Ambiguity Fallacy here?

I am here to ask if this is a fallacy of ambiguity on my part: 

Not entirely. The latter part of your post, which 'other party' failed to notice, discussed how religious beliefs have evolved over many centuries. The initial part focused on the lack of substantial empirical evidence for many claims in the Bible, which we might expect to find by now. However, this doesn't mean that the Bible or any other religious scripture lacks historical or archaeological studies that support some of its historical claims. My comments primarily address the supernatural claims, discussing them in general terms regarding their substantiation through empirical evidence as understood within the scientific context.

But, yes claims in the Bible are not unique to Christianity. After a historical examination, it seems many religious texts share common themes and/or have influenced each other historically.

 

I asked ChatGPT4 and that responded with this (an excerpt from the summary): 

Overall, the passage provides a thoughtful, albeit brief, examination of the challenges in discussing religious claims within a scientific framework. The potential for fallacies lies more in the assumptions and implications rather than overt logical errors in the argument presented.

 

What are your views? Thanks 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Jack, your answer in isolation isn't enough to make this judgement. We need context as to what the claim you are addressing actually is.

Well, it seems that you've got a pot of metaphysical soup here with a dash of fallacy hunting, and an intriguing sprinkle of logic twistings. But is there a fallacy of ambiguity lurking in the depths? Let's investigate!

Alright, so looking at your argument, it's like going into grandma's attic - there's an awful lot going on there, but you're not quite sure what's relevant. In your case, you've got a two-fold focus - the evolution of religious beliefs and the empirical (or lack thereof) evidence for biblical claims. Not to forget the side order of inter-religion influence, which is an archaeologist's dream debate. So, are these ambiguities?

No, my friend, you've just got a handful of "topics galore", not an ambiguity fallacy. An ambiguity fallacy would be more along the lines of saying, "The Bible accurately reports the creation of the world in seven days because it's in the Bible."

As for your chat with the sophisticatedly verbose ChatGPT4, it seems like it pretty much hit the nail on the head. Your argument is more of a Himalaya of assumptions and implications than a desert of overt logical errors.

So, fear not, Sherlock of Logicsville, there's no ambiguity fallacy lurking in your argument's shadows. But there might be an overuse of the enter key in your post. Might want to look into that.

Admittedly, without the context of whatever posts preceded this, I find this to be a bit difficult to follow. But, if I'm understanding correctly, the main point of contention is whether claims made in the Bible are supported by evidence, and whether you used the idea of claims made in the Bible ambiguously to refer to either historical claims or supernatural claims.

The issue that I see in this case is that there are a lot of people, devout Christians and staunch atheists in particular, who have strong opinions about the Bible but a weak understanding of it. They want to put the entire content into a single silo that they can accept or reject full cloth. To someone like that, it may seem like you're being ambiguous or dodgy in your use of the term. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the academic study of the Bible, however, knows it was written over the span of hundreds of years, and a lot of people with different intentions and experiences have had inputs, so to someone like that "claims made in the Bible" would be a generic term to describe a lot of individual topics. Like how "science" could be used to refer to the study of black holes, carbon nanotubes, or hamsters.

One thing I'd point out, though, is that trying to use science to evaluate supernatural claims can be a bit sticky as supernatural events are, by definition, unexplainable by science. If you reject the idea that anything supernatural can occur, then you can attempt to come up with a scientifically plausible event that would lead to the claim in question being made. But, in that case, you would also need to have a historian filter it through their own lens, as missing historical context may lead to incorrect conclusions.

It is challenging to make sense of this. It's not just the ALL CAPS format either, but it certainly contributes to it.

From what I can make of it the heart of the argument is not so much a Fallacy of Ambiguity (?) but an equivocation fallacy between the usage of the words historical and historic.

To which I would simplify as: 

The Bible is historic but not historical.

In other words the composition, compilation, origins, legends, allegories, fictional events, and religious ideas are important to history, but the events and characters themselves are not historically accurate.  (And not just the supernatural claims either). 

No doubt this would bring you into conflict with fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews, but then again, they are fond of fabricating, interpolating and introducing supernatural events to suggest a fabulistic hyper reality that just does not exist. The first thing any true historian would do is dismiss the supernatural events off hand.