Posted: Feb 27, 2010 1:59 pm
TimONeill wrote:
Okay. So your evidence that he was lying (for some unknown reason) would be ... ? Please present it here and now.
Calm down, relax, I didn't say I had evidence, I said it was what I think, Jeez take a chill pill, I'm not your student.
Okay. And we could point that out for any statement or claim made by Josephus, or Tacitus, or Polybius, or Suetonius or any ancient historian you care to mention. So do we (a) throw them all out and decide we can't know anything about the ancient world at all or (b) accept what they say unless we have good evidence that indicates we shouldn't?
Every professional historian on the planet goes with (b). Are you going to go with (a) or are you going to make some sense?
Who knows how much of anything any of them said that can't be verified independently was true. Maybe you should build a time machine and go take a look, seeing you have so much emotional investment in the truth of the story.
Ditto for Tacitus, Suetonius, Polybius or any other ancient source. So what you are seriously trying to say to a forum of intelligent rationalists is that we should reject all ancient sources in particular and all historical sources in general and totally abandon any idea of having any understanding of the past? Is that the rational statement you're making to rational people? Really?
Rational people don't lose their cool over the thoughts of other people. Rational people just laugh it off and say "you think whatever you want to, it's not science, but then you're not claiming it is" and then they move on, maybe some rational thinking about thinking might be in order here. Christ it's Saturday afternoon FFS I'm not sitting in a lecture hall listening to your pontifications about your friend.
My "cult"? What the fucking fuck? What part of "I'm a fucking atheist" have you failed to grasp, pal? I have no "cult". I do have a whacko devotion to things called "objectivity" and "reason". Perhaps you could acquaint yourself with them.
Do so before you bother me with a reply. Clear?
Oops, I provoked multiple uses of the 'f' word, oh dear, what would Dawkins think?
Maybe some objective devotion to casual chat might be in order here. Calm down before you burst a blood vessel.