Actual critical thinking courses spend very little time on spotting and naming logical fallacies. That's important in the study of rhetoric, but less important than you might think in the study of basic critical thinking, since most logical fallacies found "in the wild" essentially boil down to a couple of broad cases.
More time is spent on looking at the various types of argument (e.g. normative vs descriptive, dependent vs parallel, inductive vs deductive), emotive language (which is perfectly acceptable if you're actually trying to persuade someone, but isn't an argument by itself), analogies, statistical hypothesis testing and so on.
Don't be silly, nobody is going to impeach Obama for the same reason nobody impeached Bush or Cheney: this is a capability that the other side would also like to have.
You think the power to kill anyone anywhere with no due process is scary in Obama's hands? Imagine it in the hands of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin or Rick Perry. It takes real guts to extrajudicially assassinate an innocent man.
Most people are religious, yes. Most educated people, most philosophical people, most skeptical people, most critically-thinking people, most stupid people and most morally backward people. Hence the difficulty of identifying cause and effect either way.
The Ancient Hebrews didn't believe in an omnipotent deity in the Greek sense, and left no evidence that they believed in (or a least particularly cared about) an afterlife.
The people who wrote the Bible were also men. Christians and Jews both believe this. Roman Catholics believe that the New Testament was written by the Church, and hence its "authority" (to the extent that this word makes any sense) derives from the authority of the Church. You might be confusing the Bible with the Koran, which conservative Muslims believe was divinely dictated.
I'm not sure what your point is in the last paragraph. Pretty much every religion changes as circumstances change; the ones which don't are no longer with us. Just looking at Christianity as an example, even before the Bible was finished being written, it morphed from a fringe Jewish sect into something which incorporated Greek philosophy.
I wish I had a good reference for you, but I don't at the moment. But if it helps, pretty much every secular historian of the period agrees with this assessment.
By "excellent" I mean that it's the explanation which makes most sense to historians of the Ancient Near East.
Of course the story doesn't make a lot of sense to you. You don't live in an early Iron Age society surrounded by cultures which practice child sacrifice, so it's fair to say that you're not the intended target audience.
Actually, you don't see any stonings perpetrated by Christians at all. There's always been a taboo against it, probably because Christians were invariably on the receiving end in the early days.
Ah, so which bits of the Bible have become embarrassing and outmoded today then?
Martin Luther argued that Revelation probably shouldn't have been included. You mean like that?
Personally, I think the laughably unconincing Creation myth should be quietly given the elbow, although that does then rather undermine the idea of an omnipotent Supreme Being doesn't it?
Nice try, but the Hebrews didn't really believe in an omnipotent supreme being in the sense that you probably mean it. Yahweh was the god of the Hebrews, and was constantly in conflict with other gods. It wasn't until the Letter of Jeremiah that the idea of a single deity entered Judaism, and the concept of omnipotence wasn't in Christianity until the full assimilation of Greek philosophy.
I like the creation myth, actually. It's a very beautifully-written poem, and flows well especially if you read it in Hebrew.
I think you have me confused with someone who believes the Bible is the literal word of God and an instruction manual due to His authority. Whatever that's supposed to mean.
I'm far more interested in reality. Some people think it's a perfect divinely-dictated work. They are wrong. Some people think it's an offensive blight on humanity. They are also wrong. It's an eclectic and quirky anthology of texts with a long, complicated history. Unravelling that history is far more interesting than modern day peoples' petty biasses about religion, whether those biasses are pro or anti.
If the text that defines a religion is not to be taken literally, then it loses all meaning. If moral strictures are optional, there's no guidance to be had and no basis for comparison.
Since the text that defines a religion is (directly or indirectly) the word of god, it must be perfect, eternal and immutable or it collapses under the weight of its own flaws.
I don't know where you got that from, because it doesn't apply to most religions. The only one I can think of is Islam, where conservative Muslims do indeed believe that the Koran was divinely dictated.
If you ignore the US-style evangelical Protestants (which are a strict minority worldwide), Christians generally don't even believe that the Bible is "the word of god". Roman Catholics (who are the majority) believe that Christianity is defined by the Church, and Church wrote the Bible (or at least the New Testament) and hence gets to say what it means. Think of that what you will, but it's certainly true that the Church did "produce" the Bible in most meaningful senses.
It might be useful to compare the situation with Greek or Egyptian mythology where there is no single coherent narrative. Ovid and Hesiod, for example, flatly contradict each other in obvious respects. Yet the Greeks went on with their religion regardless.
In Judeo-Christianity, most of the contradictions, flaws and inaccuracies from the external historical record were discovered and pointed out by adherents of the religion. So the hypothetical requirement that the written works on which a religion is based be perfect, eternal and immutable is unreasonable. Most religions get on just fine without it.
This distinguishes it from man-made law, which, like science, is subject to revision as new things are discovered or conditions change.
Are you not aware that most Christian festivals are repurposed Pagan festivals, incorporated into Christianity as it encountered new lands and new peoples? Even before the Bible had finished being written, Christianity changed from a fringe Jewish sect to something which could better survive in the Greek world. Hinduism did something similar, subsuming local religions and deities as it spread, reinterpreting them as aspects of one monotheistic deity.
Religions do indeed change as conditions change. If they don't, they die out. Only a fundamentalist denies the importance of change in religion.
So what's the point of something like the Bible if it's not fundamentallytrue?
Let me put it this way: What's the point of George Orwell's Animal Farm if there wasn't a literal farm literally taken over by literal talking animals?
You might like to track down a copy of Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It might help you understand the point of mythology better.
Having said that: The reason why you should believe Jesus existed is because he almost certainly did. This isn't a controversial position. Pretty much every serious historian of the period, secular or religious, agrees with this statement because that's where the evidence points.
Problem is those actions are warranted and condoned by the foundational texts of the religions.
Congratulations! You constructed a sentence which is simultaneously completely correct, partially correct, completely incorrect and mostly irrelevant. That's quite a feat. (If you're curious about the "partially correct" bit, there's no foundational text of any major world religion which condones a child being driven to suicide for being gay. If you know of one, please provide chapter and verse.)
Even those actions which are condoned (if you wanted to spin it one way) or treated as an unremarkable fact of life in the culture of the day (if you wanted to spin it the other) are also invariably condemned by those same foundational texts.
But the main point is that it's mostly irrelevant. It's only a problem if you're a fundamentalist, which I hope you're not. Some of the things that are warranted and condoned by the foundational texts of the United States include slavery and the only male landowners being allowed to vote. This is only of importance historically, except to the extent that some of the bad bits of US history had socioeconomic implications which have lasted to the present day. Otherwise, it hardly matters for the modern American.
Well, Calvin would certainly agree with you. He thinks the universe was all predestined to happen a certain way, so the people that became Christians and were saved he called the "elect" and damn it sucks to be you if you're not.
One of the ironies of theological history is that Calvin wasn't a Calvinist in the modern sense. It's interesting to consider what Calvin would have said about evolution had it been around in his day. I strongly suspect he'd have been fine with it.
One of the things that he dealt with was the new science of astronomy, which flatly contradicts a literal reading of Genesis 1 and the "water above the firmament". He wrote:
Moses describes the special use of this expanse, “to divide the waters from the waters” from which word arises a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. [...] The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses.
(In Calvin's day, it was believed that Moses wrote Genesis, something that we now know is not true.)
Similarly, in the narrative about the creation of the "greater light" (Sun) and "lesser light" (Moon):
It is well again to repeat what I have said before, that it is not here philosophically discussed, how great the sun is in the heaven, and how great, or how little, is the moon; but how much light comes to us from them. For Moses here addresses himself to our senses, that the knowledge of the gifts of God which we enjoy may not glide away. Therefore, in order to apprehend the meaning of Moses, it is to no purpose to soar above the heavens; let us only open our eyes to behold this light which God enkindles for us in the earth. By this method (as I have before observed) the dishonesty of those men is sufficiently rebuked, who censure Moses for not speaking with greater exactness.
This was written three hundred years before Darwin.
Of course, today's mainline major world religions don't endorse slavery, regard women as property and so on. Religion has also advanced since ancient times. Indeed, many of the moral advances that you cite were developed by religious people.
As a general rule, only fundamentalists believe that religion was set in stone back in the day.
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Actual critical thinking courses spend very little time on spotting and naming logical fallacies. That's important in the study of rhetoric, but less important than you might think in the study of basic critical thinking, since most logical fallacies found "in the wild" essentially boil down to a couple of broad cases.
More time is spent on looking at the various types of argument (e.g. normative vs descriptive, dependent vs parallel, inductive vs deductive), emotive language (which is perfectly acceptable if you're actually trying to persuade someone, but isn't an argument by itself), analogies, statistical hypothesis testing and so on.
I'm not American, you insensitive clod.
If he did that, and you can prove it, then it shouldn't be difficult to convince a jury.
Don't be silly, nobody is going to impeach Obama for the same reason nobody impeached Bush or Cheney: this is a capability that the other side would also like to have.
You think the power to kill anyone anywhere with no due process is scary in Obama's hands? Imagine it in the hands of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin or Rick Perry. It takes real guts to extrajudicially assassinate an innocent man.
Most people are religious, yes. Most educated people, most philosophical people, most skeptical people, most critically-thinking people, most stupid people and most morally backward people. Hence the difficulty of identifying cause and effect either way.
The Ancient Hebrews didn't believe in an omnipotent deity in the Greek sense, and left no evidence that they believed in (or a least particularly cared about) an afterlife.
The people who wrote the Bible were also men. Christians and Jews both believe this. Roman Catholics believe that the New Testament was written by the Church, and hence its "authority" (to the extent that this word makes any sense) derives from the authority of the Church. You might be confusing the Bible with the Koran, which conservative Muslims believe was divinely dictated.
I'm not sure what your point is in the last paragraph. Pretty much every religion changes as circumstances change; the ones which don't are no longer with us. Just looking at Christianity as an example, even before the Bible was finished being written, it morphed from a fringe Jewish sect into something which incorporated Greek philosophy.
I wish I had a good reference for you, but I don't at the moment. But if it helps, pretty much every secular historian of the period agrees with this assessment.
By whom? Fundamentalists, or the mainstream?
By "excellent" I mean that it's the explanation which makes most sense to historians of the Ancient Near East.
Of course the story doesn't make a lot of sense to you. You don't live in an early Iron Age society surrounded by cultures which practice child sacrifice, so it's fair to say that you're not the intended target audience.
Actually, you don't see any stonings perpetrated by Christians at all. There's always been a taboo against it, probably because Christians were invariably on the receiving end in the early days.
Martin Luther argued that Revelation probably shouldn't have been included. You mean like that?
Nice try, but the Hebrews didn't really believe in an omnipotent supreme being in the sense that you probably mean it. Yahweh was the god of the Hebrews, and was constantly in conflict with other gods. It wasn't until the Letter of Jeremiah that the idea of a single deity entered Judaism, and the concept of omnipotence wasn't in Christianity until the full assimilation of Greek philosophy.
I like the creation myth, actually. It's a very beautifully-written poem, and flows well especially if you read it in Hebrew.
Where does the story say that the Hebrew deity "accepts" the sacrifice?
I think you may have skipped a step in the discussion. The "rash promise" is alluding to a different story.
I think you have me confused with someone who believes the Bible is the literal word of God and an instruction manual due to His authority. Whatever that's supposed to mean.
I'm far more interested in reality. Some people think it's a perfect divinely-dictated work. They are wrong. Some people think it's an offensive blight on humanity. They are also wrong. It's an eclectic and quirky anthology of texts with a long, complicated history. Unravelling that history is far more interesting than modern day peoples' petty biasses about religion, whether those biasses are pro or anti.
If the text that defines a religion is not to be taken literally, then it loses all meaning. If moral strictures are optional, there's no guidance to be had and no basis for comparison.
Since the text that defines a religion is (directly or indirectly) the word of god, it must be perfect, eternal and immutable or it collapses under the weight of its own flaws.
I don't know where you got that from, because it doesn't apply to most religions. The only one I can think of is Islam, where conservative Muslims do indeed believe that the Koran was divinely dictated.
If you ignore the US-style evangelical Protestants (which are a strict minority worldwide), Christians generally don't even believe that the Bible is "the word of god". Roman Catholics (who are the majority) believe that Christianity is defined by the Church, and Church wrote the Bible (or at least the New Testament) and hence gets to say what it means. Think of that what you will, but it's certainly true that the Church did "produce" the Bible in most meaningful senses.
It might be useful to compare the situation with Greek or Egyptian mythology where there is no single coherent narrative. Ovid and Hesiod, for example, flatly contradict each other in obvious respects. Yet the Greeks went on with their religion regardless.
In Judeo-Christianity, most of the contradictions, flaws and inaccuracies from the external historical record were discovered and pointed out by adherents of the religion. So the hypothetical requirement that the written works on which a religion is based be perfect, eternal and immutable is unreasonable. Most religions get on just fine without it.
Are you not aware that most Christian festivals are repurposed Pagan festivals, incorporated into Christianity as it encountered new lands and new peoples? Even before the Bible had finished being written, Christianity changed from a fringe Jewish sect to something which could better survive in the Greek world. Hinduism did something similar, subsuming local religions and deities as it spread, reinterpreting them as aspects of one monotheistic deity.
Religions do indeed change as conditions change. If they don't, they die out. Only a fundamentalist denies the importance of change in religion.
So what's the point of something like the Bible if it's not fundamentallytrue?
Let me put it this way: What's the point of George Orwell's Animal Farm if there wasn't a literal farm literally taken over by literal talking animals?
You might like to track down a copy of Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It might help you understand the point of mythology better.
Having said that: The reason why you should believe Jesus existed is because he almost certainly did. This isn't a controversial position. Pretty much every serious historian of the period, secular or religious, agrees with this statement because that's where the evidence points.
Problem is those actions are warranted and condoned by the foundational texts of the religions.
Congratulations! You constructed a sentence which is simultaneously completely correct, partially correct, completely incorrect and mostly irrelevant. That's quite a feat. (If you're curious about the "partially correct" bit, there's no foundational text of any major world religion which condones a child being driven to suicide for being gay. If you know of one, please provide chapter and verse.)
Even those actions which are condoned (if you wanted to spin it one way) or treated as an unremarkable fact of life in the culture of the day (if you wanted to spin it the other) are also invariably condemned by those same foundational texts.
But the main point is that it's mostly irrelevant. It's only a problem if you're a fundamentalist, which I hope you're not. Some of the things that are warranted and condoned by the foundational texts of the United States include slavery and the only male landowners being allowed to vote. This is only of importance historically, except to the extent that some of the bad bits of US history had socioeconomic implications which have lasted to the present day. Otherwise, it hardly matters for the modern American.
What "terrible act"? Are you implying that the story is historical fact? That would be ironic.
On the contrary, it's apparently an excellent explanation. Go ask a historian of the Ancient Near East if you don't believe me.
...and that in turn is a story intended to show that you shouldn't make rash promises. Everyone also knows that.
I see your Tim Minchin and raise you a Buckminster Fuller: "Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking."
Well, Calvin would certainly agree with you. He thinks the universe was all predestined to happen a certain way, so the people that became Christians and were saved he called the "elect" and damn it sucks to be you if you're not.
One of the ironies of theological history is that Calvin wasn't a Calvinist in the modern sense. It's interesting to consider what Calvin would have said about evolution had it been around in his day. I strongly suspect he'd have been fine with it.
One of the things that he dealt with was the new science of astronomy, which flatly contradicts a literal reading of Genesis 1 and the "water above the firmament". He wrote:
Moses describes the special use of this expanse, “to divide the waters from the waters” from which word arises a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. [...] The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses.
(In Calvin's day, it was believed that Moses wrote Genesis, something that we now know is not true.)
Similarly, in the narrative about the creation of the "greater light" (Sun) and "lesser light" (Moon):
It is well again to repeat what I have said before, that it is not here philosophically discussed, how great the sun is in the heaven, and how great, or how little, is the moon; but how much light comes to us from them. For Moses here addresses himself to our senses, that the knowledge of the gifts of God which we enjoy may not glide away. Therefore, in order to apprehend the meaning of Moses, it is to no purpose to soar above the heavens; let us only open our eyes to behold this light which God enkindles for us in the earth. By this method (as I have before observed) the dishonesty of those men is sufficiently rebuked, who censure Moses for not speaking with greater exactness.
This was written three hundred years before Darwin.
Of course, today's mainline major world religions don't endorse slavery, regard women as property and so on. Religion has also advanced since ancient times. Indeed, many of the moral advances that you cite were developed by religious people.
As a general rule, only fundamentalists believe that religion was set in stone back in the day.
Incidentally, 7% is roughly the proportion of Muslims who (notionally) subscribe to Salafism/Wahhabism. Coincidence? Probably.