I have no idea. So does you. So why is that a lie?
So, is it true that the world was created 6000 years ago ? Or that it rests on a stack of turtles ? I don’t think so. Are there any proofs supporting the different claims of the different revealed religions ? No ? No proofs ? So, why should I tell people that A, B, C, are facts when I really don’t know, and common sense strongly suggests they are not ?
Yes, at least of one of them
http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Kuzari_Principle_Intro.htm
I dont know, or believe, that “revealed religions” are true. I believe that one is true, not all of them. I see no reason it should bother me that there are contradictory claims - I believe the others are wrong (but not that people are wrong to believe in them if they are able to perfect their characters through them.) I do know that only one claims public revelation, while the others all claim private revelation.
Erm, no. I should think Hume’s exposition on miracles will suffice here.
Yes, Hume has written something, and the Kuzari has written something. What precisely makes Hume’s point more compelling than the Kuzari’s? Hume says people lying about a miracle is more likely than a miracle, therefore a report of a miracle shouldn’t be believed. This seems to me to apply quite well to personal claims of miracles (although, by the way, I still have trouble with Hume when it’s a person I know very well and trust fully reporting a miracle to me.) I don’t see how it applies to a report of a miracle corroborated by 600,000 people, in a convincing way.
So, you have no proofs and yet you believe that you’re the only one who is right ? Your position strikes me as a bit odd.
That’s an odd response when I posted my proof in a different post on this same thread. In this post I merely mentioned why the argument in that one (the Kuzari principle) doesn’t apply to other “revealed” religions.
There’s never been any such thing.
You posted absolutely no proof. You know, I can just as easily claim that THIS is the only true religion.
Now, the argument that something is true because it is ‘national’ as in “The Kuzari Principle or National Revelation…” is of course a logical fallacy. And as a libertarian, or faux-libertarian and intolerant fanatic if you prefer, I have a tendency to dismiss anything related to nationalism as ‘myth’.
Yes, it would be absurd if that were what it said.
So, what does it say ?
“Gottlieb then goes on to argue that events such as the revelation at Sinai fit the requirements of the Kuzari Principle and so their truth can be deduced merely from the fact that the Jewish people believed they were true.”
Fine logic there…
Suppose I claim that 100 years ago, the entire continent of North America was submerged under water for a period of 5 months, but everyone living there lived by breathing through gills, which then vanished exactly 5 months later when the continent returned to the surface. Suppose I also claim specifically that everyone knew what was happening, and told their children about it, who then told their children, and so on. I then present this claim to you, today. Would you believe it? I tend to think you wouldn’t. You’d point out the obvious absurdity of this claim - if everyone told their children, and so on, you would have heard about it already. This kind of massive event, known to a tremendous community, can’t not have come up in discourse - therefore, a claim about it not supported by such discourse can be rejected.
We know that in the relatively recent past, large portions of the Jews believed this story, and it was found in disparate communities. Thus, either it happened, or the story was introduced at some point after it was supposed to have happened. The person introducing the story, though, would have had to get people to swallow the idea that, even though they had never heard about it, their greatgrandparents had experienced - and been told specifically by God to tell their children, who would tell their children, and so on. If the story were introduced 500 years after it supposedly had happened, it would have been rejected in exactly the way you’d reject the story about the North American continent. Instead, we have evidence that the people believed it. How were they convinced?
Further, the very text of the document in question predicts that no other religion will claim a public revelation - and none has, which includes your flying spagetti monster. Why not? Because it’s an incredibly risky claim, as we saw. It’s the kind of claim that gets laughed at if its false.
Of course, the text also says that there are no fish with fins but no scales, or vice versa, and none have been found yet, but that could be just luck, or else the primitive writers living in the desert could have been fish experts. It also says the pig is the only land animal with split hooves that doesn’t chew it’s cud, and we haven’t found another, but that too could be just luck, I suppose, or the product of some absurd knowledge by men living in the desert.
By the typical means used by all theocracies. But even that is irrelevant. The fact that a group of people believes ‘A’ to be true doesn’t mean ‘A’ is true.
How good is personal memory ?
How good is family memory ?
How good is city memory ?
How good is national memory ?
How good is collectivism ?
Tell a lie. Tell a big lie. Tell it often.
And some have, including islam.
Oh, you didn’t think of that, did you?
No it doesn’t.
No it doesn’t.
Are you claiming that if I tell my story about hte North American continent sinking enough times, you’ll believe it?
Except that Islam doesn’t claim any public revelation other than the public revelation claimed by the Jews. This isn’t a unique claim of public revelation, it’s an attempt to hitch to the credibility of a different religion.
The oral tradition finds nothing in the text that isn’t already logically implied there. But if you insist on something having no reference to the rabbinic tradition, what kind of idiot would write a book that he wants to have accepted and include the sabbatical year? Every 7 years, the land must lay fallow - and God promises to cause a double crop to grow in the 6th year. If a human wrote this, it would be rejected within 6 years, as the human author wouldn’t be able to follow through on it.
No; I’m not a superstitious goat-herder.
Except that it does, IIRC. And what does it matter in the first place? Revelation is not a valid epistemic method.
So you’re saying that because people believe it, it must be true. Great! Scientologists believe all that rot about Xenu; therefore, Xenu exists.
So, what, now you’re claiming the Jews invented the Chewbacca Defense?