steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
It is like diarrhea,you hope it ends but it keeps on coming.
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Michael S. Pearl
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Your above cited bizarre remark was in response to me saying that "your polemic is a possibility so long as the emotive possibility is not established as fully accounting for the manner of expression which you refer to as polemic."
Notice that "your polemic is a possibility" before I even get to bringing up "the emotive possibility". Your polemic is a possibility by virtue of being an interpretation which is not unreasonable prima facie. (Whether the polemic possibility is worth pursuing is an issue which you have thus far refused to consider.)
It was noted earlier that Paul's words which you refer to as polemic are just as recognizable as being emotive.
Being a devotee of compartmental-thinking, you think your following remark is in some way important, but it is not, and it is erroneous besides:
One problem for your attempt at thought production is the fact that "emotive" is also functional.
If it is possible that the words referred to as "polemic" are "emotive", then it is possible that those words as emotive were used for emotional release.
That means the emotive functions (or can function) to provide emotional release.
It is possible that Paul used the at issue words emotively.
It is possible that Paul used the at issue words polemically.
The emotive can affect expression widely such that what seems polemic might actually be emotive without actually being polemic even if seeming - from some perspective or other - to be polemic.
It is possible that Paul used the at issue words emotively but not polemically.
If Paul used those words emotively and not polemically, then the polemic attribution does not refer to the actuality of how those words were used, and the polemic would not be actual.
If it is established that Paul used those words emotively and not polemically, then the polemic is not actual, and the emotive is actual (assuming that the emotive and the polemic together exhaust the relevant possibilities).
If it is not established that Paul used those words emotively and not polemically, then the polemic is possible, and the emotive (along with the emotive-and-not-polemical) is possible.
For so long as it is a possibility (which has not been established as an actuality) that those words are used emotively and not polemically, it cannot be established that those words are actually polemic (by virtue of the aforementioned emotive wide affect).
For so long as it is a possibility (which has not been established as an actuality) that those words are used emotively and not polemically, those words are still possibly polemic by virtue of an interpretation which is not unreasonable prima facie and because those words have not been shown to be both actually emotive and not polemic.
My logic is fine.
Your logic is flawed.
How is polemic less useful as a possibility rather than as an actuality?
Polemic seems just as useless as an actuality as it is as a possibility.
What is the difference?
Why does it matter?
NoHolyCows
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You’ve built a false precondition. “Emotive” does not need to “fully account” for the text before any other function can be actual. In textual analysis, functions are fixed by public operations the text performs. Galatians names opponents, refutes their claims, instructs the audience against them, and invokes an authority claim against rivals. Those are polemical speech-acts. Their presence makes the polemical function actual regardless of tone. Emotion can co-occur; it does not demote a demonstrated function to “mere possibility.”
Calling it “a possibility” ignores the observed discriminators that settle it: naming and cursing rival teachers, arguing against their requirements, and directing the audience to reject them are not neutral “maybe” features; they are the standard, publicly checkable markers of polemic. “Worth pursuing” is a separate pragmatic question; it has no bearing on whether the classification is evidentially established. Once the operations are present, the function is not just “prima facie possible”—it is instantiated.
Recognizable emotion does not undercut recognizable polemic. Categories here are orthogonal: a document can be both heated and adversarial. To defeat the polemical classification you would need an alternative that explains away the opponent-directed refutations and audience-aimed directives without them being polemic. “It’s emotional” is not such an explanation; it simply describes tone, not function.
Nothing about my analysis is compartmental. I am integrating registers: rhetorical function (polemical speech-acts), genre (letter), and tone (emotive). The conclusion follows because the functional criteria are met in the text. Emotion is acknowledged and included; it is just not a veto. That is why your demand that “emotive fully account for the expression” before we may call the polemic actual is a non sequitur. The public markers are there; they do the evidential work; the classification stands.
NHC
NoHolyCows
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Emotion is indeed a function, but it is not exclusive of other functions, and it does not suspend ordinary classification when the text publicly performs the relevant operations. In Galatians the operations are not ambiguous: Paul names rival teachers, states their position, instructs his audience against them, and anathematizes any contrary “gospel.” Those are polemical speech-acts. Their presence makes the polemical function actual, not merely possible, in exactly the same way that a document that gives orders is actually imperative even if it is angry while doing so. Your suggestion that emotion could have been “emotional release” instead is not a competing explanation of those operations; it is a description of tone. Tone can accompany, but it does not cancel, illocutionary force. That is why “emotive” cannot be used as a standing defeater: if both functions can co-occur, then the mere possibility of emotive use does not undercut the actuality of polemic once the public markers are observed.
Your move that “as long as it is possible that the words are emotive-and-not-polemical, polemic cannot be established as actual” mistakes possibility for parity. In historical method and textual analysis, we do not require eliminating every logically imaginable alternative; we require the best fit to the publicly checkable data. The emotive-only hypothesis fails that test because it leaves unexplained the specific opponent-directed refutations, the audience-aimed directives, and the curse formula. Those are not generic signs of “emotional release”; they are the conventional machinery of polemic. When two functions are compatible and jointly attested by the text, both are actual. To insist that a viable emotive reading bars an actual polemical classification is to assert an exclusivity you elsewhere denied.
You ask why it matters whether polemic is acknowledged as actual rather than “just possible.” It matters because Paul’s origin claim—“not from man … through revelation”—is deployed within that polemical machinery as a warrant against rivals. If the polemical function is only entertained as a possibility, you treat his origin appeal as a private mood; if it is recognized as actual, his origin appeal is a public premise in an argument and therefore subject to public assessment. That is the evidential hinge: once origin language is used in a public dispute to trump competitors, it must stand or fall by public discriminators. On that standard, there is no observation in the letters or their transmission that is more probable on “not of human origin” than on ordinary human authorship. So the classification has immediate consequences: acknowledging the polemic makes the origin claim evidentially accountable, and it fails that accountability. Calling the same text merely “emotive” does not change the data; it only evades the public test.
Finally, your “why not treat polemic as only possible—what’s the difference?” is answered by the same rule courts and historians use. We classify by what the document actually does, not by what it could have done. Galatians actually executes adversarial moves against identified opponents; therefore it is actually polemical. Emotion may be present; that does not revoke the classification. And because the origin claim is one of the moves deployed, it enters the public arena and requires evidence. On that ground, nothing in the record favors a non-human source over human composition, and your attempt to shelter the claim behind “emotive possibility” does no logical or evidential work against the observed function of the text.
NHC
Michael S. Pearl
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You are wrong.
If the emotive is present - and it most definitely is and has most definitely has been established as present and actual in Paul's letter, then because the emotive can envelop the polemic, it is possible (it is a possibility) that the emotive fully accounts for the words referred to as constituent of the polemic possibility.
If the actual emotive is not established as being a full-account emotive, then the emotive in itself, despite being actual, does not displace/replace/eradicate the polemic possibility.
The emotive full-account-possibility, for so long as it remains merely possible, is sufficient to prevent logically a conclusion of polemic actuality.
This means that, logically, the emotive full-account-possibility need not be established as full-account-actuality in order to block establishment of polemic actuality.
If the actual emotive is not a full-account emotive, then the emotive in itself, despite being actual, does not displace/replace/eradicate the polemic possibility.
Since an emotive full-account-actuality would displace/replace/eradicate even the polemic possibility (and, hence, polemic actuality), in order for the polemic possibility to be established as/transformed to polemic actuality, it must be established that the emotive is not a full-account-possibility.
Whether the emotive, despite being actual, is not established as being a full-account emotive or whether the emotive is not a full-account emotive, there remains polemic possibility along with emotive actuality.
There is no doubt that there is emotive actuality in Paul's letter. It has not been established that the emotive actuality is a full-account actuality, and this fact is what leaves room for the polemic possibility which would not remain even possible were it to be established that the emotive actuality is a full-account actuality.
But, as already noted, the emotive full-account-possibility need not be established as full-account-actuality in order to block establishment of polemic actuality.
That does not even come close to establishing why it matters.
It does not matter because there is no doubt that Paul provides actual reasoning "against rivals". Even if Paul resorts to polemic, he is not solely polemical.
If "courts and historians" were to ignore the fact that Paul actually supplies reasoning, then were they to conclude that Paul in his letter is only polemical, the "courts and historians" would be illogical for having ignored evidence that was available to them.
If "courts and historians" were to ignore the fact that in his letter Paul is actually emotive, then were they to conclude that Paul in his letter is only polemical, the "courts and historians" would be illogical for having ignored evidence that was available to them.
If "courts and historians" were to ignore the fact that it is a possibility that the emotive envelopes/subsumes the polemical, then were they to conclude that Paul in his letter is actually polemical, the "courts and historians" would be illogical for having ignored evidence that was available to them regarding the very nature of the emotive - such as how the emotive by its very nature can render erroneous the polemic interpretation which itself is the basis for polemic possibility.
On the other hand, were the "courts and historians" to conclude that Paul in his letter is possibly polemical, then their logic would be fine with regards to the fact that Paul provides actual reasoning and with regards to the fact that, while the emotive is actual, the emotive subsuming the polemical is possible but not established as the very actuality which would preclude even the polemic possibility.
Your logic is flawed, and you polemic still seems to be of no importance in itself, and you have not shown how the polemic - even if it is a fact and actual - relates significantly or extensively to any other matter.
NoHolyCows
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No, Michael. Your precondition is the error. You keep claiming that because an emotive reading is possible, we cannot classify the text’s polemical function as actual. In any public method—history, law, linguistics—classification is licensed by observed operations. Galatians contains naming and delimiting of rivals, refutation of their position, directives to the audience, and sanction formulas. Those are polemical speech-acts. The mere possibility of a purely emotive reading does not negate what the text actually does.
Emotion can co-occur with polemic; it does not “envelop” it in a way that dissolves observable polemical acts. To defeat an actual functional classification you must show that an “emotive-only” model explains the specific markers at least as well as, or better than, a polemical model. It does not. Anger can color speech, but anger alone does not produce naming of opponents, structured refutation, and curses directed at alternative messages. Those are polemical moves by content and aim, irrespective of tone.
Correct—and because the polemical operations are present, the classification is not merely possible, it is instantiated. Your own concession that emotion does not displace polemic undermines your attempt to block polemical actuality.
That is a modal fallacy. From “E is possible” it does not follow that “P is not actual.” In public reasoning, a bare logical possibility is not a defeater. You need an alternative that accounts for the discriminating features without remainder. “Emotive-only” cannot account for the letter’s explicit opponent-identification, argument aimed at them, and anathema formulas; therefore it cannot block actual polemical classification.
Incorrect. In evidence-based fields, uneliminated logical possibilities do not block actual classifications grounded in observed discriminators. If they did, nothing would ever be classifiable. We do not have to prove emotion is not “full-account.” We only have to show that the polemical model better fits the operations on the page than an emotive-only model. It does.
Agreed—and since the polemical markers are present, we have polemical actuality, not just possibility. Emotion co-describes tone; it does not erase the function the text performs.
No. You are trying to invert the burden. We do not have to disprove every logically conceivable “full-account emotive” story before recognizing a function the text overtly performs. The right standard is differential fit: does a polemical reading predict and explain the naming, refutation, directives, and curses better than an emotive-only reading? Yes. Therefore polemical function is established; emotion remains a concurrent descriptor, not a veto
There remains emotive actuality and polemical actuality. Your own framing concedes that emotion does not displace polemic. The text’s operations determine function; those operations are present.
“Room for possibility” is irrelevant against observed function. We classify what the document does, not what a hypothetical single-cause account might do. The document actually performs polemical acts. That fixes the classification regardless of concurrent emotional tone.
Repeating the same modal error does not repair it. A mere possible alternative cannot block an actual, publicly evidenced classification. That is how logic, historiography, and textual analysis all work: observable discriminators decide. Here, they decide for polemic.
NHC
NoHolyCows
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It matters because Paul’s “not from man … through revelation” is offered as a reason to reject rival teachers and their warrant. Once a speaker uses origin as a premise in a public dispute, that premise must answer to public discriminators—observations that would look different if the premise were true versus false. If none exist, that premise carries no evidential weight and cannot do the argumentative work Paul assigns to it. That is the entire relevance.
No one said he is solely polemical. I’ve said—repeatedly—that he offers reasons and also an origin claim. The existence of reasons does not launder an unsupported origin claim. In any disciplined inquiry, each premise stands or falls on its own evidential footing. Paul’s ethical/theological arguments can be assessed on human grounds; his origin premise, because he deploys it publicly, must meet public standards or be set aside as non-probative.
Agreed—and irrelevant to me. I have not ignored his reasoning. I’ve classified one function among several: the letter contains argument, emotion, and polemic, and within that polemic Paul uses an origin claim as warrant. Recognizing that additional function is not the same as denying the presence of argument.
Again agreed—and again not my claim. Emotion and polemic are concurrent. Emotion is tone; polemic is operation. Tone does not supply evidence for an origin claim, nor does it nullify the fact that Paul names opponents, refutes them, instructs the audience against them, and issues a curse formula. Those are publicly checkable polemical acts.
A bare logical possibility does not defeat a classification grounded in observed features. To overturn “polemical function,” you would need an emotive-only account that explains the specific polemical operations as well or better—naming rivals, structured refutation, directives, anathema—without remainder. You have not provided that. Therefore emotion does not “subsume” polemic; it coexists with it.
That standard is too weak for public method. We do not halt at “possibly.” We classify by discriminators. When the discriminators are present—as they are here—function is actual, not hypothetical. The continuing possibility of an emotive-only reading is not an evidential defeater; it is merely a non-explanatory alternative.
Its importance is direct and concrete. First, it fixes the burden of proof for Paul’s origin premise: if he uses “not of man … through revelation” to trump rivals, that premise must be supported by public discriminators or it has no standing as warrant. Second, it constrains how we read his anathematizing of contrary “gospels”: without evidential support for the origin premise, that sanction reduces to private conviction, not a binding reason on outsiders. Third, historically, the origin claim is how Paul displaces Jerusalem-based human authority in favor of his message’s independence. That is a real, consequential move in the letter and in reception history. Recognizing the polemical use of the origin claim is therefore not trivial; it is exactly what tells us which parts of Paul’s case are evidentially assessable (his arguments) and which are not (the unfalsifiable origin assertion).
NHC
Michael S. Pearl
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False.
I say that in the presence of the emotive, since the emotive - via observation and experience - is known as a possibility which can envelope/subsume asymmetrically the polemic, or, to put it another way, since the emotive can asymmetrically fully account for what is otherwise interpreted as polemic, the polemic cannot logically be demonstrated to be actual for so long as the emotive full-account-possibility remains viable.
Your appeal to authority - which is precisely all that your "public method" is - has absolutely no force against the logic.
You are the one who mistakenly thinks the actuality of the polemic is important. By your reasoning, this means that logic places upon you the burden of proof that, in the Paul case, the emotive is not a full-account-possibility.
By my reasoning, you can shuck that burden of proof and proceed with polemic as a possibility rather than as an actuality, and that will make no difference to anything - as will be shown below.
But the choice is yours: be illogical by insisting without being able to demonstrate logically that the polemic is actual, or prove that the emotive is not a full-account-possibility, or proceed with the polemic as a possibility.
It is possible for the viable emotive possibility and the viable polemic possibility to be non-overlapping.
It is possible for the emotive possibility and the polemic possibility to be overlapping. In the case of overlapping, it is asymmetrically possible that the emotive envelopes/subsumes the polemic.
If the emotive envelopes/subsumes the polemic, then the polemic "dissolves" as illusion, an erstwhile reasonable interpretation which turned out to be mistaken.
If the emotive enveloping/subsuming possibility is viable - for instance, if that possibility is viable but not demonstrated to be the case - then the polemic logically can be held to be possible.
The so-called "polemical operations" are present via interpretation.
A reasonable interpretation positing polemic is put forth logically as the polemic possibility.
That interpretation remains reasonable insofar as the viable emotive full-account-possibility is ignored.
That interpretation remains reasonable for so long as the emotive full-account-possibility is viable and not demonstrated to be present.
That interpretation remains reasonable as polemic possibility.
That reasonable interpretation is illogical if viable emotive full-account-possibility is ignored.
That reasonable interpretation is illogical if the polemic possibility is claimed to be polemic actuality in the presence of viable emotive full-account-possibility.
The presence of the emotive full-account-possibility blocks the logical transformation from polemic possibility to polemic actuality.
Ignoring the emotive full-account-possibility does NOT instantiate the polemic actuality.
The "modal fallacy" at hand is your claim of polemic actuality, because the still viable emotive full-account-possibility blocks the logical transformation from polemic possibility to polemic actuality.
Possibilities are "classifiable".
A possibility is "classifiable" as polemic.
Polemic is "classifiable" as possibility.
Polemic is "classifiable" as actuality.
Etc., etc.
You are wrong. Yet again.
You have shown no such thing. You have only treated the emotive as non-overlapping with the polemic.
That is only one of the possibilities regarding the relationship between the polemic and the emotive.
You have not addressed the other possibility wherein the emotive and the polemic overlap.
False.
The presence of "polemical markers" provide for polemic possibility. You have not addressed the possibility of emotive and polemic overlap. Therefore, via "modal fallacy", you are illogical in claiming polemic actuality.
Whoever are those "we" might not, but you are halted by that "possibly". I have repeatedly told you that you do not need that "possibly" logically transformed to "actually", but you insist on achieving "actually" illogically instead of proceeding with the "possibly", and you illogically insist on illogically referring to "possibly" as "actually".
Horrifically bad reasoning on your part.
I will assume as fact (for the sake of discussion, of course) that Paul in his letter exhibited and expressed actual polemic, an actual appeal to authority.
Below, I will only refer to polemic as actual.
Below, I will only treat polemic as actual.
It was previously noted that appeal to authority can be appropriate.
It was previously noted that appeal to authority can be inappropriate.
Appeal to authority without an accompaniment of provided reasons is more inappropriate than an appeal to authority with an accompaniment of provided reasons.
Paul provided reasoning, and that reasoning was not dependent on an appeal to authority; therefore, the appeal to authority in Paul's letter is more appropriate than would have been that appeal to authority without there also being provided reasoning.
But, let the appeal to authority be isolated.
Let the appeal to authority be regarded as inappropriate.
So what?
That inappropriate appeal to authority affects what?
It certainly does not affect the reasoning which is wholly independent of the appeal to authority.
More horrifically bad reasoning on your part.
In the remark quoted immediately above, you are treating the polemic as if Paul were only polemical.
But, by your own admission, Paul was not only polemical.
By your own admission, Paul provided reasoning.
Paul's reasoning explains the "anathematizing" in terms of that righteousness which is wholly incompatible with the position(s) of the rivals.
The polemic does NOT constrain you. You constrain you when you only consider the polemic as if Paul were only polemical. You are not so constrained when you consider the polemic and the reasoning provided.
False.
You are again treating the polemic as if Paul were only polemical.
But, by your own admission, Paul was not only polemical.
By your own admission, Paul provided reasoning.
The reasoning in terms of righteousness is what "displaces Jerusalem-based human authority".
Even with the polemic as actual, your entire argument flails and fails because you are illogical.
You are illogical when you treat Paul's letter as if it were only polemic.
Since you deny Paul's letter was only polemic, and since Paul's provided reasoning is shown to eviscerate all importance from the polemic, there is still the question regarding to what the polemic is at all relevant.
The actual polemic as you have addressed it is utterly unimportant and utterly irrelevant. And, yet, you are obsessed with the polemic to the point of effectively being blinded by that obsession.
You are irrational no matter how the polemic issue is approached.
NoHolyCows
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It isn’t false. In public method we distinguish logical possibility from warranted classification. A mere possibility does not defeat an otherwise well-supported classification. Unless you show that the emotive-only hypothesis explains the specific rival-directed operations in Galatians at least as well as a polemical reading, it does no defeating work. You have not done that.
You keep asserting a “full-account” possibility without supplying the account. Galatians exhibits concrete operations: naming and countering rival emissaries, instructing the audience against them, and issuing an anathema on contrary teaching. Emotion can accompany those acts; it does not by itself generate them. To claim emotion “fully accounts” for them, you must show how an emotive-only model reproduces those directed operations without appeal to polemic function. Until you do, polemic remains the best explanation of what the text does, and in historical method “best explanation given the evidence” is exactly how actuality of function is established. Your modal talk does not overturn that; it only restates that alternatives are imaginable, which is irrelevant without comparative fit.
Public method is not appeal to authority; it is appeal to intersubjective checks. The force comes from observations any competent reader can verify and from modeling that yields higher likelihood for one hypothesis over another. That is not “authority,” it is replicability. Your “logic” replaces that with an unfalsifiable disjunct: as long as you can say “emotion could subsume,” you claim we can never recognize polemic as actual. That is a modal fallacy. Possibility alone is not a defeater; only a rival account that fits the data at least as well is.
The burden is exactly the reverse. You are the one proposing a universal undercutter—“emotive fully accounts”—so you must actually account. I have already met my burden: the text displays standard, publicly checkable polemical operations, and the origin claim is used inside that machinery against rivals. That is sufficient for classification. To dislodge it, you must present an emotive-only model that explains those same operations without remainder. You haven’t.
It makes a decisive difference. Once Paul’s origin claim is recognized as actually functioning as a warrant in a polemic, it enters the space of public reasons and must answer to public discriminators. Without them, that premise has no evidential weight and cannot bind outsiders. That affects how we weigh his authority move against Jerusalem emissaries and how we evaluate his anathema on contrary “gospels.” Treating polemic as “mere possibility” would wrongly evade that evidential test.
Possibility talk doesn’t overturn classification based on observed operations. Galatians names rival emissaries, answers their claims, directs the audience against them, and pronounces an anathema on contrary teaching. Those are polemical acts by any public, feature-based method. Emotion can overlap with them, but overlap is irrelevant unless you supply a concrete emotive-only model that reproduces those directed acts without invoking polemic. You haven’t done that in this thread, despite repeating the same assertion; I’ve already flagged this earlier as addressed.
To claim “dissolution,” you must show that the specific features—opponent identification, argumentation against them, audience guidance, and the curse—are generated solely by emotional venting rather than strategic opposition. That is a burden of explanation, not a modal gesture. The text’s targeted imperatives and argumentative structure are intentional, opponent-directed moves; calling them an “illusion” of polemic contradicts what the document actually does on the page. Until you demonstrate that emotion alone accounts for those moves, there is nothing to dissolve.
A merely “viable” alternative does not defeat an evidence-based classification. Public method adopts the hypothesis that best fits the publicly checkable features. Here, the polemical reading explains the data; your emotive-envelopment remains an unworked possibility with no comparative fit shown. Therefore the polemical function stands as actual for historical purposes, and with it the consequence you keep trying to avoid: once Paul uses “not from man … through revelation” inside that polemic, he has introduced a public warrant that must be supported by public discriminators. None are available, so the origin claim carries no evidential weight.
The “polemical operations” in Galatians are not inferred from mood; they are observable speech acts in the text. Paul identifies opponents, answers their claims, directs his audience against them, and pronounces an anathema on contrary teaching. Those are public, discriminating features by which historians classify a document’s function. Emotion can co-occur, but co-occurrence does not erase instantiated operations. To overturn the classification you have to supply an alternative model that explains those same directed, opponent-facing moves at least as well without invoking polemic. Merely saying “it’s possible emotion fully accounts for them” does not do explanatory work; it is an unfurnished possibility, not a competing account. You’ve repeated that possibility multiple times; I have already acknowledged emotion’s presence and its non-exclusivity. What you have not done is show how an “emotive-only” reading reproduces naming rivals, refuting them, instructing the audience against them, and cursing alternatives as anything other than polemical function.
Your modal move is backwards. From “possibly emotive-only” you infer “not actually polemical.” That is the modal fallacy. In empirical classification we do not have to eliminate every live possibility; we adopt the hypothesis that best fits the publicly checkable features. Here, the polemical reading fits the data directly; the emotive-only reading has not been specified, let alone shown to fit better. Consequently the polemical function stands as actual for historical purposes. And once that is granted, the evidential consequence follows: Paul’s “not from man … through revelation” is deployed as a public warrant against rivals and so must be supported by public discriminators. None have been offered. Emotion, even if pervasive, is orthogonal to that evidential failure.
Classifying abstract possibilities isn’t the task; classifying the document’s observable operations is. History, law, and science assign classifications to what is actually evidenced in the artifact or event, not to items in the modal space. A possibility has no evidential weight until tied to observations that fit it better than rivals.
What’s classifiable as polemic is the text when it exhibits polemical operations: naming opponents, answering their claims, directing the audience against them, and invoking sanction. Galatians does all of that. Labeling “the possibility of polemic” adds nothing; the classification tracks the observed features in the letter, not a hypothetical.
Everything starts as a hypothesis. Once the discriminators are observed in the document, the hypothesis is no longer merely possible; it’s the best-supported classification of the text’s function. Uneliminated alternatives don’t demote an evidenced classification back to “mere possibility.”
Correct—and that is exactly the point you keep trying to avoid. In Galatians, the polemical function is instantiated by publicly checkable features in the letter. Admitting that ends the stalemate and triggers the evidential consequence you keep resisting: when Paul uses “not from man … through revelation” inside that polemical move, he has introduced a public warrant claim that requires public discriminators. None have been produced.
NHC
NoHolyCows
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That is incorrect. I have said repeatedly that emotion and polemic are not exclusive and can be concurrent. The issue is fit-to-operations: Galatians names opponents, rebuts them point-by-point, warns the audience against them, and pronounces sanctions. Those are polemical operations whether the tone is heated or cool. An “emotive-only” model cannot account for those directed, opponent-facing moves; the polemical model does. That is why it better fits the data.
Yes. And acknowledging overlap does not weaken the classification; it strengthens it. If a text performs polemical operations while also being emotional, it is an emotional polemic, not “maybe polemic.” The overlap hypothesis leaves the polemical function intact because the function is fixed by what the text does, not by how calm the author felt.
I have addressed it explicitly. Overlap is precisely what we observe: an emotionally charged letter that nevertheless names rival emissaries, contrasts “from men” with “through revelation,” recounts opposing a leader “to his face,” and pronounces “anathema” on contrary gospels. Those are concrete, publicly checkable polemical moves. Emotion present or not, those operations instantiate polemic.
You are misusing modality. Uneliminated logical alternatives do not prevent actual classification where the discriminating features are observed. In every empirical field we classify by exhibited criteria. If the token text contains the operations that define polemic, then polemic is actual of that token, even if another category (emotive) also applies. “Could be emotive” does not erase “is polemical,” because the categories are not mutually exclusive and because the discriminators for polemic are satisfied.
I am not halted by “possibly,” and I am not transforming possibility into actuality by fiat. I am recognizing actuality where the text’s observable operations meet the public criteria for a polemic. That is defeasible, like any historical classification, but it is not illogical. The presence of the discriminators in the document is a present-tense fact about the artifact. On that basis, classifying Galatians as polemical is warranted, and once Paul deploys “not from man … through revelation” inside that polemical machinery, he has made a public warrant move. Public warrants require public discriminators. None have been provided that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary human authorship and transmission.
You’ve just conceded the core of my point while trying to wave it away. Once you accept that Paul actually deploys an appeal to authority—“not from man … through revelation”—inside a real polemic against named rivals, that move enters public space. In public argument, each premise that does argumentative work must clear its own bar. Your claim that Paul also supplies reasons does not confer warrant on a different premise; it only means the ethical or pastoral case can be assessed separately on its merits. That is exactly my position: keep whatever human reasons stand on their own; the divine-origin premise either carries public support or it is discarded in public adjudication.
Calling appeals to authority “sometimes appropriate” confuses pragmatics with epistemic standing. Urgency or pedagogy can make an authority move rhetorically convenient, but convenience does not create warrant. Courts, historians, and sciences treat unsupported authority the same way: they assign it zero evidential weight and proceed on the claims that are testable. By your own framing, Paul’s reasoning is “wholly independent of the appeal to authority.” Good—then dropping the appeal changes none of the humanly assessable content. What it does change, decisively, is any right to bind outsiders or to trump rivals by invoking a non-human source. If you use origin language to anathematize contrary “gospels,” you’ve put that origin premise to work; at that point the burden attaches, and without public discriminators it fails.
“So what?” is answered plainly. It matters for three non-negotiable reasons. It matters to the historical question of causation: “not of human origin” is a causal-source claim, and on the record we have—ordinary language, ordinary genre, ordinary argumentative tactics, ordinary human transmission—there is nothing that is more probable on “revelation” than on ordinary authorship, so the origin claim has no evidential standing. It matters to the polemical moment itself: a curse or exclusion pronounced on the basis of a non-human warrant is illegitimate absent public support for that warrant; remove the warrant and the curse loses authority to bind anyone not already committed. And it matters to method: if you allow unsupported origin claims to stand just because other, independent reasons exist, you erase the distinction between faith profession and public warrant. I am not attacking Paul’s human reasoning by insisting on this distinction; I am protecting the evidential boundary that lets his human reasoning be judged on its merits while preventing an unfalsifiable premise from doing coercive work in a public dispute.
NHC
Elixir
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“Lalalalalala - I CANT HEAR YOU!!”
- Every theist confronted by that fact.
NoHolyCows
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That is incorrect. I have said repeatedly that emotion and polemic are not exclusive and can be concurrent. The issue is fit-to-operations: Galatians names opponents, rebuts them point-by-point, warns the audience against them, and pronounces sanctions. Those are polemical operations whether the tone is heated or cool. An “emotive-only” model cannot account for those directed, opponent-facing moves; the polemical model does. That is why it better fits the data.
Yes. And acknowledging overlap does not weaken the classification; it strengthens it. If a text performs polemical operations while also being emotional, it is an emotional polemic, not “maybe polemic.” The overlap hypothesis leaves the polemical function intact because the function is fixed by what the text does, not by how calm the author felt.
I have addressed it explicitly. Overlap is precisely what we observe: an emotionally charged letter that nevertheless names rival emissaries, contrasts “from men” with “through revelation,” recounts opposing a leader “to his face,” and pronounces “anathema” on contrary gospels. Those are concrete, publicly checkable polemical moves. Emotion present or not, those operations instantiate polemic.
You are misusing modality. Uneliminated logical alternatives do not prevent actual classification where the discriminating features are observed. In every empirical field we classify by exhibited criteria. If the token text contains the operations that define polemic, then polemic is actual of that token, even if another category (emotive) also applies. “Could be emotive” does not erase “is polemical,” because the categories are not mutually exclusive and because the discriminators for polemic are satisfied.
I am not halted by “possibly,” and I am not transforming possibility into actuality by fiat. I am recognizing actuality where the text’s observable operations meet the public criteria for a polemic. That is defeasible, like any historical classification, but it is not illogical. The presence of the discriminators in the document is a present-tense fact about the artifact. On that basis, classifying Galatians as polemical is warranted, and once Paul deploys “not from man … through revelation” inside that polemical machinery, he has made a public warrant move. Public warrants require public discriminators. None have been provided that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary human authorship and transmission.
You’ve just conceded the core of my point while trying to wave it away. Once you accept that Paul actually deploys an appeal to authority—“not from man … through revelation”—inside a real polemic against named rivals, that move enters public space. In public argument, each premise that does argumentative work must clear its own bar. Your claim that Paul also supplies reasons does not confer warrant on a different premise; it only means the ethical or pastoral case can be assessed separately on its merits. That is exactly my position: keep whatever human reasons stand on their own; the divine-origin premise either carries public support or it is discarded in public adjudication.
Calling appeals to authority “sometimes appropriate” confuses pragmatics with epistemic standing. Urgency or pedagogy can make an authority move rhetorically convenient, but convenience does not create warrant. Courts, historians, and sciences treat unsupported authority the same way: they assign it zero evidential weight and proceed on the claims that are testable. By your own framing, Paul’s reasoning is “wholly independent of the appeal to authority.” Good—then dropping the appeal changes none of the humanly assessable content. What it does change, decisively, is any right to bind outsiders or to trump rivals by invoking a non-human source. If you use origin language to anathematize contrary “gospels,” you’ve put that origin premise to work; at that point the burden attaches, and without public discriminators it fails.
“So what?” is answered plainly. It matters for three non-negotiable reasons. It matters to the historical question of causation: “not of human origin” is a causal-source claim, and on the record we have—ordinary language, ordinary genre, ordinary argumentative tactics, ordinary human transmission—there is nothing that is more probable on “revelation” than on ordinary authorship, so the origin claim has no evidential standing. It matters to the polemical moment itself: a curse or exclusion pronounced on the basis of a non-human warrant is illegitimate absent public support for that warrant; remove the warrant and the curse loses authority to bind anyone not already committed. And it matters to method: if you allow unsupported origin claims to stand just because other, independent reasons exist, you erase the distinction between faith profession and public warrant. I am not attacking Paul’s human reasoning by insisting on this distinction; I am protecting the evidential boundary that lets his human reasoning be judged on its merits while preventing an unfalsifiable premise from doing coercive work in a public dispute.
Name-calling isn’t an argument. The point is methodological and already established in this thread: when a speaker uses an origin premise—“not from man … through revelation”—to police rivals, that premise enters public space and must carry public support. If it lacks discriminators that favor it over ordinary authorship, it does no warranting work. That’s not rhetoric; that’s how public claims are evaluated in every evidence-based field.
No. I’ve repeatedly acknowledged the letter’s reasons and its emotional temperature. What I am doing is isolating one of the strategies actually used in that polemic—the non-human origin claim—and assessing that strategy by public standards. Classifying one move as polemical and evidentially unsupported is not the same as saying the whole letter is “only polemical.”
Correct—and that admission is exactly why my conclusion is precise rather than global. Because Paul is not only polemical, we can and should separate his human arguments from his appeal to revelation. The former can be weighed on their own merits; the latter, offered as a trumping warrant, fails unless it brings public discriminators. Its failure doesn’t touch his independent reasoning; it just removes the right to bind outsiders by an unfalsifiable premise.
Yes. And additional reasoning does not launder a different, unsupported premise. Mixed arguments are handled by partition: retain what has public support, reject what does not. Paul’s ethical and scriptural arguments remain fully available for historical and philosophical analysis; his origin claim, used to elevate his “gospel” over rivals, still carries the burden you want to waive and does not meet it.
That is a theological rationale, not a public discriminator for the origin premise. “Incompatibility with righteousness” depends on contestable theological commitments; it does not supply evidence that the message is “not of human origin.” Gal 1:11–12 grounds his preaching in revelation; Gal 1:8–9 anathematizes contrary gospels. The curse rides with the asserted source. Remove public warrant for the source and the anathema has no authority to bind anyone except those already committed to the same theology. His later reasons may persuade on their own; they do not retro-validate the revelation claim.
The constraint I stated is not on me; it is on the origin premise when it is used to enforce deference in a public dispute. Considering the whole letter leads to a clean, non-contradictory outcome: evaluate Paul’s human reasons as human reasons, and assign zero evidential weight to the revelation claim unless and until it yields observations more probable on “not of human origin” than on ordinary authorship. That is how we keep faith assertions and public warrant properly distinct.
NHC
NoHolyCows
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It’s factually accurate. In Galatians Paul narrates his commissioning “not from men nor through man” and “through Jesus Christ,” then stresses that he did not receive the gospel from Jerusalem envoys and did not consult them before preaching. That is a source-claim deployed to establish independence from Jerusalem authorization. Recognizing that function does not deny other elements in the letter; it identifies what this move is doing in the dispute.
No. I’m treating one strand of his strategy—the origin claim—as a polemical warrant against rivals. Saying “this component functions polemically” is not the same as saying “the entire letter is nothing but polemic.” You keep attributing the latter to me, but I’ve explicitly acknowledged his reasoning and his emotion repeatedly.
Correct, and that admission is the basis for clean analysis: separate the revelation-warrant claim from his human arguments. The presence of reasons does not convert an evidentially unsupported warrant into a supported one; it just means he uses more than one strategy.
Yes. Those reasons can be assessed on their merits. They are independent lines of argument. They do not supply public evidence for the separate premise “not of human origin,” and they do not erase that he explicitly uses that premise to overrule “man-taught” rivals.
That is a theological argument about what counts as righteousness, not an institutional authorization claim. The historical displacement of Jerusalem authority in Galatians is effected by Paul’s insistence that his commissioning and message came directly by revelation rather than through human transmission. That is exactly why he recounts his independence from Jerusalem and his later confrontation with Cephas: to ground his standing apart from their endorsement.
Nothing flails. The logic is straightforward and already stated: when a speaker uses a non-human-origin premise as a public warrant against rivals, that premise carries a public burden. Without discriminators that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary authorship, that warrant has no standing for outsiders. Separately, his human reasons remain available for evaluation. Distinguishing those two modalities is logic, not confusion.
Again, I don’t. You keep asserting I do after I’ve said the opposite multiple times. I’m isolating a specific move in the polemic—the origin claim—and evaluating it by public standards. That is how historical argument works: classify the function of a move, then test whether its warrant is met.
It is relevant to two things that matter. First, burden placement: by making origin do authority-work, Paul invites an evidential question about origin. Second, audience-binding: anathematizing contrary “gospels” on the strength of a revelation premise cannot bind those who are not already committed unless the premise has public support. That is historically significant for understanding early authority conflicts and methodologically significant for how we assess such claims.
Calling a central argumentative lever “irrelevant” doesn’t make it so. Paul himself makes origin central to his authority over rivals; that is why he foregrounds revelation and independence from human teachers. If a premise is publicly used to trump opponents, its warrant is not a side issue—it is the issue for that move. Noting that fact isn’t “obsession”; it’s basic analysis.
There’s nothing irrational about separating claims. I’m doing exactly what public disciplines require: keep faith commitments and public warrant distinct, assess each by its proper standards, and refuse to let an unfalsifiable origin claim carry authority over others. Paul’s theological arguments can stand or fall as arguments; his revelation premise, used publicly, requires public discriminators. None are available, so that warrant fails.
NHC
NoHolyCows
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That’s exactly where Michael keeps trying to hide. In our exchange he concedes the letter shows the very things that define polemic—naming rivals, refuting them, directing the audience, and, crucially, deploying “not of man … through revelation” against “man-taught” emissaries—then he insists that because an “emotive” reading is possible, polemical actuality can’t be affirmed. That’s a textbook modal error: confusing “possibly also emotive” with “therefore not actually polemical.” Emotion and polemic are concurrent categories; the presence of one does not veto the other. His “full-account emotive” move is just a perpetual spoiler: a bare possibility floated to block a classification grounded in observed discriminators, with no positive showing that emotion exhausts the function of those passages.
He repeats the same tactic with evidence. When I state the standard discriminator rule an observation is evidential only insofar as it bears differently on competing hypotheses—he tries to redefine “evidence” as whatever sits inside someone’s “understanding,” making public assessment parasitic on inner states. That erases the very distinction that lets outsiders evaluate a claim. In Galatians, Paul’s origin claim is used publicly to trump rivals; that move, by definition, takes on a public burden. If there are no discriminators that make “not of human origin” more probable than ordinary authorship, the origin premise has no standing as a warrant over non-adherents, regardless of Paul’s or anyone else’s private certainty.
Take a lab spectrum that matches sodium’s lines. We classify “sodium present” because the observed lines are the public discriminator. It remains logically possible that an unknown contaminant mimics those lines, but that bare possibility doesn’t erase the classification; you’d need specific counter-evidence. Likewise in court: GPS pings, video, and card swipes justify “the defendant was at the scene”; it’s logically possible a phone was cloned, but that possibility alone doesn’t overturn the classification without concrete reasons. Michael’s “emotive full-account” is the cloned-phone story with no supporting data.
So to tie it back: I’m not asking anyone to “hear” a preconceived verdict. I’m applying the same public rule everywhere. Galatians, as written, uses an origin claim within a polemical strategy. That fixes the burden on that claim. Because there are no public discriminators that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary composition and transmission, that premise fails as public warrant, even if one finds Paul’s separate ethical reasoning compelling. That is why my position stands and Michael’s evasions possibility as veto, redefining evidence as inner state, and re-labeling polemic as “mere emotion”—do not.
NHC
Michael S. Pearl
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If you are familiar with emotion and, thereby, the emotive, if you have experienced the emotive as the prime generator for the manner of an expression, then you have all you need with regards to an emotive full-account-possibility.
If you have no experience with such an emotive, let me know, and I will show you how it works - if I think there is any possibility that such a showing would be of benefit to you.
The problem is that you evidence no interest in understanding other persons; you evidence no interest in understanding the understanding of other persons or the relation of understanding to expression.
Without such an interest, you will be always blind to the emotive full-account-possibility, in which case it is not that there is no emotive full-account-possibility, it is just that you incapable of recognizing it.
The same is the case with similar references to physicists with regards to matters of physics, or to physicians with regards to medical matters, or to lawyers with regards to matters of the law. They are all appeals to authority.
Your "public method" is used as an appeal to authority.
The emotive has been observed.
The emotive has been experienced.
The emotive has been observed on occasion to fully account for the manner of expression.
The emotive has been experienced on occasion as fully accounting for the manner of expression.
The reasoned has been observed.
The reasoned has been experienced.
Those are all observations and experiences that can be classified in terms of possibility.
"Possibility talk" is essential if there is to be logical "actuality talk". "Actuality talk" that has no interest in being logical does not bother itself with "possibility talk".
I have no need for "dissolution" of the polemic. The emotive full-account-possibility (for so long as it is viable) is sufficient to logically block demonstrable transformation of polemic possibility to polemic actuality - even if the polemic is actual.
I have no need for "dissolution" of the polemic, because polemic actuality in the case at hand is functionally inert - as has already been established and below will be demonstrated again.
The evidence-basis is reasonable as the interpretation putting forth polemic possibility.
The evidence-basis which is reasonable in putting forth polemic possibility cannot itself logically put forth polemic actuality in the presence of viable emotive full-account-possibility.
False.
From viable emotive full-account-possibility, I logically put forth: polemic actuality as not having been established. The polemic can be actual without it having been logically demonstrated to be actual.
And that is what has been done. The document is possibly polemic. The document is possibly emotive. The document is possibly reasoned. I have also established the document as actually emotive. I have also established the document as actually reasoned. Although the document has not been established as actual polemic, I did also consider the document as actual polemic.
That is not the issue. The issue regards the possibility of an overlapping that is enveloping.
Such enveloping subsumes the polemical to the point of making the polemic possibility functionally inert. You can still find the words previously identified with the polemic possibility, but the enveloping emotive full-account-possibility uses those very same words such that the polemic subset is functionally inert if at all even a polemic possibility. Another way to put it: that emotive renders the polemic redundant to the point of being non-contributory.
As it turns out, it has been demonstrated that even in the case of non-overlapping emotive and polemic actualities, the actual polemic is non-contributory; hence, it is ignorable, and ignoring the polemic makes no difference. The polemic is functionally inert, worthless, uninteresting, useless, etc.
You are wrong yet again.
Relevant logical alternatives to a claim do not themselves prevent classification of that claim as a possibility. What those relevant alternatives do prevent is the classification of that claim as actual - for so long as those relevant alternatives are viable.
Your "is polemical" is ambiguous. That was indubitably established many postings ago. You acknowledged as much, but here you are in desperation mode and trying to get a few additional gasps of air by going back to trying to stand on the unsupportive soft and shifting sands of the ambiguous.
You previously acknowledged that "is polemical" is not intended to be understood as "is only polemical". But your "is polemical" is also ambiguous because it can also be understood as "is actually polemical", and it can be understood as "is possibly polemical".
Your "is polemical" as "is actually polemical" is not logical within a context of viable emotive full-account-possibility.
But even if the polemic is actual, it is functionally inert, worthless, uninteresting, useless, etc.
False.
Once Paul expresses himself publicly, Paul's expression "enters public space".
If Paul expresses himself publicly without an appeal to authority, Paul's expression "enters public space".
The entering into "public space" is in no way dependent on there being an appeal to authority.
False.
Your "must" claims what, in effect, functions as some sort of necessity.
Your "must" is an error, because it is not trans-contextual.
If the public expression is only a polemic, then it is reasonable to demand more than polemic.
If the public expression is NOT ONLY a polemic - for instance, as in the Paul case, if the public expression is polemical and reasoned, then it is possible that it is not reasonable to demand that the polemic be reasonably defended or justified.
Between the polemic and the reasoning, it is reasonable to first focus on the reasoning in order to determine whether the polemic is relevant to the reasoning.
If the polemic is relevant as a basis of the reasoning, then there is reason to demand more from the polemic.
If the polemic is not relevant as a basis of the reasoning, then it is not yet actually the case that the polemic "must clear its own bar" or, for that matter, any bar at all.
It has been established that Paul's reasoning is not in any way dependent on the polemic; therefore, it is reasonable and logical to ignore the polemic as inert/irrelevant with regards to the reasoning and for so long as the polemic is not established as relevant to any other matter of relevance or importance with regards to Paul's public expression.
The polemic is not an extension of the reasoning; therefore, it is reasonable and logical to ignore the polemic as inert/irrelevant for so long as the polemic is not established as relevant to any other matter of relevance or importance with regards to Paul's public expression.
The polemic has not been established as relevant to any other matter of relevance or importance with regards to Paul's public expression; therefore, it is reasonable and logical to ignore the polemic as inert/irrelevant.
It is proved that you are wrong when you claim "each premise that does argumentative work must clear its own bar."
You have conceded.
Since it has been established that Paul's reasoning is not in any way dependent on the polemic, and since the polemic has not been established as relevant to any other matter of relevance or importance with regards to Paul's public expression, it is, therefore, reasonable and logical to ignore the polemic as inert/irrelevant.
Given the established irrelevance of the polemic, the so-called historical question is no less irrelevant.
Obviously.
Paul's reasoning is what supplies warrant against his rivals. The polemic is irrelevant to that.
If "you allow" someone to put forth an unsubstantiated claim that falls within a context which includes reasoning that renders the unsubstantiated claim irrelevant and ignorable, you in no way "erase" reasonableness or an expectation of reasonableness.
Your polemic "argument" has been put forth illogically, and, even if it had been put forth logically, it is of no relevance or importance to anything - as I continually and repeatedly demonstrate.
Make it relevant. Make it at least interesting even if it ends up still being of no great importance.
Do you know how to do that without misrepresenting and/or lying?
I have said that the viable emotive full-account-possibility blocks the conclusion of actually polemical.
That is not a modal error.
You have yet again misrepresented my position.
Your argument is long dead. Frankly, what has been shown is that it was still-born.
Repeatedly misrepresenting/lying about what I say is not going to resurrect your always dead so-called argument.
DBT
Contributor
Paul's claim that what he taught was not the work of man is demonstrably false.
What Paul taught, claiming divine inspiration, is the flawed work of a flawed man.
What Paul taught, claiming divine inspiration, is the flawed work of a flawed man.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
God has inspired me to say he is angry with the blasphemy on this thread.
As punishment he is plaguing California with wild fires, droughts, and earthquakes.
Given what is happening in California I know my inspiration is from god not humans.
As punishment he is plaguing California with wild fires, droughts, and earthquakes.
Given what is happening in California I know my inspiration is from god not humans.
Michael S. Pearl
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Yet another misrepresentation by you.
What I actually say is that for so long as an emotive full-account-possibility is viable, polemical actuality cannot be logically established even if the polemic is actual.
Given how many times you misrepresent me, it is reasonable to ask whether you are an inveterate liar as a consequence of having but a modicum of intellect with that smidgen of intellect itself being congenitally dishonest and without honor.
That's a lie. I have said that the viable emotive full-account-possibility blocks the conclusion of actually polemical.
That is not a modal error.
And yet another misrepresentation by you.
I do not redefine evidence. I note that you have not analyzed the nature of evidence. I am aware that you try to arbitrarily define evidence without having an analysis of the nature of evidence inform your definition of evidence. I am aware that such an arbitrary definition serves your ruse modus operandi. I pointed out that an analysis of evidence will include a basis for distinguishing evidence from other closely related terms, and I pointed out that you have provided no such distinction, and I am aware that this particular failure on your part is the result of you not knowing how to analyze. I have pointed out to you that the conceptual precedes the evidential. This fact in itself would have been sufficient for you to understand - if you had a capable intellect - that evidence is dependent upon the conceptual and that, therefore, the conceptual serves an evidential role which you ignore - probably because you prefer to be fed pre-chewed rules rather than to think in terms of concepts and how they connect and interrelate. You also are incapable of understanding that an expressed "public assessment" is unavoidably subjective because even the inter-subjective is subjective. And you also do not understand the logic of possibilities and actualities. Worse still is the fact that you do not realize that it is the logic distinguishing possibility and actuality by which the subjectivity status can at all be assessed within claims. This means that the logic distinguishing possibility and actuality is essential for self-awareness, and your being disinclined towards and/or your inability to think in terms possibilities retards your development of self-awareness and your ability to think. A retardation of self-awareness likely retards awareness about others, but an impeded self-awareness does not seem sufficient explanation for your disinterest in the understanding of other persons.
Ah, but yet more lying by you. The fact that you are an inveterate misrepresenter/liar does not justify your lying/misrepresenting. Be that as it may, what your modicum of intellect (if it is even as much as a modicum of intellect) is incapable of realizing is that since polemic is widely known to not always be intended for reception as if well and tightly reasoned and, so, is not expected to be anything like an actually reasoned argument, it is at least an error to think "public assessment" is certainly rational when "public assessment" requests or demands that the polemic be justified by evidence - such as by evidence of divine inspiration. And given that polemic is not primarily reasoning, then, when there is polemic alongside reasoning independent of the polemic, it is absolutely irrational to demand, in the Paul case, evidence of divine inspiration. The only rational approach in such an instance is to consider the provided reasoning first so as to determine whether the polemic is at all relevant since the irrelevant need not be addressed at all once irrelevance is apparent. The only thing which distinguishes your irrationality from insanity in this case is the fact that your evidential argument is a ruse. Consequently, you are not insane. Rather, you present yourself as a person who is disinterested in the understandings of other persons; you are a person inclined to misrepresenting/lying about what other persons say, and you unashamedly prefer resorting to ruse over honestly and honorably developing your intellect.
Be all that as it is. The issue at hand is whether you can finally find a way of establishing that the actual polemic is of any importance to anything. You have thus far failed on your two attempts. Three strikes and you're out?
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Let's see. I am ancient Zog with an idea on some tribal issue. I need to put some punch behind it for emphasis and a little poetry.
'My fellow tribal members I was sitting outside reading scripture when a powerful wind suddenly started blowing, but only around me. The sky darkened, the Sun disappeared but there was a light around me. I heard the voice of the Lord from the wind saying ...fill in the blanks... and obey or face burning in an eternal fire.'
From The Babble According To Zog. Zog is thought to have existed 3000 years ago. but there are no references to who he may have been or if there was a Zog. The only copies of the Babble that exist are 900 years old having gone through multiple translations and languages.
Today Zogism is one of the major global religions.
'My fellow tribal members I was sitting outside reading scripture when a powerful wind suddenly started blowing, but only around me. The sky darkened, the Sun disappeared but there was a light around me. I heard the voice of the Lord from the wind saying ...fill in the blanks... and obey or face burning in an eternal fire.'
From The Babble According To Zog. Zog is thought to have existed 3000 years ago. but there are no references to who he may have been or if there was a Zog. The only copies of the Babble that exist are 900 years old having gone through multiple translations and languages.
Today Zogism is one of the major global religions.