Re: Religion and the Natalee Holloway Case

pax wrote:

Just wanted more to see this. Rolls, great post. Thanks. Rolls wrote: "Where's Wabbi?" Last seen asking "who's Dawkins?". Maybe she's reading up on memes. I get the impression that Wabbi is a Creationist/ID'er/Biblical Literalist - ya'know, the entire Universe created in six days in 4004BC, flat earth, sun goes 'round the earth, Flood Arkiology, vengeful God, that sort of thing. I remember reading a (Roman) Catholic theologan who said that Creationism was heretical and created athists by forcing a false dichotomy that to be a good Christian one had to accept obvious falsehoods as literal truth rather than symbolic. By definition faith is belief without proof. And it follows that if you have proof of something you don't need faith - that proof drives out faith. So it seem to me that theists who seek proof of God lack faith, and are missing one of the primary points of Christianity - the importance of faith. The mainstream religions seem to understand this by asking that we simply accept doctrine such as the Holy Trinity, and not try to understand it in a rational or fact-based way. Faith and reason are mutually exclusive. The Shroud of Turin has been mentioned a few times in this thread. Science (or reason) now tells us that the cotton it is woven from was grown about 1000 years after Christ, while despite this some still hold to an article of faith that it was Jesus's burial shround. Should believers be convinced that it's a fraud by science, or should science accept it's a 1000 years older than it is because of believers' faith? Or is it the case that faith and proof run on entirely different trackways, each a world view that doesn't intersect with the other? In the Dover school case believers tried to put their ideas up against science, and came away savaged and discredited. Is this the fault of science, or that theists are trying to do something basically wrong in concept when they decide to argue against science (and invite counter-attack such as Dover and Dawkins)? In the 60's Malcom Muggeridge was asked if the discoveries of sub-atomic physics undermined his belief in God and his reply was that they actually reinforced it because science was demonstrating that God made the world in a vastly more complicated and wonderful way than anyone could have imagined, and (with the exception of Darwin and evolution) most theists for the past 500 years or so have taken Muggeridge's view. So how does this relate to the Holloway case? Quite some time ago now I wrote that the Holloway case had similarities to the Dover school case - that it was another collision between faith and reason. Despite the lack of evidence (in fact in the face of evidence) HMI continue to believe Beth's story whole as an article of faith. Time and again we see Beth making statements that she "knew" so-and-so, frequently calling on "a mother's intuition" to back up her claims. But time and again we have also seen Beth's emphatic statements such as "didn't drink" turn out to be as well founded as the flat earth theory. The other line of thinking has been rational and fact-based, innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and we see this false conflict played out daily. No amount of faith in Beth is ever going to convince those who want evidence, and no amount of evidence is ever going to convince those who believe in the guilt of J2K as an article of faith. So, faced with these two apparently irreconsilable word views, is there any way we can determine which is better suited to bring us the truth? As it happens a central concept of rationality comes from English philosopher and Franciscan theologan, William of Occam (or Ockham or Ocham 1290?-1349) who gave us Occam's razor, viz, that in explaining anything "entities are not to be multiplied without necessity" (i.e the simplest possible explanation is to be preferred). One could argue that theology has been fighting a rearguard action against rationality ever since, and that it is rational science that put a man on the moon, feeds the world and gave us modern medicine and digital watches. But there is a more basic yardstick. Does theology contain a mechanism to falsify itself? Does rationality contain a mechanism to falsify itself? The answer to the first is "no". This is called "heresy" and is punishable by death or exclusion. The Bible simply states that "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God" (Psalm 14:1). So any such conclusion is pre-empted as foolish and therefore wrong. In fact the a priori of Christianity is that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). The answer to the second is "yes". In fact in science no proposition is entertained unless it is falsifiable. So when All10 continually asserts that there is "no proof" that Joran was at the beach, or Wabbi continually asserts (by implication) that Natalee is buried under the vdSloot patio, these are articles of faith and therefore not falsifiable by any evidence to the contrary. This is known as having a closed mind. A rational view of the cellphone records is that Joran is telling the truth about being at the beach, but not telling the truth when he says he was driven home. However both of these "conclusions" are not actually the final end-point but are still open to falsification by new information (e.g. if it could be shown that his phone was in the hands of somebody else). This is known as having an open mind. Doc/Vivi asserted that I trust Joran, but trust is an article of faith, not reason, and I invest no trust at all in statements by either Beth or Joran. In both cases I measure the truth or falsity of their statements against material facts as they are known, and those facts show that both Beth and Joran are liars who can't be trusted. Neither have made statements that can be taken as true without verification. Finally, in the context of this thread I want to highlight the oft expressed hope that getting Beth and/or Joran on oath will resolve matters. "I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" The frequent prayers to God and invocation of His name by Beth and her supporters has been used to imply their truthfulness and honesty before Him; that they are implicitly 'on oath' as above. But are outright lies and vile expressions of hate interwoven with prayer thereby made true and loving? Or are the prayers reduced to cynical manipulation in the hope that the associated lies will be accepted as the truth, and the expressions of hate accepted as justice? Piety, like patriotism, is the last refuge of the scoundrel; and in this case prayers and religion have been grossly abused to lend credibility to such things as claims by Beth that she has "proof" that J2K gang-raped Natalee. After the NY suit it is obvious she hasn't, and that little of her public testimony is truthful. Genuine believers would quake in their shoes at the very thought of invoking God's name in support of falsehoods such as these and having to answer for them in an eternal afterlife where God can see what they really have in their hearts. Their God will forgive them for their lies, constant misrepresentations and ongoing attacks on Aruba - I cannot. -Rolls

WTF? I have been all over this board looking for this post. I wanted to say to Rolls, great post. Too bad it's almost wasted on this board especially when it's buried in pages and pages of talk of Bhammy's crotch! Blech...

Re: Religion and the Natalee Holloway Case

gilligan wrote:

WTF? I have been all over this board looking for this post. I wanted to say to Rolls, great post. Too bad it's almost wasted on this board especially when it's buried in pages and pages of talk of Bhammy's crotch! Blech...

Well, that's both out of line and untrue.

Re: Religion and the Natalee Holloway Case

scheherazade wrote:

gilligan wrote: WTF? I have been all over this board looking for this post. I wanted to say to Rolls, great post. Too bad it's almost wasted on this board especially when it's buried in pages and pages of talk of Bhammy's crotch! Blech... Well, that's both out of line and untrue.

Re: Religion and the Natalee Holloway Case

gilligan wrote:

scheherazade wrote: gilligan wrote: WTF? I have been all over this board looking for this post. I wanted to say to Rolls, great post. Too bad it's almost wasted on this board especially when it's buried in pages and pages of talk of Bhammy's crotch! Blech... Well, that's both out of line and untrue. Oh? Were you here holding my hand as I searched? You ought to know then.

If you had to search to find evidence of "pages and pages," then the problem is yours, not BhamMom's.

Which it is, clearly. Your problem, not hers.