Religious.

What does that mean? What does it mean to say that someone is Christian, for instance? If you are Christian, then you are pretty much in agreement with every other Christian, right? Well not so much. At least, it seems there are important distinctions to the people on the British isles.

Christians are not uniform. Remember when it was a big deal that JFK was Catholic? remember how he assured everyone that his catholocism wouldn't interfere with his presidency? No?



Refresher.

That's because it wasn't accepted that Christian was a blanket statment which covered every sect. It's how Mitt Romney gets a pass on his crazy Mormon beliefs.

But what about our list of scientists who are religious?
What did it mean to them?

Lets take a look at one of the big ones on this list.

Sir. Isaac Newton. He was indeed religious, but hold on Christians... you might not want to claim him just yet.

Did you know for instance that he was antitrinitarian? That means he didn't believe in the divinity of the "holy ghost" and... your buddy Jesus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newt ... ious_views

Robert Tulip wrote:Doulos continues a strategy of evasion and deceit to conceal the lack of content in his argument. That is why I have found his remarks frustrating.

Evasion: I have repeatedly asked him to back up his assertions of definitive early citation of the Gospels. I looked at his sources and found they did not say what he asserts. He ignores my requests to back up his claims. When you are asked to justify a claim, doing so is not "spam". Not doing so creates the suspicion of evasion.

Deceit: Doulos says he has demonstrated that my criticism are disproven. But when I ask him to justify this assertion, he resorts to evasion. His latest post is again deceitful, as most of my criticisms of Christian apologists that he takes out of context were very specific and in no way were ad hominem criticisms of Doulos.

When I pointed out that I could not find any backing for his claim that Barnabas cites Mark, his response was not what we would expect in discussion of any normal historical topic, ie to show the evidence for why he made this claim, but to suggest that I "havn't even previously investigated the source material", as though my query can just be brushed off as ignorant.

And now he brazenly repeats the Mark claim again today, even after having ignored my polite request that he justify it.

Ahhh good to be back in school. I had a nice summer off, and now I'm back (work/academia willing)

Robert,

Perhaps instead of trying to court public opinion, it might help if you addressed the subject.

You (not I) made an assertion that there is "absence of definitive early citation" before Irenaeus in 180 AD (see your post Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:16 am).

I gave you 3 texts which include definitive early citation:
- Ignatius (30-110 AD) quotes Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Phillipians, Galatians, Colossians, James, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, and I Peter.
- 'Epistle of Barnabas' (dated 70-130 AD) cites Matthew, and Mark
- 'Shepherd of Hermas' (dated 80-90 AD) cites John, the synoptic Gospels, Ephesians, 1 Peter, Hebrews, James and the Book of Revelations.

You attempted to deal with ONE of them, thus leaving two which you have not been able to address. Any of the three would disprove your point. Even your attempt to deal with Barnabas was severely flawed, since all you demonstrated was that you were unclear what citation means in a classical setting. Perhaps you could articulate: What do you mean by 'citation' (in other words, what would it look like)?

Instead of trying to direct me away to new lines of conversation, I've merely asked you to deal with this issue first. You have two completely unaddressed sources which disprove your point, without even dealing with the validity of your Barnabas critique. It isn't evasion to say, please deal with the unanswered questions first before trying to jump to new topics. It may even look like you're evading when you keep trying to change the subject


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Ad Hom:
(Robert Tulip wrote) " in no way were ad hominem criticisms of Doulos."
Well, I'm glad that you don't consider calling someone ""pathetic", "Goggle eyed apologist", "Garbage", "flimsy straw-clutching", "Gospel tinted apologist glasses" to be personal attacks, but rather normal intellectual criticisms.

Hi Inter,

I was responding to Geo's post where he holds up belief in God and contrasts it with 'critical thinking.'

If you'd like to propose a different opposite to critical thinking, that's fine. I felt that 'illogical' thinking was the best fit, but that's open for discussion.

Illogic is the opposite of logic, but not of critical thinking. Logic is a component of critical thinking, so illogic would be a component of it's opposite. But there is more to it than that.

I also think that to believe in a god necessarily requires that you break from critical thinking, at least at certain points in the chain of reasoning. A fully critical evaluation leads to the agnostic conclusion at the very least, and depending on which epistemic virtues you hold highest, can lead to atheism.