Summations Only

I understand that we always make decisions based on incomplete information.I may even believe that in the case under discussion that God planted the evidence, but also that my belief does no qualify as "reasonable doubt".I am not okay with the death penalty even when there is overwhelming evidence, and certainly not okay with sending innocent people to prison, but understand that I must weigh the evidence, not my beliefs.

Too funny.Asked and answered many, many, many times. In fact you even quoted the answer to your question.

Why not?You're supposed to weigh the evidence and decide whether the person being tried is more likely to be guilty or innocent. How do you go about this? What calculations do you use?Let's see, the probability of his guilt is one minus the probability of his innocence. What is the probability of his innocence? The probability of his innocence is the probability that the evidence presented was false or inconclusive. What is the probability that the evidence false or inconclusive? I don't know.So all the probabilities down the line become "I don't know." In that case, how can a guilty verdict be the correct choice? I agree on the death penalty, and the sending innocents to prison thing, but you can't weigh the evidence, only your beliefs about it.

Again, see the answer to Straggler in the message above. AbE:Hopefully we all make similar decisions constantly. We have things we believe (she loves me, he is envious, I hate brown ties) but we try to separate personal beliefs and our duty to actually weigh the evidence presented when acting as a jury.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

I haven't really thought about it, but yeah, your angel friend could work. Me? Why? How? He said he believes that god could...Belief in a potential is not belief in an actual. Why would the potential affect his actions without the actual? And if it was something you couldn't test?

Holy shit, cross-thread Gotcha! You've really got it in for me I have good reason to think I'm not dreaming right now. But regarding whether or not everything is a dream, no, I have no way of knowing that.

Ok, so you have all the evidence and are presented with two explanations for said evidence, boith of which explain the evidence equally well. How do you choose between the two?If you believe that god could have planted the evidence, then you'll never have fewer than two plausible explanations for any amount of evidence, and with two explanations that explain the evidence equally well, there can be no more than a 50% confidence in either...unless of course your beliefs and biases enter into the picture.

Is any evidence that God planted the finger prints submitted?If not, then I don't see much choice but to disregard that position even if I believe it is true.Again, please stop telling me what I would think or do.Edited by jar, : left out "but"

Yeah, it could work, but would it be necessary? Is that the only way to think that something supernatural had happened, given that you believe it is possible for supernatural things to happen? You keep coming up with examples to illustrate possibility without refrencing belief. I'm very focused on the belief part. Because if you believe it is possible for something to have happened, and that there is no evidence that shows it didn't happen, and that there is no possibility for evidence to show that it did happen, how could you rule out it happening? If I didn't believe something, but merely allowed the possibility, I'd act as if it weren't true until I had evidence for it.If I did believe something, and didn't have any evidence for or against it, I'd act as if it were true until proven otherwise. If not, then I don't see how I could accurately claim belief.

No. No But it was belief in a possibility... You don't rule it out. But without sufficient reason to believe in the acutality, you're left believing in the possibility. I'm just not see the "problem". Its not believing in something, its believing in the possibility of something. I think that's the difference you're not including.

Yes, but if you truly believe it is a possibility, should you not consider it? And if you can't rule it out, should you just ignore it? Doesn't that imply you don't really believe it's a possibility? I guess it comes down to how much certainty you have in a proposition, or how you gain certainty in a proposition. If you have something you're trying to explain, whether it's a crime scene or an interesting chemical or physics experiment, you first come up weith possible explanations. As you rule out explanations, your certainty in the remaining ones increases. But what do you do if you end up with two explanations, both of which explain all the evidence you have?Well, you can keep looking for evidence and try to rule one out, but if Jar's beliefs are right, and evidence for (or against) a supernatural explanation is impossible to find, you can never rule it out, so you'll be left with, at the very least, two possible explanations, each of which explain the evidence equally well. In that case, you can not have more than 50% certainty in either one, so what makes you say, "Option A, the non-supernatural one is correct."The only reason to choose one over the other is purely emotional bias. And if your bias is toward the natural over the supernatural, then how can you really claim to believe in the possibility of a supernatural explanation? At best, you allow the possibility of the supernatural, but don't really believe it.

No, and I guess that's a source of our disagreement. You can maintain the belief in the possibility, but withold consideration until you have sufficient reason of the actuality. The belief in the posibility wasn't brought forward as a serious proposal waiting to be ruled out, it was just an acknowledgement. Because that's the one you have evidence for. Again, it was a belief in the possibility, not a belief in the actuality.

You have already stated that it is impossible to get this evidence, so it must always be considered. Therefore, the scientific conclusion should be thrown out as being forever untrustworthy. That is a problematic worldview.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Again, Jar believes that there is no possibility of achieving sufficient reason for any actuality. This implies that you will ignore the possibility of a supernatural cause a priori. In what way can you say you believe in a potential cause if your only position is to ignore it as a possibility? I'm still not understanding how this can be considered belief. If I believe that Tom may have murdered Harry, and I have no proof of that, it's probably best to behave as if he didn't, until such time as evidence is brought forth. But what if I also believe that Tom has the ability to make any evidence of his crime disappear? Is it still rational to believe that Tom may have murdered Harry, and that it is not possible to find any evidence of it, and still treat Tom as if he didn't murder Harry?I might be able to delude myself into thinking, well, he may have done it, but probably not, but that's still a delusion. There is absolutely no reason for me to remove Tom from the suspect pool other than the fact that I don't want Tom to be guilty, but that's not a rational reason. Not really. Both theories explain all the evidence equally well. You can't say you have evidence for one and not the other, that would constitute additional evidence.Take the supernatural out of it. Say you see tire tracks on your front lawn. You have two suspects, your neighbor to your left and your neighbor to your right. Both of them drive the same type of vehicle with the same type of tires. Both were out drinking the night before, and are unable to remember if they drove over your lawn last night.So, two explanations, both explain all the evidence. Which do you choose? But how can you believe in a possibility, if in each actuality you dismiss it as a possibility?

If it is impossible to get the evidence why should it EVER be considered?I doubt you can point to anyplace where I said that the scientific evidence should be thrown out.You're the one that seems to want to throw the scientific evidence away, not I, so it seems that it is YOU that has the problematic worldview.But if creating strawman arguments makes you happy, please continue.