Talk:Virgin birth of Jesus/Archive 1

Are you adding your own arguments here, one after the other? They seem to be following from our discussion the Talk page at Virgin Birth. as was said before, this article should be summarizing the stock arguments given for and against the Virgin Birth for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the debate.

I thought that was what it was doing. Jacquerie27 17:58 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

The summary needs to be given from a Neutral Point of View,

I doubt that anyone will ever agree that it is NPOV, unless they've written it themself. Jacquerie27 17:58 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

leaving the reader to decide which deserve more weight, or better yet, with some additional resources to read if they want to read some actual one-sided arguments.

The "additional resources" are given at the end: two articles by a Christian arguing very strongly for, and one article by a Jew arguing very strongly against. Are you sure you're approaching the article from a NPOV, or are you just seeing what you want to see? Or not, not seeing what you don't want to see? ;) Jacquerie27 17:58 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

This is not the place for either of us to fight "prove" ourselves right or to consume more space for our side. Sorry I don't have time to do much more with this right now. Wesley 17:15 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I'm tired of it too. Jacquerie27 17:58 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Just read the end of the article, and several sentences need to be deleted as either irrelevant or purely speculative. The bit about the Devil and borrowing from the future is a complete straw man, as I explained in the Virgin Birth article. The bit about God wanting to test Christians' faith by making it hard to believe or whatever, is theological speculation not attributed to anyone and really doesn't have a place in the article. Neither bits have anything to do with real arguments about the virgin birth put forth by Christians and skeptics. I'll delete them later if no one beats me to it. There's copyediting to be done in numerous places as well. Wesley 17:23 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

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It might be worth looking at the Abortion article as an example of NPOV treatment of a controversial subject. It's probably not perfect, but it doesn't come across as being overwhelmingly pro-life or pro-choice. And no, I didn't really have much to do with that one.  :-) Wesley 21:10 May 7, 2003 (UTC)~

I had a brief look, but I find abortion too unpleasant to read the article in detail so I couldn't really learn much from it. I don't think this is overwhelmingly POV: it describes arguments, it doesn't say they're right or wrong. But Slr has to give it his imprimatur yet. Jacquerie27 14:15 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Regarding the paragraph about what the Devil could do near the end, which religious group or folk tale says that the Devil can travel through time, in order to imitate something that hasn't yet occurred? Wesley 20:37 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

It's not a question of travelling thru time: the Devil isn't omniscient, but he can see some of the future, which is why he tried to seduce Christ from his mission. There are also references like this:

Matthew 8:28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. 29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

BTW, you wrote this on talk:supernaturalization:

Perhaps when I have time to research the subject properly, I'll compose an article on Naturalization that describes the process of how historical events once known to be supernatural have been gradually reinterpreted so as to fit within the confines of materialism and philosophical naturalism. Wesley 20:28 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

What historical event has ever been known to be supernatural? I.e., shown in detail, with a clear supernatural mechanism, and with objective verification? And can you produce a still-occurring event known to be supernatural? Jacquerie27 21:00 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

The point is that, "most likely" explanations do not always fit the same criteria. To Christian religionists, a rise in temperature is the most likely explanation of ice melting: it is not a right religious view of the world to attribute this to the action of angels. However, the report of a floating axe-head is explained by religionists as either a lie or a miracle. There is no natural explanation.

When meteorites hit the earth in the past there was no natural explanation. That's why they were thought of as supernatural. The supernatural always rests on the absence of a natural explanation, i.e. detailed description of natural mechanism. Supernaturalists never have an explanation of their own: there's no detail or mechanism, just a claim that supernature is involved. Jacquerie27 10:18 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

My, my... you are so skeptical. That is just not true, Jacquerie27, although I'm sure you have some specific, technical definition of "detailed description". The criteria of credibility that a Christian uses, is simply is not interesting to you, because it is theological.

I didn't say they were uninteresting, but the criteria aren't objective and they don't rest on detailed descriptions of "supernatural" phenomena. Xtianity rejects Muslim miracles out of hand, for example, and Protestants don't accept miracles as readily as Catholics or the Orthodox. Jacquerie27 21:40 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

But then, you are lumping all "supernaturalism" together. Do you think that the typical Christian theist is gullible, and no doubt we typically are. Do you know any Scientologist? Debunked any saucer cults lately? Who shot JFK? Mkmcconn 14:44 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

That's one of the problems with supernaturalism: that it mutates so readily and exists in so many different forms -- precisely because it isn't objective and isn't verifiable. Scientists can disagree very strongly with each other, but they have (at least in principle) ways of settling their disagreements. Supernaturalists settle their disagreements either by killing each other or, as in modern Xtianity, by becoming so decadent that they stop caring about what they used to kill each other about. Jacquerie27 21:40 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

As for falsifiable miraculous events that still occur, at a minimum Christians look for the return of Christ. If that won't happen, your supernaturalization hypothesis will have been proven irrefutably correct. Meanwhile, reports of supernatural events are judged more likely genuine or more likely false. These rules are called "orthodoxy", which is a measured (but not naturalistic) skepticism.

I think orthodoxy is a way of making sure the supernatural doesn't get out of control, which would mean the church would lose control and stop making money. Jacquerie27 10:18 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Mkmcconn 22:23 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

The Naturalization process would be a neologism describing how events originally reported as miracles are given alternative explanations,

Yes, reported as supernatural, not shown to be supernatural in detail. Naturalization isn't equivalent to supernaturalization, because we can show in detail that things once reported to be supernatural (meteorites, plagues, lightning, etc) have natural mechanisms. Jacquerie27 10:18 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

based upon the material of the report, as interpreted according to the "orthodoxy" of philosophical naturalism. Mkmcconn 22:23 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

The orthodoxy of philosophical naturalism is based on detailed description and objective verifiability. The orthodoxy of religious supernaturalism isn't. Jacquerie27 10:18 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Then your new material in supernaturalization simply must go. It begs for rebuttal, which in the context would be absolutely pointless, because the material is entirely speculative. Mkmcconn 14:44 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

It isn't entirely speculative: it's based on the research of Leon Festinger into the behavior of cults after failed prophecies, which is verifiable and detailed. Some speculation is also inevitable with you're dealing with distant history. Jacquerie27 21:40 May 10, 2003 (UTC)