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Theistic Scientists


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"What source?"

The Bible.

 

You seem to be talking about the idea that "not all of it is true" does not mean "all of it is false"

OK, fine, we both know that.

 

"Not all of it is true" means " some of it is false"

 

The thing is that once some of it is false you can't rely on it for truth.

 

OK so "Showing some parts of some books wrong doesn't mean that you can group those books together with a bunch of other books and call them all untrustworthy "

But I didn't lump them together.

Whoever stuck them into two volumes and called them the Bible did that.

Or, if you prefer a less narrow approach, whoever lumped them together (with a lot of others) as "Scripture" did that.

What I'm saying is that , so long as there are bits which are wrong, you can't trust the whole thing.

Scripture - as a whole- is untrustworthy- even though bits of it are right.

 

If I says I don't trust a politician, I'm not saying he never tells the truth, I'm saying he sometimes lies.

 

Re "The bible is like the second trio, but the first trio is NOT its negation."

Once again, nobody said it was, so that's another strawman you are arguing about.

Similarly "If Jesus saying something wrong"

Who mentioned him?

Oh, it's another strawman.

 

Re

"Just because you can't figure out how what I'm saying applies to what you've said doesn't make it a strawman."

No, showing that it can't apply- for example, because nobody had mentioned Jesus or

 

 

You still aren't getting the negation thing. I'll stop

 

The fact that *you* didn't lump hundreds of authors and dozens of books written over a thousand years together makes your willingness to throw them all in the same bag all the more odd.

 

 

I don't know why you're talking about "a policeman". The analogy would be:

 

'If I can show that some police lied then all police are untrustworthy.'

When someone says "there are a lot of different police who act very differently" you can say,

 

'I didn't group them together. Somebody else did that. The whole force is untrustworthy'

I truly believe that in any other area you would see the problem, but when you're doing it on the topic of religion you can't. All police scripture are untrustworthy if some are shown false? I'm afraid I'll just have to respectfully disagree.

When the group of books is full of contradictions between them then it makes the accuracy of each questionable at best.

 

Which group of books? There are many libraries that contain many groupings of books. Is it just the bible that follows this principle?

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You still aren't getting the negation thing. I'll stop

 

I don't know why you're talking about "a policeman". The analogy would be:

The negation thing doesn't get you anywhere so I'm glad you have stopped.

I didn't talk about a policeman.

 

And, I'm just talking about one politician. If he says things that are not true then you can't trust him.

 

The bad analogy you have come up with would be something like "if I can't trust Mr Cameron because he repeatedly says things that are untrue, does that mean that his whole party is untrustworthy?"

Well, they elected him as leader...

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.

I truly believe that in any other area you would see the problem, but when you're doing it on the topic of religion, you can't.

 

You can not, or will not, see the difference between

1" all policemen acting as individuals can't be trusted" and

2 " The police as a whole can't be trusted".

If it shown that some police lie then I'm sure we agree that this does not prove the first assertion.

 

But it does prove the second one.

If you know that (at least) some police tell lies, can you trust a police report?

 

Or do you accept that it may have been written by a bent copper- so you can't rely on it to be honest?

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In fairness, we question ALL scientists claims, whether they are theists or not. The point, I think, is that seeing claims from a theist might warrant further checking and motivate the need for additional corroboration.

So now we are going to warrant further credibility checks for Theistic scientists and less for Atheistic scientists just because of difference in beliefs...

 

EDIT: So your saying because I am a theist that you would double check my mathematical works even though if the same were done by an Atheistic mathematician it would supposedly not require more credibility checks...

 

Sounds like now we are being more discriminatory...

Edited by Unity+
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I didn't talk about a policeman.

Police, politicians, whatever... we might as well be talking about...

 

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.

Fine, apples.

 

Once you can show that some bits are wrong, you have shown that all of it is untrustworthy.

Rhetorically speaking, one rotten apple does not spoil the bushel.

 

What you're doing is a fallacy -- throwing the baby out with the bathwater, arguing guilt by association... hasty generalization... law of small numbers (I'm having fun thinking of how many names your fallacy has)... uhh... oh! Just one apple: that's a fallacy of the lonely fact.

 

The bible consists of nearly 70 books written by hundreds of people over hundreds of years. Thinking that showing "some bits" wrong will make it all untrustworthy is a very obvious fallacy.

 

Your sample is heterogeneous, and your sample size is absurdly small (so far you've given one verse that probably wasn't even wrong -- it was a poetical idiom)

 

You can not, or will not, see the difference between

1" all policemen acting as individuals can't be trusted" and

2 " The police as a whole can't be trusted".

If it shown that some police lie then I'm sure we agree that this does not prove the first assertion.

 

But it does prove the second one.

If you know that (at least) some police tell lies, can you trust a police report?

 

Or do you accept that it may have been written by a bent copper- so you can't rely on it to be honest?

I'm going to say that a few lying cops proves neither the first nor the second, and I'll do my best to prove it by changing the word "police" to "Scotsman" in the spirit of the 'no true Scotsman' rhetorical hurdles I see being thrown down.

 

Your quote with "Scotsman" replacing "policeman"...

 

You can not, or will not, see the difference between

  1. "all Scotsmen acting as individuals can't be trusted" and
  2. "The Scottish as a whole can't be trusted".

If it is shown that some Scots lie then I'm sure we agree that this does not prove the first assertion.

 

But it does prove the second one.

 

If you know that (at least) some Scots tell lies, can you trust a Scottish newspaper ?

 

Or do you accept that it may have been written by a bent Scotsman -- so you can't rely on it to be honest?

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. Showing a few verses in the bible wrong doesn't make the other thirty thousand untrustworthy -- individually or as a group. Each verse, each chapter, each author, each book, each police, politician, and Scotsman stand on their own.

Edited by Iggy
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So now we are going to warrant further credibility checks for Theistic scientists and less for Atheistic scientists just because of difference in beliefs...

Depends on the topic, I suppose. In biology and the subject of evolution, yes. Further scrutiny is probably warranted. In maths, probably not.

 

 

EDIT: So your <sic> saying because I am a theist that you would double check my mathematical works even though if the same were done by an Atheistic mathematician it would supposedly not require more credibility checks...

Probably not since maths doesn't tend to be a subject attacked and misrepresented due to religious worldview or ideology. See above.
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Police, politicians, whatever... we might as well be talking about...

 

Fine, apples.

 

Rhetorically speaking, one rotten apple does not spoil the bushel.

 

What you're doing is a fallacy -- throwing the baby out with the bathwater, arguing guilt by association... hasty generalization... law of small numbers (I'm having fun thinking of how many names your fallacy has)... uhh... oh! Just one apple: that's a fallacy of the lonely fact.

 

The bible consists of nearly 70 books written by hundreds of people over hundreds of years. Thinking that showing "some bits" wrong will make it all untrustworthy is a very obvious fallacy.

 

Your sample is heterogeneous, and your sample size is absurdly small (so far you've given one verse that probably wasn't even wrong -- it was a poetical idiom)

 

I'm going to say that a few lying cops proves neither the first nor the second, and I'll do my best to prove it by changing the word "police" to "Scotsman" in the spirit of the 'no true Scotsman' rhetorical hurdles I see being thrown down.

 

Your quote with "Scotsman" replacing "policeman"...

 

You can not, or will not, see the difference between

  1. "all Scotsmen acting as individuals can't be trusted" and
  2. "The Scottish as a whole can't be trusted".

If it is shown that some Scots lie then I'm sure we agree that this does not prove the first assertion.

 

But it does prove the second one.

 

If you know that (at least) some Scots tell lies, can you trust a Scottish newspaper ?

 

Or do you accept that it may have been written by a bent Scotsman -- so you can't rely on it to be honest?

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. Showing a few verses in the bible wrong doesn't make the other thirty thousand untrustworthy -- individually or as a group. Each verse, each chapter, each author, each book, each police, politician, and Scotsman stand on their own.

You forgot to answer this

If you know that (at least) some police tell lies, can you trust a police report?

It's a simple matter of "yes" or "no".

(actually it's a simple matter of "no" really. Without other evidence you can't trust it)

My next question would be : what use is a police report if you can't trust it?

I think the answer is "not much"

That's why society takes a very dim view of bent coppers.

(On the other hand, we pretty much expect the newspapers to lie to us)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Starr#.22Freddie_Starr_ate_my_hamster.22

The reason why we are particularly annoyed about dishonest police is that they are in a position of authority and trust.

But a lying one undermines the whole system.

 

Now, consider some collection of scriptures that's known to have errors.

Scripture ought to have a far higher level of trust than the police (in much the same way that the police should be more trustworthy than the papers).

 

So, if it's known to be wrong, is it any use?

If so, what use is it?

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You forgot to answer this

If you know that (at least) some police tell lies, can you trust a police report?

It's a simple matter of "yes" or "no".

 

Without evidence of credibility, I don't presume that a report is trustworthy, and I don't presume that it is untrustworthy. It would depend completely on the report and the person who wrote it.

 

It's like asking "if you know that some people who work for NASA beat their wives, can you trust a report by NASA?"

 

 

My next question would be : what use is a police report if you can't trust it?

 

An untrustworthy police report is useful for the defense and defendant. In the US we would call it Brady evidence -- evidence that would impeach the credibility of the officer that wrote it -- exculpatory for the defendant and inculpatory for the prosecution.

 

 

Now, consider some collection of scriptures that's known to have errors.

Scripture ought to have a far higher level of trust than the police (in much the same way that the police should be more trustworthy than the papers).

 

Scripture has no authority over me and I refuse to treat it differently from any other ancient anthology.

Edited by Iggy
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