Then do it.
In other words, you are unwilling, or unable, to defend your accusation of me employing failed logic.
The civil war. The holocaust. The existence of the temple. The existence of a person by the name of mohamed (he was believed to have led an entire nation; and his life was commemorated by all of the laws of islam).
All I need to do is provide one. Le’s focus on the Temple. The Jews believe that millions of their ancestors visited the temple, in jerusalem, where they sacrificed animals, and lit a menorah. The existence of the temple was commemorated by the holidays of hanukah and tisha bav.
There isn’t a single scholar on the globe who believes that there never was a temple in jerusalem.
Scientology has over 100,000 members. In fact, as of 2007, they claim 3.5 million. The Mormons claim 4.9 million in the US alone. Both Hubbard and Smith managed to convince even your higher number. Still, it proves nothing about their claims.
Mr. Derer, let me intervene with a few tidbits about what I personally believe.
First things first, I do believe in God – to the extent of how one defines “God”, at least. In any given scenario, “God” can be anyone or anything you choose Him (or Her) to be, and one thing that Pascal’s Wager does get right is if “God” exists, and has the authority to really mess things up for you, then you’d better get down on your knees and pray, or submit to His/Her authority, or at least play ball.
For example…when you argue with a Moderator, especially one who is officially in Moderation Mode – You are talking to God. Get it?
Just sayin’ is all.
To the extent that there is any confidence that these events really happened, it is because they have been verified individually by external evidence. Putting them in a category of National Myth/Whatever You Fancy says nothing about their verifiability. They are not considered true because of whatever new category you have created. And putting them together in a group does not transfer their verifiability from one event to another – they still must be individually evaluation.
Again, putting a name on something like “National Myth” does not make something self-verifying.
Yes. People’s beliefs are very often wrong. About half of america are republicans and half are democrats. That means that about half of us are wrong about the direction this country should go.
You can convince people about many things. People trust people, especially if they are charismatic. But can you convince people to accept a false story about nationally-experieced, nationally-commemorated event? I have no reason to assume that that is possible. It hasn’t happened once.
Wrong. The fact that all national events happen to be true cannot be by mere chance. The odds of all national beliefs about national events turning out to be true is not an accident. Rather - and common sense agrees with this - people’s beliefs about national events are always true. People know enough about their history not to accept a false national event.
You can’t say “all” national commemorated events are true when you’re claiming there is only one of them.
I am not here to impress anyone or to curry favor with any “moderator.” If someone calls what many millions of people consider to be the best proof for existence of God “failed logic”, and then himself fails to logically back up his claim, then I will call him out on it.
[Moderating]
Discussions of moderating do not belong in this forum, abele derer. This will be your last instruction to drop this.
[/Moderating]
Cite that “millions of people” believe this? The “best proof” comment was made by one person (at most) and it was phrased as a question.
Every sentence of this is fallacy. If this is where your reasoning begins and ends, you have nothing.
abele derer, do yourself a favor and read this.
And yet the Biblical account is replete with prophet after prophet after prophet chiding the nation for forgetting and disregarding Divine commandments. Apparently the Teeming Millions of the day didn’t find the miracles allegedly witnessed by millions of their ancestors to be terribly convincing.
Wait, do you mean The War of Northern Aggression?
The one that was fought to free the slaves, or the one that was fought to protect state’s rights?
I think you’re going to find that a mere 150 years later interpretation of what really happened depends heavily on who you’re talking to, where they are from, and what they hope to gain by commemorating it.
Which again torpedoes your argument, not that there’s much left to torpedo. Really all that’s left is a guy hanging on to a floating coffin.
Wouldn’t Columbus discovering America be a “nationally experienced” (there’s a holiday), “heavily commemorated” (there are parades) myth that is now pretty much accepted as false.
This whole argument about National Myths being grouped together and transferring their verified credibility to each other reminds me of those mortgage backed securities that crammed together low value high risk mortgages along with better investments and somehow came through with high ratings. Junk is still junk, even if you bundle it with gold and diamonds.
An additional problem with the Civil War as supportive of his argument is that there is so much other actual evidence that goes along with it that survives to this day. Like pictures, handwritten accounts, letters, uniforms, families who lost members in the war, armament, and battlefield evidence that may still be found today in the areas where battles were supposed to have taken place.
It’s not at all a good example in support of the argument that lots of people believing something is evidence that it is true.
I guess I should’t have been that disrepectful to the moderator; I guess I lost my cool. He’s just trying to do his job.
A couple of points must be made about the nationally-commemorated, nationally-experienced sinai history.
First, I never heard that Columbus discovering America is considered a myth. I was under the impression that this was true. Either way, it isn’t relevant to the sinai history, since Columbus’ voyage wasn’t experienced by an entire nation.
Second, regarding the Civil War – that some claim that it was the north’s aggressive war. I agree that history can be interpreted in various ways, but that doesn’t show me how a national event which never happened can later be believed to have happened.
Many people are stuck on the fact that archeology shows that the Exodus never happened (I am not an expert in archeology; so I can only do my best to show why I think Kuzari is compelling). Here are three archeological finds that back up the historicity of the Exodus:
- The only place in the entire Bible which describes women giving birth “on stones” is in Exodus 1:16. Indeed, archeologists have discovered that Egyptian women gave birth on two “birthstones”.
- The Bible discribes the Egyptian deity as being a sheep (See, e.g., Genesis 46:34). which is why during the Exodus God asked them to slaughter the Passover sheep. Indeed, according to archeology, the Egyptian god Atum (the highest god of that time), was depicted as a ram.
- Frank Yurco, a writer and an expert on archeology writes: “A question must be asked regarding Ramesses and Pithom, the cities on which the Hebrews labored, according to Exodus. Why did the [imaginary] biblical editors or redactors refer specifically to Ramesses, when in their own era and for some three centuries earlier the capital of Egypt had been Tanis, a city well known and often referred to in the Old Testament? From the Book of Judges onwards, Tanis is consistently referred to as Egypt’s capital. Why would a biblical editor insert Ramesses into a newly composed story when that city no longer existed in Egypt and had not been Pharaoh’s residence or the capital for the previous four to five centuries?”
abele derer, you keep ignoring arguments when they become inconvenient. Why should anybody bother discussing this with you if you’re just going to change the subject when you don’t have a counterargument?