good news for christians

[nerdgirl 0]

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The validity or disput[at]ion of that assertion is independent of the skills of the individual seeking guidance. The latter can be robustly analytical and skeptical. For historical examples, see Spinoza and Descartes (the latter who was an avowed Roman Catholic).

Ok, I've given it a day now to sink in and I still have no idea what you just said. What assertion? The latter who?

Thanks for asking for clarification.

The assertion: “since when has religion been robustly analytical or skeptical in its approach to philosophy” relates to the nature of religion/religous texts not to the person doing the analysis of religious text. The validity or disputation of that assertion is independent from the words I wrote to which you responded. That's a different issue than what I was writing. Mixing two different ideas.

I wrote about the analytical and skeptical reader (i.e., “individual seeking guidance”) not the nature of religious text. That is the “latter who.”

There was no assumption regarding the religious or a-religious nature of the “individual seeking guidance” in my words. That individual could be atheist, Judeo-Christian, Tibetan Buddhist, pantheist, or any belief system. I don’t accept that individuals are limited to seeking guidance only within any specific belief system. (Some do place those restrictions on reading material; I don’t.)

Now if you are functioning under the assumption that all religious texts (regardless of nature) are ‘bunk’ for lack of a better term than you may not see any value in any religious text for the human experience (i.e., we’re talking about ethics). I would no more dismiss Hume (an atheist) than I would Descartes (a Catholic) or Spinoza (born a Jew later became a pantheist).

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Historical examples of what?

Individuals seeking guidance and individuals with religious affiliation who have approached philosophy and ethics in a robustly analytical and skeptical manner. The two historical examples I gave were Spinoza and Descartes. Spinoza was a key figure in the encouraging the Enlightenment, which as you and I know led to the Scientific Revolution.

Does that make more sense?

It's not about believing anything without questioning or failing to consider historical, cultural, political, and strategic factors affecting an author's position. It's also not about ignoring inconsistencies in religious arguments, e.g., see my response to Vinny above in which I did that w/r/t Aquinas' views.

It's about not ultimately or automatically eliminating any potential source.

Sometimes the best sources, imo, are the ones with which I disagree with the author's conclusions. Those help me strengthen my argument and understand where the logical, tactical, or strategic errors are in another's arguments.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[JackC 0]

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Does that make more sense?

Thanks, yes it does.

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It's about not ultimately or automatically eliminating any potential source.

Automatically, no source should be eliminated. But ultimately, some sources can and I would argue should be eliminated. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, should Mein Kampf be kept or discarded as a good source of moral guidance?

Suppose you perform a robust analytical and skeptical study of a number of religious texts to ascertain what those texts consider to be good morals. Where does that get you? You still have to put your hard won list of morals through your own internal moral compass to see if they fit. After all, you are the one who has to live with yourself. What happens if they don't fit? Do you discard your own moral compass in favour of the revealed knwoledge of these religions? Or do you stick with what your own moral guidance system tells you? And what have you gained by this tortuous excercise?

If you wish to do this as an excercise in rigourous academic study to find out what others believe and maybe why, then great. But as a pragmatic way to gain a set of morals, I think you would be putting in a lot of work, that some of the best minds of the last 2000 years have all failed to conclude, that will probably be overruled by your own internal moral guidance system anyway.

On the subject of applying logic and empiricism to a subject that has not been developed using those techniques. Now suppose I do a statistical study of past lottery numbers in the hope of predicting next weeks numbers. As you know, that would be a fruitless excercise because past results have no bearing on future results and the delusion that they do is called the Gamblers Fallacy. Now if I apply logic and empiricism to a philosophy that is inherently illogical and unempirical, would I not run the risk of falling for the philosophical equivalent of the Gamblers Fallacy?

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Sometimes the best sources, imo, are the ones with which I disagree with the author's conclusions. Those help me strengthen my argument and understand where the logical, tactical, or strategic errors are in another's arguments.

I agree completely.

[jcd11235 0]

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On the subject of applying logic and empiricism to a subject that has not been developed using those techniques. Now suppose I do a statistical study of past lottery numbers in the hope of predicting next weeks numbers. As you know, that would be a fruitless excercise because past results have no bearing on future results and the delusion that they do is called the Gamblers Fallacy.

Right. But one could use past lottery sales and jackpots to determine the necessary size of a jackpot in order to provide an expected value greater than $1 for each $1 spent on lottery tickets. It's not that logic and mathematics cannot be applied, it's that they must be applied properly in order to obtain meaningful results.

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Now if I apply logic and empiricism to a philosophy that is inherently illogical and unempirical, would I not run the risk of falling for the philosophical equivalent of the Gamblers Fallacy?

No, but you do run that risk if you apply logical fallacies and invalid logic in place of valid logic.

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