neilgodfrey wrote:Which is why a google search is not necessarily the best form of scholarly inquiry. Search the same terms on Google Scholar and compare your results.
Thanks, that is interesting.
Here is the Google scholar result for solar worship in ancient Israel. The value of Murdock’s work is that she is pioneering new innovative approaches, whereas some scholarly inquiry in these topics is corrupted by theistic belief. It is fair to approach Murdock’s claims with caution in view of the lack of peer review and institutional framework, but small irrelevant mistakes should not be used as grounds for disparaging the core theses of astrotheology.
neilgodfrey wrote:
There is a huge difference between physics and the humanities and social sciences. The comparison is invalid.
The subject matters differ, but that does not at all mean they entirely lack similar methods. Social sciences are entirely able to uncover facts about reality. When social science uses a premise that has been rejected by physical science, such as young earth creationism, it destroys the credibility of all claims resting on the false premise.
My point was that belief in the historical Jesus Christ is just as false as belief in Young Earth Creationism, so Christian liberal theology faces the same scientific problem regarding faulty foundations.
neilgodfrey wrote:
It's a shame you dismiss the bulk of biblical scholarshp (it nearly all, at least in NT/Christian origins studies) assumes the historical existence of Jesus. It's a shame because you have missed so much. I have learned much about "Jewish social traditions", literary critical analysis, etc etc etc through the scholarship you dismiss.
I like theology, and have enjoyed reading writers such as Brunner, Borg, Bonhoeffer, Boff and Barth. But they routinely mix in accurate philosophical and historical reflection together with speculation that is based on tradition rather than on evidence. Sorting the wheat from the weeds, extracting evidence from within tradition, is helped by discounting claims that rest on the pervasive historical assumption that Jesus actually lived. There is still a lot to learn while applying this skeptical rule.
neilgodfrey wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:Ulansey rejects Frank Zindler’s argument that Christ is Avatar of the Age of Pisces, so it is clear that Ulansey has a superficial understanding of precession in religion. This illustrates that scholarly debate on these topics is in its infancy.
Do the actual arguments count for anything or does the fact that he disagrees tell you all you need to know?
Your quoting is selective. Before the sentence you cite, I said “As I have noted in this thread, Ulansey presents an implausible precession theory, linking Mithras to the star group Perseus where a precessional view would have to link him to Aries.” That directly answered your question already, if you understood it, illustrating that your barb missed its target.
neilgodfrey wrote:
A hypothesis can suggest much, but only what is testable, provable, should be presented as what has been tested and proved. That is where you and Murdock jump the rails.
Before making such criticisms, it would help to find specific examples. The standards of proof in Biblical Studies are controversial. Murdock and I have both presented hypotheses about the real origins of Christian ideas. What would be ‘jumping the rails’ to use your image, would be to claim that these hypotheses are more widely understood and accepted than is in fact the case.
Again, we see here an imputation of deception where the reality is more just a difference of opinion. Murdock argues that claims are coherent and sensible within a broader understanding of religious evolution. That is different from providing detailed empirical proof, especially regarding topics where much evidence was deliberately destroyed because it conflicted with dogma.
neilgodfrey wrote:
Newton, Kepler and co all believed heaps of rubbish at the same time they were making brilliant insights. Just because they still were products in so many ways of the remnants of dark ages does not mean we should return to those remnants too.
That comment reminds me of
Freud’s fear that Jung represented a black tide of mud. Kepler was in fact the first recorded user of the phrase ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’. Separating the rubbish from the valuable work in early astronomy and physics is by no means as easy as you suggest.
Your claim is false that the Hermetic ideas informing Kepler and Newton were “remnants of the dark ages”. In fact, these ideas were at the core of the renaissance, the rediscovery of classical science, and had been lost through the dark ages of Christendom. Hermetic ideas provided the framework upon which modern science was built, the shoulders of giants who were ignored after the modern mechanistic consensus had been developed.
neilgodfrey wrote:
we understand by now that you do not practice or view astrology in the same way as it is understood in popular culture; yes, we understand you do not believe your are trying to disguise astrology as science because in your view science means something different from what it means to most of us here and in your mind the question of "disguising as science" does not arise.
I remind readers that my “something different” regarding the meaning of science is that I think scientific claims are true, whereas contributors such as Roger Pearse have
argued in this thread that I am wrong to say science is correct. Roger also said, surprisingly, that scientists have no opinion on whether anything is impossible. But Neil sees fit to make some vague criticism about my philosophy of science just because I say I believe in science. I am perfectly happy to defend my approach to science as a key source of objective truth. If others have a lower regard for what science can accomplish that is their error.
neilgodfrey wrote:
I do not believe that many of the philosophers or scientists you have referred to would think you have properly interpreted or understood them. You mentioned Dawkins recently in the context of a need for reverence for the natural world. Do you really believe he means that in the same sense, with all the same connotations, as you are using it?
Yes, I do have the same sense of reverence for the natural world as Richard Dawkins in terms of wonder at the awesome grandeur of the complexity of evolution. As to connotations, my view is that the ancient Gnostics also shared this same sense of natural wonder and awe, but I suspect that Dawkins has less respect for early thought.
neilgodfrey wrote:
science is value based. But to suggest that it is a guide for ethics or is an ideology is mistaken. Values create and guide the scientific method, not the other way around.
That is an epistemological and ethical error. Modern thought is grounded on the primacy of objective discovery of facts. To suggest that this empirical ground for thinking never functions as an ideology or guide for ethics is ridiculous. We constantly see politicians lambasted over their ethical refusal to give primacy to facts. Science discovers evidence. People routinely assume that it is good to act in accordance with what evidence shows, and bad to ignore or deny evidence. The scientific method of seeking truth from facts is a key guide for values. The honest disputes are about the content of evidence, not whether people should follow the principle of using evidence to guide their decisions and opinions.
neilgodfrey wrote:
How can one know "intent", the mind, of an author apart from a discussion that is limited to structure and comparison with similar or other literary structures -- that is, by means of literary criticism? Your scenario bounces way beyond the evidence.
In the specific example we are discussing, the loaves and fishes miracle, Jesus explains his intent in Mark 8 by noting that the disciples fail to see, hear, understand or remember what he means, and by placing the miracle in the Gnostic context of knowledge and vision. In the parable of the sower, Jesus explains his intent by saying the seed on the path and among thorns and rocks is true teaching that fails to find a receptive hearing and bear fruit, whereas seed in rich soil is allegory for fecund teaching. The intent is explained, and not just by means of structural criticism. With the loaves and fishes, we get a lot more meaning from the text directly than from comparison to its midrashic structural sources.
neilgodfrey wrote:
You are presuming the answer is in your analysis of the evidence. What this is communicating to me is that any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate. That's confirmation bias for starters.
Just quoting this text again, in the context of Neil’s subsequent plea to “please read what I say. I nowhere said “
any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate” is confirmation bias. Again, you seem to only read every second word of any criticism of your approach.” Neil made that request in direct response to my statement “What I was getting at what that you characterised my view that “any explanation that does not mesh with cosmology is wrong or inadequate” as confirmation bias.” I agree this shows it is valuable to read carefully.
neilgodfrey wrote:
Your use of "meme" also worries me. Why not just use "concept", "idea", image? Or mytheme -- something that is part of the acknowledged literature on the way myths are transmitted?
’Meme’ is an important philosophical concept, capturing the evolutionary idea that everything in a growing living system builds on the precedent of what went before. Darwin’s theory of cumulative adaptation applies to ideas as much as to organisms. The idea of Jesus Christ evolved from earlier ideas about salvation and anointing. The point of the theory of memes is to define a temporal logic, a theory of change, explaining the causal path of the emergence of the idea.
For example, the tendency of the Gods of conquered people to return in a subordinate position in a new pantheon illustrates a memetic evolutionary structure in the history of ideas. We are seeing that evolutionary process work its way through now as the obsolete Gods of religion look for a position within the rational scientific pantheon.