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Author | Topic: Fundamentalism versus Critical Thinking | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18308 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Granny Magda writes: Literary sources themselves were scant outside of scripture.
The evidence for Jesus' existence is scant outside of scripture.
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3123 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
Phat writes: Granny Magda writes:
Literary sources themselves were scant outside of scripture. The evidence for Jesus' existence is scant outside of scripture. Actually this is untrue, during and around Jesus prescribe lifetime there were several major Roman & Greek historians who wrote tons of historical and biographical literature: Paterculus (19 BC-30 AD) - Roman HistorianJosephus (37-100 AD) - Jewish Historian and Military Leader Plutarch (45-125 AD) - Roman Biographer and Historian Tacitus (54-119 AD) - Roman Senator and Historian Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD) Roman Governor, Lawyer, Natural Philosopher and Historian Suetonius (71-135 AD) - Greco-Roman Biographer and Historian Appianus (95 - 165 AD) - Roman Historian Of these historians only four talk about Christianity (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius). And of these only Josephus and Tacitus only explicitly reference Jesus Christ and Tacitus seems to be getting his information from another source:
Tacitus writes: Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.(Annals 15.44) Josephus writes: About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day. (Antiquities 20:9.1) There remains some question by Biblical scholars of how much of was from Josephus own hand and how much was added to or rewritten. There were also many other historians (about 40) however much of there work have been lost and none mention Jesus Christ. Here are some good links for further research:
Did he actually exist? All sides to the question Historicity of Jesus From Jesus to Christ: The Story of Storytellers Jesus-History or Myth? T he Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer "For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Dr. Carl Sagan
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Phat Member Posts: 18308 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
bluegenes writes: Thinking of any kind never led anyone to religion. So does that mean that all religion was derived from unthinking masses?
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Phat Member Posts: 18308 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Are you suggesting that to be a good critical thinker implies being skeptical in any and all matters of the heart?
Have you ever had any experiences in life which were an emotional catharsis? Why must we always become skeptics by default? If it works, who cares whether or not it is a placebo? Edited by Phat, : fixed Boo Boo
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Larni Member (Idle past 186 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
Why must we always become skeptics by default? If it works, who cares whether or not it is a placebo? The placebo effect is basically the Hawthorn Effect (my favourite effect). That means as long as you think someone cares you will feel a bit better. Now, if you were in receipt of the Hawthorn Effect and applied critical thinking to the positivity you felt you may well lose the effect. That's why you should never apply critical thinking to ones god of choice.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4039 Joined: Member Rating: 8.2 |
Are you suggesting that to be a good critical thinker implies being skeptical in any and all matters of the heart? I would suggest that being a "good critical thinker" implies applying critical analysis to all matters, be they "of the heart" or otherwise.
Have you ever had any experiences in life which were an emotional catharsis? Irrelevant. Cathartic emotional responses do not require irrational thought, and are not necessrily invalidated by critical thinking. In fact, many of my own cathartic experiences have come as a direct result of applying critical thinking and embracing skepticism.
Why must we always become skeptics by default? If it works, who cares whether or not it is a placebo? What we "must" do is a matter of personal values. If one values a rational outlook on how the world actually works, then skepticism is a necessity. If this is not a priority, and living in a fantasy-land is acceptable so long as it "works," then skepticism is unnecessary. But make no mistake - without skepticism and critical thinking, universally applied, it is impossible to maintain a rational and reasonable understanding of objective reality. Flights of fancy, including "faith," correspond to reality only through bare chance, and far more often lead to inaccurate conclusions. Failing to use reasonable skepticism and critical thought results in gullibility, nothing more.
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Phat Member Posts: 18308 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Rahvin writes: But how do we know for sure how the world actually works? Why is faith, despite lack of support, an outdated concept? Must we assume that everything than cant be tested does not exist?
If one values a rational outlook on how the world actually works, then skepticism is a necessity.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Must we assume that everything than cant be tested does not exist? No, the key thing is that we "mustn't" assume that something that can't be tested does exist.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Phat writes: Rahvin writes: If one values a rational outlook on how the world actually works, then skepticism is a necessity. But how do we know for sure how the world actually works? We don't. That's exactly why skepticism is a constant, ongoing necessity. Even the things we think we know could be wrong.
Why is faith, despite lack of support, an outdated concept? It's not outdated... sort of. We just now understand where it's benefits are and it's negatives. Faith can be a fantastic tool for providing hope and motivation for certain people. This hasn't changed and is not outdated. We do know that other ideas exist to provide hope and motivation equally well (and possibly better for certain people), but this doesn't make Faith an outdated concept in this arena, just one of many.However, we do now understand that Faith is particularly weak when attempting to work out the truth of how reality works. When considering this aspect, Faith is extremely outdated because it just doesn't work, at all. Phat writes: Must we assume that everything than cant be tested does not exist? Mod's answer:
Modulous writes: No, the key thing is that we "mustn't" assume that something that can't be tested does exist. I just want to make sure that Mod's answer is clear here because this is a very large, ongoing issue in the misunderstanding to the application of reason and skepticism. There are three main divisions (to keep this simple):1. Known to exist (strictly reality) 2. Known to not exist (strictly imagination) 3. Unknown (imagination that could possibly be reality, but nothing points in that direction yet) The "unknown" certainly ranges from "likely to exist" to "unlikely to exist"... but that's a topic for another thread. Your question seems to assume that reason and skepticism says Faith related ideas are specifically, 100%, completely restricted to the "known to not exist" area, without any consideration. This isn't true, and it is the misunderstanding that fundamentalists love to exploit as much as they can... even to the point of lying about it. However, as Mod's answer point's out, this isn't true. The fact is that when we apply reason and skepticism, Faith related things are only 100% restricted from entering the "known to exist" area. That is not the same as specifically stating that Faith is known to not exist, but it is something that is obviously uncontestable. By definition, if something taken on Faith was actually known to exist, it would no longer be Faith. It would be fact. The highest priority of reason and skepticism is to make as clear a distinction as possible from "known to exist" and everything else. Edited by Stile, : I'll edit you.
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