The trilemma – heretofore reduced to a dilemma, but we can subdivide the possibility of fraudulence into innocent insanity (he believed his own lies) and malicious duplicitousness (he did not) – is a false trichotomy. There is the very obvious possibility that the claims to divinity attributed to Jesus are the product of mythmaking in the aftermath of his death and the early Christian period. Not only is this undeniably logically possible, but, given what we know about both human psychology (the problems of memory, rumor, wishful thinking, paritcularly in a time before the age of reason) and mythmaking vis-a-vis other historical events, it is positively plausible.
It is not even the case that a person telling a lie is necessarily an evil fraud. See Guido Orefice.
By the way, when Push says that “[atheists] adopted the code created by the One they insist doesn’t exist,” he is implying that god’s existence is a simple fact. Though I don’t agree and furthermore think that such a proposition hasn’t been evidenced in the slightest, it doesn’t bother me at all…because I understand that it’s what he genuinely and in good faith believes. I’m not going to fling shit at Push for committing the unforgivable sin of claiming something with which I disagree. This being pertinent to the stupid little tantrum thrown by Pat in response to Hawking’s claim that god does not exist and science can explain the universe without philosophy or theology.
If my saying that god does not exist is too much for someone to handle, then that someone needs a mirror more than anything else. If a stranger tells me that the sky is red, I will laugh and wish him as happy a life as he can achieve in his madness – because I know that the sky is blue. If, instead, I were to react with bitter venom, perhaps the sky’s redness is already inside of me, deep down, spreading itself like a rumor through my worries and fears.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
The trilemma – heretofore reduced to a dilemma, but we can subdivide the possibility of fraudulence into innocent insanity (he believed his own lies) and malicious duplicitousness (he did not) – is a false trichotomy. There is the very obvious possibility that the claims to divinity attributed to Jesus are the product of mythmaking in the aftermath of his death and the early Christian period. Not only is this undeniably logically possible, but, given what we know about both human psychology (the problems of memory, rumor, wishful thinking, paritcularly in a time before the age of reason) and mythmaking vis-a-vis other historical events, it is positively plausible.
It is not even the case that a person telling a lie is necessarily an evil fraud. See Guido Orefice.[/quote]
Just what I was thinking, and I could not have put it better.
There is a big difference between being a huge fraud, and having a huge fraud perpetrated in your name.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
The trilemma – heretofore reduced to a dilemma, but we can subdivide the possibility of fraudulence into innocent insanity (he believed his own lies) and malicious duplicitousness (he did not) – is a false trichotomy. There is the very obvious possibility that the claims to divinity attributed to Jesus are the product of mythmaking in the aftermath of his death and the early Christian period. Not only is this undeniably logically possible, but, given what we know about both human psychology (the problems of memory, rumor, wishful thinking, paritcularly in a time before the age of reason) and mythmaking vis-a-vis other historical events, it is positively plausible.
It is not even the case that a person telling a lie is necessarily an evil fraud. See Guido Orefice.[/quote]
Just what I was thinking, and I could not have put it better.
There is a big difference between being a huge fraud, and having a huge fraud perpetrated in your name. [/quote]
A rather misguided group of fraudsters in that case. Typically you’re trying to gain something besides persecution and even martyrdom.
No, it’s most likely Christ was the Christ, or a loon.
And why stop with Christ’s claim of divinity? Maybe the fraudsters made up the whole “charity” part of Christ’s message too. Heck, maybe he was a pretty stingy fella.
To believe in and follow something you believe in.
Or, believe in and follow something you don’t believe in. And, not believing in it, have the audacity to leverage it in judging what others do believe (like, really believe) in. I mean, if you know you’re standards are your own personal fantasy…
And how does one judge a Pat Robertson? A Rick Santorum? Hawkins’ cold dead universe doesn’t judge them any less worthy than Hawkins himself. A brilliant physicist is no more inherently ‘graced’ in the universe. We could choose to live like the Taliban, the Amish, a Monastery, or like a race made up entirely of Hawkins and Dawkins clones. Neither would be right or wrong in Hawkins’ universe.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
A rather misguided group of fraudsters in that case. Typically you’re trying to gain something besides persecution and even martyrdom.
No, it’s most likely Christ was the Christ, or a loon.
And why stop with Christ’s claim of divinity? Maybe the fraudsters made up the whole “charity” part of Christ’s message too. Heck, maybe he was a pretty stingy fella.[/quote]
If the mythmaking scenario is true, it almost certainly entails lots of True Belief on the part of the mythmakers. The untruthful are not always, maybe even not often also the cynical. This is why I mentioned psychology and memory and wishful thinking, particularly in an age when myth and science were one. Throw in some outright fraud and you have yourself a deity. According to this hypothetical, I mean.
As for Jesus’ charity, you may be right. Or not. We don’t know, and we won’t ever. Unless your religion is the Truth, in which case we will all know, some happily and some not.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
A rather misguided group of fraudsters in that case. Typically you’re trying to gain something besides persecution and even martyrdom. [/quote]
An excellent point.
What did Saul of Tarsus gain? Would you say it was more or less than he would have gained as a low-ranking Pharisee enforcer?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Any who, I have to wonder which is more odd
To believe in and follow something you believe in.
Or, believe in and follow something you don’t believe in. And, not believing in it, have the audacity to leverage it in judging what others do believe (like, really believe) in. I mean, if you know you’re standards are your own personal fantasy…
And how does one judge a Pat Robertson? A Rick Santorum? Hawkins’ cold dead universe doesn’t judge them any less worthy than Hawkins himself. A brilliant physicist is no more inherently ‘graced’ in the universe. We could choose to live like the Taliban, the Amish, a Monastery, or like a race made up entirely of Hawkins and Dawkins clones. Neither would be right or wrong in Hawkins’ universe.[/quote]
This is a popular misstatement that grows out of something that is true. Physicalists do often incorrectly believe in objective good and evil, but theists tend to go too far in the other direction when they make this point.
Right and wrong exist in Dawkins’ world. They are, for him, constructions of a mammalian mind, shaped in accordance with that mind’s evolution over time. Do not make the mistake of believing that something which I decide, without appeal to objective truth, I want – and want to enforce – does not exist. It does. The world is full of dead bodies made so by subjective human ukase, and what does not exist cannot kill.
So, yes, right exists in Hawking and Dawkins’ worlds. The question is whether what is “right” is subjective vis-a-vis Hawking, or subjective vis-a-vis god. But in neither case is it less real than the other. Note that “real” and “authoritative” are not synonyms.
Oh, and Hawking’s “cold dead universe” does absolutely judge worth and unworth. He, after all, is a part of that universe, and therefore, inasmuch as he has ever called something good, the universe has.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
A rather misguided group of fraudsters in that case. Typically you’re trying to gain something besides persecution and even martyrdom. [/quote]
An excellent point.
What did Saul of Tarsus gain? Would you say it was more or less than he would have gained as a low-ranking Pharisee enforcer?[/quote]
So, yes, right exists in Hawking and Dawkins’ worlds. The question is whether what is “right” is subjective vis-a-vis Hawking.[/quote]
This is like saying there is a “right” or “bad” favorite color.[/quote]
Not really, for all sorts of analogical reasons I don’t want to get into. But the point stands either way: you cannot say that right does not exist in Hawking’s world. It does, emphatically.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Oh, and Hawking’s “cold dead universe” does absolutely judge worth and unworth. He, after all, is a part of that universe, and therefore, inasmuch as he has ever called something good, the universe has.[/quote]
[quote]Sloth wrote:
A rather misguided group of fraudsters in that case. Typically you’re trying to gain something besides persecution and even martyrdom. [/quote]
An excellent point.
What did Saul of Tarsus gain? Would you say it was more or less than he would have gained as a low-ranking Pharisee enforcer?[/quote]
Yes. Even assuming that it’s true that he was martyred – well, fraudsters are by definition willing to assume great risk. And he may have been wrong and yet still not a cynical fraud.
So, yes, right exists in Hawking and Dawkins’ worlds. The question is whether what is “right” is subjective vis-a-vis Hawking.[/quote]
This is like saying there is a “right” or “bad” favorite color.[/quote]
Not really, for all sorts of analogical reasons I don’t want to get into. But the point stands either way: you cannot say that right does not exist in Hawking’s world. It does, emphatically.[/quote]
It does not. I challenge you to show me where Hawking wrote up a mathematical model, or looked through a telescope, to provide ANY evidence that RIGHT (in the sense we’re talking about, and not 2+2=4) exists.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Oh, and Hawking’s “cold dead universe” does absolutely judge worth and unworth. He, after all, is a part of that universe, and therefore, inasmuch as he has ever called something good, the universe has.[/quote]
Poetic, but pure nonsense. [/quote]
How is it nonsense? I said nothing of the authority of his judgements, which is where your argument is correct. But you stretch it to existence and nonexistence, and here it crumbles. Of course “good” exists for Hawking. It’s just that it’s what he, by way of various evolutionary and rational and social impulses, decides that it be. This is the very opposite of unreality.
It does not. I challenge you to show me where Hawking wrote up a mathematical model, or looked through a telescope, to provide ANY evidence that RIGHT (in the sense we’re talking about, and not 2+2=4) exists.
[/quote]
Hawking: “‘Right’ is the product of a human mind in subjective (evolutionarily-beneficial, etc.) judgement of events it perceives. I kissed my child goodnight, and this I called right.”
Right – here and under his terms – exists. Undeniably.
