Stamp out anti-science in US politics

[PDH]

I agree with Viking

Viking loses

[Neil]

I agree with Viking

Viking loses

I'm glad that I scrolled down before I posted that.

So Viking, how do you respond to this total devastation of all your arguments?

[Valmy]

Unlike most Bible supporters, those who study Socrates and Plato do not claim they were divinely inspired. And to my knowledge no modern philosopher or ethicist embraces them as a primary material or a source of his or her system.

Btw, when you say "Bible" do you really mean "Gospels" or are you saying that the Old Testament (e.g. Leviticus, or the history of the conquest of Canaan) teach us a "valuable moral lesson"?

Generally when I concern myself with Leviticus and the conquest of Canaan (and prior) we are talking about something you already mentioned in this thread.  The conciousness of humanity to extend its sense of "us" to embrace greater and greater units.

One big thing I like to point to is how Noah clearly does not make a big deal about saving just his family since the rest of humanity has dissappointed God.  Then later Moses is given an almost identical deal, I will save you and rebuild once I zap these Israelites who have dissappointed me, but Moses refuses because in his mind the Israelites are all his tribe.  Thus we go from the righteousness of the individual to the laws and wellbeing of the tribe being above all and then later we move into the idea, Isaiah here is what I am thinking of, that Israel is there to serve all humanity.  And so forth.  You can see this very process playing out over centuries with different authors.  Many interesting spiritual, moral, and ethical lessons can be learned there.

[The Brain]

For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread

[Valmy]

For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread

It is an moral lesson about waiting for a desperate famine so you can get sex for cheap.

[Martinus]

Unlike most Bible supporters, those who study Socrates and Plato do not claim they were divinely inspired. And to my knowledge no modern philosopher or ethicist embraces them as a primary material or a source of his or her system.

Btw, when you say "Bible" do you really mean "Gospels" or are you saying that the Old Testament (e.g. Leviticus, or the history of the conquest of Canaan) teach us a "valuable moral lesson"?

Generally when I concern myself with Leviticus and the conquest of Canaan (and prior) we are talking about something you already mentioned in this thread.  The conciousness of humanity to extend its sense of "us" to embrace greater and greater units.

One big thing I like to point to is how Noah clearly does not make a big deal about saving just his family since the rest of humanity has dissappointed God.  Then later Moses is given an almost identical deal, I will save you and rebuild once I zap these Israelites who have dissappointed me, but Moses refuses because in his mind the Israelites are all his tribe.  Thus we go from the righteousness of the individual to the laws and wellbeing of the tribe being above all and then later we move into the idea, Isaiah here is what I am thinking of, that Israel is there to serve all humanity.  And so forth.  You can see this very process playing out over centuries with different authors.  Many interesting spiritual, moral, and ethical lessons can be learned there.

I still think it is a shitty source of "moral lessons". To use my earlier medical book analogy, imagine you had an old medicine manuscript which would carry the following three lessons:

1. Lemon juice is a good cure for common cold
2. Cancer can be cured by applying leeches
3. A feverish baby can be cured by being left for 10 minutes in a burning oven

Even if lesson no. 1 is vaguely true (although quite primitive, inaccurate and not completely true), the other two range from completely useless to actually harmful. Noone would argue that, as a result, studying that book would constitute a good "medical lesson".

Now consider the Bible (I am going to use the NT as an example only, as pointing out immorality in OT is like shooting dead fish in an empty barrell):

1. Treat others like you want to be treated
2. Homosexuality is a sin as bad as murder and theft.
3. A woman should always submit to a man's will

How's that different from the above example? You have one vaguely correct lesson (but one that is too vague and not accurrate enough - Kant formulates it in a much better way) and two which range from idiotic to actively harmful.

It is a shitty book, which should come with a health warning.

[Martinus]

Pretending that me arguing that Plato and Aristotle are no longer the best sources to go to for moral knowledge means that they are no longer relevant is not true. But, they are to modern philosophy what Newton is to physics and Darwin is to biology, the guys who got the ball rolling and had the first good ideas. It is a bit of a slight to Kant, Hume, Locke, Voltaire etc. imho.

Yeah, one can read Artistotle or Plato if one wants to study the history of philosophy (and I guess it is a good stepping stone for more complex philosophical ideas) but noone is "interpreting" them as a part of modern philosophy.

[Martinus]

But, since you do open for this, what from Plato or Socrates or Aristotle has remained cutting edge for all these years? And more importantly, if we are to use them how do we separate their bunk (plato's forms, aristotle's ethics) form the more useful stuff? We rely on more modern work to sift that. The bible, as is, does not undergo such a process.

Actually it did, but noone reads Augustine or Aquinas. That's the problem with religious people - they are awfully ignorant, including about their own religion.

Edit: Speaking of which, this is another area where the Roman Catholic Church, for all its failings, comes ahead of other Christian denominations. Catholic scholars do not study Bible per se - they develop a whole line of ethics called "The Catholic Social Science" - you may disagree with many of its concepts, but it develops in the same way modern day objectivists develop (instead of "reinterpreting") Plato or Kantists built on the ethics of Aristotle. That's a far cry from "Bible study" which is a pseudo-science.

[Valmy]

How's that different from the above example? You have one vaguely correct lesson (but one that is too vague and not accurrate enough - Kant formulates it in a much better way) and two which range from idiotic to actively harmful.

Well that is not the only one.  I was just using that as an example since you mentioned this particular moral pattern in this thread.  But the main reason I think using the Bible for productive purposes is good is because almost everybody is familiar with it and it is so ingrained in western culture.  It is pretty fantastic and colorful as well despite its drawbacks.

The laws of Leviticus are basically saying that since the tribe is the ultimate than the laws of the tribe are the ultimate morality.  I think the particular part about Homosex was a statement about the temple prostitution practiced in the Middle East at the time but hey who knows?  The actual context is pretty distant now.  I also like that book just because at the end of it God gives a very specific formula for how he is going to smite Israel should they not follow all these laws.  Of course God never does any of these things when the Israelites continually do break these laws for the rest of the OT and when I point this out to a Bible literalist they eventually have to admit that God was being symbolic there.  And then once you get them to admit that well...

[Oexmelin]

Yeah, one can read Artistotle or Plato if one wants to study the history of philosophy (and I guess it is a good stepping stone for more complex philosophical ideas) but noone is "interpreting" them as a part of modern philosophy.

Where do you get this idea? Plenty of people are revisiting, and reinterpreting Aristotle and Plato today.

[Valmy]

Also we are talking about the humanities not the sciences here.  Whether or not Michel Foucault is a more advanced and more truthful philosophy than his predecessors is a matter of opinion.

[Barrister]

But, since you do open for this, what from Plato or Socrates or Aristotle has remained cutting edge for all these years? And more importantly, if we are to use them how do we separate their bunk (plato's forms, aristotle's ethics) form the more useful stuff? We rely on more modern work to sift that. The bible, as is, does not undergo such a process.

Actually it did, but noone reads Augustine or Aquinas. That's the problem with religious people - they are awfully ignorant, including about their own religion.

Edit: Speaking of which, this is another area where the Roman Catholic Church, for all its failings, comes ahead of other Christian denominations. Catholic scholars do not study Bible per se - they develop a whole line of ethics called "The Catholic Social Science" - you may disagree with many of its concepts, but it develops in the same way modern day objectivists develop (instead of "reinterpreting") Plato or Kantists built on the ethics of Aristotle. That's a far cry from "Bible study" which is a pseudo-science.

I'm not sure that's all that different from what Protestant denominations do.  While Protestants first resource is certainly the Bible, but there are numerous works analyzing and interpreting the Bible, and our understanding of what the Bible means or says has changed in numerous ways over the centuries.

[Martinus]

But, since you do open for this, what from Plato or Socrates or Aristotle has remained cutting edge for all these years? And more importantly, if we are to use them how do we separate their bunk (plato's forms, aristotle's ethics) form the more useful stuff? We rely on more modern work to sift that. The bible, as is, does not undergo such a process.

Actually it did, but noone reads Augustine or Aquinas. That's the problem with religious people - they are awfully ignorant, including about their own religion.

Edit: Speaking of which, this is another area where the Roman Catholic Church, for all its failings, comes ahead of other Christian denominations. Catholic scholars do not study Bible per se - they develop a whole line of ethics called "The Catholic Social Science" - you may disagree with many of its concepts, but it develops in the same way modern day objectivists develop (instead of "reinterpreting") Plato or Kantists built on the ethics of Aristotle. That's a far cry from "Bible study" which is a pseudo-science.

I'm not sure that's all that different from what Protestant denominations do.  While Protestants first resource is certainly the Bible, but there are numerous works analyzing and interpreting the Bible, and our understanding of what the Bible means or says has changed in numerous ways over the centuries.

See, that's my point. The CSS is *not* about "what the Bible means or says". It is a body of social science which has its roots in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine, and some of the concepts expressed in the Bible, but (as is the Catholic wont) it does not dwells too much on those parts of the Bible that are not consistent with it.

[Barrister]

I'm not sure that's all that different from what Protestant denominations do.  While Protestants first resource is certainly the Bible, but there are numerous works analyzing and interpreting the Bible, and our understanding of what the Bible means or says has changed in numerous ways over the centuries.

See, that's my point. The CSS is *not* about "what the Bible means or says". It is a body of social science which has its roots in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine, and some of the concepts expressed in the Bible, but (as is the Catholic wont) it does not dwells too much on those parts of the Bible that are not consistent with it.

But my point was that it's like argueing the differences between common law and civil law.  Each has a different foundation, but in the end they wind up looking fairly similar, with similar amount of analysis.

[Valmy]

it does not dwells too much on those parts of the Bible that are not consistent with it.

Well it would be very difficult to find something that is consistent throughout the entire Bible.  Just as I pointed out the entire basis of its morality changes at various points as people change the conception of who is 'us' and their relationship to 'God'.  I find it a bit fascinating that when some new writer would write something they just added it to the Canon and did not appear to go back and update the past material to make it consistent.  I guess once people decided to combine it into one giant work it was already too late for that.