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Author Topic: Federal judge shows fearless good sense
Tresopax
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quote:
But okay, so what is the "track record" with regard to your authority on the divinity of Jesus, for example?
Well, my authority on that is Jesus' teachings - and if you repeatedly say a miracle is going to occur, and then it does occur, I consider that a pretty impressive track record. But that just kicks the can farther down the road... Then I assume you'd want to know what's the "track record" on the authority telling me that Jesus actually did predict miracles and actually did teach what I believe he taught. Those authorities are mainly the Bible and the Church, and both of those have an inconsistent track record. However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record, and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church. Those factors together lead me to place some degree of trust in both. (However, I typically assume the Bible and Church may be flawed and mistaken when I'm given strong reason to believe they are mistaken on a given thing.)

quote:
Bingo. You already believe, for completely separate reasons, that there has to be something more to your mind than just your physical brain. So when the authorities who know how the brain's physical functions tell you that you are wrong, your soul beliefs "come into play", and you reject the authorities.
Yes, that's essentially right - although you oversimplify. There are many factors, so just coming into conflict with one belief of mine is not going to make me reject an authority by itself. I certainly don't expect authorities to be infallible, nor do I expect my prior beliefs to be always correct.

quote:
It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument.
Saying "X is good" is not equivalent to saying "Y is good because X is good and Y is a inevitable given X." Free speech is a good right to have, but that doesn't mean hateful speech is good, even though allowing free speech will make hateful speech inevitable.

Using your judgement is good, but that doesn't mean prejudices and biases are good, even though some prejudice and some bias is inevitable when people are asked to use their judgement.

quote:
But honestly, what's so scary about saying "If there is a God, I have no idea what s/he is like, or wants"? What's so paralyzingly terrifying about saying "If there is life after death, I have no idea what it's like, or how my actions in life affect what happens there"? Why is it better to cherry pick authorities who pretend that they know these things, or to wish really hard and believe one's own wishes, than to admit those simple conclusions?
Why do you and KoM spend countless pages of countless threads advocating a viewpoint when you could just as easily say "I have no idea whether religious people are right or not"?

I think its because you DO have an idea of whether religious people are right or not, even though you really can't prove it completely or convince them, and you consider the question important enough to life that its worth discussing and changing minds. And I think religious people feel the same way.

quote:
Let's say that someone has a religious belief that your herasy is so vile and dangerous that it would be better for you to be tortured into repenting of it (even if that torture has a chance of accidently killing you) than it is for you to continue living.

Of course, this person, like you, believes that their beliefs are more likely to be true than not. So when they put you and your spouse on the rack, and show you the thumbscrews, are you glad that they believe something (based on the best of authorities, all of whom have great track records, and are supported by more good authorities)? Or would you rather have had them come to the conclusion that their authorities on the state of your soul didn't know anything at all, and that since they had no evidence about the existance, let alone state of your soul, that they'd better not draw any conclusions at all about it?

I'd be glad they believed something, but I'd be unhappy that they believed the wrong thing.

People will sometimes believe the wrong things. They do it even when they think they are basing their beliefs on solid evidence. Being wishy-washy and believing nothing untestable is not the solution to this. The solution is to always try your best to examine your beliefs and use everything available, both evidence and authorities, to come up with the best beliefs possible. And the solution is to not become so attached to beliefs that you cannot accept that they might be flawed.

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Orincoro
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quote:
However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record, and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church
Oh dear, dear sweet Tres. It does not work this way. We do not trust an unreliable source because there are no reliable sources. Reliability is not relative in that way- while we can weight our trust of different sources, the lack of good sources does not make the bad sources better.

As for the second part- it *also* doesn't work that way. You don't get to establish the reliability of anything by saying that other people, with no established reliability on the matter, but whom you "trust," say it is reliable.

I trust my Mom not to steal my socks from the dryer, but she cannot establish the reliability of historical sources. If she told me the Bible was an historically accurate document, that would not make the Bible anything other than what it is. Even if she was a theologian, the fact that I simply trust her would not really be enough- I would have to find *her* reliable. Since theologians who actually believe the Bible cannot prove themselves to be reliable sources, because they believe in magic, among other things, they are not reliable.


5 years I've been posting here, and you still shock me with the way your brain works. You really do.

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King of Men
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quote:
you still shock me with the way your brain works
What brain? Tres's thinking is not done by any mundanely material object, as we all know; his brain is merely a device to cool the blood.
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Tresopax
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Imagine there are two boxes that seem identical to you, and you are asked to choose one. One contains a million dollars. The other contains nothing. A random person is there who you know nothing at all about, but that random person says he has seen what's in the boxes and you should pick box #2. Your mom is also there and says she knows that guy and he wouldn't lie. Unfortunately, per the rules of the game, your mom is not allowed to tell you anything more.

Do you pick box #2 like the guy suggests? Or do you flip a coin and choose totally at random?

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King of Men
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The two options are the same; you're picking at random either way.
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Tresopax
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Then there, perhaps, is the heart of our disagreement. I would say only the second option is random - and that any person that flips a coin in such a situation is not really being rational.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:
But okay, so what is the "track record" with regard to your authority on the divinity of Jesus, for example?
Well, my authority on that is Jesus' teachings - and if you repeatedly say a miracle is going to occur, and then it does occur, I consider that a pretty impressive track record.
So there's a book where a character says a miracle will happen, and then the book says it happened, and that's proof that the character was real and divine?

You have to be kidding.

And really, you honestly think that not a single other religious text has the exact same scenario?

quote:
Then I assume you'd want to know what's the "track record" on the authority telling me that Jesus actually did predict miracles and actually did teach what I believe he taught.
You could answer the exact question I asked, rather than substituting one that you made up.

But no, I don't need you to demonstrate that your text says what it says. I can read it myself. Some evidence that what the text says actually happened would be nice.

Do you understand the difference between the two?

quote:
Those authorities are mainly the Bible and the Church, and both of those have an inconsistent track record.
What "track record" are you looking at? And how did you determine that accuracy of it? I just want to know your method. Are you comparing every event that happened in the Bible, and looking for hard evidence that it happened? And you looking at all the times the Church made theological claims, and then backtracked?

Those might be the kind of things I'd look at, but I really have no idea what you are talking about.

quote:
However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record,
Again, I don't understand how you determined this, or what you think it means, and how you got from there to where you are. You read your one Bible text, and decided that since the texts were sometimes in agreement, that Jesus must be divine?

The Silmarillion is the best authority I have for the life of Turin Turumbar. What then should I conclude about his existence?

quote:
and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church.
This is getting ridiculous. You can't possibly be this obtuse. Why do you trust those authorities? Are those "authorities" really authorities on Jesus? You already admitted that your Muslim marriage counselor was no authority on Jesus, so who are you claiming is, and why?

quote:
Those factors together lead me to place some degree of trust in both. (However, I typically assume the Bible and Church may be flawed and mistaken when I'm given strong reason to believe they are mistaken on a given thing.)
But whom do you trust to tell you that the church is wrong? Science? I doubt it. Your own personal feelings? Seems a lot more likely.

quote:
quote:
Bingo. You already believe, for completely separate reasons, that there has to be something more to your mind than just your physical brain. So when the authorities who know how the brain's physical functions tell you that you are wrong, your soul beliefs "come into play", and you reject the authorities.
Yes, that's essentially right - although you oversimplify.
That you for confirming that you are just as biased and hypocritical and I've been alleging all along.

quote:
There are many factors, so just coming into conflict with one belief of mine is not going to make me reject an authority by itself.
Of course not. It has to be something that you believe very strongly. We all understand. Your belief in your soul is very important to you, and you aren't going to let a little thing like evidence about what is factually true get in the way of believing that what you wish were true is.

quote:
quote:
It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument.
Saying "X is good" is not equivalent to saying "Y is good because X is good and Y is a inevitable given X."
I agree, but I have never made that argument. Your "personal judgment reigns supreme" method of decision making is necessarily going to give prejudice and wishful thinking enormous play. It's just part of being human. My "believe only what passes rigorous reality testing" minimizes prejudice and wishful thinking.

If you are really okay with the trade-off, then just say so. If your right to indulge in your wishful thinking is so important to you that you are willing to defend everyone else's right to do it, knowing how much harm that behavior can, and historically has caused, then just openly say so.

Or, if you want to say that you reserve the right to believe and act however your "personal judgment" dictates, but other people can't do that if their "personal judgment" disagrees with yours (and this pretty much is what you did when you said that schools shouldn't teach that your religious beliefs were false, but they should teach that beliefs you disagreed with were), then you should just say so plainly.

quote:
quote:
But honestly, what's so scary about saying "If there is a God, I have no idea what s/he is like, or wants"? What's so paralyzing terrifying about saying "If there is life after death, I have no idea what it's like, or how my actions in life affect what happens there"? Why is it better to cherry pick authorities who pretend that they know these things, or to wish really hard and believe one's own wishes, than to admit those simple conclusions?
Why do you and KoM spend countless pages of countless threads advocating a viewpoint when you could just as easily say "I have no idea whether religious people are right or not"?
I have an acquaintance who died a year ago in hospice, and her end was not made any easier by the fact that people like you decided, in the wisdom of their "personal judgment", that the relationship between her and her longtime partner was sinful and evil. They of course, had no evidence that this was the case, but they had their trusted authorities, just like you, and even had the "track record" of the Bible backing them up. Does this reasoning sound familiar? Maybe if some of the human time and energy wasted on trying to placate a God that no one can even demonstrate exists had been directed towards medical research, my acquaintance might have made it to her 40th birthday.

quote:
quote:
Let's say that someone has a religious belief that your heresy is so vile and dangerous that it would be better for you to be tortured into repenting of it (even if that torture has a chance of accidently killing you) than it is for you to continue living.

Of course, this person, like you, believes that their beliefs are more likely to be true than not. So when they put you and your spouse on the rack, and show you the thumbscrews, are you glad that they believe something (based on the best of authorities, all of whom have great track records, and are supported by more good authorities)? Or would you rather have had them come to the conclusion that their authorities on the state of your soul didn't know anything at all, and that since they had no evidence about the existence, let alone state of your soul, that they'd better not draw any conclusions at all about it?

I'd be glad they believed something, but I'd be unhappy that they believed the wrong thing.
Really? You'd rather see your spouse scream on the rack that admit that skepticism isn't such a bad thing?
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MightyCow
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You are oversimplifing, if you want the box analogy to hold any resemblance to your real-life choices.

You need to add several other trustable people telling you that the box your mom doesn't support has the money.

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King of Men
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Actually, you need quite a few extra boxes, each with their own set of supporters; also, the assertion was made that one box contains the million dollars, but in real life this is not given - there is a vocal faction who say they've never seen any million dollars, and neither has anyone else, so why spend a lot of brainpower and crowbar work on this when you could go out and make some money with your own hands, and be a useful engine in the process?
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Tresopax
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The two box example is not an argument by analogy. It is a counterexample - which is why I made it intentionally simple. If you agree with me that it is rational to choose Box #2 rather than pick randomly, then it refutes Orinoco's suggestion that you should never trust a less trustworthy source just because (A) other people you do trust say it is trustworthy and (B) when no more trustworthy source of information is available. Both (A) and (B) occur in the two box example, and no other information is available to make the stranger trustworthy, yet I think it is still rational to trust him and choose Box #2.
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Raymond Arnold
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In your extreme example, of course it makes sense to pick box number 2. But your example is so simplified as to be completely irrelevant. Orincoro's point wasn't that you should never trust authorities ever. Merely that if you rely on trustworthy people TO THE EXCLUSION OF ACTUAL ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB] The two box example is not an argument by analogy. It is a counterexample - which is why I made it intentionally simple.

You didn't make it simple, you made it bad.

In your analogy, it was a given that your authority has looked in the box. But that's not true in religion. And in real life, there are costs associated with picking some boxes over others.

So make your "authority" someone who can't demonstrate that he's seen the contents of the box, and is in fact selling it to your for $1000, and you've got pretty much what happens when religious charletans con their fellow believers out of their money.

In fact, once I befriend your Mom so she'll vouch for me, it's the same scenario that I presented yesterday, that you were sure you should reject.

But really, if you are willing to see your spouse be tortured rather than admit that skepticism is safer than believing totally unfounded things, you shoudln't have any problem handing over your money.

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Tresopax
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quote:
Merely that if you rely on trustworthy people TO THE EXCLUSION OF ACTUAL ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure.
That wasn't what we were talking about though... I agree completely that we shouldn't exclude actual analysis of evidence. But we were discussing the trustworthiness of the Biblical account of Jesus. The question was whether I should trust the Bible given there wasn't other evidence available or some more trustworthy authority contradicting it. Orinoco said "We do not trust an unreliable source because there are no reliable sources."

quote:
In your analogy, it was a given that your authority has looked in the box. But that's not true in religion. And in real life, there are costs associated with picking some boxes over others.

So make your "authority" someone who can't demonstrate that he's seen the contents of the box, and is in fact selling it to your for $1000, and you've got pretty much what happens when religious charletans con their fellow believers out of their money.

In my box example, all we know is that the random persons SAYS he looked in the box, and that the mother says to trust him. We don't know whether he actually looked in the box for sure.

In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?

quote:
But really, if you are willing to see your spouse be tortured rather than admit that skepticism is safer than believing totally unfounded things, you shoudln't have any problem handing over your money.
You did not mention in the example you gave that my spouse would avoid getting tortured if I was willing to admit that. I'd probably admit whatever they wanted me to admit to avoid my spouse being tortured.
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scifibum
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quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
In your extreme example, of course it makes sense to pick box number 2. But your example is so simplified as to be completely irrelevant. Orincoro's point wasn't that you should never trust authorities ever. Merely that if you rely on trustworthy people TO THE EXCLUSION OF ACTUAL ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure.

Or, at least, criticism on the Internet. [Wink]
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Raymond Arnold
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quote:
In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:
[QUOTE]In your analogy, it was a given that your authority has looked in the box. But that's not true in religion. And in real life, there are costs associated with picking some boxes over others.

So make your "authority" someone who can't demonstrate that he's seen the contents of the box, and is in fact selling it to your for $1000, and you've got pretty much what happens when religious charletans con their fellow believers out of their money.

In my box example, all we know is that the random persons SAYS he looked in the box, and that the mother says to trust him. We don't know whether he actually looked in the box for sure. In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
It's still a bad analogy. If my scales, which are accurate enough to distinguish boxes form many other items, can't distinguish the difference between a clearly empty box, and the box that supposedly has a million dollars in it, and if the evidence suggests that it is impossible for anyone to have looked in the box, and I was being asked to pay for the privilage of owning this box, whose contents wouldn't be opened until after I'd spent a million dolalrs, then no, I wouldn't. I'd be better off with the free empty box then paying any amount of money on what the evidence shows is almost certainly another empty box.

quote:
quote:
But really, if you are willing to see your spouse be tortured rather than admit that skepticism is safer than believing totally unfounded things, you shoudln't have any problem handing over your money.
You did not mention in the example you gave that my spouse would avoid getting tortured if I was willing to admit that. I'd probably admit whatever they wanted me to admit to avoid my spouse being tortured.
I can't believe I have to hold your hand through the simplest of intellectual exercises.

In your city, where everyone's personal judgment reigns supreme, everyone has strong beliefs and authorities with good track records supported by other good authorities, that the other believers are vile heretics whose souls are in dire danger every day they live without repenting. So everyone believes that this danger is so deep that there is literally no measure too extreme that could be undertaken to help the poor blind deluded heretics. Or maybe they have a little doubt, but they feel they are more likely to be right than not. So when they put your spouse on the rack, they honestly believe they are helping her.

In my city, people believe what the evidence shows them. They see no evidence for a God, and certainly no evidence about what such a being wants, if it exists. They see no evidence for a soul, and certainly none that your spouse's is in some kind of immortal danger. They conclude that torturing you wouldn't yield any detectable good effect to you, so they have no reason to do it.

Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours? Which city would you really rather live in; the one where people act based on whatever wild beliefs their "personal judgment" supports, or the one where people are expected to act with an eye to demonstratable real world consequences, no matter how strongly their personal judgment tells them to do otherwise?

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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
quote:
In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
But Raymond, there is a DOWNSIDE to not picking mom's box. She's going to be disappointed you didn't listen to her, and you are going to have hear all about it in the car on the way home.
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Raymond Arnold
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quote:
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
It is worth noting that this is not answering Tres' question. The point we're SUPPOSED to be talking about right now is evidence, in the real world, that evidence is superior to authority figures. (oddly enough, the simple fact that evidence in favor of evidence is preferable to an authority figure telling us that evidence is better is rather telling).

Instead we've been talking about hypotheticals. Tres did bring up the box thing which was a very flawed analogy, but it was also a simple one to illustrate a particular point, that authority is not meaningless. Whereas your hypothetical requires a large number of assumptions, none of which are obvious. All things being equal, people DO tend to go with what their authority figure says because it's better than guessing blindly.

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King of Men
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Damn! I was going to try to get post number 666 in this thread. [Frown]
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Raymond Arnold
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Yeah, I wanted to comment on that but couldn't think of anything clever to say.
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Tresopax
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quote:
Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
quote:
It's still a bad analogy.
Again... it is a counterexample, not an argument by analogy. It's not supposed to be similar to religion. It's supposed to show that the assertion Orinoco was making does not hold true in that case.

quote:
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
I don't think "your" city could exist. Human beings need to trust authorities on a daily basis simply to survive in a society - it's part of life. Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.

We could create a city where everyone attempts to use evidence and only evidence as the standard on which beliefs should be based, and where basing beliefs on authority is considered wrong and irrational. I suspect this would lead to the inability of one generation to transfer wisdom to the next generation, and would end up resulting in a much more dangerous city. And there'd still be extremists, who would have convinced themselves their extreme views are proven by the evidence, even when they aren't.

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Destineer
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Tres's counterexample to Orincoro looks good to me. As KoM has pointed out previously in this thread, weak evidence is still evidence.
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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Damn! I was going to try to get post number 666 in this thread. [Frown]

I didn't notice. Sweet that it was mine!
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
The two box example is not an argument by analogy. It is a counterexample - which is why I made it intentionally simple. If you agree with me that it is rational to choose Box #2 rather than pick randomly, then it refutes Orinoco's suggestion...

'fraid not. Trusting your mother not to lie to you about people she knows, and trusting that her religious beliefs are right are not the same thing. Full stop. For starters, you can establish a level of reliability with your family about real world stuff- would she lie? Would she never lie to me? Religious beliefs are not about lying necessarily, they are about being mistaken, and having mistaken beliefs. What comes from that is not a lie- it's the perpetuation of an error.
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MightyCow
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Maybe the guy your mom trusts is a con man, or a sociopath, and the "money" box he recommends has a deadly snake inside.

Making bets on only the authority of someone you "trust" because someone else tells you that they trust the person, for apperantly no good reason, isn't necessarily better than chance - it may be far worse.

Here's a concrete example:
I trust my cousin. The other day she emailed me a virus, which she received from someone she trusted. If I had opened the attachment based on that trust, rather than looked for evidence of it's safety, I would have spent hours fixing my computer.

Unvarifiable authority figures are just as likely to be wrong as you are. You're only moving the random guess up one level, so you don't have to take responsibility for it. You can use the authority as a scapegoat if you guessed wrong.

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Orincoro
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That's a fairly good analogy for religion. It's a viral meme that doesn't want to be killed, and loves to find new ways of spreading itself among people.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
I don't think "your" city could exist. Human beings need to trust authorities on a daily basis simply to survive in a society - it's part of life.
How often do I have to repeat myself? In my city, people do trust some authorities, in proportion to how well the authority knows the reason and evidence. In your city, you trust authorities based on how much your Mom likes them, and how closely what they tell you matches with what you already believe. So you trust your set of inquisitors torturing the other guy, because you already believe that their beliefs are correct, and everyone in your community likes him.

quote:
Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.
No, because the person teaching you how to cross the street safely has all the reason and evidence they need to know that their method works

Again, can you really not explain the doctor has a better track record than the shaman when it comes to healing people's bodies?

I think you can't, because then you'll have to admit that there is a concrete difference between good authorities and bad ones, and you will have to admit that you rely on authorities who don't meet the criteria of good ones.

But I'm going to keep asking anyway. I think your glaring silence on the simplest of question is edifying.

quote:
We could create a city where everyone attempts to use evidence and only evidence as the standard on which beliefs should be based, and where basing beliefs on authority is considered wrong and irrational. I suspect this would lead to the inability of one generation to transfer wisdom to the next generation,
No, it wouldn't because people would believe the authorities whose claims survived reality testing, knowing that those claims are grounded in evidence and reason

quote:
And there'd still be extremists, who would have convinced themselves their extreme views are proven by the evidence, even when they aren't.
For goodness sake; I never said that my city would be perfect. Its populated by fallible humans. That's why reality testing is so important! My city reality test everything it can. Your city doesn't because they just trust "authorities".
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MightyCow
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
That's a fairly good analogy for religion. It's a viral meme that doesn't want to be killed, and loves to find new ways of spreading itself among people.

I find t fascinating to compare the survival mechanisms of various religions. Some of them are amazingly clever.
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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by swbarnes2:

quote:
Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.
No, because the person teaching you how to cross the street safely has all the reason and evidence they need to know that their method works


Because no one gets hit by cars?
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Samprimary
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in honor of this thread, every other day is now no prayer day
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MightyCow
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No, because some methods of crossing the street show testable, repeatable evidence for being far safer than others.
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Tresopax
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quote:
Maybe the guy your mom trusts is a con man, or a sociopath, and the "money" box he recommends has a deadly snake inside.

Making bets on only the authority of someone you "trust" because someone else tells you that they trust the person, for apperantly no good reason, isn't necessarily better than chance - it may be far worse.

Here's a concrete example:
I trust my cousin. The other day she emailed me a virus, which she received from someone she trusted. If I had opened the attachment based on that trust, rather than looked for evidence of it's safety, I would have spent hours fixing my computer.

Unvarifiable authority figures are just as likely to be wrong as you are. You're only moving the random guess up one level, so you don't have to take responsibility for it. You can use the authority as a scapegoat if you guessed wrong.

All of these are possibilities - that's the risk you take when you place trust in someone or something. But sometimes the greatest risk is taking no risk, and I think that is the case when it comes to trusting things. I think on balance, refusing to trust anyone on the grounds that they aren't necessarily telling the truth is going to result in you having fewer accurate beliefs than trusting people who seem to you to be truthful, even if you will be at risk of accepting a false belief.

quote:
In my city, people do trust some authorities, in proportion to how well the authority knows the reason and evidence.
How do people in your city know how well a given authority knows the reason and evidence?

I mean, there are religious authorities who say they can talk to God at will. That's about as well as one could possibly know the evidence of God. The only trouble is, its not always easy to figure out whether they really know the evidence that well or whether they just say they do.

quote:
Again, can you really not explain the doctor has a better track record than the shaman when it comes to healing people's bodies?
The doctor has a better track record because I've gone to doctors many times and was healed, whereas I've never gone to a shaman. If I went to a shaman and he consistently healed me, then I might change my mind. But since I haven't, I must conclude the doctor has a good track record because the things he's been taught are mostly true, whereas I can't assume anything about the shaman.

quote:
My city reality test everything it can. Your city doesn't because they just trust "authorities".
I never said people should only trust authorities. I explicitly said that people should check beliefs against the evidence whenever possible.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I mean, there are religious authorities who say they can talk to God at will. That's about as well as one could possibly know the evidence of God.

I mean, there are authorities on the contents of this $1000 box who say they know there's a million dollars in it. That's about as well as one could possibly know the evidence of what's in the box.

Your torturer also claims he can talk to God at will. So shouldn't you trust him instead of trusting no one? He's sincerely trying to help you, after all.

quote:
The only trouble is, its not always easy to figure out whether they really know the evidence that well or whether they just say they do.
Great. So our Muslim religious authority claims that God told him that Jesus was only a prophet, and not divine.

How do you determine if he really knows the evidence or just says so?

How do you convince your torturer that your religious beliefs are correct?

Don't weasel out by saying it's "hard to do", just say how it's done.

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MightyCow
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I claim that my Brain Leprechaun saved you from a deadly cobra last week, so you owe him $500, and he'll let you just pay me off.

Better to trust me than nobody, right? Put your money where your mouth is.

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kmbboots
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I still fail to understand why you think that if one doesn't use evidence and "reason" exclusively, that one can't use them at all.
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Orincoro
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This thread now makes me want to do that move from Star Trek Wrath of Khan where I turn the phaser on myself because I can't withstand the earwig any longer.
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
I still fail to understand why you think that if one doesn't use evidence and "reason" exclusively, that one can't use them at all.

I'm not saying "can't". I'm saying "won't". I'm sure that you and Tres are exemplary in using reason and evidence in situations where reason and evidence tell you what you want to hear. And I bet you use it in sitautions where you would quickly face dire consequences for not using it. But will you accept the conclusions of reason and evidence when they fly in the face of your chosen religious beliefs? Or will you "choose to believe" whatever the hell you want to?

I'm arguing that once someone argues "I won't use reason and evidnece in situation X", that people will start deciding that every situation where reason and evidence tell them something they don't want to think is true is true, (and the consequences for being wrong are small, at least for them personally) they'll classify that sitaution as another example of X.

For instance, the scientific evidence is clear that there's nothing psychologically unhealthy about being gay. This disagrees with many people's religious beliefs. When presented with the evidence, how many of those people do you think will conclude their religious beliefs were wrong, and how many will conclude that this must be one of those times where science just can't address the question? And will this attitude be confined to this one question, or will people who glom onto it once apply it over and over again?

The virtue of reality testing with reason and evidence is that they show you when you are wrong. If you allow yourself the escape clause of deeming reality-testing unsuitable whenever its conclusions don't agree with what you previously "chose to believe", how will you catch your mistakes?

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MightyCow
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Tres is saying that in situations where you don't know something, and someone else claims to, it is often better just to accept their authority.

Now stop for just a moment, and think about what kind of person is going to seek out lazy or impressionable people and try to convince them of things?

People with good motivations don't make a practice of fooling and manipulating others. It's the power mongers, the con artists, the sociopaths who seek out people who want to be told what to believe.

Would ponzi schemes, cults, and institutionalized prejudice (among many other ills) be nearly as common if more people valued evidence and demanded a higher standard to believe people, rather than simply accepted the word of authority figures who tell them things they wish were true?

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Rakeesh
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quote:

For instance, the scientific evidence is clear that there's nothing psychologically unhealthy about being gay.

Heh, wow, really? That's a pretty bold statement to make about a very large topic. And just to be clear, I would be just as immediately skeptical if you had said, "Scientific evidence is clear there is nothing psychologically unhealthy about birth control," even though I most certainly don't think there is anything psychologically unhealthy in doing so.

I would be very interested to hear what scientific studies you could possibly be referencing that are sufficiently broad in scope to answer the question you claim it has answered.

ETA: To be even more clear, I don't believe there is anything psychologically unhealthy about being gay, any more than there are things psychologically unhealthy about being heterosexual. But your claim that scientific evidence is 'clear' on such a subject...well, it's statements like that that make me think perhaps there isn't as much daylight between you and Tresopax as you'd like to think.

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Tresopax
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quote:
If you allow yourself the escape clause of deeming reality-testing unsuitable whenever its conclusions don't agree with what you previously "chose to believe", how will you catch your mistakes?
I am not arguing you should overrule reality-testing simply simply because you "choose to believe". I am saying that there are many cases where reality-testing is either impossible or cannot give conclusive results (like regarding the truth of my Grandpa's old war stories). In those many cases, I am saying it is wise to consider the input of trusted authorities on the issue too, along with the other evidence.

quote:
Now stop for just a moment, and think about what kind of person is going to seek out lazy or impressionable people and try to convince them of things?
Teachers. Experts of many sorts. Journalists do this as a profession. I think it is pretty common if you've learned something that you consider important to want to convince other people of it, even people who may not have the time or ability to do the research you did to learn that thing.

quote:
Would ponzi schemes, cults, and institutionalized prejudice (among many other ills) be nearly as common if more people valued evidence and demanded a higher standard to believe people, rather than simply accepted the word of authority figures who tell them things they wish were true?
Yes, the risk of lies are the danger that comes with trusting authorities. But the flip side, if you are too afraid to trust an authority, is the danger of missing out on important information. Which danger is worse? As kmbboots suggested, I don't think you have to make that choice - you can use both authorities and evidence together to minimize the downsides of using each alone.
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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
I still fail to understand why you think that if one doesn't use evidence and "reason" exclusively, that one can't use them at all.

I'm not saying "can't". I'm saying "won't". I'm sure that you and Tres are exemplary in using reason and evidence in situations where reason and evidence tell you what you want to hear. And I bet you use it in sitautions where you would quickly face dire consequences for not using it. But will you accept the conclusions of reason and evidence when they fly in the face of your chosen religious beliefs? Or will you "choose to believe" whatever the hell you want to?


Show me where my religious beliefs fly in the face of reason and evidence.
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King of Men
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Every time you say "Choose to believe", a lab rat dies, messing up someone's experimental results.
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MightyCow
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Tres: Lets go back to my brain leprechaun, who saved you from a cobra the other day. Clearly you didn't die from a cbra bite. In fact, I'm certain that you never evensaw the cobra approaching you - that's how good Roger (the leprechaun) is.

So you can't reality test this assertion, and the available evidence seems to support my claim (no cobra, you're not dead), why aren't you believing my claim and sending me $500?

The downside to not believing is that Roger will put you down further on the list, so much higher danger of cobra attack. Deadly cobra attack.

By all your stated criteria, you should be believing me, rather than believing nothing. Where's my $500, or why is this case outside your normal rules?

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MightyCow
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Kmbboots: Religious beliefs frequently claim that prayer produces real world, physical changes. All credible evidence shows that prayer produces no results, yet most religious people continue to pray for things to happen, or ask others to pray for things to happen on their behalf.
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katharina
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quote:
All credible evidence shows that prayer produces no results,
To you, because if results did occur, you would no longer consider it credible.
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kmbboots
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MightyCow, I think that you misunderstand my religious beliefs regarding prayer. Not surprising or your fault, they are complicated and difficult to articulate.
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Tresopax
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quote:
Tres: Lets go back to my brain leprechaun, who saved you from a cobra the other day. Clearly you didn't die from a cbra bite. In fact, I'm certain that you never evensaw the cobra approaching you - that's how good Roger (the leprechaun) is.

So you can't reality test this assertion, and the available evidence seems to support my claim (no cobra, you're not dead), why aren't you believing my claim and sending me $500?

Because you aren't an established authority for me, because your claim contradicts numerous other beliefs I have about the world, and because as best I can tell you seem to be making that story up for the sake of this argument.

My criteria is definitely not "If someone tells you something, believe it regardless of how much it conficts with everything else you know or believe."

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MightyCow
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Katharina: You mean if faulty methodology produced "results" then yes, I would disregard them. Show me some testing that shows prayer works under good scientific procedures, and I'll consider it credible.

Scientific testing, unlike religious belief, isn't "right" when it gives us the answer we want to hear. It's "right" when it controls for chance and bias, is conducted accurately, etc.


Kmbboots: I am aware that you hold beliefs that are completely non representative of 99.999% of other religious people, so I generally comment on the majority, rather than your specific case, which I'm sure would take a lifetime of study to adequately understand. Just assume that all coments are in regard to mainstreem religius beliefs, generally Christianity, and probably do not adequately address your personal offshoot.

At the same time, you should not argue under the impression that arguments from your beliefs hold much water with most Christians.

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MightyCow
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Tres: what makes my claim less compelling than someone else's claim that the Bible is the authority on God?

As others have pointed out, it seems to be that you accept baseless claims if they say what you want to hear, and ignore baseless claims if you prefer a world in which they are not true.

You want the box to contain a million dollars, so unverified guesses are liekly valid. You don't want to send me $500, so my leprechan claim doesn't pass muster.

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kmbboots
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MightyCow, I am really not all that unique. Look at Loyola's concepts of prayer and meditation for example.
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