I'll get back to you... seems my reply was lost along the way.

If there is one thing I hate, is re-write a post.  

Talk about the concrete is not very profitable if one does not first grasp the general concepts and principles involved.

This is poorly phrased, as the study of the particular is what leads to knowledge of the universal.

Truth is like light.  When white light hits the prism, it is split up into the various colors (wavelengths) - but it is, in reality, one.

Quote from: Kephapaulos

Why not consider BOTH specifics and concepts?

An excellent question.  Talk about the concrete is not very profitable if one does not first grasp the general concepts and principles involved.  This is why philosophy is the queen of the sciences, not the handmaid (although she is the handmaid of theology, for in that case we step up to another level).

Van, I must ask: Did you read my comments about how truth IS, in fact, one?  If this point/fact is not understood, little real/substantial progress can be made (imo).

It's fine, I did not mean to speak in terms of specifics exclusively but, I was reading that there was a whole lot of cloud shovelling going on, but it may just be that I simply do not understand what you meant.  So in that spirit, yes, please go ahead and clarify what you mean by the truth IS, in fact, one

You may contrast it to my relation with the truth...

I'm not very strong in philosphy but about a year ago, I've become in what are truth bearers.  In other words, what is the vehicle of the truth in our relation to one another and communication.  I have come to learn (although it's disputed) that statements (spoken, written or by actions) are truth bearer.  In other words, a statement can be true, false or indeterminate.

Of course, the way we go about determining the truth value of a statement will depend on the statement, in some cases simple observation suffice, in other, first hand knowledge can be it. In some cases Faith or Revelation can be it.

It really does not matter to me if truth is one. This seems a rhetorical point. What matters to me, is what is the best method to assign a truth value to a specific statement and what happens when various method conflict with one another.

It's all yours.

I'm interested in the various UNtruth bearers that constitute a herd of sacred cows in the academic part of the Modern World.

"What is related in the Gospels about the conduct of Pontius Pilate in the trial and execution of Jesus contradicts what we know of Pilate from ancient historians."

Is that a true statement or an untrue statement?

Untrue, in the classic sense of the word.

We know about Pilate from a SINGLE ancient historian and that ancient historian presents us with a picture of a vacillating yet cruel, cruel yet vacillating Roman governor who on at least one occasion seems to have shown a certain grudging respect for the courage of a Jєωιѕн mob.

But to point out the classic sense in which the statement is untrue is like writing with a quill pen. It's like praying: a total waste of time from the secular point of view. A hundred years ago this would not have been true: believers and Rationalists were still playing by the same rules then.

Modern Man is not interested in a reality-oriented approach to truth. Modern Man is not interested in scholarship and research and reading and contact with reality and all that sort of cranky Aristotelian type stuff.

A Modern Man is forced to accept the statement above as true. True in the only sense of the word that matters in the Modern World.

It's existentially good for the "Devil."

It's a way to bully and hoodwink schoolchildren and promote unbelief and destroy faith. It's a way to maintain a world in which there is really nothing to be done about an Ivy League professor who says that to be ethically responsible we must kill defective babies.

What could be more true than that?

I think that this thread is about schools and what the sons of Hell teach in them.

I said a while back that I thought that the field and the laboratory were not what we are discussing here, in this thread about the movie EXPELLED (from schools).

Of course, no one else has to agree with what I consider to be my disciplined and logical thinking.

But I think that I am allowed to proceed on the grounds that I see as reasonable and eschew what I consider to be diversions from the main point: the Godless control the schools and in the name of Science take away the key of knowledge from young minds and show themselves to be hypocrites when they start weeping and moaning about the introduction of "bad science" that favors belief in God or the Bible in the classroom.

I don't know that any sacred cow said EXACTLY that about Pilate. It's an epitome of what Modern Academe say about Pilate when they contradict what believers say aboout Pilate. Everyone knows that this is what they say: I don't see the point of being a knee-jerk Skeptic (or defense attorney) in regard to what everyone knows is true.

If I quoted one lousy scholar in particular I would be accused of having quoted merely one scholar.

If I quoted two lousy scholars I would be accused of having quoted merely two scholars.

If I quoted a thousand I would be accused (anywhere but in this forum, because of certain accidents of friendly feeling) of needing to get a life.

I know how this game is played.

Everyone knows that that is what the generality of scholars say about Pilate.

Not everyone knows that Philo the Jew was not an historian.

I have no reason to believe that mention of the existence of Philo the Jew has any place in, say, Yale University's most prestigious course on the first century AD history of religion.

I think that the idea of Modern Education as it applies here is to have people going around saying things like, "The Gospels are wrong on Pilate because ancient historians say..."

I think that it shows a touching but dangerous naivete to wax pious about the scholarly world and peer review etc... as though it were still part of the scholarly mind-set even to ask questions such as, "Gee, who exactly WERE some of these ancient historians who supposedly contradict the Gospels."

Once I had occasion to say to an arrogant Ivy Leaguer who was expatiating on the unlikelihood of the Gospel account of Good Friday morning, what with all those trips across town between the abodes of Jesus' various persecutors, "You've never even looked at a map of ancient Jerusalem, have you? You have it in that so-called brain of yours, don't you, that the area in which these events are said to have taken place is along the lines of Manhattan Island itself instead of more along the lines of Central Park? Or rather, Central Park below Cleopatra's Needle?"

He was not irritated. He was scandalized. Antichristian unbelief is a kind of religion with these people.

I think that we are in conflict all the way down the line any way we slice it. I think that in some ways Modern Scholars can be even worse when they are left to their own inbred devices in their own journals and their own camp meetings, contaminating one another in their own obscure lairs.

Another consideration that hasn't been mentioned, not in so many words at least, is that Modern Science is in many ways just the slutty handmaiden of Political Correctness. The voices of the ruling mob carry over into the laboratory and the field just as strongly as they carry over into the schools.

Just a quick post, as I only just returned from out of town and have much to do...

Van, your English is growing more impressive by the week, but I wanted to let you know about one mistake in your post above.  You used "imminent" to modify scholar where you want to have used "eminent".  Immanent, imminent, eminent - tough trio.  God speed.