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Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

#88: Sept. - Oct. 2010 (Non-Fiction)
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stahrwe

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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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Chris OConnor wrote:Robert Wright answered all of the email questions! I'll post them soon. :-)

Yes, even yours Stahrwe. :P
Glad to hear it. Perhaps my opinion of him will change, but I doubt it.
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stahrwe

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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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I have to say that I didn't expect much from Robert Wright in terms of an answer to my question but his response surprised me in that it was even less than I expected. TEoG is about changes in the perception of god over time. Certainly the story of Abram/Abraham is second only to the story of Jesus in importance with respect to that perception. Wright ignored the story in his book and he ignored my question. His answer was no answer and those reading this who have an honest disposition regardless of their personal beliefs will agree with me.
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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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He gave you the same answer others gave you Stahrwe:

"If the revelation to Abraham didn’t happen, then how could it be the origin of monotheism?"

Your starting position is that the story is true. That is an axiom to all your further reasoning. But there is no support for the story. How can you build up an explanation of historical happenings based completely on an unsupported story? This is an instance of faith not mixing with reason.
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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to Robert Wright for going to the time and trouble of answering our questions and to Chris for setting this up.
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
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stahrwe

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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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Interbane wrote:He gave you the same answer others gave you Stahrwe:

"If the revelation to Abraham didn’t happen, then how could it be the origin of monotheism?"

Your starting position is that the story is true. That is an axiom to all your further reasoning. But there is no support for the story. How can you build up an explanation of historical happenings based completely on an unsupported story? This is an instance of faith not mixing with reason.
In TEoG Wright makes references to many things in the Bible which he said did not happen. Some of the things he said weren't in the Bible actually were. I pointed out a number of those errors before I was censored. In the case of Abram/Abraham the fact that Wright did not believe the Biblical story is NO excuse for his failure to address it. Abraham is one of the Five major people central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In fact, I believe that the reason he omitted it was because it negated the need for 300 pages of his book.

Wright's answer was worse than lame.
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In the case of Abram/Abraham the fact that Wright did not believe the Biblical story is NO excuse for his failure to address it.
Actually, it's not only an excuse, but an unassailable reason. The story of Abraham never happened. Therefore, there is no reason to address it. That's all there is to it Stahrwe. The true criticism should be against yourself. Just because you believe the story, doesn't mean Wright must address it. Only if you believe it based on evidence and reason would Wright not be justified in ignoring it. But that's not the case. You only have faith.
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Interbane wrote:
In the case of Abram/Abraham the fact that Wright did not believe the Biblical story is NO excuse for his failure to address it.
Actually, it's not only an excuse, but an unassailable reason. The story of Abraham never happened. Therefore, there is no reason to address it. That's all there is to it Stahrwe. The true criticism should be against yourself. Just because you believe the story, doesn't mean Wright must address it. Only if you believe it based on evidence and reason would Wright not be justified in ignoring it. But that's not the case. You only have faith.
How does Wright know that Abraham never existed? And even if he didn't I addressed that in my complaint. What fallacy is it when YOU ignore the obvious?

By your logic Wright should have not included anything about Jesus either.
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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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Stahrwe would have a point, that the Western religions are known as the Abrahamic faiths, yet Wright does not discuss Abraham much in his book, except Abraham has 15 index mentions and Abrahamic tradition has 36.

If we think of Abraham and Sarah as mythic mutations from the Vedic Brahma and Sarasvati, among a population who moved to Israel after the change of direction of the Sarasvati River sent refugees west from India in about 2000 BC, then it opens up big questions about the evolution of God.

Especially, if Hebraic religion came from India, it reflects that linguistic connections between different Indo-European faiths have a deep root in common ancestry, and we may be able to trace some of the monotheistic impulse to Hindu origins.
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How does Wright know that Abraham never existed?
Does Wright claim Abraham never existed? I wouldn't make that claim, but I would certainly make the claim that much of the story attributed to him was fabricated. Where is the evidence that the revelation to Abraham happened?
Stahrwe would have a point, that the Western religions are known as the Abrahamic faiths, yet Wright does not discuss Abraham much in his book, except Abraham has 15 index mentions and Abrahamic tradition has 36.
The question was specifically about the call of Abraham. Wright says: "And, anyway, the story of Abraham seems to have been handed down through the generations orally for a long time. And stories like that tend to be unreliable." What more of an answer could you ask for? The story is unreliable, thus is not a more parsimonious explanation. I think it's a good idea to scale back the use of parsimony as well.

From Wikipedia:
"When scientists use the idea of parsimony, it only has meaning in a very specific context of inquiry. A number of background assumptions are required for parsimony to connect with plausibility in a particular research problem. The reasonableness of parsimony in one research context may have nothing to do with its reasonableness in another. It is a mistake to think that there is a single global principle that spans diverse subject matter.[10]
As a methodological principle, the demand for simplicity suggested by Occam’s razor cannot be generally sustained. Occam’s razor cannot help toward a rational decision between competing explanations of the same empirical facts. One problem in formulating an explicit general principle is that complexity and simplicity are perspective notions whose meaning depends on the context of application and the user’s prior understanding. In the absence of an objective criterion for simplicity and complexity, Occam’s razor itself does not support an objective epistemology.[9]
The problem of deciding between competing explanations for empirical facts cannot be solved by formal tools. Simplicity principles can be useful heuristics in formulating hypotheses, but they do not make a contribution to the selection of theories. A theory that is compatible with one person’s world view will be considered simple, clear, logical, and evident, whereas what is contrary to that world view will quickly be rejected as an overly complex explanation with senseless additional hypotheses. Occam’s razor, in this way, becomes a “mirror of prejudice.”[9]
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Re: Email interview with Robert Wright! Ask questions here.

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stahrwe wrote:I have to say that I didn't expect much from Robert Wright in terms of an answer to my question but his response surprised me in that it was even less than I expected. TEoG is about changes in the perception of god over time. Certainly the story of Abram/Abraham is second only to the story of Jesus in importance with respect to that perception. Wright ignored the story in his book and he ignored my question. His answer was no answer and those reading this who have an honest disposition regardless of their personal beliefs will agree with me.
Honesty=agreeing with stahrwe.
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