Implicator wrote:timberlandko wrote:Implicator, I return yet again to the point of interpretation.
Actually, I really wish you would return to the prior point I made where I provided the definition of the term "interpret", and showed why it is that you interpret the Bible just like the rest of us. Is there a problem with the definition I provided? Do you think the definition does not apply to what you do when you evaluate what the Bible is saying? Or are you just no longer interested in discussing the original issue I took with you in this thread?
Whether you choose to acknowledge and accept it or not, the original issue is that a text requiring interpretation in order to reveal the meaning of what was written is
prima facie evidence that what was written was not written to be taken literally, but rather that it requires interpretation to be understood. Either the words mean what the words mean as written and as laid out, or they do not. If they mean what they say, each unto itself modified or acted upon only grammatically by virtue of placement within the sentence in which found, interpretation is by definition unnecessary; the words mean what they say. I*f they do not mean what they say, if a larger context or deeper meaning is entailed, then it seems absurd to assign to those words the attribute of divinely revealed truth; what function would be served through wrapping divinely revealed truth in mystery and enigma? I submit no defensible function could be served by such a happenstance, and that the evident existence of such a happenstance obviates the notion that the words are or convey any divinely revealed anything, truth or otherwise.
Quote:timberlandko wrote:That such might be necessary or even desirable in the context of divinely revealed truth is an absurd, self-canceling notion, defensible only through sophistry;
Once again, you make claims of sophistry yet fail to back them up, which literally has the effect of turning your own argument back on yourself. Also, I never claimed that interpretation was "necessary", so please do not state that I have. And although interpretation may not be desirable
to you, that has no bearing on whether it was desirable to God, or (more importantly) whether it can be objectively shown that interpretation should not be desired.
[url=http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=sophistry]Merriam-Webster: [b]sophistry[/b][/url] wrote:
One entry found for
sophistry.
Main Entry: soph·ist·ry
Pronunciation: 'sä-f&-strE
Function: noun
1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation
2 :
SOPHISM 1
I submit that sophistry precisely is the practice in which you engage by your insistence that you do not argue the case for subjective Biblical interpretation as a necessity for understanding the message and/or lesson of the Bible, and when you allege that I engage in any such practice as interpreting the Bible.
Quote:timberlandko wrote:it does not stand to objective, critical, linear, logical thought.
Please demonstrate why this is the case, taking into consideration my comments above.
I submit the fact you pursue this digression, in the manner you prosecute same, makes my point for me. I do not expect you will accept or acknowledge that, at least if you are sincere in your beliefs, for such a belief set all but precludes detached, objective, dispassionate involvement with and endorsement of the proposition at question. Not to say such a belief set decisively prohibits objective appraisal, just that coming to same within said belief set is a monumental intellectual task, successfully approached by few - Aquinas, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Plantinga, de Chardin, a half-dozen Popes, perhaps a few others come to mind, but the list is not large.
Quote:timberlandko wrote:Whether or not any religionist proposition, Christian or otherwise, may have any validity is immaterial; no forensically valid argument for same can be presented. That is not to say cogent, powerful, even compelling arguments may not be made - many such exist (though none have been presented in these discussions by any proponent of the Theory of Christianity) - just that no forensically valid argument can be made for any such proposition. Going back to definitions, by definition the metaphysical, with its entailed ontology, is that which lays beyond physical experience and reference. Forensically, any pro-religionist proposition by necessity proceeds from the illicit, assumption-based thesis that the religionist proposition presented is self-evidently valid.
I am going to repeat back what I think you have just said in order to ensure I have understood it - please correct me if I have not properly interpreted what I have read.
It seems as if you are claiming that all religionist propositions (regardless of their truth state) cannot be expressed in forensically valid form
just because all such propositions are necessarily of such a form that they ultimately rest upon an assumption of self-evidence specifically because they invoke that which has existence outside of the physical realm.
Is that correct?
Close enough to do, I suppose. The words I wrote mean what they mean individually, without interpretation or qualification apart from grammatical modification entailed through their positionings within the sentences in which they appear.
Quote:Regardless of whether my interpretation was correct, I will assert that all propositions ultimately rest upon an assumption of self-evidence, whether metaphysical or not.
No argument, conceptually at least, given the caveat that assumptive self evidence on the nature of such things as a rock is a rock or a leaf is a leaf or that time passes proceed from direct, reproducible evidentiary obeservation and experience, conforming both to descriptive and predictive analysis . However, the fly in the ointment there is the very concept of the metaphysical. The validity of the existence of such a thing, state or condition of being devolves from the illicit, assumption-based, non-evidentiary premise that such a thing, state, or condition of being in fact exists. Metaphysics by definition has no place in science or philosophy, that is why theology exists; theology is the intellectual construct required to permit analytic consideration of the metaphysical.
Quote:timberlandko wrote:Religion itself is the prime example of circular reasoning.
Life itself is the prime example of circular reasoning, specifically when one attempts to demonstrate the truth state of any proposition using
linear thought. Knowledge of anything at all
ultimately rests upon an epistemic basis, the truth state of which cannot be demonstrated using linear thought.
Poppycock and sophistry. Stand still a minute, let me draw a good bead on you, and I'll demonstrate to you, quite linearly, the concrete, as opposed to epistimic, concept of "rock" :wink:
Quote:In short, if you consign yourself to knowing only those things that may ultimately be demonstrated through linear thought, you cannot know anything at all, which is itself a self-refuting position to hold to.
I
More sophistry - angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. Still having trouble with the concept? Hang on a minnit - lemme grab another rock
