Liberal philosophy - Page 5 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

kerry · #61 04-22-2009, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

There is no reason to limit the argument to sensual reality. I mean, if that's all we have we never will know very much. I can't see an electron. I can't hear a rainbow. I cannot measure a Mother's love for her newborn child.

B

All that knowledge begins with sensual reality, not fantasy.

Botnst · #62 04-22-2009, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

All that knowledge begins with sensual reality, not fantasy.

How do you know which is which?

tonkovich · #63 04-23-2009, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

How do you know which is which?

wow - the evasion continues, ad infinitum.

lets resolve this quite simply:

it's difficult to live life without blinders on. most people can't handle it.

see: aristotle/plato "parable of the cave"

try to quit watching the shadows, and turn around. (and maybe even get out of the cave?)

Botnst · #64 04-23-2009, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tonkovich

wow - the evasion continues, ad infinitum.

lets resolve this quite simply:

it's difficult to live life without blinders on. most people can't handle it.

see: aristotle/plato "parable of the cave"

try to quit watching the shadows, and turn around. (and maybe even get out of the cave?)

You are so deep. Wow. It's like, I haven't ever heard of this stuff.

How do you know whether you are the one unchained who has seen the light or the one seeing the shadows and confusing it with seeing the light?

tonkovich · #65 04-23-2009, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

You are so deep. Wow. It's like, I haven't ever heard of this stuff.

How do you know whether you are the one unchained who has seen the light or the one seeing the shadows and confusing it with seeing the light?

uh, because i'm not the traditionalist here.

(and yes, i'm sure you know much more "about" philosophy than me, and have "heard" a lot - but have you applied it to your thoughts and beliefs?)

MS Fowler · #66 04-23-2009, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

The early writers of the NT were literate but not professional scribes.

If one assumes that there is or was at one time one original text for each of the gospels and epistles, and if those original texts are destroyed or lost, then all we have are copies. It was perhaps 300 years before professional scribes in Alexandria Egypt wrote the text that are now widely accepted as the oldest. Therefore, 300 years of copies by non-professional scribes would have introduced some proportion of accidental misspellings, mistranslations, transpositions, deletions, and additions. Not to mention scribes who intentionally "improved" verses that were difficult. Then there were the various scribes with theological axes to grind.

Scientific study of the scripture is fairly new -- 300 years or so. In that time many new sources of text have been found, including fragments of texts. There are tens of thousands of scrolls and scroll fragments over which scholars pour and argue. They have come up with a large number of actual errors in the most popular translation -- the King James version. But that one is not alone by any means.

To me, arguing a strict literal interpretation is putting one's faith in man -- the scribes and translators, rather than where it belongs, if one is faithful.

In my seminarary days, I studied the mss families and their transmission. I was fascinated that I could actually track an error and follow it as that ms was used as the master that was then faithfully copied. However, none of these "errors" made a theological difference, as far as I can remember.
Besides the belief that th Bible is inerrant applies only as far as the original manuscripts, which, as you correctly point out, no longer exist.
Strict literal interpretation is only applicable where strict literal writing was employed. Some of the Bible is to be literally--maybe, most of it--but parts are poetic, parts prophetic, and part apocalyptic.

MS Fowler · #67 04-23-2009, 07:52 AM

The concept that we KNOW reality, seems, to me, a little arrogant--like man shaking his fist in the face of God.
Maybe its like this--- an infant experiences great change during the birth process. A nice warm home where food is supplied is suddenly gone, and now there is cold, and pain, and hunger. If the unborn infant was capable of expressing thopught, he/she might say, " there is no existence outside of my mother". But after birth, and schooling, and normal growth, that same person realizes that there was much outside of mother.
As parents, we encourage our children to grow--it is unnatural to want to keep them as infants forever.
To say that reality is limited to what I can see, feel, hear etc may be coorect--or it may be a lie.

Botnst · #68 04-23-2009, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tonkovich

uh, because i'm not the traditionalist here.

(and yes, i'm sure you know much more "about" philosophy than me, and have "heard" a lot - but have you applied it to your thoughts and beliefs?)

I don't know whether or not I "know" more philosophy than you and I don't give a damn either way.

Have I "applied" it to my thoughts and beliefs? Wow,.... Before you asked that question I couldn't have imagined anybody taking the time to read it and not attempting to test it on themselves. Your question opens a whole new venue of exploration -- people who can read and understand philosophy but not test themselves with it. Is that common? Do you believe that anybody who reads say, the "Allegory of the Cave" comes away with exactly the same understanding of it? If two people were to read it and each gained a different understanding, is there only one "correct" understanding?

kerry · #69 04-23-2009, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

To say that reality is limited to what I can see, feel, hear etc may be coorect--or it may be a lie.

I don't believe I ever wrote that. I definitely haven't thought it. I was writing about what we know.

tonkovich · #70 04-23-2009, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

I don't know whether or not I "know" more philosophy than you and I don't give a damn either way.

Have I "applied" it to my thoughts and beliefs? Wow,.... Before you asked that question I couldn't have imagined anybody taking the time to read it and not attempting to test it on themselves. Your question opens a whole new venue of exploration -- people who can read and understand philosophy but not test themselves with it. Is that common? Do you believe that anybody who reads say, the "Allegory of the Cave" comes away with exactly the same understanding of it? If two people were to read it and each gained a different understanding, is there only one "correct" understanding?

uh, i don't recall saying there was only one way of "understanding" the text. however, you do appear to be a traditionalist, judging from the tenor of your various posts.

Botnst · #71 04-23-2009, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tonkovich

uh, i don't recall saying there was only one way of "understanding" the text. however, you do appear to be a traditionalist, judging from the tenor of your various posts.

What is a "traditionalist"?

If it means that I place liberty at a premium -- guilty.

If it means that that I value the individual more than the collective -- guilty.

If it means tht I believe the constitution is a limit on government, not the reverse -- guilty.

If it means that I believe each individual person owns his own body and is wholly responsible for it -- guilty.

If it means that I believe that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty -- guilty, guilty, guilty!

kerry · #72 04-23-2009, 03:52 PM

This piece probably deserves it's own thread. But it's on this same topic so I'll post it here.

"Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism? Why is it that my local bookshop has suddenly sprouted a section labeled “Atheism,” hosting anti-God manifestos by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others, and might even now be contemplating another marked “Congenital Skeptic with Mild Baptist Leanings”? Why, just as we were confidently moving into a posttheological, postmetaphysical, even posthistorical era, has the God question broken out anew?"

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2488

Botnst · #73 04-24-2009, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

This piece probably deserves it's own thread. But it's on this same topic so I'll post it here.

"Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism? Why is it that my local bookshop has suddenly sprouted a section labeled “Atheism,” hosting anti-God manifestos by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others, and might even now be contemplating another marked “Congenital Skeptic with Mild Baptist Leanings”? Why, just as we were confidently moving into a posttheological, postmetaphysical, even posthistorical era, has the God question broken out anew?"

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2488

I believe Pascal was exactly right in his metaphorical description of the soul, "A god-shaped vacuum in the heart of man." We long to fill it with whatever we can.

pj67coll · #74 04-24-2009, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

This piece probably deserves it's own thread. But it's on this same topic so I'll post it here.

"Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism? Why is it that my local bookshop has suddenly sprouted a section labeled “Atheism,” hosting anti-God manifestos by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others, and might even now be contemplating another marked “Congenital Skeptic with Mild Baptist Leanings”? Why, just as we were confidently moving into a posttheological, postmetaphysical, even posthistorical era, has the God question broken out anew?"

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2488

Because most people can't handle reality.

- Peter.