quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: The point is to base your decision on the most and best information possible. (And again, you don't get to "just decide". Your judgement says what it says, and sometimes you won't like what it says. But you have to go with it regardless. If it says a piece of evidence trumps the authority, then you have to believe that. If it says the authority is more convincing, you have to believe that. If you are being rational, you don't get to say "Well, I like what X is telling me better, so I'm going to ignore the fact that Y seems more convincing than X.")
Do you know nothing of history? Of human psychology?
The Neuman’s personal judgment told them that they were doing the right thing for their daughter. The evidence said they were not, but they ‘had to go with their judgment', right? After all, it was supported by the "best information" they had, and the only conflicting information was for authorities they didn't acknowledge, or the information was not the "best".
What do you think they should have done differently? How should they have come to a different conclusion, given their chosen authorities, best information, and prior beliefs?
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quote:And no, in the scenario he has all the tools needed to draw the conclusion that he should not torture your spouse, if he acts based on reason and evidence, as I've been arguing he should. He knows that he can't point to real evidence concerning your spouse's soul. It's when he draws conclusions they you think he should, where he listens to his chosen authorities, and ignores any information that disagrees with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities, that leads to his ugly and unshakable conclusion.
Again, would you admit to a man that he should listen to a voice in his head, if listening to the voice in his head was the only way to convince him not to torture your spouse? And if so, would that imply listening to voices in your head is generally a good strategy for making choices, or does it just imply I've invented one scenario where it is?
I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
If my spouse were dying of cancer, and the evidence showed that the best chance was painful chemo, I would not try to convince the doctor to ignore the evidence in favor of following her personal judgment to do nothing but pray. I guess you would do differently.
quote:Please note that saying "Authorities occassionally can trump evidence" is different from saying "Authorities always trump evidence" or "Ignore evidence."
Yes, I bet the Neumans only “occasionally” allowed their personal judgment to trump the evidence.
Would you be alright if the person building your house only “occasionally” ignored the evidence that it was unsafe? Or if your doctor “occasionally” took you off your needed meds to put you on useless herbal “remedies” instead?
quote:Great. What evidence have you gathered?
quote:A lot more than I can list here,
For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
quote:but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though.
You can’t be serious. That’s not “evidence” of anything. It’d be more convincing if you said “my evidence is an astrology book”.
But really, you don’t think it’s strange that after insisting that you really, really, do value evidence, now you admit that you don’t have any?
Remember when I asked you about your evidence that your brain was separate from your mind, and you had no evidence there either, only your “feelings”?
So, if one were to judge your true valuing of evidence on how you use it in regard to these two presumably very important questions, what conclusion would one draw?
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"Hence my comment -- "Get back to me when you have a good explanation for why a hypothesis that is not falsifiable should be considered to be false" in response to your demand that I get back to you when I come up with a testable hypothesis about God."
In other words, there is nothing I can do that might convince me that god exists, therefore, your belief in things that aren't falsifiable is rational?
My statement about the testability of god is that, unlike Newton's Third Law, not only is god not falsifiable, but I can't walk into my classroom and convince people, against previous expectation, that belief in god is justifiable.
Believing in things that can't be falsified is bad epistemology. We can't discard false beliefs if we don't demand that all beliefs we hold be falsifiable. And if we can't discard false beliefs, then we never get closer to knowing true things, we just keep building on old bad knowledge.
On the other hand, demanding evidence in support of hypotheses is demanding that things we believe be connected to reality.
Evidence is the reason to believe a particular hypothesis, falsifiability is the hammer to ensure that the hypotheses we've accepted aren't flawed.
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quote: My statement about the testability of god is that, unlike Newton's Third Law, not only is god not falsifiable, but I can't walk into my classroom and convince people, against previous expectation, that belief in god is justifiable.
Well, thankfully teachers aren't allowed to do so, but it's certainly possible. People convince other people that belief in god is justifiable against previous expectation all the time, Paul.
quote:In other words, there is nothing I can do that might convince me that god exists, therefore, your belief in things that aren't falsifiable is rational?
She's not just believing in things because they aren't falsifiable. You're leaving off a big part of the situation. It would indeed be quite silly to believe in something just because the belief can't be disproved. I'm certain if you inquired, though, you would find that Rabbit has positive evidence for her beliefs as well as a lack of negative evidence pointing to their being untrue.
quote: Believing in things that can't be falsified is bad epistemology. We can't discard false beliefs if we don't demand that all beliefs we hold be falsifiable. And if we can't discard false beliefs, then we never get closer to knowing true things, we just keep building on old bad knowledge.
You leave out the part where we add on new beliefs that can be falsified, and have been.
quote:Evidence is the reason to believe a particular hypothesis, falsifiability is the hammer to ensure that the hypotheses we've accepted aren't flawed.
And when the hammer doesn't exist, believe nothing? That doesn't seem particularly rational to me. Or at least, not the only rational of all possible decisions.
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" People convince other people that belief in god is justifiable against previous expectation all the time, Paul."
I disagree. Local example of one reason why would be AKA, who was clearly looking for a reason to believe in god before she believed in god. I also dispute "justifiable," as I use that word only in conjunction with positive evidence, and as Tom has stated earlier, no one, ever, has ever been able to show positive evidence for the existence of god. I am glad to start a thread in which you and rabbit try to show positive evidence for the existence of god, if you actually believe that this evidence exists, and would participate in that thread.
"And when the hammer doesn't exist, believe nothing? That doesn't seem particularly rational to me. Or at least, not the only rational of all possible decisions."
Believe nothing is not the opposite of "don't believe this particular claim." Believing a claim that can't be falsified is never more rational than not believing that claim.
"You leave out the part where we add on new beliefs that can be falsified, and have been. "
ANd yet, in your religious beliefs, you are simply building a castle on an insubstantial foundation.
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quote: I disagree. Local example of one reason why would be AKA, who was clearly looking for a reason to believe in god before she believed in god.
So you disagree that it happens all the time because there is a local example of a time it didn't? That doesn't seem like a very reasonable chain of thought to me, or am I misunderstanding you?
Anyway, whether 'justifiable' is valid or not to you is pretty irrelevant to what I was saying. I was saying that people, aside from us here on Hatrack, convince other people also aside from us on Hatrack that belief in god is justifiable all the time, against previous expectation. Whether you think it is doesn't matter one whit to that situation.
People also convince other people that belief in God isn't justifiable, against previous expectation, all the time. I mistrust absolute statements like the ones you're making when it comes to human beings.
quote:Believe nothing is not the opposite of "don't believe this particular claim." Believing a claim that can't be falsified is never more rational than not believing that claim.
There's another absolute. No matter how much evidence there might be in support of a belief, it is always less rational to believe in it than not, if it cannot be falsified? It very much sounds to me like you're begging the question here. Could you go into more detail?
quote:ANd yet, in your religious beliefs, you are simply building a castle on an insubstantial foundation.
Not only do you not know how insubstantial my foundation is, you don't know how much of my 'castle' rests upon it.
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"Not only do you not know how insubstantial my foundation is, you don't know how much of my 'castle' rests upon it. "
Since the entirety of the evidence available to me points in one direction, and one direction only, I am forced to conclude, as there is no falsifying evidence available, that the substantialness of your belief in god is exactly "zero." Unless you have religious beliefs that do not rest upon the existence of god (Which would be somewhat of a contradiction, although one that in rare instances exists), I conclude that all, or nearly all, of your castle rests on a vacuous foundation.
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For instance, "wave/particle duality" is a heuristic, analogical way of thinking about the theory rather than a literal one. So some of the weird ideas you attribute to QM aren't really there in the theory.
This is true of a fair amount of religious language as well.
The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
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For instance, "wave/particle duality" is a heuristic, analogical way of thinking about the theory rather than a literal one. So some of the weird ideas you attribute to QM aren't really there in the theory.
This is true of a fair amount of religious language as well.
The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
I believe that is highly disputed in philosophy of science. The types of scientific models/analogies that suggest areas for investigation are not reducible to mathmatics.
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quote: The types of scientific models/analogies that suggest areas for investigation are not reducible to mathmatics.
That's what we call the context of discovery, and has nothing to do with understanding existing science once it's on paper.
A good theory might come to a physicist in his dreams. That doesn't mean future thinkers have to dream about the theory in order to understand it.
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Philosophers are a funny bunch. Some of us spend our careers defending sane, mainstream ideas. Others do the opposite.
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I was thinking of Mary Hesse, actually. Also JJC Smart and Rom Harre. Not quite so "fringe" as all that.
And I said nothing about dreams, or how one gets inspiration for a theory, we were talking about language. Models and analogies in scientific practice are not dispensible, even if you know enough math.
Edit to add: I'm not claiming that religious language is scientific. There are differences, but you don't clarify those differences by overstating them.
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Using Hesse's definition of the terms, that a productive model produces positive, negative, and neutral analogies, would you say they are dispensible?
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Paul, The fact that you can produce evidence that many actions have an equal an opposite reaction, is not evidence that EVERY action has an equal and opposite reaction. In fact, there are many hypotheses which arise out of the third law which are not falsifiable. For example, when I release a 1 g ball that is 1 m above the earth's surface, we can observe that it will fall 1 m. Newton's 3rd law tells us that the entire earth will move ~0.006 yacto meters in the opposite direction of the ball. (That's ~1 trillionth the diameter of an electron). There is no evidence that this actually happens, except the 3rd law itself. That isn't just a technological problem. That distance is greater than the fundamental uncertain of the positions involved. Its an untestable hypothesis.
That said, we have had this argument about what constitutes evidence before. It was fruitless then and I expected it will be fruitless again. I have better ways to spend my time.
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"Paul, The fact that you can produce evidence that many actions have an equal an opposite reaction, is not evidence that EVERY action has an equal and opposite reaction."
Yup, I haven't proved that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. On the other hand, the body of evidence is that EVERY ACTION WE CAN TEST has an equal and opposite reaction. Its pretty damn reasonable to extrapolate from that, to the removal of "we can test."
But I don't see any evidence from which we can extrapolate to "God exists," with any sort of rationality. You have to have SOME evidence to extrapolate from. And extrapolation has to be consistent with the evidence gathered.
"That said, we have had this argument about what constitutes evidence before. It was fruitless then and I expected it will be fruitless again. I have better ways to spend my time."
Yes. You need "Evidence," to mean something completely different when discussing god than it means when you're doing research, otherwise you have to face a crisis of your faith. I understand that.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Yes. You need "Evidence," to mean something completely different when discussing god than it means when you're doing research, otherwise you have to face a crisis of your faith. I understand that.
No I don't. We've been over this before. When I speak of "evidence", in both science and religion, I mean "a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment." Your persistent claim that there is no evidence that God exists requires some mental gymnastics that even many of your atheist peers find suspect.
Aside from that you have totally ignored my most important arguments about the underpinnings of science, which had little to do with Newton's 3rd law. Some of the basic assumptions of science have no evidence to support them at all. For example:
1. There are natural laws. 2. All phenomena have natural causes. 3. Observations must be reproducible to be "true". 4. All true claims can be verified objectively. 5. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
To be honest, science and scientists need to recognize the inherent contradiction in that set of claims.
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quote:If you and I were right before to agree that beliefs formed by testimony early in life are systematically unreliable for this reason, doesn't that give those religious people who aren't later-life converts excellent reason to discount their beliefs?
When I first started reading philosophy, I was drawn to the idea of starting over with a fresh set of infallible assumptions as a foundation for beliefs. The idea was then that once we started with that rock-solid foundation, we could build on top of that and eventually end up with a logically-proven set of beliefs from top to bottom. But over time, I have been persuaded by the arguments of skepticism that such a thing is not possible. There is no set of infallible assumptions we can use as a foundation - and those philosophers who have tried to do such a thing seem to repeatedly end up making absurd conclusions. Instead, we are forced by our situation as limited human beings to begin with a rotten foundation, or at least a foundation filled with potential holes.
So yes, I think you are exactly right to point out that what I am describing is very similar to the "rotten foundation" problem you described earlier. I think we all are always going to be stuck in that problem, in varying degrees. But I don't believe the solution is to recognize the rottenness later in life and then decide everything based on that rotten core is completely untrustworthy - like pulling out the rug from under our beliefs. Instead, I think the solution is to work back and over time determine which of your original beliefs are worth keeping and which require correcting - which are supported by all the new information you have, and which conflict with it. That can be a complicated process, and is never complete, but I think its the only real option we have.
But the effect of it is that adult believers in religion do not have the same reasons for accepting religion that child believers do. Whereas someone may have originally believed in God because Mommy said so, they have since that time gone back and looked again at that assumption many times, and likely have either rejected it or found more convincing reasons to accept it. So you can't really just say that we can't trust anything someone says about religion simply because they first accepted religion on the basis of a childish authority. You can only say that if that's still the only reason they believe what they do.
quote:What do you think they should have done differently? How should they have come to a different conclusion, given their chosen authorities, best information, and prior beliefs?
Without a lot more information about them, I could not say. But it is entirely possible to be in a situation where the circumstances are set up and your beliefs are set up in such a way where you did everything right given what you knew at the time but ended up in a tragic wrong conclusion. It is definitely possible to come up with such scenarios.
quote:I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
The same is true with the torture scenario you keep bringing up. Would I convince someone to think in a way that contradicts my assertions in this thread, if it served my own ends to get them to do so (by preventing my spouse from being tortured)? If the answer is yes, all you've really proved is that I really don't want my spouse to be tortured.
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quote:A lot more than I can list here,
For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
I've answered this question each time you asked it. In fact, I answered this question directly after you cut off my quote at that comma - and you even replied to my answer separately in that same post.
The trouble seems to be that you don't like my answer. But its going to be the same answer as long as your question remains the same - because answering otherwise would essentally be lying.
Here's the rest of my answer: "but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though."Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: AKA and Hobbes. Those are the kind of Hatrackers I miss with all my heart.
Hobbes is around, but more on Sakeriver than Hatrack these days. AKA/Tatiana I haven't seen anywhere lately.
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quote:Using Hesse's definition of the terms, that a productive model produces positive, negative, and neutral analogies, would you say they are dispensible?
I would, but not because of anything in Hesse's approach. I don't know it very well, but I subscribe to an alternative view called the semantic account of theories, which I think accounts perfectly well for the examples she appeals to without any essential need for analogies.
In short, I don't accept her definition.
quote: quote:The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
This is definitely not true for quantum mechanics.
Yes it is. My conceptual understanding of QM, which I would say is as good as anyone's, doesn't depend on any analogies.
QM is a theory in which physical states are given by vectors in a Hilbert space, and observable quantities are given by operators in a nonabelian algebra acting on that space. These terms are perfectly precise and together they entail all the facts that get lumped, sloppily, under the concept of "wave-particle duality."
There are conceptual problems with the theory, but they can also be formulated in precise mathematical terms, and several possible solutions have been advanced in the same terms.
quote: So yes, I think you are exactly right to point out that what I am describing is very similar to the "rotten foundation" problem you described earlier. I think we all are always going to be stuck in that problem, in varying degrees. But I don't believe the solution is to recognize the rottenness later in life and then decide everything based on that rotten core is completely untrustworthy - like pulling out the rug from under our beliefs. Instead, I think the solution is to work back and over time determine which of your original beliefs are worth keeping and which require correcting - which are supported by all the new information you have, and which conflict with it. That can be a complicated process, and is never complete, but I think its the only real option we have.
It just seems obvious to me that belief in the authority of scripture is part of the rotten foundation, and one of the first things that should be corrected.
What sort of post-hoc justification do you think can be given for the notion that the Christian Bible is the word of God?
I think there are all sorts of good arguments one can use to support the existence of a creator. But the historical evidence tells very strongly against the accuracy of the Christian account of this creator -- and every other accepted account I know of.
(I'm not saying that Jesus's life isn't historically well understood. I'm saying we have no evidence that the Bible isn't just one purportedly holy book among many, with a perfectly good cultural explanation for its existence that has nothing to do with God having written it.)
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I think there are all sorts of good arguments one can use to support the existence of a creator.
I should add that almost all believers are ignorant of the good arguments in favor of God's existence, as are most of the clergy they treat as authorities.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: It just seems obvious to me that belief in the authority of scripture is part of the rotten foundation, and one of the first things that should be corrected.
What sort of post-hoc justification do you think can be given for the notion that the Christian Bible is the word of God?
I think there are all sorts of good arguments one can use to support the existence of a creator. But the historical evidence tells very strongly against the accuracy of the Christian account of this creator -- and every other accepted account I know of.
(I'm not saying that Jesus's life isn't historically well understood. I'm saying we have no evidence that the Bible isn't just one purportedly holy book among many, with a perfectly good cultural explanation for its existence that has nothing to do with God having written it.) [/QB]
Most mainline denominations, including the one that Tres belongs to, don't believe that God wrote the Bible. I can't speak to what he personally believes, of course, but I think it is important to note that "authority of scripture" is a pretty broad term and distinct from particular beliefs about its author(s).
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quote:(I'm not saying that Jesus's life isn't historically well understood. I'm saying we have no evidence that the Bible isn't just one purportedly holy book among many, with a perfectly good cultural explanation for its existence that has nothing to do with God having written it.)
I don't think the Bible is written by God. I think it was written by people. I do think it is one purportedly holy book among many, and I give it the weight of a historical document from many many years ago. I presume some parts are mistaken, and some parts are misunderstood, but I think the main story is probably accurate. It is the main story that I consider most important; I am not one to try to derive rules of life from individual passages or brief phrases of the Bible. I also give more weight to the more recently written parts, and less weight to the older parts. Many parts seem to be just stories passed down, and I don't give those parts a lot of factual weight - although I do give them weight as moral lessons. It differs from other religious books because its teachings seem to me to be more effective than most, more consistent with reality as I observe it, and presents ideas the seem to make more sense to me. (For instance, the Qur'an as I understand it centers a lot on rules that seem somewhat arbitrary to me.) It also differs simply because I've taken more time to understand it; I'll admit its possible that if I studied other religious books carefully they might turn out to be convincing too.
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quote:It differs from other religious books because its teachings seem to me to be more effective than most, more consistent with reality as I observe it, and presents ideas the seem to make more sense to me.
First of all, "reality as you observe it" is a biased sample given that you live in a largely Christian country.
I don't see how effectiveness has anything to do with truth. Self-deceptive positive thinking, a la The Secret, can be extremely effective in improving one's life. It also has no basis in fact.
Also, the way God acts at several points in the Bible doesn't make much sense. A good example was brought up earlier in this thread, perhaps in an uhelpful way, but it's a good point:
Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary?
Why couldn't God, whose power is limitless, save humanity without Christ dying on the cross?
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quote: I don't see how effectiveness has anything to do with truth. Self-deceptive positive thinking, a la The Secret, can be extremely effective in improving one's life. It also has no basis in fact.
What makes you think truth is more important to him in this case?
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quote:First of all, "reality as you observe it" is a biased sample given that you live in a largely Christian country.
This is true. Odds are much higher that I wouldn't be Christian if I didn't live in a Christian country.
quote:I don't see how effectiveness has anything to do with truth.
If you tell me "I've cooked X before and if you add ingredient Y then it will taste better", and then if I add incredient Y to my recipe for X, and then if X ends up tasting better, doesn't that give me at least a slight reason to think you probably were telling the truth about cooking X before? For instance, when the Bible says forgiveness is what a person should do, and then I observe that forgiving does seem to turn out right when applied in real life, I'm inclined to think it had an idea what its talking about.
quote:Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary?
Why couldn't God, whose power is limitless, save humanity without Christ dying on the cross?
I don't think I know what limits may be on God's power or why Jesus's sacrifice was necessary. Unless God explicitly explained it to any of them, I don't think the authors of the Bible could understand what limitations are involved either. I think of it sort of as a powerful way to send a message to us.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Instead, I think the solution is to work back and over time determine which of your original beliefs are worth keeping and which require correcting - which are supported by all the new information you have, and which conflict with it. That can be a complicated process, and is never complete, but I think its the only real option we have.
So how would the process of, say, re-evaluating the claims of Jesus’ divinity work? Well, we have you own words, so let’s see what you said:
“I used my best judgement based on the information I have about them, particularly the fact that their teachings conflict with many other of my beliefs and the fact that they base their conclusions on authorities I haven't accepted.”
Emphasis mine. So your result of re-assessing your beliefs of Jesus’ divinity was to reject conflicting arguments and conflicting authorities. Not complicated at all. Are you claiming that most people are just better at this process than you are?
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quote:What do you think they should have done differently? How should they have come to a different conclusion, given their chosen authorities, best information, and prior beliefs?
Without a lot more information about them, I could not say.
Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
quote:But it is entirely possible to be in a situation where the circumstances are set up and your beliefs are set up in such a way where you did everything right given what you knew at the time but ended up in a tragic wrong conclusion. It is definitely possible to come up with such scenarios.
Kara Neuman’s life and death aren’t “scenarios” that I just made up. It really happened. A child’s body is in the ground, because her parents made their decisions the way you advocate, by “occasionally” ignoring evidence when they disagree with it.
So you admit that people thinking your way can’t reliably catch errors. If people are examining all the evidence, which includes the context of that evidence (like recognizing that tiny studies don’t mean much, but that large ones with statistical power do, to the extent that the data collected actually addresses the purported conclusions, recognizing the various kinds of evidence have predictable accuracy ranges, etc), how likely is it that they can get “trapped” into believing things which the evidence falsifies?
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quote:I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
The same is true with the torture scenario you keep bringing up. Would I convince someone to think in a way that contradicts my assertions in this thread, if it served my own ends to get them to do so (by preventing my spouse from being tortured)? If the answer is yes, all you've really proved is that I really don't want my spouse to be tortured.
No, it’s not. I never, ever asked if you should do anything, and it’s just a plain lie to claim otherwise. I asked how you would reason with someone who was drawing conclusions the way you think he ought to be, with prior beliefs and chosen authorities. It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul). So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
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quote:
quote:A lot more than I can list here,
For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
I've answered this question each time you asked it. In fact, I answered this question directly after you cut off my quote at that comma - and you even replied to my answer separately in that same post.
Because what followed was not evidence of anything! And I have no idea how you go from “Christians live successful modern lives” to “Christ is divine”. That’s why you have to explain that. You might have well offered the success of wild rabbits in Australia as evidence, it would have made about as much sense.
quote:The trouble seems to be that you don't like my answer. But its going to be the same answer as long as your question remains the same - because answering otherwise would essentally be lying.
No, you could be honest as you eventually were, by admitting that you don’t have any evidence. But then you have to explain why you kept claiming to have evidence.
quote:Here's the rest of my answer: "but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though."
So you are arguing that the burning of witches (which is clearly a teaching of the Bible) is evidence that Christ is divine? How on earth does that follow? That’s why you have to explain your reasoning. You’ve got about a billion Muslims, and most of them are getting through the modern world fine. Same with a smaller number of atheists, and they come to the opposite conclusion about the divinity of Christ. I think one might make a good argument that watching your child die needlessly while you do nothing but pray is the opposite of successful, but some people who believe in the divinity of Christ do exactly that. And it probably happens more often in Christian households who believe in the divinity of Christ than in atheist households who don’t. So, what conclusion should be drawn from that evidence? Or will you ignore the implications, because they disagree with your prior beliefs? So much for your self-proclaimed valuing of evidence.
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quote:If you tell me "I've cooked X before and if you add ingredient Y then it will taste better", and then if I add incredient Y to my recipe for X, and then if X ends up tasting better, doesn't that give me at least a slight reason to think you probably were telling the truth about cooking X before?
Sure, because in this case my past cooking is a natural explanation for my skill. It would be hard to think up a credible story according to which I'm right about what ingredient to use, but wrong about my cooking experience.
quote:For instance, when the Bible says forgiveness is what a person should do, and then I observe that forgiving does seem to turn out right when applied in real life, I'm inclined to think it had an idea what its talking about.
The analogy here is very weak. I can easily think up a credible story according to which the Bible is right about forgiveness but wrong about its other claims.
For instance, whoever wrote the gospel of Mark probably had the experience, several times in life, of forgiving someone and benefiting thereby. That's a good explanation for why the book says forgiveness is beneficial, and it doesn't involve any appeal to the actual truth of any of the religious ideas contained in Mark.
The fact that Mark doesn't lie about whether forgiveness is beneficial is a tiny bit of evidence that he's not prone to lying. (That's not what you're talking about here though.) Anyway it's just a tiny bit of evidence, easily outweighed by the unbelievable weirdness of the story he tells about Jesus's miracles.
quote:I don't think I know what limits may be on God's power or why Jesus's sacrifice was necessary. Unless God explicitly explained it to any of them, I don't think the authors of the Bible could understand what limitations are involved either. I think of it sort of as a powerful way to send a message to us.
OK. At this point, the careful and objective thinker will weigh the likelihood of this admittedly ill-understood idea against these easily-understood apparent facts:
(1) Foisting the punishment of a guilty person on an innocent being does not absolve the guilty person of his/her guilt, contrary to the idea of "Christ dying for our sins."
(2) God is the one judging people in the first place, strongly indicating that he could forgive us with no sacrifice required.
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quote:Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
What do you think I'm debating here? I'm definitely not trying to make a case that Christianity is better than Islam. I don't have enough knowledge of Islam to make such an argument. The only reason it comes up is because you keep asking why I believe Christianity rather than other religions - and I am answering.
quote:So you admit that people thinking your way can’t reliably catch errors. If people are examining all the evidence, which includes the context of that evidence (like recognizing that tiny studies don’t mean much, but that large ones with statistical power do, to the extent that the data collected actually addresses the purported conclusions, recognizing the various kinds of evidence have predictable accuracy ranges, etc), how likely is it that they can get “trapped” into believing things which the evidence falsifies?
I think my method of thinking catches errors more reliably than the method you are arguing for. That's because someone following your method would only catch errors when they have access to scientific evidence to demonstrate there is an error. In real life, I think the majority of errors are caught when an authority tells you that you are making a mistake - as in a doctor telling you that you shouldn't really do X. The cases where people listen to a religious authority and end up getting killed are far far fewer than, for instance, the number of people who die because they choose not to listen to the authorities who told them to wear a seatbelt and instead relied on the evidence they have collected themselves ("We've driven 1,000 times without a seatbelt and have never been hurt before!")
quote:So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
You'd need to either show him evidence, a line of reasoning, or some authority that he would consider weightier and more convincing than whatever it was that is causing him to think torture is a good idea. If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
quote:It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul).
What evidence could you possibly come up with that would clearly show torture does not save souls? I'd say this method makes convincing him impossible - since the sort of evidence you are talking about does not exist for the question of "What saves souls?".
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quote:The fact that Mark doesn't lie about whether forgiveness is beneficial is a tiny bit of evidence that he's not prone to lying. (That's not what you're talking about here though.) Anyway it's just a tiny bit of evidence, easily outweighed by the unbelievable weirdness of the story he tells about Jesus's miracles.
Yes, but forgiveness is one of many important ideas that not only seem to work, but also seem to fit in with one another to create a coherent whole. All of it, together, outweighs the weirdness (which becomes a lot less weird if you approach it with the belief that a God probably exists who can perform miracles.)
quote:OK. At this point, the careful and objective thinker will weigh the likelihood of this admittedly ill-understood idea against these easily-understood apparent facts:
(1) Foisting the punishment of a guilty person on an innocent being does not absolve the guilty person of his/her guilt, contrary to the idea of "Christ dying for our sins."
(2) God is the one judging people in the first place, strongly indicating that he could forgive us with no sacrifice required.
Well, I don't really see it as something God was forced to do in order to forgive us. I just see it as the method He, for whatever reason, chose to use to do it. I don't pretend to know why God did things the way he did. I'd like to, but I certainly don't expect to.
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quote:All of it, together, outweighs the weirdness (which becomes a lot less weird if you approach it with the belief that a God probably exists who can perform miracles.)
In my opinion, the only good arguments for the existence of a creator are the design and fine-tuning arguments, which don't at all imply that God should be able to perform miracles.
Anyway, the specific miracles are very weird regardless of the power involved. Think of the story of Jesus exorcising Legion. It clearly presumes that the primitive notion of mental illness as demon possession is correct. Modern science has told us that it isn't.
It would be like if Jesus cured a man's illness by bleeding him.
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posted
As I said, I'm more concerned with the general story than the specifics in the Bible, because I think the Bible was written by man - and thus parts may be misunderstood, added, or altered. I'd presume whoever witnessed that event interpreted it in the way they best understood, so if they understood mental illness to be demon possession then that's probably how they reported it. (Although in fairness to the details of the story and those who believe it is literal, I don't think modern science has told us demon possession is impossible. If you accept the existence of demons, which I more or less don't I might add, then it becomes much less weird.)
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quote:Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
What do you think I'm debating here? I'm definitely not trying to make a case that Christianity is better than Islam. I don't have enough knowledge of Islam to make such an argument.
I wrote that in response to your ignorance of the Neumans, not of Islam. Though it's largely applicable there too. You yourself keep arguing that you are a stellar example of constantly testing your prior beliefs for errors, so what do you test them against, if you keep yourself ignorant of the counter-claims, and the reasoning and evidence supporting them? Honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims. Though if you wish to argue that this doesn't apply to you, I won't quibble.
quote:The only reason it comes up is because you keep asking why I believe Christianity rather than other religions - and I am answering.
No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer. If you want to be straightforward, and admit that you don't have any real evidence supporting your belief that Jesus is divine, then you could just be honest and do that. But "Some people who follow the Bible are successful" is not evidence that Jesus is divine. Do you actually need me to lay out in detail why it's not?
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quote:So you admit that people thinking your way can’t reliably catch errors. If people are examining all the evidence, which includes the context of that evidence (like recognizing that tiny studies don’t mean much, but that large ones with statistical power do, to the extent that the data collected actually addresses the purported conclusions, recognizing the various kinds of evidence have predictable accuracy ranges, etc), how likely is it that they can get “trapped” into believing things which the evidence falsifies?
I think my method of thinking catches errors more reliably than the method you are arguing for.
You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept. You already showed that your method utterly rejects admitting error! Your own actions are the proof!
quote:That's because someone following your method would only catch errors when they have access to scientific evidence to demonstrate there is an error. In real life, I think the majority of errors are caught when an authority tells you that you are making a mistake - as in a doctor telling you that you shouldn't really do X.
Really? Like how you admitted your error when the Muslim religious teacher showed it to you?
Oh no, you didn't! You told us that you ignore him, because his claims conflict with your prior beliefs, and you don't trust his authority, because...well, you just don't.
The doctors told the Hausers that their son would not get better without medical treatment. So in your fantasy world, this means that they listened?
quote:The cases where people listen to a religious authority and end up getting killed are far far fewer than, for instance, the number of people who die because they choose not to listen to the authorities who told them to wear a seatbelt and instead relied on the evidence they have collected themselves ("We've driven 1,000 times without a seatbelt and have never been hurt before!")
Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that. Nor do they imagine that bad accidents are literally impossible. They don't wear them because they don't think an accident will happen this time. And most of the time, they are correct, and an accident doesn't happen. Seat-belt non-wearers aren't wrong about the odds, or the consequences of wearing or not wearing, either during an accident, or during a smooth ride. They just measure the sure convenience as being more important than the tiny chance of an accident.
Did I really have to explain that to you? Could you really not figure that out for yourself?
The Hausers truly believed that their child would recover from cancer without chemo. The Neumans truly believed that God would heal their daughter. They were all wrong.
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quote:So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
You'd need to either show him evidence, a line of reasoning, or some authority that he would consider weightier and more convincing than whatever it was that is causing him to think torture is a good idea. If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
quote: If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
The torturer going to do exactly as you said you'd do.
quote:I use my best judgment based on the information I have about them, particularly the fact that their teachings conflict with many other of my beliefs and the fact that they base their conclusions on authorities I haven't accepted.
Emphasis mine He’ll be exactly as open as you are to the Muslim argument against Jesus divinity, and you just told us that you don’t know anything about them at all. I’d say that’s not very open at all.
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quote:It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul).
What evidence could you possibly come up with that would clearly show torture does not save souls? I'd say this method makes convincing him impossible - since the sort of evidence you are talking about does not exist for the question of "What saves souls?".
Again, read what I said. There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
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quote:No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer.
As you said, "honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims." So look again at the answer I gave - I think it is possible to understand what I am saying. Again, I would be lying if I said the reason I believed Jesus is divine had anything to do with some sort of physical evidence from 2,000 years ago that proves it. (I don't even think it is possible to scientificly show divinity.) But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine. It also fits with other beliefs I hold. If you want to label this as "no evidence" that's fine, but don't say I did not answer the quetion.
quote:You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept.
Once again, I did not write that. I wrote that I weigh prior beliefs against new information - sometimes I may reject the conclusions of the new in favor of the old, or sometimes I may reject the old in favor of the new, but I don't disregard either.
quote:Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that.
How do they "know" the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives?
quote:Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
I'm measuring them based on many different factors, including the evidence they present, the reasons they present, the way I think they learned what they claim to know, my beliefs about their motivations, the consistency of what they are saying with my prior beliefs and observations, etc. If the Muslim leader proposed a set of beliefs that suddenly made all my prior, beliefs, and experiences make a lot more sense, then I'd probably believe him.
quote:There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
I don't think a religious fanatic who is following the position you proposed would be persuaded by this argument. He'd say "Well, you just said we needed evidence, so if you've got no evidence to convince me, I'm not persuaded by your argument."
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quote: But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine.
I'm not sure I get why this follows. I think Herodotus is a good historical account of the Greek-Persian war. Is that supposed to give me reason to believe that the Oracle at Delphi had precognitive powers?
Like before, I'd probably grant that there is some weak (paper-thin) evidence to be found here. As in, if I had no evidence that predicting the future is impossible, I might have some reason to believe the Oracle could do it. But that's not the sort of relatively strong evidence you claim to have about Christ.
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quote:I'm not sure I get why this follows. I think Herodotus is a good historical account of the Greek-Persian war. Is that supposed to give me reason to believe that the Oracle at Delphi had precognitive powers?
Yes. The reason you don't believe that the Oracle had precognitive powers is because, I suspect, you have a much stronger prior belief that precognitive powers don't exist and that claims by ancients of having such powers are made up. On the other hand, if you believed that precognitive powers are a true common ability that certain individuals had occassionally throughout history, then I suspect you'd take Herodotus' claims about the Oracle more at face value, like you do with his other historical claims. (If Herodotus had said, for instance, "The Oracle could cook well" then you'd probably would take that as a reason to at least suspect the Oracle has cooking skills, right?) You weigh the claims of an authority in the context of all your other beliefs - which is why I'd think some claims of Herodotus you accept without much additional evidence and some you reject with the same lack of additional evidence.
quote:But that's not the sort of relatively strong evidence you claim to have about Christ.
quote:No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer.
As you said, "honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims." So look again at the answer I gave - I think it is possible to understand what I am saying. Again, I would be lying if I said the reason I believed Jesus is divine had anything to do with some sort of physical evidence from 2,000 years ago that proves it. (I don't even think it is possible to scientificly show divinity.) But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine. It also fits with other beliefs I hold. If you want to label this as "no evidence" that's fine, but don't say I did not answer the quetion.
You mean the historical account that says that the dead got up out of their graves? That's the kind of account you find historically accurate?
Isn't there just as much "reason to accept the Iliad as a historical authority"? Why don't you believe in Athena?
Really, arguing "I believe unevidenced and wildly unlikely things because I believe other unevidenced and wildly unlikely things" is not a sound argument. It's not even very smart. This isn't about "how crazy a set of beliefs can I string together with a thread of consistantcy", it's about figuring out what's true. If those other beliefs aren't true, then this one being consistant with them doesn't make it true, either. If you believe this claim unevidenced, then it's probably false, which casts doubt on the accuracy of all those other beliefs that you won't articualte, but that you expect us to find oh-so-compelling.
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quote:You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept.
Once again, I did not write that. I wrote that I weigh prior beliefs against new information - sometimes I may reject the conclusions of the new in favor of the old, or sometimes I may reject the old in favor of the new, but I don't disregard either.
You wrote that you judged the claim, not primarily on any objective qualities, (like how well evidenced it was, no, there was absolutely no mention of evidence to be found), but particularly on its conforming to what you already believed.
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quote:Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that.
How do they "know" the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives?
They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence. They don't ask their older brothers, or their mommies, or their pastors, because their mommies or brothers or pastors might not know the evidence, despite the fact that they really love and look up to their mommies. Is this simple answer truly beyond your ken?
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quote:Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
I'm measuring them based on many different factors, including the evidence they present, the reasons they present, the way I think they learned what they claim to know, my beliefs about their motivations, the consistency of what they are saying with my prior beliefs and observations, etc.
You have to sneak in that consistancy with your prior beliefs in. So if they have great evidence, but it disagrees with your prior beliefs, isn't that exactly what that "ocasionally I let my personal judgment (which was formed by mommy) trump the evidence" loophole is for?
But now that you've admitted that you have no evidence in favor of Jesus divinity, what evidence do you claim your authorities have?
And no, don't say "my pastor had a vision" is your evidence, unelss you are prepared to treat all other claims of visions as just as good evidence.
quote:If the Muslim leader proposed a set of beliefs that suddenly made all my prior, beliefs, and experiences make a lot more sense, then I'd probably believe him.
Funny how I have to ask you multiple times before "evidence" turns up in your qualifications. I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
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quote:There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
I don't think a religious fanatic who is following the position you proposed would be persuaded by this argument. He'd say "Well, you just said we needed evidence, so if you've got no evidence to convince me, I'm not persuaded by your argument."
Yes you need evidence which is why a lack of it supporting one's claim is a problem!
You are getting even more senseless, if you think that a complete lack of evidence = support for every nonsense imaginary claim that one could make up. Going from "no evidence" to "your spouse's undetectable soul is in danger, and it will be undetectably saved by...", well there's no rational, reasonable way to end that phrase, and you truly are lost and delusional if you think that reason requires, or even suggests one.
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quote:They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence.
How do they know those reports are correct? How do they know the authorities that say they know the evidence actually do know the evidence?
quote:But now that you've admitted that you have no evidence in favor of Jesus divinity, what evidence do you claim your authorities have?
Depends on which authority you are referring to, specifically. In many cases, I believe they've directly experienced God. And yes, I am prepared to treat all claims of experiences of God or other divine things as evidence of some sort, assuming I judge those claims to be believable. (Unlike the earlier claims made about Brain Leprechauns, which seemed to me to be made up to prove a point.)
quote:I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
It's important, yes. But it's important to me sort of in the sense that the solution to the BP oil leak is important to fishermen in New Orleans; it impacts their lives a lot, but they are not really in a position to do a lot about it. The divinity of Jesus is important to my religion, but it's also something I simply have not been given the information or tools to understand fully or with any sort of certainty. If I'm wrong about it, I'm not sure what consequences that will have for me. If I'm right about it, I'm not even sure what consequences that will have. So I'm content to let the theologians debate the details of that.
I don't think the point of religion is to answer questions like "Is Jesus divine?", or "How old exactly is the world?", "What limitations are on God's power that require that Jesus had to be sacrificed?" What really matters more is: What should we do in our own actual lives? How should we act? What should we care about? And so on.
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quote:They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence.
How do they know those reports are correct?
Because the reports are read and reviewed by other people who also know the data. And if subsequent evidence had contradicted the old claims, that would have forced everyone to rethink the old conclusions. No "Oh, my personal judgment tells me to ignore conflicting evidnece" is allowed.
If you think that asking Mommy is a better way to learn things, how do you propose that Mommy learns them? Is your Mommy magic, that she doesn't learn things the way ordinary mortals do?
quote:How do they know the authorities that say they know the evidence actually do know the evidence?
Do you really want to drag this into a Cartesion brain jar, where no one knows anything, and everyone could be lying to you for nefarious purposes?
Is this really the best you can do? That scientific reports and death statistics might be lies, but if Mommy tells you something, that's totally reliable?
You brought up seat-bels specifically. Do you honestly think that statistics on fatialities with and without seat-belts are fabrications? Yes or no?
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quote:But now that you've admitted that you have no evidence in favor of Jesus divinity, what evidence do you claim your authorities have?
Depends on which authority you are referring to, specifically.
This is ridiculous. How many times do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer?
quote:In many cases,
An honest person would have named one!
quote:I believe they've directly experienced God. And yes, I am prepared to treat all claims of experiences of God or other divine things as evidence of some sort, assuming I judge those claims to be believable.
And we circle around again. You aren't going to judge a Muslims person's experience believable because their claims conflcit with what you already believe, and you don't recognize their authority. You already said this.
You did exactly what I said you should not; you are dismissing valid "evidence" of divine experiences for no good reason, only because you disagree with them.
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quote:I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
It's important, yes. But it's important to me sort of in the sense that the solution to the BP oil leak is important to fishermen in New Orleans; it impacts their lives a lot, but they are not really in a position to do a lot about it.
There's not a lot you can do about educating yourself? What kind of a helpless baby are you? You can't collect evidence, you can't investigate competing claims and arguments, you just wait to be spoon-fed by your Mommy?
quote:The divinity of Jesus is important to my religion, but it's also something I simply have not been given the information or tools to understand fully or with any sort of certainty.
Okay, so what about the divinity of Hera? I imagine that you are quite certain about that subject, despite the fact that the Iliad is a decent historical authority that amply attests to the reality of Hera's divinity; what tools do you have that were appropriate to that question that were not appropriate to this one?
Be specific. And try to honestly answer a question for once, instead of talking endlessly about how great your tools are.
What if the torturer admitted "Well, I don't actually have the tools to determine if your spouse's soul is damaged, or if torturing them into repenting would do anything for their soul"? Should the torturere carry on resolutely, according to his chosen authorities and prior beliefs and personal judgment, or should he stop?
quote:If I'm wrong about it, I'm not sure what consequences that will have for me. If I'm right about it, I'm not even sure what consequences that will have. So I'm content to let the theologians debate the details of that.
Yes, God forbid you be troubled to think about something, let alone investigate something. That's not your place. Your place is to believe Mommy, and the inquisitors that Mommy told you to believe and obey. And anyone else who dares to suggest that maybe Mommy is wrong, that it's better to try and figure things out for themselves (like the Money Hall problem, remember) is going to mess up.
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quote:I don't pretend to know why God did things the way he did. I'd like to, but I certainly don't expect to.
I find this mentality strange. It often comes from people who would rip their way through the world to uncover the truth behind an incomprehensible and violent act clearly caused by humans, and yet when it comes to God, they give up before they've even begun.
I find it especially odd coming from Americans, sorry guys, who have cast off the worship of someone who could act incomprehensibly and violently and would still be largely beyond reproach or questioning.
To leave it up to the Theologians seems a little irresponsible, especially if you follow any of the tenets laid down in the Bible. If you're doing something for which you have no explanation for, only the word of a book, that seems like a problem.
quote:Your persistent claim that there is no evidence that God exists requires some mental gymnastics that even many of your atheist peers find suspect.
The whole point of being an atheist is that there is no recognizable evidence. If you're unsure or you think there might be evidence it's just indistinguishable from there being no evidence, you're agnostic.
Atheists don't deny existing evidence. They don't consider it evidence.
quote:1. There are natural laws. 2. All phenomena have natural causes. 3. Observations must be reproducible to be "true". 4. All true claims can be verified objectively. 5. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
To me, all discussions between the religious and non-religious boil down to the final statement, "Well you can't know anything. How do we know that knowing is true?"
The only reason we get so far down is because of science. We stop at that level because every time we try to exit our house through the second floor window we fall on hour faces and injure ourselves. We can try this test as many times as we want
At some point, we have to decide that what we experience and what we can reproduce millions of times is factual. That could be, for example, that there are things. That things are different sizes. That matter creates gravity. That bigger things create more gravity.
We have no choice but to accept these things in order to have any discussion at all. You must accept there is stuff or you just wouldn't bother or you might try leaving the house from the second floor more often.
As for your list, I think I see the contradiction but I think you've made a mistake. Scientists (and, well, people) didn't set out with the assumption that there were natural laws. They, using the latter four of your points, discovered that there were natural laws. There's nothing in science that demands there be natural laws, the reason we have natural laws underpinning our science because, observationally, they have been shown to be overwhelmingly consistent. Nobody has ever dropped a brick in air on the Earth and had it float upwards.
However, if bricks reacted completely randomly, sometimes falling, sometimes hovering, sometimes floating up-- with no discernable pattern-- the there would be no natural law.
As it is, bricks' progress can be predicted by math. Not only that, bricks' progress can be predicted by the same math wherever you take a brick, using that same law.
Scientists never assumed there were natural laws. People learnt that there were laws through casual (initially, when our ancestors dropped rocks on their toes) and then deliberate experimentation.
So what are we left with?
quote:1. All phenomena have natural causes. 2. Observations must be reproducible to be "true". 3. All true claims can be verified objectively. 4. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
Yep, sounds about right. Can you think of a supernatural phenomena*? I can't. I've demonstrated that science clings to reproducable observations like glue. Everything that scientists can consider "true" can be tried everywhere in the galaxy and the same results will occur, taking into account the environment. Last of all, the 4th one seems to be a rehash of the first three, but it's also not at all problematic.
* There are unexplained phenomena, sure. But science has demonstrated over and over again that there is a natural explanation for many things people gasp and splutter at first of all. Think of the recent deaths of 100 Nigerian children from severe lead poisoning. Imagine that happening in the past. An invisible plague! A curse! No, just a natural poison getting into the water supply.
We may not understand everything yet, but nothing we do understand has proved to be supernatural, so we MAY hit a home run in the future, but so far we have to go from observation. And observation shows us that everything uncovered has a natural explanation.
Well hang on a second. We should take away 'everything has a natural explanation' as an assumption, then...
quote:1. Observations must be reproducible to be "true". 2. All true claims can be verified objectively. 3. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
Aaah. Now we're down to reproducible tests and observations.
posted
" Some of the basic assumptions of science have no evidence to support them at all. For example:
1. There are natural laws. 2. All phenomena have natural causes. 3. Observations must be reproducible to be "true". 4. All true claims can be verified objectively. 5. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested."
1 )Natural laws are not a necessary assumption for gathering evidence. The existence of natural laws is a result of evidence gathering, although it is true that most scientists assume that, as they gather evidence, they will find evidence for natural law.
2) Unless the evidence points in other directions. A better way of framing this is "All phenomena can be understood."
3) Observations must be gathered objectively in order to be considered valid data, and must be gathered by, and consistent with the observations of, a variety of observers before extrapolations about larger data sets can be reasonably made.
4) All claims that seek to explain the universe can be verified objectively.
5) Yup. Considering how often "Self evident," claims turn out to be false, any claim about the universe that is made using a logic train without this assumption cannot be considered to have any evidence in support of it whatsoever. This assumption is REQUIRED for the objective gathering and evaluation of data.
#3 is evidence. If you aren't doing that, you aren't gathering evidence about the universe. You are gathering evidence about yourself. My claim is that there is no evidence for the existence of god. This is because all the evidence we have that centers around god is not gathered objectively, and is not reliable data about the universe due to the nature of how it is gathered. The evidence you believe you have for the existence of god is entirely evidence about yourself and how you perceive the world. Non-objective evidence about your perceptions is only evidence for what you perceive, not evidence for reality of what you perceive.
I suppose a further point should be made to clarify my position on this: I do not believe our legal system relies on evidence, either, much of the time.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Because the reports are read and reviewed by other people who also know the data. And if subsequent evidence had contradicted the old claims, that would have forced everyone to rethink the old conclusions. No "Oh, my personal judgment tells me to ignore conflicting evidnece" is allowed.
How do you know the reports are reviewed? How do you know the people who reviewed them know what they are talking about?
You are doing the exact same thing I am doing - trusting authorities. You haven't seen the data yourself, or the people reviewing it. You simply trust it because your prior beliefs tell you that the process and the people involved results in good conclusions based originally on real evidence. And there's nothing wrong with it - but it's the exact same process I've been proposing.
quote:You aren't going to judge a Muslims person's experience believable because their claims conflcit with what you already believe, and you don't recognize their authority. You already said this.
I didn't say that. I believe Muslims who make (believable) claims that they experienced God, and I accept it as evidence. I just draw different conclusions from that piece of evidence than they do, since we approach that piece of evidence with different other beliefs.
quote:Okay, so what about the divinity of Hera? I imagine that you are quite certain about that subject, despite the fact that the Iliad is a decent historical authority that amply attests to the reality of Hera's divinity; what tools do you have that were appropriate to that question that were not appropriate to this one?
I am not certain about that - it is similar to my other religious beliefs. Specifically, I don't believe in Hera because I've never seen or heard of anyone modern who claims to have any experience of her, and it fits in with my prior beliefs to assume that the Greeks were simply mistaken about her existence.
Teshi,
quote:To leave it up to the Theologians seems a little irresponsible, especially if you follow any of the tenets laid down in the Bible. If you're doing something for which you have no explanation for, only the word of a book, that seems like a problem.
It's not the questions of "What should I do?" that I leave to theologians. Those are the most important questions of religion. The questions I leave to theologians are the background questions.... things like "Does Christ=God?" or "Does God know what we'll do before we do it?" or "Did the Prodigal Son actually exist?" or "Is Genesis meant to be literal?" I consider these things less important because they don't directly alter the answer to "What should I do?" And I consider them not questions to worry extensively about because I believe they are unanswerable with any level of certainty. I could research all day long about Genesis, and I wouldn't be much closer to knowing whether it is intended to be a factual account.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Tresopax: So your ultimate question for your religious beliefs is ,"What should I do?"
And the answer you arrive at is, "Whatever I believe I should do." Because you only accept "evidence" if you believe it, disregarding any evidence that goes against what you think it should tell you.
You make a huge, complex maze of sources, authority, beliefs and feelings so you don't have to confront the fact that you are ultimately doing whatever you like, and then after the fact, finding the appropriate sources to tell you that your actions and desires were the right ones after all.
Of course they were. You can just decide that any contrary sources are "unbelievable."
posted
You are mixing up "whatever I believe I should do" with "whatever I want to do". The difference is essential.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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