sorry, that cannot and will not happen, you NEED a state.

You do.

For roads, for better collection and utilization of resources, for the common defense...you do.

"I did not know that we shared the same area of study, Obi.

Teaching Bible as literature is hardly controversial, but first let me be clear. Are you saying that teaching it is not right, or that it isn't a good example of literature?"

You're an English major, Crazy Anglican?

And the latter--I find the Bible to be extraordinarily poor literature...there are a few isolated stories that have some artistic merit (I won't say moral, at all, because, well, I don't think you can use the Bible as an example of good morality...Moses frees the Hebrew people--and kills the first-born children of all the Egyptians, yeah, that's not immoral at all...why not kill, say, the soldiers, or the adults, maybe, but the innocent kids, of all things, really, that's an example of morality?--and then goes off and commits genocide against the Amalakites? ...You were slaves...and one of your first acts of freedom is "Go slaughter another group of people?" ...Yeah...not...not really moral, there...) but on the whole, yeah, I view it as artistically poor and, structurally, quite possibly the worst mess for a work of its scale.

That being said, works that were a sort of take-off of Bible stories and locales, like, say, the works of Dante and Milton, WERE AND ARE works of brilliance...

Shows what some actual talent and 1500 more years of ethical polishing can do.

"lol. I don't really see a need to predetermine who is worthy to partake in intelligent discourse. I'll happily talk to a flat earther any day. I just think I'll have really good arguments that will typically leave him flat. But there doesn't have to be some standard or bar to measure up to to even enter a discussion. Any idea or position should be entertained a priori, no matter how crazy."

Fair enough, I suppose...

My point was more "What would we consider acceptable in the 'canon' of intelligent discourse," I mean, obviously, you might entertain a flat-earther, but by no means, I'd imagine, would you view his ideas as anywhere near valid or intellectually "in play," as it were, in the 21st century?

@obi - Pick a fucking subject. Your opening reply to your post goes after religious views and social/government views and more.

First, you equate YEC with ID. The two are completely unrelated and you clearly don't knopw what a real IDer like me believes. Believing a higher power had a hand in the design of the universe (not just earth) does not mean we don't accept science or even what to see it advance. God said "Let there be light" and the big bang happened. God "created" all manner of creatures. Guess what! He *is* evolution. ID is observing that chaos is the order of the day, so the fact that the universe isn't total chaos and that planets and stars and life exist is a higher power mainting and guiding the order.

YEC - Idiots. All of them. But then they don't believe in ID either.

So passing judgment, mister college boy who is young enough to be my child, is not something you are experienced enough to speak with the authority you would like to present. Open up your mind to the possibilities and allow others to have their viewpoints. You might learn something. I'm not saying you'll be converted (I don't care one way or the other) but you will *learn* something. Refusing to have a discussion with someone because you dismiss their views due to your own inexperience and naivette is closing your mind off to mearning.

learning, not mearning

ach. learning, smearning. what mishegas

And I just passed judgement on the YECers, which is as wrong as passing judgement on IDers. To them I now apologize.

This thread needs some shakeaspear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AWHzO2c8gc&feature=g-vrec

"Obiwan, for example, has made the argument that the Bible is bad literature because the morality it teaches is flawed. I, of course, happen to disagree, but even if I agreed with the premise, I would disagree with the conclusion, and would think it rather silly. There are plenty of magnificent books that teach terrible morality. The other arguments were similar."

Actually, while that'd be a factor, that's not at all why I'd nail the Bible down as an example of bad literature...that sort of "it must be morally-good to be good literature" is thinking along the lines of Dr. Samuel Johnson...and if I hate one literary critic or figure who's viewed positively in the Canon...

It's Dr. Johnson and his views on literature. ;)

So, why DO I think the Bible is bad literature?

For starters, and starting in the Good Old Old Testament...

OBIWANOBIWAN VIEWS THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE:

1. PLOT INCONSISTENCIES:

...Yeah, I'll let that one stand for the whole of the Bible...and I'll leave it there, because everyone knows what I mean, the Bible is VERY inconsistent, which makes sense, given

2. DIFFERENT AUTHORS = DIFFERENT TAKES = STYLISTIC/STRUCTURAL CHAOS

It's no secret--unless you truly believe the Bible was divinely inspired through God--that the Bible was handed down by many different authors (one very easy clue, Old AND New Testaments, as well as Four--and potentially more, but I'll get there in a moment--Gospels, and so on) over hundreds if not thousands of years via oral tradition and then, finally, written down into Hebrew, then translated from Hebrew to Greek, from Greek to Latin, and from there to many other thousands of languages after it's release over the course of history.

Now.

With MANY different authors...the structure is completely wrecked. What's more, the pacing of the Bible is ATROCIOUS--there's a reason why most people, even today, when it's available and can be read for free and the majority of the West (for the moment) is still Christian, have not read the Bible cover to cover...even given how busy their lives are, there's a reason most people don't even read just a bit a day--

THE BIBLE IS BORING, REPETITIVE, AND PACED *HORRIBLY.*

Now, the repetition is a sign of it's place as an oral tradition, that's how you remember a story to be passed down orally over generations, you build in redundancies and repetitive phrasings and keying words that can make remembering that larger a swath of text easier. This isn't an uncommon practice, and not exclusive to oral traditions, either--the Elizabethan playwrights would do the same thing with meter and rhyme to try and make lines easier to remember for actors. The difference? Twofold--generally, a play of that era isn't as redundant as the language in the Bible can be (if you made a drinking glass out of how often in certain passages things were said, like "And He saw that it was good" and so on and so forth, you'd be pretty schnockered after a few pages) and there's generally more to those plays than there is to the Bible in terms of characters and how we can relate to them, but I'll get there in a minute.

To make a final point before THIS becomes too repetitive, it's the pacing that kills a great deal of the Bible's punch from a literary standpoint; I'm fine with long books, Dostoyevsky is long...I'm reading Henry James right now, and that's 100 pages of at first, more or less, having people arrive at a house...so that's slow...

But 1. Again, characters (we'll get to that) and 2. In longer works like Dostoyevsky and James, at the very least, very often, a lot of long buildup is paid off by a big, BIG event...now, the Bible, in fairness, does this too, in places, Moses and Jesus immediately jumping out, but even then...do we REALLY have to sift through the entire geneaology of mankind to just get halfway through Genesis, a page or more of just saying so-and-so begat what's-his-name and what's-his-name lived for 884 years or whatever and so on and so forth?

Repetitive, and it kills the pace, and it keeps you from the more interesting characters and moments and dramatic moments/action (and even from the better lines) and, again, for a work of ORAL history, yes, that makes sense to have so much redundancy and such a stale pattern, it helps the one reciting this long history remember it all.

That doesn't, however, make it good literature, it just explains why it is how it is.

3. GOD IS A RATHER POOR CHARACTER...NO, I'M SORRY, HE REALLY IS

It's no small coincidence that in "Paradise Lost," the larger and far more interesting roles are given to Satan, his followers, and Adam, while Even is...really, a parrot of Adam's in large part, Jesus is somewhat interesting but really a side character and a main theme more than character, just how many times Milton keeps saying that Jesus WILL redeem everyone, and then...

God gets a few lines, they're either boring or illogical, and it's to a point where people have given credence to the idea that God is SO aloof and SO unlikable as written that perhaps Milton meant Satan as a sort of anti-hero, Jesus as an example of a real hero, Adam as an example of a fallen hero and somewhere between the two, and God...

God's just BORING in the story, and no one likes him.

Now take a look at God, beginning with the OT as, given point #1, again, plot inconsistencies, as God OT is rather different from God NT--

NOW, REMOVE yourself from the spiritual connections of the story, just treat the OT as if it were any other piece of literature.

God comes across, then, as 1. Egotistical, 2. Somewhat insecure, especially given his awesome power, 3. Constantly in some sort of logical contradiction because of the paradoxical impossibility of his power (I'm all for suspension of disbelief--I'm a Shakespeare fan, I'll bite on ghosts and visions and fairies if they're for a good story--but I'm sorry, Bible Authors, you have to meet me half way and give me a GOOD reason to want to grant that suspension of disbelief besides "He's God and he'll kill you if you don't believe so go with it"), 4. Commits genocide, 5. Encourages genocide, 6. I'm supposed to take God as a "good guy," or a good entity, yet he's OK with slavery, torture, the oppression of women, incest, and, again, genocide (Again, I'm OK with morally suspect characters or even wicked characters and moral-free books, but if you're going to try and pass your character off as a paragon of justice and morality and you have him doing these things, you FAIL) and so on and so forth.

All told, OT God is an asshole who, being all-knowing, has a men test their faith anyway by placing an Forbidden Tree in front of them, Makes a bet with Satan that if he screws with someone they'd still be loyal to him, and asks someone to sacrifice their beloved son to him...

Screwing over Adam and leading to the Fall, torturing Job before pretending giving gifts makes it all OK that he allowed for the death of his family and his feeling prolonged misery just because God wanted to win a bet with the Devil, and nearly have Isaac killed.

Yeah...God's a bad OT character, he's a sadist, and the authors try and paint him as a good guy, and if you view that objectively as literature, you cringe in disgust at what the authors must have thought "good" meant.

Now, NT God is...

Well, what's he do but send his Son to be sacrificed...and that will somehow atone for the sins of man? Let's leave the logic aside, for just a moment, of how the suffering of one cannot in any NORMAL moral sense be made to stand in for the sins of others and, more importantly, doesn't represent good moral clarity.

Let's leave that alone.

God...rather than absolving people of sin, which he's allowed them to commit (and has allowed them to commit to such a degree thanks to his knowing Adam would eat the Apple, allowing him to eat the Apple, and having the world get so evil he had to flood it, repopulate, and STILL AGAIN it's gone evil, so clearly, God's creations must have a bug and he's a poor designer, or else he's just really, really bad at watching out for danger and sin, but anyway) says:

"I'll send my Son down, who has done no wrong, to be tortured, and that will make everything right."

Again, in terms of motivations...strip away the religious veneer from it...

In ANY other book--how is that something a GOOD father does?

How many of you would view your father as good if he did that with you?

God--a terrible character, no matter the Testament.

4. THIS IS AN *EDITED* MESS

Yes, the Bible is an EDITED book...the books included are separate books that were chosen by a council of Church leaders to form the Bible, and thus, we run into structuring problems once again:

--In a book so concerned with morality, how do you reconcile fully the fact that there are at least two moralities, Jewish and Christian, present in the book? Some interpretive answers have been given by various scholars, but that's just opinion--the fact is, textually, the Bible has a seam sticking out, and it knows it, it knows it's really two halves sewn together to try and imitate a whole

--Because of the scope of the book, the work faces a 101-level problem--that is, it tries to do too much and doesn't take the time to flesh out it's points and, from a literary stance, just as importantly, it's characters as well. Two Testaments...if you were going to do justice to EITHER of the characters in either set, the OT or NT, a single Testament would probably have to be about as long as...well, the Bible is now, so we can actually have fleshed-out characters. "Ah," you say, "but Obi, that's not fair, you're holding this to a Shakespearean standard or even a Modern standard, and this is Literature of Antiquity and we don't get nearly as much there, so that's not fair to chastise the Bible." Leaving aside the Bible is supposed to be "perfect" again...not true, for a perfect example of how this was done WELL in ancient, oral tradition--Homer. Homer's "Iliad" was most likely first orally read and sung as part of a tradition before the old, blind poet wrote it down, and we know FAR more about the great heroes of that work than we do many of the key players of the Bible; there are a few exceptions--Moses and Jesus come to mind--of characters in the Bible who come across as genuinely layered and who experience some changes over time, have different aspects to their character, are, in short, shown as actual people, albeit powerful. A character like Noah...how much do we really know of him, aside from his family tree--and we learn nothing of them in terms of their hopes, desires, and personalities, so that's next to useless and they're basically cutouts as well--and that he was supposedly righteous and built the Ark? In terms of his CHARACTER, what made the man tick, who he was...what do we know, for such a famous character? Heck, take Adam and Eve--we actually get far more about what they do than who they are as people...hard to sympathize with characters without personality. By contrast, take Homer again--Achilles is a great warrior, and a natural leader, but he's also headstrong...brave and noble, but very jealous and almost immature...to rehash Spider-Man (of all things) he has great power, yes, but hasn't learned to use it responsibly, or act responsibly. Odysseus...enough said. Heck, even wives Penelope and Helen (WOMEN, what do you know, the Greeks somehow found them worthy of attention...and with Antigone and Electra also in the Greek canon, it's easy to see who gave their female characters greater consideration) get some depth; Penelope is shown as balancing the welfare of her son and Ithica and herself with the horrible thought her husband may be dead with her struggle to be true to her, and even Helen has a character arc, going from mere, vapid trophy wife to acutely aware that she's the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths and now the Fall of Troy, and the weight of it actually sinks in some and changes her.

With the Bible, again--unless you're Moses, Jesus, or one of the other lucky few, you have ZERO depth, a HUGE stumbling block for any literary work.

--So why is the edited portion worth mentioning? Well, there were actually books that went into greater detail on these characters...there was a book called "The Lives of Adam and Eve" that gave a greater account of who they were, and surprise surprise, 1. It enriches the characters somewhat and 2. Eve isn't portrayed nearly as badly. There are Gospels for Thomas, for Mary, for Nicodemus that expand the NT stories...heck, Thomas even gives and account of JESUS AS A CHILD! Now THERE is something missing a bit from the NT, Jesus as a little kid, at 5 or so...and in all honesty, Jesus actually comes across a lot more human and yet a lot more sympathetic and GOOD morally and aesthetically as a character as a result--he starts out as a bit of a divine brat, tempted by his powers, and then learns to use these powers to help his parents, and then others, and thus becomes inspired to devote his life to helping others--THERE WE GO! There's a bit of depth to the character, and a decent character arc as well, and you know what? I like THAT telling of Jesus, far more than the Bible's simplistic version of it, it's nice to see that even the Savior of Mankind, allegedly, has to fight his own demons--it gives a nice moral lesson for this overly-moral book, that with age comes the wisdom for each of us to grow and use our own powers for good and that, indeed, if Jesus, the supposed-great Messiah of Man can be tempted, then temptation, really, is understandable AND conquerable, that we CAN grow up.

But instead, the Bible is hopelessly compressed, edited, and most sense of moral or literary depth is lost. It gives something of what in literature and mythology studies is referred to as "The Hero's Journey," and on that journey, it's important to see the hero be dynamic, to grow and change...

Odysseus grows from a draft dodger to a leader to a wanderer to a wise old man over the course of his books...

Gilgamesh grows from a wicked young king to an elder, protective, good king...

And heroes must face trials--

Hercules has Twelve of them...
Odysseus wanders for over a decade...
Beowulf faces Grindelwald and his Mother...

And yes, Jesus faces trials, but it'd have been nice to see him grow into his powers, too, and go through a psychological trial...it's somewhat sad when Superman may be said to grow into his power more than the Messiah of mankind.

(Unless Superman IS the Savior, in which case...hey, I'm cool with the Man of Steel being the Messiah...just so long he knows that he can't defeat the Goddamn Batman!)

;)

And...

How is that, for starters? I have loads more, but this is already likely tl;dr material...

Oh boy...

@Draug:

"Pick a fucking subject. Your opening reply to your post goes after religious views and social/government views and more."

Yes, because those were subjects that I felt met the titular criteria, ie, beliefs that really can't be seen as properly intellectual, founded in logic, or else furthering our intellectual progress as a species any more.

I invited everyone to list their own...those are the ones I chose to lead off with.

"First, you equate YEC with ID. The two are completely unrelated and you clearly don't knopw what a real IDer like me believes."

Yes, I do equate the two...

They're both equally invalid in terms of being scientific or scientifically-acceptable.

"Believing a higher power had a hand in the design of the universe (not just earth) does not mean we don't accept science or even what to see it advance."

That wasn't the point I made, though, my point is that it's not a valid theory and therefore can't be considered to really properly be helping the advancement of our species scientific intellect...neither am I right now, but at least I'm not pretending or claiming a theory of mine, with little to no evidence (if you want, bring up the arguments, but they don't fly, they've been shot down time and again by actual scientists, with a degree and a lab and white lab coat and Oxford accent and everything) is a valid scientific topic and demanding it be placed in science textbooks alongside evolution, ie, real science.

"God said "Let there be light" and the big bang happened."

We're pre-supposing God here, but alright, go on...

"God "created" all manner of creatures. Guess what! He *is* evolution."

Yeah...not by any accepted definition of evolution...even if that's your personal belief, my point is that that's not valid science, not objectively provable, is rhetorical nonsense, so is ID, and that, again, it's like YEC in that it's not furthering our understanding of science whatsoever, if anything, it's retarding it.

"ID is observing that chaos is the order of the day, so the fact that the universe isn't total chaos and that planets and stars and life exist is a higher power mainting and guiding the order."

AGAIN, your wish for a higher power doesn't make it so, ESPECIALLY not in a scientific sense, so while you may want an order to the universe like a creator, there isn't one...and you have Richard Dawkins and "The Blind Watchmaker," for starters, to contend with if you're going to validly argue otherwise...

The universe is NOT fine tuned for life, or created with an order in mind, it's wishful thinking, but even if you wish to believe that, fine, that's your democratic right...but SCIENCE IS NOT A DEMOCRACY and the truth is absolute and facts are facts and ID is NOT scientific fact.

"YEC - Idiots. All of them. But then they don't believe in ID either."

Well, I'm not awarding any points there, as ID isn't scientifically valid and neither is the preferred "scientific" view of most YEC, that is, "God Did It."

"So passing judgment, mister college boy who is young enough to be my child, is not something you are experienced enough to speak with the authority you would like to present. Open up your mind to the possibilities and allow others to have their viewpoints. You might learn something. I'm not saying you'll be converted (I don't care one way or the other) but you will *learn* something. Refusing to have a discussion with someone because you dismiss their views due to your own inexperience and naivette is closing your mind off to mearning."

I'm open to possibilities--

But facts are facts, and ID is false and not scientifically plausible or valid.