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Author Topic:   Identifying false religions.
Pauline
Member (Idle past 3735 days)
Posts: 283
Joined: 07-07-2008


Message 76 of 479 (565867)
06-21-2010 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Kitsune
06-17-2010 5:12 PM


Kitsune writes:
I wonder why it's these two extremes for you, when the vast majority of people in the world happily espouse more moderate views? I am an agnostic evolutionist (though I don't like that phrase because it implies that evolution is a religious belief, when it is in fact a robust scientific theory). I arrived at this position by applying a large degree of reason the way Rahvin explains and also from going by intuition, personal experience and what "speaks" to me (which I'm sure Rahvin would tear down with his invisible unicorn or spaghetti monster or whatever, but these types of epistemological debates have been happening elsewhere on this forum -- you might want to take a look sometime). I don't even like to apply "agnostic" to myself really. I do have spiritual beliefs, which maybe lean more toward pantheism.
I do not believe in theistic evolution because I believe that Bible falls or stands as one piece.
No, for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are many reasons why I can't reconcile the Biblical account of things with reality; and secondly, I don't know what you mean by "valid." Seeing as how a large percentage of the world's population is Christian, it's socially valid. I can't argue with what Jesus preached; anyone who tells us to love each other is OK in my books. So that's valid too. If I were still a Catholic I'd just continue to ignore the nasty stuff in the Old Testament or try to rationalise it away somehow.
There are a lot of things I don't understand or can't explain in the Bible. And yes, most of that is OT material. For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around an eternal hell. The list goes on. Kitsune, no one has perfect faith. We all try. Those who spend their best years "ignoring" and "rationalizing" are pretending to possess perfect faith.
You might like to address this in another post and relate it to the topic of identifying false religions. I do not see the subject as a "problem," though you apparently do. And thanks for the offer of "help" but I'm as likely to convert back to Christianity as Rahvin. Sorry.
I was hardly trying to impress Christianity upon you. I was only giving you an honest answer: I don't know the answer, but here's what I do. But you're right, this deserves a whole new thread.
I think both can, and probably should, apply. You've having a pretty long conversation with Rahvin about this so I won't go over that ground again myself.
I have already proposed that only faith applies. Even, Rahvin would agree with this, I think. Belief in God is based on blind faith rather than analysis. The people who claim to believe in a particular religion will often confess to not understanding certain parts of it. This hardly means that they "do not have faith" in those parts, it means that they choose to have faith over sitting and analyzing those parts. One example is, the Doctrine of Trinity.
I took the best of what I discovered from different kinds of spiritual practices and arrived at my own set of beliefs, which I explained at the beginning of this post. You still seem to think that religion and spirituality have to be the same thing. Religion is a social institution, and for much of history it has simply been used to control people.
No, religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Faith, and spirituality are the same thing. The viewpoint you likely hold is better labeled humanistic. You detach morality from deity, don't you? Then how come you still deal in terms of spiritual and non-spiritual when those terms traditionally belong to the religious realm?
There are many Christians, including creationists, who would happily have him put to death for what he'd done, and call it justice. I happen to be against the death penalty for anyone because two wrongs don't make a right, and execution is little more than revenge (plus some other reasons).
And I happen to be with you.
So you've perhaps got a bit of a conundrum here as to why I, a non-Christian, am against the death penalty, while many Christians fervently support it. Even the US government makes it legal.
No, I am not surprised actually. Non-Christians often espouse more moderate, congenial views. (Although I think if you strtch that too far, we might end up not even having a US legal system.....everything will "be right". Prostitution, abortion...everything.) Often Christians, in their "righteous anger" (Well, is it really necessary?) espouse more stringent views. Either way, true justice is to be sought, whether that means becoming more moderate- or becoming more stringent, according to what the situation demands. No one is always right or always wrong.
And I make a conscious choice as to whether or not I think that is a good way to live, which I believe requires more maturity and wisdom than someone who does what they are told because they know they'll get punished if they don't. As parents we expect our own children to move beyond that; fundamentalists seem to be extremely hesitant to do so. Like I said, I think it's maybe something to do with needing the comfort and certainty of a higher authority telling someone that they're doing the right thing because figuring it out for themselves requires taking responsibility for one's actions and risking the possibility that they're wrong.
Which Bible do you read from? Obviously, we're reading from different books.
I don't agree with this. I explained in my previous post how the superego is formed, and the function it has. I've mentioned that human beings live in groups, and groups can only be successful if the members have some respect for one another and don't indiscriminately hurt each other and destroy trust and relationships. Studies with social animals bear this out; it doesn't just apply to humans. As to the finer details of what is or is not permissible in the society, that is often defined by the culture and its way of life.
We all start out with basic instincts and develop them as we go along. I don't disagree with this. But morality is not just learning how to get along with each other as a species. Getting along involves and makes use of morality but morality itself is not about getting along.
I don't understand this question. Are you saying that such people cannot teach morals, or that the morals of the society will fail to reach children raised in such families? I would say that it's important to help families in these situations, but throwing Bibles at them would not be on my personal list of approaches. Besides, there are plenty of people who believe themselves to be God-fearing Christians who are abusive, alcohol and drug addicted parents.
We definately should help such people. I'm with you on that.
You left your most absurd statement for last, it would seem.
In what way is it absurd?
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Kitsune, posted 06-17-2010 5:12 PM Kitsune has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-23-2010 11:11 AM Pauline has not replied
 Message 87 by Coragyps, posted 06-24-2010 3:55 PM Pauline has not replied

killinghurts
Member (Idle past 4993 days)
Posts: 150
Joined: 04-23-2008


(1)
Message 77 of 479 (565886)
06-21-2010 9:04 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Peg
06-15-2010 1:34 AM


"Peg" writes:
you go back to my earlier post and you'll see
I'll assume there's some non-literal translation you are trying to convey with that passage, as it is merely a story about a man who makes a cooking fire and uses the left over wood to make a carved image of god to worship (which is, apparently a bad thing according to the Bible and should be punishable by death).
So back to my original question, how does this allow us to determine if a religion is invented by man?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Peg, posted 06-15-2010 1:34 AM Peg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 123 by Peg, posted 06-29-2010 8:15 PM killinghurts has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 78 of 479 (566075)
06-22-2010 8:11 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Pauline
06-19-2010 1:42 PM


Hi again Doc,
Hi Rahvin,
Pretty long post. I'll take it in pieces....so I might not address all points in one post.
We're getting close to novel length No rush though, it's not like we're on a deadline.
This illustrates perhaps the largest problem with human cognition: affirmation bias.
The problem is not that one has insufficient data. The problem is that one can have insufficient data to establish a high probability of accuracy, while simultaneously having a high degree of confindence that the hypothesis is accurate.
Human beigns tend to "search for truth." We look for the "right" answers. But it's completely impossible for us to ever be absolutely certain about anything. You can never be right. Neither can I, or anyone else.
The best we can do is strive to be less wrong.
This is an interesting point. I think a lot of people who are lovers of objectivity, science, and accuracy tend to fleer the generic religious worldview since it often incorporates absolutes and dogmatic affirmatives. This tends to "get the missionary in trouble" with the more educated, and analytical "proselytes" since they perceive the religious message conveyed to them as a threat to their worldview (how can you be so sure that I will go to hell, or even if there's a hell???), or simply irrelevant to their worldview (who cares, I'm going to have fun when I'm alive...we'll cross the bridge when we get there)--the more indifferent people tend to take this stance. As much the rationalists or naturalists, or whatever you like to call them, disdain the moral imperatives/absoultes of religion, note that the religious also view the lack of a religious moral framework (meaning, one that is based on God and His statues) as a pathetic...almost foolish attempt at living morally. So,you've got one group of people who believe we can't be 100% sure of or right about anything....and another group who believes, unless we are right about some things, we are doomed. This is something the Christian worldview incorporates. Absolutes like "God is always good", "The Universe is in God's control both under good and bad circumstances", "God will never leave nor forsake you", "God rewards evil with evil and good with good" are all examples of things we are called to be sure of 100%, in Christianity. For those of us who are of the religious worldview, this take a lot of faith to consistently believe such things (and proclaim them). Not because they are inconceivable, but because we are inconsistent in our cognition and are easily swayed from our principles by momentary negative feeling or emotion. I'm not sure why different worldviews perceive absolutes differently. But this generally seems to be the case.
The main difference here is that, as you just stated, faith invovles making an effort to be more credulous regarding certain claims than any evidence actually supports. For practical matters, most of this is a distinction with no difference. The realm of 100% certainty is impossile to ever reach, but you can get damned close - I can't say that I'm 100% certain that if I throw a pen up in the air that gravity will pull it right back down, but that's still exactly what I expect to happen, every time, simply because the probability of our current model of gravity being not just a little inaccurate but actuallyso wrong that the pen wouldn't fall at all is so infinitismally low that no consideration need be given to such a scenario.
But the entire line of reasoning that includes faith is irrational and easily leads to false conclusions - and that fact should be obvious. When you maintain a conscious effort to increase your own estimation of the probability that a particular hypothesis is accurate beyond what is actually supported by available evidence, you will be convincing yourself that the hypothesis is accurate when in fact it is not proportionally to the difference between the actual probability supported by the evidence and your own personally inflated probability. When dealing with something that's relatively likely to be accurate, this won't matter much - shifting a 90% probability up to an internally inflated 100% will only be wrong 10% of the time over someone who assesses the evidence rationally. But when inflating the probability far more than the evidence allows, say, going from a 5% chance of accuracy to 100% certainty through faith, you'll be 95% more likely to be wrong than someone who assessed the evidence rationally. Yes, there will be times where the person inflating their own estimation of accuracy will be right and the rationalist wrong - but this will happen far less often than the reverse.
The method of thinking you describe involves searching for confirmation for an existing hypothesis.
It's backwards.
The strength of any hypothesis, of any explanatory model, is what it cannot explain. The modern model of the solar system could not explain the Sun rising in the West,for example.
What can my unicorn hypothesis not explain? It can explain both the observationa nd the lack of observation of a unicorn. It can explain flour exposing the surface of the unicorn, or flour falling to the ground. Because it can equally explain all possible observations, it is useless as a hypothesis.
What if I were to list a variety of reasons to beleive that the unicorn is present? Perhaps I could claim that the unicorn tells me things - that the unicorn told me that I should accept that promotion at work, for example. Perhaps I could claim that the unicorn told me that a great disaster would befall the United States, a few months prior to the Gulf oil spill. Perhaps I could claim that when I pray to the unicorn, my prayers are answered, even if sometimes the answer is "no."
All of that sounds very convincing, doesn't it? Or rather it would if we didn't already know that I'm talking about an imaginary unicorn. Surely the observation that the unicorn has conveyed messages to me, has predicted future events, and answers my prayers is evidence supporting the hypothesis that the unicorn exists, even if you can't see it, or touch it, or hear it? Surely the evidence available is sufficient to take the rest on faith?
You seem to count "answered/unanswered prayers" and "fulfilled/unfulfilled prophesy" as evidence, be it confirmatory or contradictory to the hypothesis in question. Whether you yourself have this view or whether you think theists have this view is still unclear to me. I understand that the gist of this section of your post is, treating "answered/unanswered prayers" and "fulfilled/unfulfilled prophesy" as evidence for a deity's existence is a flawed thought process because it incorporates affirmation bias.
Affirmation bias is one form. But really the problem I was describing is where all possible observations are counted as evidence of the same hypothesis.
In WWII, California governor Earl Warren believed that there was a 5th Column Japanese-American saboteur network operating in his state. He testified the following before a Congressional hearing in 1942:
quote:
"I take the view that this lack [of subversive activity] is the most ominous sign in our whole situation. It convinces me more than perhaps any other factor that the sabotage we are to get, the Fifth Column activities are to get, are timed just like Pearl Harbor was timed... I believe we are just being lulled into a false sense of security."
In other words, the asence of evidence that a Fifth Column-type conspiracy was planning sabotage on California infrastructure was actually evidence supporting the existence of a Fifth Column.
Surely we can all see how irrational this is. Yes, it was possible that there was a secret Japanese Fifth Column working in California, and that due to their covert nature, their activities remained undetected. However, the absence of a predicted observation (sabotage in California, apprehended conspiracy members, etc) could only possibly be evidence that no such organization existed. The governor's line of reasoning applied to my unicorn would involve suggesting that because the unicorn is invisible, not seeing the unicorn is actually evidence that the unicorn does exist.
Yet this is the same line of reasoning used by many theists. Under the hypothesis that God answers prayers, one would predict a given prayer to be answered. Yet unanswered prayers are not seen as evidence against god - rather, they are seen as negative responses from god,a nd further evidence that he actually exists.
So, I'm leangin more towards---you think this how theists think. However, I disagree with theists that think that way.
I was a theist. And theists are not a uniform group. I know how at least some of them think because I was exposed to them for many years, and used the same lines of reasoning myself.
All the times when I prayed and prayed and prayed in anticipation of my Cell Biology tests (gah!) during College and still got a B or a C+ and all those days when I didn't bother to pray much about my General Chemistry (pretty easy) tests and still got A's, are not evidence (either confirmatory or contradictory) for the existence of my God. Christians who stake their faith on the criterion of "answered/unanswered prayers" are clearly flawed in their thinking.
Indeed they are - even if that's not the basis of their faith, but simply another post-hoc rationalization to justify their predetermined conclusion.
Yet answered and unanswered prayers are evidence for and agaisnt the existence of a prayer-answering god - they just aren't very strong evidence. Remember, evidence and contra-evidence for a given hypothesis very rarely takes the form of "absolute proof" vs "compelte falsification." Usually we're talking about small cumulative adjustments in the total tupport for a given hypothesis. In the case of prayer, we wouldn;t expect every single prayer to be answered, and the probability of each individual prayed-for event happening without divine intervention is usually relatively high (praying for a sports team to win or praying for a loved one in the hospital are not exactly one-in-a-trillion events). Remember Bayes' Theorem?
P(H|D)=P(D|H)*P(H)/P(D)
In the case of prayers being answered, most of the time P(D|H) is going to reflect the possibility that prayers may not be answered even if a prayer-answering god exists, and P(D) is going to be relatively high because the prayed-foreven has a reasonable chance of happening anyway. That means that the probability of a prayer-answering deity actually existing given the observation of an answered or unanswered prayer is not often significantly different from the prior probability (P(H)) - in other words, each individual prayer regardless of whether it is or is not answered does very little to change the support for the hypothesis.
Furthermore, it cannot be objectively determined whether a answered prayer or a fulfilled prophesy is exclusively attributable to a deity's intervention or not. (Theists base such matters on faith) Yet, we see Christians saying "God healed my daughter of cancer", or "God protected me from a car accident yesterday".....and this is not because they like attributing seemingly fantastic occurrences to God, they simply are agreeing with what the Bible says. IOW, when God says in the Bible that He will never leave you or forsake you (Heb 13:5) or His angels camp around the ones that fear Him (Ps 32:8), Christians believe those words and agree with them. Unfortunately, some of us do it backwards. We think answered prayers point to "God's goodness"....and voila! His existence. That's plain wrong. I can see how the latter thought process is affirmation bias, but not the former Rahvin.
There is no difference. Agreeing with what the Bible says still requires attributing the observed event to divine providence. There is no actual difference between saying "God healed my daughter" because the Bible says god will take care of you and saying "God healed my daughter" because you personally believe that god will take care of you. A distinction that makes no differenceis not a distinction at all.
In either case, attributing such events to a deity does indeed involve faith, but there's another word for it: non sequitur. It's a compeltely unfounded logical leap, attributing causality when correlation hasn't even been established. Such applications of faith are not to be lauded - they;re logical fallacies, perfect examples of flawed thinking.
If my bother promised his son ice cream after dinner, then my nephew is being fair when he tells me the next day that Dad was supernice and kept his promise (something he expected anyway). If, OTOH, my nephew comes and tells me, Dad took me out for ice cream, therefore he is a good dad (I doubted it, but he did it)---then, I would be lead to believe that this little guy needs to change his way of thinking. (whats going to happen when dad forbids him certain things?) God's existence is not contingent on whether or not our prayers are answered. God's credibility certainly is contingent on whether or not predicted premises come true and whether or not promises are kept up, but again isn't this thought likely to be floating around in a believer's mind? So, until a person shows faith, he ideally need not be talking in terms of answered or unanswered prayers.
The existence of a deity is not contingent on anything. However, a prayer-answering deity should in fact answer prayers, else it's not actually a prayer-answering deity. If prayers are in fact answered with a statistically significant margin over a double-blind control group, that would be evidence supporting the hypothesis of a prayer-answering deity (and a few other hypotheses that don't necessarily involve deities, but it would at least establish a correlation between prayer and the prayed-for event happening; the next step would be to control for the specific deity prayed to, to eliminate the non-deity hypotheses as well as eliminating false deities).
Further, the "goodness" of the prayed-for event is irrelevant as well. There is no requirement that any actually existing deity be good. The ultimate arbiter of objective truth is not our internal sense of morality, but rather direct observation. If evil prayers to a specific evil deity are observed to be answered far beyond what would be expected without prayer, that would still be evidence for the evil deity regardless of whether that fact is pleasing to us or not.
I have tried specifically to not address Christianity individually, since the topic of the thread was "identifying false religions," not "is Christianity a false religion?" I will say (I don't know if I;ve mentioned it to you) that I am a former Christian myself, and am well aware of the beliefs of a variety of different denominations. My own background included Congregational, Presbyterian, and Christian Reformed churches, though I have been exposed to many other denominations as well. I have read most of the Bible, my grandfather was an educator at a private Christian school, and before my deconversion I was extremely confident in my beliefs. I had a great deal of faith. If you would like to discuss Christianity specifically, I'd be happy to oblige, simply because it's something I think we're both very familiar with. But for the purposes of this thread, I'm going to try to be a but more general and speak about all religions (indeed, all claims about the real world, including religion but not limited to it).
I think you did mention it to me, in the Forum name change thread. And I agree, a different thread would be more appropriate for a Christianity-specific conversation, something I would be interested in. I will try to make my responses as general as possible. I might illustrate my general points using Christian examples though, just to make my case.
Perfectly reasonable - we both likely know Christianity better than basically any other religion. I just don't want to hyjack the topic into some sort of "prove/disprove Christianity specifically" thread.
Eyewitness testimony is evidence.
Topic for a different thread but......and yet, the 4 Gospels are treated as fairy-tales by some skeptics. They don't even consider them as viable evidence, let alone whether they support the hypothesis or not.
They are evidence. They just aren't very strong evidence, because the existence of the gospels equally supports the hypothesis that they are works of fiction or a dozen other hypotheses. Not to mention the fact that there is serious dispute as to whether the authors of the gospels were actual eye-witnesses, as the earliest and best individual copies of the texts we have available tend to post-date the events by a significant margin. And of course the fact that we have so many different versions of the texts that, to paraphrase Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, there are more errors and mistranslations in the New Testament than there are words. The gospels themselves aren't quite the same as your typical eyewitness account given in a court of law or on the nightly news.
-snip-
In which case we'd run teh numbers again - except this time the prior probability is the result from our last analysis, since all evidence is cumulative. Let's say this witness was in a similar position and so still would have had a 90% chance to see the demon if it did in fact cause the accident.
P(H|D)=.9 * .09 / .1
P(H|D)=.81
With two eyewitnesses in excellent locations to view the accident as it happened and no further data, I would have to say that it is not 81% likely that a demon caused the accident. Now that is a numbe tha might inspire some confidence that the hypothesis is correct.
Okay, I'm with you so far.
Welcome to Bayesian reasoning. Does it look like it makes sense?
Rahvin writes:
DS writes:
Under the impression that every eye-witness you met is a fool, you set out to the accident site to find "evidence". You find some black and white feather.......a green claw.....and a giant footprint.
Wow. How do I model this? Obviously our prior probability is now 81%, but how do I model the probability that the feather, the claw, AND the footprint would be found, both if a demon didn't cause the accident (pretty darned low) and assuming it did (all three? not as high as any given one, since probability of concurrent events is multiplicative, but we'd still have to give it a decent number)? The first (P(D)) would be low but not zero, simply because it's still possible that the feather, claw, and large footprint were unrelated - perhaps the feather is from a bird, etc. Let's call it 30%. The second (P(D|H)) should be relatively high, as we would expect a creature involved in a car accident to leave bits behind, though it wouldn't be absolutely certain. Further, all three bits of evidence are multiplicative. Let's call the probability of each item being left behind assuming a demon caused the accident 90%. .9 * .9 * .9 gives us about 73% for finding all three.
So:
P(H|D) = .73 * .81 (our previous cumulative result from toehr evidence) / .3
P(H|D) = 197%
Holy crap, We might have a demon.
But do you see the problem yet? It should be obvious given my previous comments. In fact, there are two.
1) we have established evidence that a large creature with white/black feathers, green claws, and very large feet caused an accident. We have not established evidence that the creature was "a demon," or in fact given any definition for what a "demon" is. A very large bird would seemingly fit the same description. The indentification of teh observed creature as a demon is a conclusion, not an observation - support for the hypothesis that a large feathered and clawed creature caused a car accident is not necessarily evidence that it was a demon.
You showed me the beauty of rationalism, Rahvin. Now let me show you the beauty of imagination (well, you might not like it, but....I listened to you so, )
Assume with me that both the testimonial and material data found from your analysis fits no known creature. Assume also that it was proven that no toys with white/black feathers and green claws were found within the vicinity of the accident site. You are unable to reconcile you data with your hypothesis (large bird or toy) and also my hypothesis (demon). What do you do?
I would conclude that the accident was caused by a previously unknown creature, which posesses claws and black/white feathered wings. I don't have any evidence supporting "demon" over "feathered dragon" or much else.
The evidence so far is very similar to seeing an object fr off in the distance. With limited means for observation I might only be able to tell that the object is a building, but be unable to tell whether it's a house, or a barn, or a store, etc. As I'm able to uncover more details that support some hypotheses and eliminate others, I'll be able to make more andmore specific descriptions until I can actually identify the object.
To draw an extremely precise conclusion based on very imprecise data is like recording the length of a pen in millimeters when your only measurement tool is a ruler whose smallest unit is inches - it requires an unfounded logical leap from the evidence to support such a conclusion, even if that conclusion later turns out to be correct.
You'll note that this is not my thought process at all. Rationality means examining all evidence, regardless of whether that evidence increases or decreases the probability that your pet hypothesis is correct. An accurate hypothesis will always come out with a higher probability than inaccurate hypotheses regardless, and why would you ever want to remain confident in an inaccurate hypothesis? To a true rationalist, worldview is irrelevant - only evidence matters. Inaccurate hypothesis, regardless of your prior confidence that they were accurate, must always be forsaken. One can never grow stronger by retaining the same beliefs - only by changing beliefs by discarding inaccurate hypotheses in favor of more accurate hypotheses, by becoming less wrong, can we become stronger.
I don't pretend to be a perfect rationalist, any more than you would claim to be a perfect Christian. But like you, that's the ideal I strive for.
As you admitted in you previous post, we might NEVER be able to "find the true religion." (OR, I propose, we might be able to find it if we work with available data.) But here's my question, in such a situation, why are you not comfortable enough to wager you faith? What holds you back? After all, faith in God is not a question of being less or more wrong...it is matter of "you know it or don't know it"...Why would you not place you faith on something based on available evidence (though not comprehensive) if its a all or none situation?
Everything is a question of less or more wrong, and faith is never useful in being less wrong. I don't "Wager." I analyze and conclude. My conclusions are never absolutely precise, but my method gives me the most important advantage of all:
the ability to recognize when I'm wrong, and change my mind accordingly.
The rewards and consequences of belief in Christianity specifically are certainly all-or-nothing. The problem is that Pascal's Wager is stupidity of the highest order: it's not a binary choice of "believe in God and maybe go to heaven" or "don't beleive in God and maybe go to Hell." The real wager is every conceivable religion vs. every other conceiveable religion - perhaps if I belive in the Christian god, Odin won't let me into Valhalla; we all know what the Christian god would do if I worship Zeus.
Further, the Wager is effectively an argument from consequence: whether I personally would like the consequences of a given hypothesis being accurate has no bearing on the actual probability that the hypothesis is accurate.
Suggesting that one should "wager faith," in effect making an unsupported logical leap given the most basic evidence and to conclude that a set of beleifs is likely to be accurate when a rational analysis of the evidence suggests a low probability of accuracy is the very height of irrational and flawed thinking.
The preconception doesn;t have to be your own, Doc.
When I said pre-conceived ideas, I meant ones that people make up. "God should be like this...or that" But the Bible is hardly a pre-conceived notion? It is a historical document. Sure, it contains abstract people like...the Holy Spirit, but it also contains history....like Jesus Christ.
How much is history? How much is made up by people? How do you tell the difference from one to the next? Regardless, the preconception lies in the fact that the Bible effectively lists the qualities of god and sets up your definition of what a god is and is not - the descriprion of what a god is is not a conclusion carefulyl derived from experimentation and evidence, but is rather a preconception based on an appeal to the authority of the various Biblical authors. The fact that the source is the Biblical authors rather than your own mind is irrelevant - you're still increasing your support of one definition of god and decreasing your support in all other definitions, not based on evidence, but because of a preconception.
You're writing yuor conclusion ("God has these attributes...") before determining why you should think so.
The preconception lies in defining a subject before making observations; drawing conclusions before examining evidence.
I don't know about other religions, but I propose that Christianity doesn't think that way. I won't go into illustrating my point by comparing religions because that would stray from the general tone of this thread.
Then how do Christians think? I'm giving what I remember as the thought process from when I was a Christian, so it certainly stands to reason that at least some do think this way. I've never encountered a CHristian who honestly made observations about the Universe, tested various hypotheses, and then concluded that Christianity was correct. I have met Christians who were raised in the faith and so never analyzed anything, as well as Christian converts who were convinced by emotional appeals, but I have never once met a Christian whose religious beleifs proceeded forward from observation to hypothesis to conclusion. The entire matter of faith eliminates any desire to test or observe; one need only create the desire for the beliefs to be true, and irrational inflation of support for unfounded conclusions (ie, faith) takes over the rest.
You read about your deity and establish your idea of god from there, and seek confirming evidence, when you should be making observations in the real world and establishing your concept of what god (if any) may exist from reality.
There's a reason. You might not think its valid, but there is one.
There are reasons for everything we do. We jsut arent always aware of our real reasons, and we often use reasons that don;t actually jsutify our choices.
And I'm pretty confident that it is generally common to most major religions. And the reason is, people believe God cannot be detected by naturalistic observations and analysis. In Hinduism, you meditate...and "know" or "feel" god, In Buddhism also, you give up earthly possession-become an ascetic and meditate UNTIL you "know" or "feel" god, In Islam, Allah is God because the Quran says so period. In Christianity, we know who God is only through the Bible. Don't you think that such a idea might infact be true? You know, that fact that God cannot be detected through scientific analysis.....establishing, that true religion is something that we might never discover through scientific and naturalistic analysis? Do you see the common thread that holds the beads together?
It is possible that this is true. It is not likely. It is roughly as possible as the existence of my unicorn. You can't touch it or see it or ever make any observation of it directly or indirectly, but it could still be there.
The question is simply whether there is an adequate probability that any of these faiths accurately reflect reality to justify confidence in them? If they have a 5% or lower probability of being accurate, should one believe that they actually are accurate?
"The evidence of things unseen, the confidence of things hoped for," isn't that an accurate paraphrase from the Bible's description of faith? I think it sums up the largest flaw in human gognition quite nicely
Or it is the most beautiful manifestation of human imagination. Faith. I have faith that you will read this message, Rahvin.
No. You do not have faith that I will read the message. You have prior experience that I have read your previous messages and have expressed an interest inconcinuing to communicate. That I will ready this message as well is a reasonable conclusion with a high probability of accuracy based on easily available observations.
You might or might not, in reality. I live in SC, I don't know where you live. There's no physical way I could predict if you will read this message with 100% accuracy. BUT, I have 100% faith you will.
As I said earlier, the distinction between a highly probable hypothesis and a certainty is so small as makes no difference. I cannot be absolutely certain that if I throw a pen in the air it will fall abck down, but I will still anticipate the pen falling back to Earth every single time I throw it - not based on faith, but based on the fact that we have a well-tested model for how gravity works, and that model predicts that it will in fact fall every time.
And when you have read this post and responded to it, my faith will have been proven to be valid.
No, your highly probable expectation based on prior experience will have been vindicated.
I imagine that you interested in furthering this conversation based on the level of interest and time you put into your previous couple posts. I imagine that you will respond pretty soon, since you have been doing so. I imagine that you will indeed further our conversation. I do not assertively say you will, only that I believe you will. That's faith, the evidence of things unseen...being sure of things hoped for.
But you have seen. That's the difference. If you and I had never spokem previously, then you would require faith to believe that I would read your message. But you already have an established track record of me responding to your messages - much like repeated observations that thrown pens fall back down. That's not faith, Doc, that's a perfectly rational conclusion based on available evidence.
I didn't say any of that. Doc, there is evidence supporting certain aspects of the Bible. The Jews actually exist; the nations and monarchs and various other verifiable historical figures check out. The problem is twofold:
1) Each individual claim in the Bible is separate. The fact that Jerusalem exists as claimed in the Bible does nto provide evidence that the Earth was Created in six days, any more than the discovery of the city of Troy is evidence supporting all of the claims from the Illiad, like a man who was invulnerable except for a spot on his heel.
The Doctrine of Inerrancy rests on the single premise that God's Word is inerrant and the Bible is God's word, therefore the Bible is inerrant. Facts that stand on the same level do not lend each other credence, i'm with you on that part. But, that's hardly how inerrancy works.
The problem is that inerrentists are forced by believing the entire Bible to be inerrent to evaluate the whole rather than the parts - if any part fails, the whole is false as well because it cannot be inerrent.
The larger problem is when a direct observation contradicts a specific claim in the Bible, and the inerrentist ignores or rationalizes the observation rather than altering their own beliefs in accordance with the new data. Observation is always the final arbiter - if the Bible or anything esle says x is true while objective observations in reality emphatically show that x is false, then x is false, plain and simple.
2) Evidence is not binary. Evidence that fits with the claims of the Bible can also fit with other hypotheses, and the strength of the support can vary from one hypothesis to the next; if I find a pen on my desk, that observation supports both the hypothesis that I put it there and that a space alien sent by Emperor Xenu put it there - but it supports one of those hypotheses more strongly than the other.
I think the Jesus described in teh Bible was based on one or more real individuals. I think that personal testimony is evidence for the existence of the Christian God - it's simply not convincing evidence because it equally supports a variety of hypotheses
I have never come accorss the particular view you hold of Jesus. It is quite intriguing. How about his claims? Are they also from a mix-up of different people's claims?
It's difficult to establish the historical accuracy of an individual person given 2000 years when our only real source materials are the gospels, the earliest copies we have available dating to long after Jesus supposed death. He wasn't an emperor or a king well-established in historical literature. He was one of many people claiming to be the messiah of the Jews during the Roman occupation, his group one of many Jewish sects predicting the end times, his followers represented both Jews and later Greeks and Romans and so crossed multiple cultures from which to draw additional material, and the documentation of the time surrounding him may as well have been word-of-mouth for all of the additions and subtractions and changes we see from one copy of the gospels to the next. Jesus may have been one person. The Biblical Jesus could also have been an amalgamation of multiple similar individuals. The Biblical Jesus is almost certainly mythologized beyond the real, historical Jesus, regardless of the number of actual source individuals. Note the similarities between Jesus and earlier stories of divinity from other neighboring cultures.
The data currently does not support a high probability for most of the claims of the Bible, including basically all of Genesis and Exodus. Modern Christian argument for the existence of a deity typically bear strong resemblance to my unicorn - their hypotheses equally explain all possible data, and so convey no knowledge.
Most of Genesis, we can't say prove or disprove. Creation? It is a historical event.
We can make observations that support or do not support the hypotheses that the Earth was Created in 6 days, that all living things were specially Created, etc. The fact that the origins of the Earth and life happened a long time ago don't bar us from testing the claims of Genesis. All evidence currently available (and there is a lot from multiple independant sources) shows that the Earth is in fact billions of years old, was not Created in 6 days, that life once formed diversified into the variety we see today not through magical individual Creation but via slow incremental evolution through mutation guided by natural selection, etc.
Flood? The data is controversial.
Not even a little bit. Ask a geologist how well the evidence supports a global flood having happened when humans were around and they'll tell you that my pen has about the same chance of not falling down. Ask a geneticist if every living thing was reduced in population to the degree described in the flood story and they'll tell you that the chances of such a thing having happened given the observations we continue to make have about the same chance as the Sun rising in the West tomorrow.
Noah;s Ark? It is most likely that we will not find it (atleast not in recognizable shape or form) because it provided Noah's family with ready resources in a land of zero natural resources and would have been dismantled.
Not to mention the natural process of decay for an unmaintained wooden vessel. Even if teh flood actually happened, I wouldn't expect to find the Ark either.
We can't go around dealing with each every piece of data...that would take forever.
Curiously, there are a finite number of claims made in teh Bible, and we have spent several hundred years investigating many of them. The results for some have been positive (Jericho actually existed), while others have not (Exodus never happened).
Furthermore, isn't it curious that the Bible never addresses matters of history when it calls for faith? This is why theistic evolutionists exist. The rest of the Bible is great, but creation is a fairy-tale. Well, doesn't that also explode the ballon that hold God's credibility? Since God says He created the world.....
It does, if you're basing your faith entirely on an appeal to the authority of your supposed deity. Not all theists do so. Many simply find emotional solace in the claims of a given faith, or find the "basics" to be personally credulous even if the details are allegorical, etc.
Adults are poor test subjects - even coming from "morally backward backgrounds," an adult has still been exposed to social pressures. Children, on teh other hand, start as blank slates - they don't know much of anything unless someone teaches it to them. The observed behavior of children is that they tend to be selfish, what little sense of property they have is dictated more by their own desire than by who owns what (hence everything is "mine!"), and more importantly, typically have absolutely no concept of "death" or "murder." They do empathise - when they see someone who is sad, they will feel sad; when they see someone who is happy, they will feel happy. It's a basic instinct of any social animal (part of the reason dogs make great pets), but there is no real inherent sense of "right" and "wrong.
No, I am not talking only about adults. Take a look at a recent study conducted by Yale University on Morality in babies. The research was well formulated and the results prove to be decisive. Children are indeed born with a innate sense of right and wrong. Whether we term this as morality, in the more adult connotation of the word, is a secondary question. The objective of this research. was to explore the presence/absence of a innate sense of right and wrong in babies.
You can read about the experimental setup for yourself, but I'll highlight the main conclusions of the study and a few afterthoughts.
-snip-
This stuck me as interesting...
Bloom writes:
...The morality of contemporary humans really does outstrip what evolution could possibly have endowed us with.
That sentence is a giant red flag if I've ever heard one.
That study certainly is interesting. However, that was actually a NYTimes article, and so I have to take it with a grain of salt - reporters are not scientists, and they tend to sensationalize. Most of the misconceptions we have today about things like cosmology and evolution are because of sensationalism in reporting science and journalists trying to convey ideas they don't understand themselves.
Rahvin writes:
But your moral compass is not a guide at all when determining whether something exists or not. You made the argument that your moral compass should be able to guide you towards "true religions" and away from "false religions," but you have already admitted that that is not really the case. Your moral compass guides you towards beliefs you personally approve of, which has nothing to do with whether those beliefs accurately reflect reality. The ethical ramifications of a hypothesis are totally irrelevant to whether the hypothesis is accurate. Whether you personally approve or not, whether you would worship or not, is independant of whether the Squirrel-Hating God actually exists.
No, I said I will use it as a guide in trying to find the true religion. For there to exist a true religion, there must also necessarily exist a few or more false religions. My moral compass doesn't tell me "false religions don't exist", it only tells me "this might be the true religion."
No, it doesn't Your moral compass tells you only that "this religion is ethical, and this one not." It has absolutely nothign to do with whether they accurately reflect reality. Immoral religions are not impossible, Doc. Satan could exist; Satanists could be absolutely correct in their beliefs, and the morality of their deity is irrelevant to whether that deity exists. You moral compass is not at all a guide ever when determinign what does and does not exist, what is true and what is false. Reality doesn't care whether it is morally acceptable to you or not.
This is what I meant when I said, my disliking Sati does nothing to the existence or lack thereof of the hindu god, but tells me that the hindu religion is more prone to be a false one.
...your dislike means that its claims are more liekly to be false. You're claiming that you're not using that line of reasoning, and then using that line of reasoning. The desireability of the claims of a religion, be that due to ethics, possible reward, or anything else, are irrelevant to whether those claims are actually true.
Irrelevant, Doc, mean's "totally separate from; does not matter; the truth or falsehood of a has no connection or influence over the truth or falsehood of b." What your moral compass says about the claims of a religion has no conenction or influence over whether those claims are accurate.
This is very typical human thinking, though. We tend to estimate the probability of hypotheses we find more desireable to be much higher than available evidence dictates. We're optimists, not realists.
Now, there is personal preference in evaluations that involve a innate moral compass. No doubt. But you can't discard the compass altogether since it does help to evaluate the moral integrity of various religions. It doesn't help to resolve the existence/non-existence issue, but that's hardly a reason to throw it away from the general search.
The existence/nonexistence issue is the only one of any relevance. Or would you continue to worship your deity even knowing it didn't exist, simply because you agree with it's imagined ethics?
I think I have switched my thinking more along the lines of "will the true religion ever condone x activity according to what my innate moral compass says" and you are tuned into "why does it matter what my compass says to the existence or non-existence of a religion". So we might both be addressing different questions. Remember, the true religion is not identifiable by objective, scientific analysis. You often refer to it as "a 100% accurate depiction of reality." We can only hope to find such a description, we never will. Now, can we have faith that we have found it? Some do.
We can, however, be less wrong today than we were yesterday, and we can get very close to that 100% certainty on individual mechanisms. Your moral compass will never ever help you be less wrong about the Universe - it's only useful for dealing with other people.
My "opinion of Christianity" encompasses multiple questions. My assessment of how likely Christianity is to accurately reflect reality is driven solely by evidence - the moral aspect doesn't even come into it.
Meaning, you completely exclude the claims God makes in the Bible when evaluating Christianity's accuracy? That's absurd, Rahvin. Why would you do that?
Either the claims made in the Bible are verified by observations in reality or they are not. I don't exclude anything. My determination of whether Christianity's various claims about the real world (Genesis, etc) is independant of whether I morally approve of the content - as it should be. Anything else is absurd. When you ask whether the Moon exists, or what it's made of, does your sense of morality have anything to do with the answers, or are the solely determined by observation? When you observe the behavior of spiders and you observe that hatchlings tend to cannibalize their siblings for their first meal, does your moral compass play into whether you believe that spiders are cannibals?
I exclude nothing. The claims made in the Bible (supposedly made on god's behalf by the human authors) are no exception. Whether I approve of the genocide described in teh flood myth is completely independent of whether I think the flood actually happened.
You yourself have admitted defining the true religion as "100% accurate depiction of reality" that we might never get around to finding it. In such a situation, don't you have to resort to other means? Means such as .....faith?
Faith is never not ever a logically valid means for determining the probability of the accuracy of a hypothesis. Faith in its strictest sense is the arbitrary inflation of one's assessment of the probability of the accuracy of a hypothesis beyond what is dictated by any available evidence. It is confidence when none should be had. It's taking a position when you don't even have the facts straight yet - or any facts at all. It's letting wishful thinking dominate your decision-making process. It's believing that there is a monster under the bed, even if you can't see it.
Faith does not help one become less wrong today than one was yesterday. Faith leads us to confidently support even false conclusions. Faith gives us an excuse to stop investigating conclusions we think we know with absolute certainty. Faith embodies the stagnation of the mind, fixing a belief in place and making it utterly impossible that we should ever grow stronger- because growth requires change, and changing our beliefs requires that we admit when we're wrong and make an honest and objective effort to discover when we're wrong - something that faith, the confident proclamation that we have an answer that we don't really have, expressly forbids.
I'm perfectly content, Doc, to say "I don't know" when I don;t really know. But faith is anathema to reason, logic, and progress.
Currently I woudl estimate the probability of the Christian god's existence to be pretty low - certainly not likely enough for me to have any amount of confidence that he actually exists
This is too vague to answer. By christian God, do you mean the OT God, or Jesus? Or both?
I mean any omnipotent omniscient deity that Created the Earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th, made woman from the rib of a man made from dust, dorwned the entire Earth except for a menagerie and an incestuous family aboard a boat made of gopher wood, saved the Jews from Egyptian slavery by killing every firstborn child in the nation, gave the Ten Commandments, twice, and later sacrificed himself to himself for a debt he claimed we owed him.
There may have been a man (or men) named Jesus of Nazareth who wandered around the region of Jerusalem and founded a splinter sect of Judaism that proclaimed him to be the messiah of Jewish myth. That man may have been executed by the Romans, so on and so forth. But I find it spectacularly unlikely that Jesus was actually of "supernatural" origin - that he was the son of a deity, or the deity incarnated into human form, or some combination of the two; that he performed physics-breaking "miracles;" that he rose from the dead. I find these things to be unlikely because other than religion these things would better occupy the pages of a Harry potter novel than a history or science textbook; in every case these themes have belonged to works of fiction and have never been observed to happen in the real world. They bear all the hallmarks of flase belief - an unfalsifiable, untestable set of beliefs that are objectively impossible to differenciate from fantasy except that this particular fantasty is widely accepted as true by a large segment of the population.
Morally, Chrsitianity is a mixed bag. There's some pretty nasty stuff in teh Old Testament, ranging from genocide to rape to slavery to "ripping up" pregnant women. Not to mention stoning rebellious children, putting homosexuals to death, punishing the children for the sins of the parents, and so on. Jesus, on the other hand, seemed like a mostly decent guy - he claimed to not be trying to get rid of the old laws or antyhing, but he definitely focused more on the whole "love thy neighbor" moral lessons than the ridiculous nonsense of the Old Testament. Only in Paul's writings (particularly when they deal with women) and Revelations do I again start to have moral opposition to the New Testament.
See, even you are using your innate moral compass and acquired view of morality to evaluate Christianity's moral integrity (or lack thereof). This certainly does nothing to prove its existence or non-existence, but again can we ever PROVE anything?
I can support or fail to support a hypothesis sufficiently to have enough confidence to proclaim belief and possess internal credulity without absolute proof. My moral compass, however, is irrelevant to that process.
We can hope to be fully assured about something, and that's exactly what faith is. You disdain Biblical moral content, so you tend not to think of Christianity as a canditate for the true religion. (Now, I do think your view of the Bible is based on misconceptions. You might have excellent book knowledge. You might be able to spit out the numbers, people, places, and facts much better than I could. But what does it matter if your knowledge is based on misconceptions?)
I was a Christian for over 20 years, Doc. I know what it is that Christians believe very well, as I was formerly a very devout one of them. I don't think it's very likely that I have serious misconceptions about the Christian religion. However, I do now have an outsider's view - where as a child I read the story of Exodus and didn;t think twice about the killing of every firstborn child in Egypt right down to the cattle, I now recognize mass child murder when I read that part of the story. Where once I read about the Great Flood and the magic Ark with two of every animal, I now see genocide that makes the Holocaust look like civil unrest. Where once I read and accepted without questioning, I now see the holes present in virtually every testable claim in the entire colelction of texts.
I do not disdain Christianity as the potential "true religion" because of my moral disapproval. I wouldn't worship the Christian god even if he did exist because of my moral issues with his behavior, but that has nothing at all to do with whether I think Christianity accurately describes the real world, whether god actually exists and so on. Christianity is just as much a candidate for "true religion" to me as if I compeltely approved of everything it said - I evaluate Chrsitianity as being unlinely to be accurate simply because of the evidence providecd by the real world and the lack of compelling evidence supporting Christianity's claims.
I read once that the gullible ask, "does x allow me to believe y?" and the rational ask "does x compel me to believe y?"
Yes! That's the point! Personal change in a person's life often has very little to do with what we attribute it to...and even when it does, the mechanism we attribute is often not correct.
What mechanism? I don't use any mechanism to say that I've changed for the better since being a true Christian. Neither does anyone else. It is simply a confession.
You imply the mechanism behind the positive change to be from the actual influence of Christianity. Some people actually claim that god directly intervenes in their lives once they accept him, and thus divine intervention is the mechanism behind the change.
Holy crap I hit the length limit! More to come.
Edited by Rahvin, : Post got cut off by character limit!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Pauline, posted 06-19-2010 1:42 PM Pauline has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Rahvin, posted 06-22-2010 8:14 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 80 by Pauline, posted 06-22-2010 11:57 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 81 by Pauline, posted 06-23-2010 9:21 AM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 127 by Pauline, posted 06-29-2010 11:42 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 79 of 479 (566076)
06-22-2010 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Rahvin
06-22-2010 8:11 PM


Part II..
My positive changes involved shifting to a rationalist outlook on life,
...not giving up Christianity.
revaluing life as a single chance and where death and suffering are not counterbalanced by any sort of heavenly afterlife
...simply a change in viewpoint
and being able to critically examine my own beliefs better than I could previously. I also happened to get much better jobs, and my lifestyle is now significantly improved over when I was a Christian. Some of that resulted from my deconversion, but some of it was the driving force behind my deconversion.
Should I take the latter result as a ramification of the former cause, and the former result as a ramification of the latter cause ("driving force behind my deconversion")? This is a strange mix-up. I don't see any supernatural intervention. You simply claim to have left Christianity because rationalism appealed more to you. You claim to have lived a better life as a non-Christian than a Christian, but yourself do not attribute any supernatural cause to it. You are the driving force behind these changes.
Of course I am, as are the people around me who support me in my daily life - friends, family, etc.
I'm not claiming supernatural intervention. I'm simply drawing the parallel - when people claim their lives were positively altered by Chrsitianity and attribute those changes to divinity, they are typically misattributing the mechanism behind their positive changes. Joining a religion can have a variety of personal benefits, including social acceptance and networking, a more defined moral framework, and emotional sense of peace and assuredness, etc, and those are all independant of whether the religion has anything to do with reality or not.
When a person expressesthat they have experienced positive changes which they attribute to divine providence since adopting a given religion, those positive changes are correlated with the religion, but the religion (and specifically the mechanism of divine providence) is not necessarily the cause of the positive change.
No, there are effects attributable to religion only. The thousands of missionary lives lived in jungles serving the barbaric are evidence of this. The strong supernatural invention in the preservation of their lives is evidence of this. When observers are able to distinguish a remarkable positive change in a believer discarding all other alternatives in a valid way, that is evidence. The negative effects that come from leaving a religion though are simply a ramification of human freewill. God does not force people.
Supernatural intervention in the preservation of their lives? DO you have some way to support that? Do you have a control gtroup from other faiths who tried the exact same thing but were killed? Are you counting not only the successful missionaries, but also the ones who did die, and seeing whether the statistical distribution is different for one religion beyond others?
Or are you simply reading individual amazing accounts of people who claim divine intervention but can give no evidence beyond their own faith for such a thing?
Uncommon events can very easily be seen as common in the age of information, where you can be presented with a hundred individual thousand-to-one stories with a simpyl Google search and not see a single one of the millions who died. By the way, in a world of 6 billion people, 6 million thousand-to-one stories happened today. 0ver 400 of them happened within a 20-mile radius of where I sit.
So far I have encountered no set of claims that self-identifies as a "religion" that also carries a high probability of being accurate.
Some of your atheist counterparts might disagree with you. Some of the more non-stringent people tend to lean towards lending credence to religions like hinduism and buddhism.
Disagreement is irrelevant. Only the strength of the evidence and a rational anaysis matter. I don't care if I'm the odd man out - in a nation of a few hundred million Christians, my own family among them, I'm rather used to it. What matters to me is the rational analysis of evidence and the objective probability that a hypothesis is accurate. If any of my counterparts disagree with anything I say, they're welcome to debate me on it - let the strength of our arguments and evidence determine who is right. After all, that;s part of why I'm here, on a debate board - to be proven wrong so that I can change my beliefs in favor of a more accurate view of reality.
"There exist two afterlives - one is called heaven and it's a paradisical reward for people who live good lives/worship this deity. The other is called hell and is a place of eternal torment for people who didn't obey the rules/worshipped the wrong deity."
Thats why Pascal came up with a wager.I don't understnad why some people are willing to wager and some other people are not at all.
Because some people are too ignorant of statistics to realize that Pascal's Wager is bunk, and some are not. As I explained above, Pascal's Wager depends on a binary choice between an unlikely positive reward and an unlikely horrible punishment, with "nothing happens" occupying the vast majority of the probable results. Pascal unfortunately only considered Chrsitianity vs. Not Christianity. To put it in simple terms:
Let's say you have a 6-sided dice. Christianity is represented by the 1. The others are all alternative religions. Pascal's wager involves choosing either 1 or everything else - he's treating it like a coin toss ratehr than a roll of the die. In actuality, there are countless competing mutually exclusive religions, with Chrisitanity being only one. Rather than "nothing happens" occupying most of the probability space, "you wind up in somebody else's afterlife" is far more probable.
In other words, what if I bet on Christianity, but the Muslims or the Hindus or the Norse or the Egyptians or the Inca or the Aztec or the Greeks or the Iroquois or the Druids or somebody else was actually right? I just wind up in somebody else's Hell.
Beyond that, it treats the probability of a hypothesis being accurate as pure random chance, rather than a rational conclusion based on evidence. It's utterly absurd. The only reason Pascal's Wager ever works is because both fear and the hope for a reward are powerful motivating factors and frequently override our decision-making process. In other words, Pascal's Wager works on people who listen to their hearts instead of their heads, and somehow manage to establish credulity because they find something preferable and something else scary.
Obviously I'm being somewhat lighthearted here. But the point is that none of these can be objectively evaluated - any observation you could ever make would equally support all possible relevant hypotheses. There's simply no way to test the accuracy of any claim like these. Remember, the strength of a hypothesis lies in what it cannot explain; if the hypothesis can equally explain any conceivable observation, the hypothesis conveys no knowledge. What observation would not be explained by the existence of an afterlife? What observation would not be explained by the existence of a deity? What observation would not be explained by my unicorn? If there are none, how can you ever claim your hypothesis to be less wrong than any other mutually exclusive hypothesis?
Hypothesis and observations are great for evaluating and understand tangible and natural things. Whereas claims like the ones you mentioned, rely on faith or doubt.
I doubt everything, including myself. I knwo that I'm wrong. I know that you are wrong. I know that every person on Earth is wrong.
But I also know that I'm less wrong today than I was a year ago. Next year I hope to be even less wrong. And I know that faith will never ever get me there, not ever.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Rahvin, posted 06-22-2010 8:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

Pauline
Member (Idle past 3735 days)
Posts: 283
Joined: 07-07-2008


Message 80 of 479 (566090)
06-22-2010 11:57 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Rahvin
06-22-2010 8:11 PM


Rahvin writes:
Holy crap I hit the length limit! More to come.
Uh, yeah......you sure did, Rahvin
I can't promise a reply before Friday. Over the weekend, most probably. But that should be okay....since you've proposed a lot for me to think about and the fact that I'm in the middle of a hectic week.
Have a good week!
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Rahvin, posted 06-22-2010 8:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

Pauline
Member (Idle past 3735 days)
Posts: 283
Joined: 07-07-2008


Message 81 of 479 (566143)
06-23-2010 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Rahvin
06-22-2010 8:11 PM


Rahvin writes:
That study certainly is interesting. However, that was actually a NYTimes article, and so I have to take it with a grain of salt - reporters are not scientists, and they tend to sensationalize. Most of the misconceptions we have today about things like cosmology and evolution are because of sensationalism in reporting science and journalists trying to convey ideas they don't understand themselves.
Rahvin, you've ignored that fact that the NYT article was written, in first person, by the very researcher- Paul Bloom of Yale University. If you go to this link...
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~pb85/Paul_Bloom.html
and scroll down, its the second article on the listings.
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Rahvin, posted 06-22-2010 8:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

Pauline
Member (Idle past 3735 days)
Posts: 283
Joined: 07-07-2008


Message 82 of 479 (566144)
06-23-2010 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by Kitsune
06-20-2010 2:47 AM


Kitsune writes:
Well that's interesting. I'm all in favour of empirical research marrying up with the psychodynamic theories I am learning on my counselling course. What this looks like to me, is that babies' brains come hard-wired for making choices that favour harmonious group life (I would hesitate to use a judgmental term like morality here),
Hold on. According to most atheists I've encountered (both here and elsewhere), morality is defined as "getting along with each other." Alternate renditions might be prettier than that but that's the meat that's left when you strip the adjectives and adverbs and junk. So, are you trying to say that babies come with a under-developed ethical sense...which when developed through culture, and family becomes what you term-morality? IOW, a baby's ethical sense is like a jewel in the rough...its there but it needs to be polished and developed? But how is a baby's sense of we...let's not call it morality...let's just say, it's ethical sense different from what adults have? How is what they have not morality when you guys indeed define morality as "Getting along with each other"? Seems like a contradiction to me. Either you've gotta admit that babies come with a sense of morality (in terms of what you define it as) OR , admit that morality, like the rest of us think, is more than just "getting along with people. " Look at the study and more like it, it clearly shows that babies know how to get along with each other from a very very young age...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by Kitsune, posted 06-20-2010 2:47 AM Kitsune has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by Huntard, posted 06-23-2010 9:49 AM Pauline has not replied

Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


(1)
Message 83 of 479 (566147)
06-23-2010 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Pauline
06-23-2010 9:44 AM


Pauline writes:
Hold on. According to most atheists I've encountered (both here and elsewhere), morality is defined as "getting along with each other." Alternate renditions might be prettier than that but that's the meat that's left when you strip the adjectives and adverbs and junk. So, are you trying to say that babies come with a under-developed ethical sense...which when developed through culture, and family becomes what you term-morality? IOW, a baby's ethical sense is like a jewel in the rough...its there but it needs to be polished and developed? But how is a baby's sense of we...let's not call it morality...let's just say, it's ethical sense different from what adults have? How is what they have not morality when you guys indeed define morality as "Getting along with each other"? Seems like a contradiction to me. Either you've gotta admit that babies come with a sense of morality (in terms of what you define it as) OR , admit that morality, like the rest of us think, is more than just "getting along with people. " Look at the study and more like it, it clearly shows that babies know how to get along with each other from a very very young age...
I'd say they come hardwired with it. Also, I don't see a problem with this.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Pauline, posted 06-23-2010 9:44 AM Pauline has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 84 of 479 (566158)
06-23-2010 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Pauline
06-21-2010 4:53 PM


I do not believe in theistic evolution because I believe that Bible falls or stands as one piece.
Why does it fall or stand as one piece?
What does the Flud being a myth have to do with the veracity of Jesus' philosphy?
And which "one piece" are you referring to?.. there's a lot of different canons. Is one particular canon even really "one piece"?
Does the fact that species do change over time really contradict the Bible? Isn't the Theory of Evolution a really good explanation of that fact that we see?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Pauline, posted 06-21-2010 4:53 PM Pauline has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Phage0070, posted 06-24-2010 3:29 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Phage0070
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 85 of 479 (566410)
06-24-2010 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by New Cat's Eye
06-23-2010 11:11 AM


Catholic Scientist writes:
Why does it fall or stand as one piece?
In my view, this sentiment is explained in this way:
If part of the Bible is false, then the Bible's claims must be evaluated piecemeal in order to separate the falsehoods/exaggerations/myths/etc from the truth. Theists know that if they were to honestly do this, all of the supernatural elements of the Bible would be swept aside and they would be left with a book of moral teachings and poorly recorded history. Moral teachings which are extremely questionable now that they lack supernatural backing.
This is I think why theists commonly cling to their holy books as being divinely inspired if not truly inerrant.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-23-2010 11:11 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-24-2010 3:45 PM Phage0070 has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 86 of 479 (566415)
06-24-2010 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Phage0070
06-24-2010 3:29 PM


That all makes sense except for this part:
Theists know that if they were to honestly do this, all of the supernatural elements of the Bible would be swept aside
How's that follow?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Phage0070, posted 06-24-2010 3:29 PM Phage0070 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by Phage0070, posted 06-24-2010 4:04 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 87 of 479 (566419)
06-24-2010 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Pauline
06-21-2010 4:53 PM


I do not believe in theistic evolution because I believe that Bible falls or stands as one piece.
Thud!
I'll shut up now......

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Pauline, posted 06-21-2010 4:53 PM Pauline has not replied

Phage0070
Inactive Member


Message 88 of 479 (566424)
06-24-2010 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by New Cat's Eye
06-24-2010 3:45 PM


Catholic Scientist writes:
How's that follow?
With the "honestly" part, Catholic Scientist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-24-2010 3:45 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 89 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-24-2010 4:07 PM Phage0070 has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 89 of 479 (566425)
06-24-2010 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Phage0070
06-24-2010 4:04 PM


Oh, seems like I'd have to assume that the supernatural could not have happened.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Phage0070, posted 06-24-2010 4:04 PM Phage0070 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by Phage0070, posted 06-24-2010 4:45 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Phage0070
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 90 of 479 (566438)
06-24-2010 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by New Cat's Eye
06-24-2010 4:07 PM


Catholic Scientist writes:
Oh, seems like I'd have to assume that the supernatural could not have happened.
Supposing that you have any reasonable standards of observing the world we live in, I wouldn't describe that as an assumption but rather an observation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-24-2010 4:07 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-24-2010 4:57 PM Phage0070 has replied

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