Originally posted by: Greyd
Again you are trying to play with semantics trying to distinguish difference between function and purpose where I intended no discrepancy in my statement and exmplanation.
I understand you intended no discrepency in your explanation, but that doesn't change the fact that you are reasoning from a statement of function to a statement of purpose fallaciously. It matters not if the fallacy is unintentional -- it's still a fallacy.
You can believe what you wish but it is pretty blatant what Christ is saying. Possibly a different translation will make the intent more clear to you.
"You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life." (New Living translation) Seems pretty clear what Christ is trying to say. Now is this the ONLY thing that can be taken from Scripture? Absolutely not. Maybe that's where your point of argument lies?
That is a related point, yes, but not the point that I'm making here, specifically. It matters not whether Christ says "Scriptures testify" or "Scriptures point" -- to believe that these state the
purpose of the Bible is to believe something that is not supported by the text. If Christ has said "Scriptures describe astrological events" should we believe that this is the purpose of Scripture? It is true that Scriptures describe them, after all.
Again I assert that your argument comparing Joe and the scriptural statement is a wrong analogy. Again you are resorting to a weak attack using semantics/grammatical structure. It is the SUBJECTS that you are mixing up. One is a overall statement whereas one is a person. To compare these would be like comparing apples and oranges.
Nonsense. The issue has to do with subjects and predicates, and what we can or cannot infer from them. If we cannot infer from "Joe testifies" that the purpose of Joe is to testify then neither can we infer from "Scripture testifies" that the purpose of Scripture is to testify. This was just an example that I supplied to try to make your fallacy more apparent to you. The baseball bat analogy was in fact more apt.
It would be similar to getting angry at a newsletter on cats because it does not recount American Civil War history. It is unreasonable because, while there might be a mention of civil war history somewhere when talking about cats - the intended function of the newsletter is to INFORM ABOUT CATS.
False analogy. Perhaps if the letter about cats contained what appeared to be a complete chronology of continuous events in the Civil War, the two might be comparable. In that case however, it would seem quite clear that at least one purpose of the letter was to chronicle the events of the Civil War. [\q]
This is where the lack of knowledge of different books of the Bible weakens your argument. the Bible is not a complete chronology of continuous events.
Nonsense. How do you think Young Earth Creationists come up with a generally acceptible age of the earth from their interpretation? Geneologies tracing back to Adam, that's how. How that does not amount to a complete chronology of continuous events is beyond me.
Where there are recountings as such - there are also books such as Psalms/Proverbs,etc which do not act as a historical recounting. Additionally, the narrative or poetic structure of some books indicates that they are not intended or written in a similar nature as the "historical" passages or books.
Irrelevant. I think you misunderstood my claim. The Bible contains chronologies -- that is a fact. That it includes OTHER literary features does not subtract that fact.
Even if we were to use your hypothetical newsletter - my disctinction is thus: one purpose you can pull out of the newsletter is a chronicle of civil war events - but it is done in relation to the overall purpose of the newsletter - in some relation to cats. Whether is is a treatise on cats/treatment thereof/history during the Civil war era.
But this is not consistent with your first categorical denial of the Bible's purpose to document history from the beginning of the world. If you had said that one purpose of the Bible was to document history from the beginning of the world, we wouldn't be having this argument, but you said that it wasn't.
Again I disagree. the Bible clearly states what the Bible is about.
The Bible records Christ saying what the Scriptures *DO*, not what their purpose is. For all we know, the Bible is a prop put in place by the trickster god Loki to confuse people and make them believe a false religion. How do you know that this is not the case? How can you claim to know what the purpose of the Bible is when you can't know that it's not intended to deceive people? What you're trying to do is read the mind of God and to speak for Him. Let me remind you that you are not God, and you do not know His mind. Stop posturing yourself like you're God's mouthpiece.
Now is the only purpose? No. But the additional "functions" fall under this general overarching premise. You can use the Bible to press flowers - it would work - but is this the intended function thereof? No.
And how would you know that? No one has eveer established that the only purposes of the Bible would by necessity be described within it.
Again I feel that your sticking point is that you believe what I am saying is the revelation of Christ is the only thing that you can maintain from it - that is NOt my argument. As I stated previously, there are many things you can take from it but they all fall under that overarching purpose.
The claim that I'm arguing against is your claim to know that the purpose of the Bible is not to record history from the beginning of the world. In order to know that, you'd have to either be God, or know His mind to such an extent that the difference between you and God would be nihil.
Here is another scriptural support indicating the OVERARCHING purpose of Scripture.
(John 20:30-31)"Jesus' disciples saw him do many other miraculous signs besides the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life."
Absurd. This talks clearly about the recording of Jesus' alleged miracles, not the entirety of the Bible. In case it escaped your notice, their is a conspicuous absence of documented miracles performed by Jesus in the Old Testament.
Again a misunderstanding of the Scripture.
Again, you pretending that you're God. YOU'RE NOT. Try to keep that in mind.
Specifally in this passage and the ones surrounding it Chapters 24-25, Jesus speaks of the judgement day and if you study the flow of his speaking/parables - He goes from warning to indicating how one should be/act when the judgement day comes. He is underlining the nature of the two disctint groups. If you follow the flow of his speech this is very evident.
Horsefeathers. In Matt 25:31-46 Jesus states explicitly that he will decide who are "the sheep"
because they fed the hungry, cared for the sick, etc and no mention of faith. That describes a necessary and sufficient condition. If you feel that contradicts some other part of scripture, then my point is proven.
Your very argument and the misunderstanding you made highlights the dangers of interpreting a passage out of context.
Bah. You have a different understanding, but you have no basis for claiming that it is the "true" one. Your argument that this passage must harmonize with other parts of scripture begs the question of scripture's internal consistency, and therefore that argument is circular.
Jesus again makes the steament of grace/belief/faith in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." The key word being "believe."
There ya go. A contradiction as plain as day.
And my point was simply that there is one. You asked for it and I gave you one (inter-textual cricticism - which is onjective in nature) Now you don't have to agree or believe it - that's totally up to you.
I think you don't have the foggiest idea what "objective" means of you think inter-textual criticism is objective. There is no objective way to interpret scripture because interpretation of any kind is subjective by its very definition. Interpretation is the discernment of meaning, and meaning, in addition to discernment, is inherently subejctive. If you cannot or will not acknowledge that, then this discussion should shift to a discussion of what terms like "objective" and "subjective" mean, because as it stands right now it appears like you are operating upon a fundamental misunderstanding of them.
Why is simple logic "not going to fly." That is in essence what you are doing with your very own arguments. Whether you argue attacking semantics, grammar or language of the proposed arguments - you are using logic which again as you say can be axioms which are "readjusted to logically deduce mutually contradictory interpretations." Simple logic has been this whole deabte. Your views and mine.
You're not making any sense. Or, more specifically, your response indicates that you haven't comprehended my last response to you. The answer to your question at the top of this paragraph has already been given. It's not that I'm dismissing logic; it's that I'm refuting your implicit claim that "simple logic" leads inexorably to your conclusions. If you're operating on bad premises, then no matter how valid your logic is, your conclusions are very probably false.
How is it trivially true? Yes interpretations can be subjective - but only up to a certain point, especially if you are using inter-textual criticism.
Here one of your bad premises is manifest. There is no such thing as an "objective interpretation." The very idea is incoherent.
You can read Romeo and Juliet and deduce that Romeo was a girl and Juliet was a guy - your interpretation is subjective. However to make such an interpretation would be facetious and ridiculous - and not many people would agree with you. Like I said many times before - you can believe all you want - but you're still wrong.
You can assert that all you want, but it doesn't make you right. Maybe I should also add "neener, neener, neener" to further follow suit with your argument.
It is not oversimplifying to the point of misrepresentation. I was not referring to the Bible - we were discussing inter-textual criticism and the method of studying within context. Again you're reading too deeeply into the analogy and attacking it rather than the idea or argument it debates.
Again- it is only a false analogy in your eyes - because you don't agree as to the Bible's stated purpose.
Blatant question-begging. I.e. "the analogy is apt and demonstrates that my intepretation is correct, but only if you begin by believing that my interpretation is correct."
Coming to the end of this debate I have realized that many of your arguments have spilled over to attacking the method/presentation of the arguments themselves, rather than the core issues.
When all the arguments you present are textbook fallacies, then all I need to do is point them out.
Many of your arguments and statements are similar in mine that you are pretty much saying "well you can believe that, but it is not true..." That's exactly where this argument has gone. I say that its true and you say no contrary to the evidences listed.
LOL. What evidence? The passages you quoted which don't even come close to saying what you want them to say? Your hopeful but fallacious reasoning? Don't be ridiculous.
One thing that I have noticed is that attacking the philosophy and method if discussion or presentation of material is a diversion from the core issue/deabte at best.
But that's not what I did, so your complaint doesn't apply to me.
Like I said in my previous post - when a debate gets to the point where the rebuttals are against the nature or presentation of the arguments themselves - it gets pretty much pointless. It has become an argument of semantics and debating philosphical arguments and strategies. Which is pointless and a huge tangent. With that, I have enjoyed our debate - it was very interesting and lively and I'm glad to see that it was simply a debate and not an all out flamewar
Bye, I guess.
-Garth
