Gen. 2-3, Normal-form Game Matrix Shows That God Chose The Worst Outcome
When presented with a choice of outcomes the rational decision maker will choose the outcome with a positive payoff, but not God.
- God is Omnipotent
- God made the universe
- God made the world
- God made Adam and Eve.
- God is Omniscient.
- The best way to understand something is to build it.
God must have known the properties and tolerances of everything he created, just like a baker and just like an engineer. Since he is omniscient and has a plan, the events that played out in the Garden Of Eden should have come as no surprise to Him.
DECISION AND GAME THEORY
Decision Theory and Game theory were developed to help make predictions about outcomes and analyze how certain outcomes come about. It is used heavily in economics and evolutionary biology. Using one aspect of them, we can assign relative values to events, organize them in a matrix, iterate through all the possible outcomes and derive a value that is equal to the relative value of the outcome. The outcome with highest value is the "dominant strategy", any outcome lower that that dominant strategy is called a "dominated strategy".
"Stochastic Dominance: If action A has a better payoff than action B under each individual state of nature, then we say that action B is stochastically dominated by action A. If the payoff matrix truly represents every thing the decision maker hopes (or fears) to receive from the decision in question, then no rational decision maker will ever choose to perform action B."
Whalen, Thomas. "Payoff Matrix and Decision Rule", Whalens.org. Date of Internet Publication Unknown. Sponsoring organization unknown. 07 Sep. 2008. [http://www.whalens.org/Sofia/choice/matrix.htm].
OTHER RELATED LINKS
- Wikipedia, Stochastic Dominance
- Answers.com, Stochastic Dominance
IF ADAM HAD GOTTEN SICK AND DIED AFTER EVE HAD GOTTEN PREGNANT, THEY PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LEARNED THEIR LESSON AND ADAMS OFFSPRING WOULD HAVE POPULATED THE WORLD ANYWAY.
Adam and Eve are like a cake. The Baker knows what it takes to make them turn out a certain way. God must have known what it takes to make Adam and Eve turn out a certain way. For example if god had made the fruit smell like week old road kill with maggots living in it, chances are they would not have eaten the fruit or would have gotten sick and died. If they had gotten sick, threw up and one of them died, then that probably would have taught them the lesson God wanted them to learn without any ambiguity, but since the fruit was fashioned in a way that appealed to them, they ate it. In fact god built desire into Eve and therefore into Adam (since Eve was derived from Adam) and since she didn't know the difference between good and evil, she couldn't know that disobeying god was evil. However, she did have the desire and an agent telling her what she desired and liked to hear (1, 2, 3). Liking something is neither right or wrong, good or evil, it just simply is. Separate the "like" from what is right and wrong. Good and Evil, for the most part, are cultural judgments. They underwent some sort of transformation which caused them to realize they were naked, good from evil and introduced sin into themselves and therefore indirectly to the world.
KEY EVENTS IN THE FALL OF MAN RELATIVE TO THIS ARTICLE
- God made the man
- planted the garden
- then made the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grow in the garden
- and placed the man in it
- warned the man about the tree
- by telling him he would die using the word die in an ambiguous non-standard way.
in that order.
2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
DERIVING THE NORMAL-FORM GAME / PAYOFF MATRIX
To derive the Normal-form game payoff matrix, we use analytical schemes (AKA "thinking tools") known as a Time-line chart, a weighted ranking matrix, a causal diagram and an event tree. It would take too much time and space to do some of them here, but I have already done some of them in my other articles referenced below. However, since they aren't very complicated, we can do them in our heads for now and create the matrices. We broke the events down and sorted them chronologically. Then we made an event tree, a causal diagram and then assigned values to them in the weighted ranking scale.
In the weighted ranking, it is necessary to place a value on events relative to each other. In other words, an obedient Adam in the garden is more valuable than a disobedient Adam in the garden, so the Obedient Adam gets a higher value. Systematically iterating through the possible combination's yielded the weighted ranking scale shown below.
Now we derive the columns and rows based on the causal flow diagram and the event trees to create our Normal-form game / Payoff Matrix.
In the first row and first column cell, we can see that the combination of "No Adam" ( equivalent to 0 according to our weighted ranking) and the "Tree in" [the garden] (equivalent to 1 according to our weighted ranking) results in a score of 0, 1 for a total value of 1. In the second cell in that row, we get a score of 0, 0 for a total value of zero. The chart below reflects the total value with regard to Adam in each row. As we can see, God clearly chose the worst outcome for Adam in his plan.
The question we are left with after thinking this through is "why?". Some possible reasons are
- that the story is folklore
- that god artificially created a problem so he could solve it as Jesus
I'll explore more of them in my follow on articles.
REFERENCE AND FURTHER READING
Articles supporting Non-Historicity of Adam and Eve
A. Disqualifying Adam And Eve
Articles supporting Internal Inconsistency in the story of the Fall of Man
1. Gen. 2:16-3:24, Adam And Eve Were Mentally Incompetent
2. Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey
3. Gen. 2:7-3:6, Adams Sin Was An Emergent Behavior
4. Gen. 2:6-9, God Ignored Adams Admonishment Option
PRIOR COMMENTS FROM FIRST POST DATE
This post was reformatted and the comments were lost. It was reposted and the comments were included as part of the text.
bahramthered said...
How many times are we going to debate the graden around here?
Lets move onto something new before people start moving onto new blogs.
3:47 PM, September 07, 2008
oliver said...
While I do appreciate the use of Game Theory, we have to realize that Game Theory will only convince those who are Game Theorist (i.e. not people like my mother who will read the Genesis account and then tell me a beautiful story about why it's bad to disobey God.)
4:20 PM, September 07, 2008
charles w. said...
Thanks for another useless post, Lee.
4:25 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
No one is forcing you to do anything, and I recommend that you read other blogs to make you a more well rounded person. Are blogs mutually exclusive? If you don't understand the significance of something, just ask.
I'm writing for the fence-sitter and casual believer.
There's no point in preaching to the choir is there?
do me a favor. Write out romans five (so you understand it as well as possible), then cross out all references to adam and tell me what you have left over.
FYI, I have a plan and a strategy for this argument that takes me out to thanksgiving if I do one a week. After that I'll move on to Cain and Abel and keep on until I get to the end of Gen. 11.
So I guess I won't be your favorite blogger.
In my opinion christianity is never going to be debunked until the source is discredited. Fighting a battle on multiple fronts, rarely succeeds. Debating hard to grasp concepts that leave wiggle room for christians, in my view, is not going to do it, especially when some of them don't get that fact that god having a plan and being omniscient negates free will.
Adam is at the root of christianity. As long as there is credibility for adam, there is credibility for christianity.
4:36 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
forewarned is forearmed.
Just so you know,
here is my plan for "the fall of man" articles for the coming months. the date in brackets is the estimated publish date, the name of the article follows along with its viewpoint.
[20080914] Blaming the Victim, psychology related
[20080921] God Caused The Problem of Sin so He could Solve it, psychology related
[20080928] Talking Snake, humor, paleontology related
[20081005] God Was Not Omniscient in the Garden, Logic Related
[20081012] Comparing The History Of The Needle, anthropolgy related
[20081019] Comparing The History of Agriculture, anthropology related
[20081026] Sex and Death, You Can't Argue With Success, psychology related
[20081102] Adam and Eve are FOLKLORE, summary of the previous articles
[20081109] Analyzing Romans 5, argument analysis, informal logic related
4:49 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Oliver,
I'm not a game theorist either, but if I get it, so will other people.
I think that you do a dis-service to your grandmother by underestimating her.
people surprise you when you think you know what they're capable of, which weakens your position.
the take home is that we can see by thinking it through, that the outcome was what was intended. Now we have to figure out why.
and besides that, I'm trying to introduce some tools of thinking and demonstrate how to apply them to real life problems.
5:12 PM, September 07, 2008
richard said...
This theory and the post in general is nonsensical to say the least!
6:23 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Richard,
well, you did say the least,
so why is it 'nonsensical'?
6:33 PM, September 07, 2008
stan, the half-truth teller said...
I'm just guessing, but perhaps Richard thinks it nonsensical because he doesn't get it?
Perhaps he doesn't understand how it could be that god's alleged decision to create this world is worse than choosing not to create anything at all.
Perhaps he doesn't realize that because he chose to create (assuming the existence of god for the sake of argument), god is culpable in both the successes and failures of his creations (if he is omnipotent and omniscient).
Perhaps, rather than any of this, he is lazy and a fool.
--
Stan
8:42 PM, September 07, 2008
bahramthered said...
Lee; I like this blog since I've been here I've learned a lot. New arguments and such.
But still on the garden I havn't learned anything in the last two posts and honestly am starting to get bored with it.
I don't know about anyone else but I don't have time to keep coming back to blog that's not exploring something new.
But it's your blog (among others).
8:48 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Bahram,
what topics would like to see explored?
brainstorm a little bit, give me some topics.
maybe i have something in draft that I can finish up post for you. I have lots of scraps of ideas and notes in my googledocs.
12:20 AM, September 08, 2008
tigg13 said...
I say, keep it up Lee!
Providing several arguments from different sides of the question only solidifies your position.
And providing alternate arguments just makes those of us who find ourselves crossing swords with christians better prepared.
1:26 AM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
tiggers are wonderful things!
your check is in the mail.
;-)
6:42 AM, September 08, 2008
bahramthered said...
Tig; last couple of these feel the same, just explained differently. Least to me.
Lee;
So far your adam theory been intresting I just think it's kinda beating a dead horse at this point.
Topics I'd like to explore;
Why the bible is so pro slavery.
God's war with the egyptian gods (I only know a little based on a couple semi factual movies)
Some of the more ridiculous genisis claims (always fun). Mainly what happens after the ark (Like a drunk Noah cursing one of his kids into slavery forever and god backing him on it)
And exactly how god reconciles the claim that witchcraft (the wiccan kind) is evil
7:25 AM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi bahram,
if you want to see what has been written on DC about a topic, you can use the search field in the top left of the screen.
- here is a link to all the articles with a "slavery" label
- I've never heard of gods war with egyptian gods, maybe you could be more specific?
- I plan on doing an article on why the noahs ark is folklore, but you can see what my schedule is so it'll be a while
- do a search for witches in the search field.
another option is that you can research one of these topics on your own and submit an article to us for publishing. If you're interested in that, I'll give you an email address to submit it to.
8:15 AM, September 08, 2008
rich said...
Hi Lee,
I wanted to explore a possibility that the assigned values for Adam in obey and Adam in disobey. If these values are based on a payoff, then what payoff do you base these values on? It seems as though they are placed on Adam obeying and remaining in the garden and disobeying and being kicked out. So if that is the payoff then I would agree with the values. But if the payoff is something further down the road then the garden, maybe it changes things.
First you must realize that I am looking at this from LDS doctrine, which differs a bit from evangelist doctrine with regard to the fall. I did post a link to another blog article in one of your other posts that I hope you had time to read.
LDS say that Adam was in a state of innocence in the garden, didn't know good from evil, they wouldn't have a reference to understand joy and sorrow, maybe some other differences. They would remain in this state until they gained knowledge of good and evil. I also began to argue before that they didn't understand that they were naked, which is a key factor, in having offspring. I would agree that at some point they could figure out how to have kids but then the kids would be in the same innocent state.
In the plan of salvation that I know, our goal is to become like God. We have to have the knowledge of good and evil, be able to make choices and learn through those choices that consequences come of all choices, good or bad. As we make bad choices, we see the negative consequences and make changes. If we make good choices we see good consequences. We gain a working knowledge of good and evil, through the choices we make here. If we succeed in learning to make good choices and correct the mistakes, then we can become perfect, eventually, like God is. So if we are left in the garden in a state of innocence without the knowledge and experience necessary to progress.
You spoke before about your dogs. I also have dogs, and I leave them inside when I am not home. I hate coming home and cleaning piles up. Lots of people told me to use the old newspaper rub their nose in the pile method to train the dogs. I don’t like that because I doubt the dog wants poop on his nose. Instead when I come home and find a pile, I give the dog no attention, completely ignore it, since he likes to play and have my undivided attention, this is not desirable to the dog. When I come home to no pile, I over emphasize my attention and play time with him. It wasn’t very long before I had no stinking piles to clean up when I got home. This is true freedom to the dog, he can roam around the house when I am gone, doesn’t have to be locked in some room, and I can trust that he will want to please.
Now in your dog story, you effectively removed your dogs from the kitchen of Eden, and keep them from entering the kitchen, some might even suggest that you force them out because they have no choice in the matter, so they won’t put their nose on the table of life. I’m not proposing that I am a better dog God than you, but your dogs are restricted in their behavior, being removed from the room, and they have no choice but to chew toys or sleep until you grant them access to the kitchen again. I’m sure you would rather have the dogs free to come and go as they please and choose not to put their nose on the table. Once again, true freedom to the dogs.
God would like the same from us, being able to have every choice available to us and be trusted to always make the right choice. Coming here, removed from his presence, to learn the consequences of our choices is our time to learn from our mistakes, keep our noses off the table and piles off the floor because we choose to.
If this is correct then I would swap the two values because being innocently oblivious to the knowledge of good and evil means we would never be able to become like God, which would be more desirable than existing in a garden forever without experiencing joy.
3:11 PM, September 08, 2008
rich said...
Just a note I thought of, the same trick hasn't worked to keep my dog of the furniture while I'm gone.
3:13 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Rich,
welcome back,
It sounds like you are a better Dog God than I am and a better Dog God than god is.
How does the way you handle your dogs compare to the way god handled adam?
It sounds like your dogs get the extended version of the prisoners dilemma, they get a chance to react to subsequent encounters. Like a training phase or something. Or have I misunderstood?
4:28 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
doGs will be doGs won't they? what to do, what to do?
4:45 PM, September 08, 2008
anonymous said...
I think the problem here is that virtually every mainline religion that maintains the Hebrew scriptures regard this story as allegorical? I always thought that the main idea here is that there is that we are imperfect and incapable of perfecting ourselves. I rather like that "lesson".
If you are off arguing with the crazies about a literal reading of the Old Testament, I can think of a billion other ways to spend time productively. On the other hand, if you can read a literary myth for its intrinsic worth, perhaps you'd contribute something useful.
9:37 PM, September 08, 2008
evan said...
Anonymous ... you're simply wrong.
40% of AMERICANS believe the earth is less than 10000 years old.
That means a majority of Christians in the US (about 75-80% of the US population is Christian) believe in the literal story of Genesis.
If you think we ought to argue against a minority position rather than target overtly crazy beliefs that are held by the majority of Christians, you don't understand the purpose of this site.
11:08 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
anonymous,
yea, what evan said,
and moreover you didn't read this comment above
"do me a favor. Write out romans five (so you understand it as well as possible), then cross out all references to adam and tell me what you have left over. ....Adam is at the root of christianity. As long as there is credibility for adam, there is credibility for christianity."
if you cross out all references to adam, what you have is an empty assertion that the killing of Jesus had some mystical meaning.
If you've ever worked in security, crowd control, you know that, theoretically, to handle a riot, you have to take out the leaders. That was a tumultuous time in jerusalem, the romans needed to maintain control, and so when jesus showed up with his gang of merry men carrying swords, the authorities caught him and hung him out to dry.
Paul used some pre-existing biases to create this rationalization out of cognitive dissonance that created a nice neat frame put Jesus in for the rest.
does that clear it up for you?
Its not about arguing over myths, its about stopping FRAUD.
11:30 PM, September 08, 2008
richard said...
Bahramhered,
Yes, I agree. To quote Einstein, "Insanity means doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."
12:21 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Richard,
of course you would because you have no rebuttal to my argument so you just attack me personally.
typical christian strategy.
Might makes right. Biblical principle.
12:24 AM, September 09, 2008
richard said...
Ha, ha, do you honestly believe that you can disprove the God of the universe by using a silly game matrix?
12:43 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Richard,
bad move #2,
ridicule.
Got any rebuttals handy?
1:21 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
oh and richard,
in case you didn't get the memo,
"disprove" presumes there is something proven. No one has proven any "god of the universe", but feel free to try your hand at it. Maybe you can get him to roust me out of bed in the morning.
3:57 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Triablogue has a response to this article. They really seem to have put a lot of work into it, but in the end its really only nay-saying.
Heres the link to it.
However it is a good example of an argument from ignorance premised by a conclusion drawn from unverifiable sources.
I recommend you go take a look at it and see what I had to say about it.
9:40 AM, September 09, 2008
- God is Omnipotent
- God made the universe
- God made the world
- God made Adam and Eve.
- God is Omniscient.
- The best way to understand something is to build it.
God must have known the properties and tolerances of everything he created, just like a baker and just like an engineer. Since he is omniscient and has a plan, the events that played out in the Garden Of Eden should have come as no surprise to Him.
DECISION AND GAME THEORY
Decision Theory and Game theory were developed to help make predictions about outcomes and analyze how certain outcomes come about. It is used heavily in economics and evolutionary biology. Using one aspect of them, we can assign relative values to events, organize them in a matrix, iterate through all the possible outcomes and derive a value that is equal to the relative value of the outcome. The outcome with highest value is the "dominant strategy", any outcome lower that that dominant strategy is called a "dominated strategy".
"Stochastic Dominance: If action A has a better payoff than action B under each individual state of nature, then we say that action B is stochastically dominated by action A. If the payoff matrix truly represents every thing the decision maker hopes (or fears) to receive from the decision in question, then no rational decision maker will ever choose to perform action B."
Whalen, Thomas. "Payoff Matrix and Decision Rule", Whalens.org. Date of Internet Publication Unknown. Sponsoring organization unknown. 07 Sep. 2008. [http://www.whalens.org/Sofia/choice/matrix.htm].
OTHER RELATED LINKS
- Wikipedia, Stochastic Dominance
- Answers.com, Stochastic Dominance
IF ADAM HAD GOTTEN SICK AND DIED AFTER EVE HAD GOTTEN PREGNANT, THEY PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LEARNED THEIR LESSON AND ADAMS OFFSPRING WOULD HAVE POPULATED THE WORLD ANYWAY.
Adam and Eve are like a cake. The Baker knows what it takes to make them turn out a certain way. God must have known what it takes to make Adam and Eve turn out a certain way. For example if god had made the fruit smell like week old road kill with maggots living in it, chances are they would not have eaten the fruit or would have gotten sick and died. If they had gotten sick, threw up and one of them died, then that probably would have taught them the lesson God wanted them to learn without any ambiguity, but since the fruit was fashioned in a way that appealed to them, they ate it. In fact god built desire into Eve and therefore into Adam (since Eve was derived from Adam) and since she didn't know the difference between good and evil, she couldn't know that disobeying god was evil. However, she did have the desire and an agent telling her what she desired and liked to hear (1, 2, 3). Liking something is neither right or wrong, good or evil, it just simply is. Separate the "like" from what is right and wrong. Good and Evil, for the most part, are cultural judgments. They underwent some sort of transformation which caused them to realize they were naked, good from evil and introduced sin into themselves and therefore indirectly to the world.
KEY EVENTS IN THE FALL OF MAN RELATIVE TO THIS ARTICLE
- God made the man
- planted the garden
- then made the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grow in the garden
- and placed the man in it
- warned the man about the tree
- by telling him he would die using the word die in an ambiguous non-standard way.
in that order.
2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
DERIVING THE NORMAL-FORM GAME / PAYOFF MATRIX
To derive the Normal-form game payoff matrix, we use analytical schemes (AKA "thinking tools") known as a Time-line chart, a weighted ranking matrix, a causal diagram and an event tree. It would take too much time and space to do some of them here, but I have already done some of them in my other articles referenced below. However, since they aren't very complicated, we can do them in our heads for now and create the matrices. We broke the events down and sorted them chronologically. Then we made an event tree, a causal diagram and then assigned values to them in the weighted ranking scale.
In the weighted ranking, it is necessary to place a value on events relative to each other. In other words, an obedient Adam in the garden is more valuable than a disobedient Adam in the garden, so the Obedient Adam gets a higher value. Systematically iterating through the possible combination's yielded the weighted ranking scale shown below.
Now we derive the columns and rows based on the causal flow diagram and the event trees to create our Normal-form game / Payoff Matrix.
In the first row and first column cell, we can see that the combination of "No Adam" ( equivalent to 0 according to our weighted ranking) and the "Tree in" [the garden] (equivalent to 1 according to our weighted ranking) results in a score of 0, 1 for a total value of 1. In the second cell in that row, we get a score of 0, 0 for a total value of zero. The chart below reflects the total value with regard to Adam in each row. As we can see, God clearly chose the worst outcome for Adam in his plan.
The question we are left with after thinking this through is "why?". Some possible reasons are
- that the story is folklore
- that god artificially created a problem so he could solve it as Jesus
I'll explore more of them in my follow on articles.
REFERENCE AND FURTHER READING
Articles supporting Non-Historicity of Adam and Eve
A. Disqualifying Adam And Eve
Articles supporting Internal Inconsistency in the story of the Fall of Man
1. Gen. 2:16-3:24, Adam And Eve Were Mentally Incompetent
2. Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey
3. Gen. 2:7-3:6, Adams Sin Was An Emergent Behavior
4. Gen. 2:6-9, God Ignored Adams Admonishment Option
PRIOR COMMENTS FROM FIRST POST DATE
This post was reformatted and the comments were lost. It was reposted and the comments were included as part of the text.
bahramthered said...
How many times are we going to debate the graden around here?
Lets move onto something new before people start moving onto new blogs.
3:47 PM, September 07, 2008
oliver said...
While I do appreciate the use of Game Theory, we have to realize that Game Theory will only convince those who are Game Theorist (i.e. not people like my mother who will read the Genesis account and then tell me a beautiful story about why it's bad to disobey God.)
4:20 PM, September 07, 2008
charles w. said...
Thanks for another useless post, Lee.
4:25 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
No one is forcing you to do anything, and I recommend that you read other blogs to make you a more well rounded person. Are blogs mutually exclusive? If you don't understand the significance of something, just ask.
I'm writing for the fence-sitter and casual believer.
There's no point in preaching to the choir is there?
do me a favor. Write out romans five (so you understand it as well as possible), then cross out all references to adam and tell me what you have left over.
FYI, I have a plan and a strategy for this argument that takes me out to thanksgiving if I do one a week. After that I'll move on to Cain and Abel and keep on until I get to the end of Gen. 11.
So I guess I won't be your favorite blogger.
In my opinion christianity is never going to be debunked until the source is discredited. Fighting a battle on multiple fronts, rarely succeeds. Debating hard to grasp concepts that leave wiggle room for christians, in my view, is not going to do it, especially when some of them don't get that fact that god having a plan and being omniscient negates free will.
Adam is at the root of christianity. As long as there is credibility for adam, there is credibility for christianity.
4:36 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
forewarned is forearmed.
Just so you know,
here is my plan for "the fall of man" articles for the coming months. the date in brackets is the estimated publish date, the name of the article follows along with its viewpoint.
[20080914] Blaming the Victim, psychology related
[20080921] God Caused The Problem of Sin so He could Solve it, psychology related
[20080928] Talking Snake, humor, paleontology related
[20081005] God Was Not Omniscient in the Garden, Logic Related
[20081012] Comparing The History Of The Needle, anthropolgy related
[20081019] Comparing The History of Agriculture, anthropology related
[20081026] Sex and Death, You Can't Argue With Success, psychology related
[20081102] Adam and Eve are FOLKLORE, summary of the previous articles
[20081109] Analyzing Romans 5, argument analysis, informal logic related
4:49 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Oliver,
I'm not a game theorist either, but if I get it, so will other people.
I think that you do a dis-service to your grandmother by underestimating her.
people surprise you when you think you know what they're capable of, which weakens your position.
the take home is that we can see by thinking it through, that the outcome was what was intended. Now we have to figure out why.
and besides that, I'm trying to introduce some tools of thinking and demonstrate how to apply them to real life problems.
5:12 PM, September 07, 2008
richard said...
This theory and the post in general is nonsensical to say the least!
6:23 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Richard,
well, you did say the least,
so why is it 'nonsensical'?
6:33 PM, September 07, 2008
stan, the half-truth teller said...
I'm just guessing, but perhaps Richard thinks it nonsensical because he doesn't get it?
Perhaps he doesn't understand how it could be that god's alleged decision to create this world is worse than choosing not to create anything at all.
Perhaps he doesn't realize that because he chose to create (assuming the existence of god for the sake of argument), god is culpable in both the successes and failures of his creations (if he is omnipotent and omniscient).
Perhaps, rather than any of this, he is lazy and a fool.
--
Stan
8:42 PM, September 07, 2008
bahramthered said...
Lee; I like this blog since I've been here I've learned a lot. New arguments and such.
But still on the garden I havn't learned anything in the last two posts and honestly am starting to get bored with it.
I don't know about anyone else but I don't have time to keep coming back to blog that's not exploring something new.
But it's your blog (among others).
8:48 PM, September 07, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Bahram,
what topics would like to see explored?
brainstorm a little bit, give me some topics.
maybe i have something in draft that I can finish up post for you. I have lots of scraps of ideas and notes in my googledocs.
12:20 AM, September 08, 2008
tigg13 said...
I say, keep it up Lee!
Providing several arguments from different sides of the question only solidifies your position.
And providing alternate arguments just makes those of us who find ourselves crossing swords with christians better prepared.
1:26 AM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
tiggers are wonderful things!
your check is in the mail.
;-)
6:42 AM, September 08, 2008
bahramthered said...
Tig; last couple of these feel the same, just explained differently. Least to me.
Lee;
So far your adam theory been intresting I just think it's kinda beating a dead horse at this point.
Topics I'd like to explore;
Why the bible is so pro slavery.
God's war with the egyptian gods (I only know a little based on a couple semi factual movies)
Some of the more ridiculous genisis claims (always fun). Mainly what happens after the ark (Like a drunk Noah cursing one of his kids into slavery forever and god backing him on it)
And exactly how god reconciles the claim that witchcraft (the wiccan kind) is evil
7:25 AM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi bahram,
if you want to see what has been written on DC about a topic, you can use the search field in the top left of the screen.
- here is a link to all the articles with a "slavery" label
- I've never heard of gods war with egyptian gods, maybe you could be more specific?
- I plan on doing an article on why the noahs ark is folklore, but you can see what my schedule is so it'll be a while
- do a search for witches in the search field.
another option is that you can research one of these topics on your own and submit an article to us for publishing. If you're interested in that, I'll give you an email address to submit it to.
8:15 AM, September 08, 2008
rich said...
Hi Lee,
I wanted to explore a possibility that the assigned values for Adam in obey and Adam in disobey. If these values are based on a payoff, then what payoff do you base these values on? It seems as though they are placed on Adam obeying and remaining in the garden and disobeying and being kicked out. So if that is the payoff then I would agree with the values. But if the payoff is something further down the road then the garden, maybe it changes things.
First you must realize that I am looking at this from LDS doctrine, which differs a bit from evangelist doctrine with regard to the fall. I did post a link to another blog article in one of your other posts that I hope you had time to read.
LDS say that Adam was in a state of innocence in the garden, didn't know good from evil, they wouldn't have a reference to understand joy and sorrow, maybe some other differences. They would remain in this state until they gained knowledge of good and evil. I also began to argue before that they didn't understand that they were naked, which is a key factor, in having offspring. I would agree that at some point they could figure out how to have kids but then the kids would be in the same innocent state.
In the plan of salvation that I know, our goal is to become like God. We have to have the knowledge of good and evil, be able to make choices and learn through those choices that consequences come of all choices, good or bad. As we make bad choices, we see the negative consequences and make changes. If we make good choices we see good consequences. We gain a working knowledge of good and evil, through the choices we make here. If we succeed in learning to make good choices and correct the mistakes, then we can become perfect, eventually, like God is. So if we are left in the garden in a state of innocence without the knowledge and experience necessary to progress.
You spoke before about your dogs. I also have dogs, and I leave them inside when I am not home. I hate coming home and cleaning piles up. Lots of people told me to use the old newspaper rub their nose in the pile method to train the dogs. I don’t like that because I doubt the dog wants poop on his nose. Instead when I come home and find a pile, I give the dog no attention, completely ignore it, since he likes to play and have my undivided attention, this is not desirable to the dog. When I come home to no pile, I over emphasize my attention and play time with him. It wasn’t very long before I had no stinking piles to clean up when I got home. This is true freedom to the dog, he can roam around the house when I am gone, doesn’t have to be locked in some room, and I can trust that he will want to please.
Now in your dog story, you effectively removed your dogs from the kitchen of Eden, and keep them from entering the kitchen, some might even suggest that you force them out because they have no choice in the matter, so they won’t put their nose on the table of life. I’m not proposing that I am a better dog God than you, but your dogs are restricted in their behavior, being removed from the room, and they have no choice but to chew toys or sleep until you grant them access to the kitchen again. I’m sure you would rather have the dogs free to come and go as they please and choose not to put their nose on the table. Once again, true freedom to the dogs.
God would like the same from us, being able to have every choice available to us and be trusted to always make the right choice. Coming here, removed from his presence, to learn the consequences of our choices is our time to learn from our mistakes, keep our noses off the table and piles off the floor because we choose to.
If this is correct then I would swap the two values because being innocently oblivious to the knowledge of good and evil means we would never be able to become like God, which would be more desirable than existing in a garden forever without experiencing joy.
3:11 PM, September 08, 2008
rich said...
Just a note I thought of, the same trick hasn't worked to keep my dog of the furniture while I'm gone.
3:13 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Rich,
welcome back,
It sounds like you are a better Dog God than I am and a better Dog God than god is.
How does the way you handle your dogs compare to the way god handled adam?
It sounds like your dogs get the extended version of the prisoners dilemma, they get a chance to react to subsequent encounters. Like a training phase or something. Or have I misunderstood?
4:28 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
doGs will be doGs won't they? what to do, what to do?
4:45 PM, September 08, 2008
anonymous said...
I think the problem here is that virtually every mainline religion that maintains the Hebrew scriptures regard this story as allegorical? I always thought that the main idea here is that there is that we are imperfect and incapable of perfecting ourselves. I rather like that "lesson".
If you are off arguing with the crazies about a literal reading of the Old Testament, I can think of a billion other ways to spend time productively. On the other hand, if you can read a literary myth for its intrinsic worth, perhaps you'd contribute something useful.
9:37 PM, September 08, 2008
evan said...
Anonymous ... you're simply wrong.
40% of AMERICANS believe the earth is less than 10000 years old.
That means a majority of Christians in the US (about 75-80% of the US population is Christian) believe in the literal story of Genesis.
If you think we ought to argue against a minority position rather than target overtly crazy beliefs that are held by the majority of Christians, you don't understand the purpose of this site.
11:08 PM, September 08, 2008
lee randolph said...
anonymous,
yea, what evan said,
and moreover you didn't read this comment above
"do me a favor. Write out romans five (so you understand it as well as possible), then cross out all references to adam and tell me what you have left over. ....Adam is at the root of christianity. As long as there is credibility for adam, there is credibility for christianity."
if you cross out all references to adam, what you have is an empty assertion that the killing of Jesus had some mystical meaning.
If you've ever worked in security, crowd control, you know that, theoretically, to handle a riot, you have to take out the leaders. That was a tumultuous time in jerusalem, the romans needed to maintain control, and so when jesus showed up with his gang of merry men carrying swords, the authorities caught him and hung him out to dry.
Paul used some pre-existing biases to create this rationalization out of cognitive dissonance that created a nice neat frame put Jesus in for the rest.
does that clear it up for you?
Its not about arguing over myths, its about stopping FRAUD.
11:30 PM, September 08, 2008
richard said...
Bahramhered,
Yes, I agree. To quote Einstein, "Insanity means doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."
12:21 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Richard,
of course you would because you have no rebuttal to my argument so you just attack me personally.
typical christian strategy.
Might makes right. Biblical principle.
12:24 AM, September 09, 2008
richard said...
Ha, ha, do you honestly believe that you can disprove the God of the universe by using a silly game matrix?
12:43 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Hi Richard,
bad move #2,
ridicule.
Got any rebuttals handy?
1:21 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
oh and richard,
in case you didn't get the memo,
"disprove" presumes there is something proven. No one has proven any "god of the universe", but feel free to try your hand at it. Maybe you can get him to roust me out of bed in the morning.
3:57 AM, September 09, 2008
lee randolph said...
Triablogue has a response to this article. They really seem to have put a lot of work into it, but in the end its really only nay-saying.
Heres the link to it.
However it is a good example of an argument from ignorance premised by a conclusion drawn from unverifiable sources.
I recommend you go take a look at it and see what I had to say about it.
9:40 AM, September 09, 2008
35 comments:
PRIOR COMMENTS FROM FIRST POST DATE
This post was reformatted and the comments were lost. It was reposted and the comments were included as part of the text.
This looks a lot like a typical Problem of Evil debate.
You see, Lee, God's plan can never be called 'worse' or 'bad' for God's will always obtains.
What is God's will? Look at the world. God's plan is for everything to be exactly as it is, of course.
That's how we know God exists. Because everything is exactly the way Christians say he wants it.
Duh!
Well,
I just read the triablogue post and it looks like they headed the same direction I did. Not sure how to feel about that.;)
Lee, you asked:
How does the way you handle your dogs compare to the way god handled adam?
Interesting question. I guess there are similarities. I allow my doG to have every choice available to him, both good and bad, Adam had the same in the garden. The only tree bad to eat from would be the Tree of KGE, all others were OK. Since I know my dog wants attention, even bad attention is more desireable than none, I curb bad behavior by ignoring my dog's desire to have that attention and he decides that it is better to behave and have play time than to misbehave and be ignored. He chooses to behave so all is happy. But it started with the problem of the stinking pile which I guess could be analogeous somehow to the tree, its early and my brain isn't at full capacity just yet. Since Adam had choices and expectations, he had to make a choice. He choose to remain with Eve and eat the fruit, since she was headed out for eating he choose to follow. So he made a choice of his own agency based on the knowledge that he had. If Adam decides to behave then all should be happy since he has the same chance at redemption as all of us do, and he should be able to repent and be forgiven of his sins.
I do think triabloguers are right to say that only looking at the fall and saying it is the worst possible outcome, doesn't take into consideration the final outcome. This is what I was basically headed at with looking at changing the values based on the outcome, which is what I think the game thoery is about, the best possible outcome.
The fall being the worst possible outcome assumes that this world is the end result of the game. Except that it isn't the end it's part of the game.
Hi Rich,
I'm glad you brought it up. I invited prof. mcgrath to come over too since he has a link to it.
I'm going to keep on at triablogue, but I'd prefer to do it here. If you want to participate over there I'd welcome it. Though we have our differences, I regard you as one of the more reasonable christians out there even though some other christians don't recognize mormons as christians.
I'll respond to you later when I have more time. I might just redo the article with yours and triablogues concerns accounted for.
I just finished teaching a class on Gnosticism, and one topic that I brought up is whether theistic evolution is a form of Gnosticism, since it attributes the imperfections of our existence to a creator (albeit an impersonal one, namely the evolutionary process) rather than to the supreme God. :)
I don't know why e-mail follow up comments doesn't seem to be working on my blog. But I hope anyone who is interested in the conversation will come here rather than merely post over there.
Anyway, I said that the game theory approach is "problematic", and that's because it seems to me that the assumptions made about God - including that God can know and perhaps even determine the outcome - are problematic in a game context. A game where you know the outcome doesn't sound like much of a game.
But the biggest problem I have is that this approach treats the story as though it is about two human beings who actually lived in the distant past, and not about adam, which in Hebrew means humanity, and the way we all experience a loss of innocence connected with coming of age, no longer walking around naked and yet feeling unashamed (well, most of us), and reaching the point where on the one hand we begin rebelling against parental authority and on the other begin becoming responsible for our own moral judgments. The story makes the best sense, in my opinion, when read as myth rather than as history - or as game! :)
This is not to say that the story is entirely unproblematic when it places God in the role of divine parent who kicks the kids out of the house for breaking the rules. But I think some of your philosophical assumptions may not be ones this ancient Israelite author would have shared. For instance, that God created out of nothing is not found in Genesis, and thus the idea that chaos could rear its head and create problems for the divinely-ordered creation may have been part of the worldview of the author and initial readers.
Hi James,
Anyway, I said that the game theory approach is "problematic", and that's because it seems to me that the assumptions made about God - including that God can know and perhaps even determine the outcome - are problematic in a game context. A game where you know the outcome doesn't sound like much of a game.
Am I wrong to presume that God can know and perhaps even determine the outcome?
The story makes the best sense, in my opinion, when read as myth rather than as history - or as game! :)
well I agree with that but a non-literal adam causes problems too. Paul evidently thought adam was real.
quote romans 5:12
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"
But I think some of your philosophical assumptions may not be ones this ancient Israelite author would have shared. For instance, that God created out of nothing is not found in Genesis, and thus the idea that chaos could rear its head and create problems for the divinely-ordered creation may have been part of the worldview of the author and initial readers.
I agree with that too, but I think you would agree that the majority of christians in the world don't really share your perspective on that do they? Have you discussed anything here with dist. sup. Harvey? If you have, I'm sorry I missed it.
District Superintendent? I presumably missed something at some point that prevents me from getting the joke...
At any rate, I have no reason to think that you are wrong about what Paul thought. Paul was wrong about plenty of things, and so it shouldn't surprise anyone if he was also wrong about this. But that doesn't necessarily mean that his viewpoint hinges on Adam having been a historical figure, since his contrast is not between descent from Adam or Jesus, but two modes of existence that are characterized by the stories of these two figures, and their respective disobedience and obedience.
I've never been able to figure out what most Christians think, except perhaps for this: Most Christians think that most Christians think like they do. And I think most Christians are wrong about that! :)
Hi James,
I think harvey is the opposite of you. If neither of you never mentioned jesus name, I'd have a hard time figuring out you of the same religion. anyway...
Paul was wrong about plenty of things, and so it shouldn't surprise anyone if he was also wrong about this.
But where did paul get his information from?
James wrote,
District Superintendent? I presumably missed something at some point that prevents me from getting the joke...
No, that is what one of the Christian bloggers who posts here goes by. I think Harvey may be a district superintendent of something, but I know that he reports that he has be a pastor for 27 years.
Where did Paul get his beliefs from? The same as most people: upbringing, culture, education, conversation, sources whose authority he accepted, etc. etc....
Hi Lee,
I went to read over there, but I'm not sure I follow everything they talk about. I was fine with the chess game post but then I got lost somewhere in the comments, that made me think I didn't get their point. But then that seems to be a problem. I might go both places, but mostly I will stick here. Thanks for the comment by the way.
I James,
I've never been able to figure out what most Christians think, except perhaps for this: Most Christians think that most Christians think like they do. And I think most Christians are wrong about that! :)
Don't you first have to figure out what a christian is before you can decide what it is they think? But then it will most likely lead you to the same conclusion.
I allow my doG to have every choice available to him, both good and bad, Adam had the same in the garden.
Really? You leave rat poison out for your dog to eat, and watch silently while he eats it, and then call his death "justice"?
That's what the ToKoGaE was...it caused Adam, Eve, and their progeny to die and suffer horrible pain in the process. I bet you don't allow your dog the freedom to do that (and I TRULY hope I would win that bet...)
Really? You leave rat poison out for your dog to eat, and watch silently while he eats it, and then call his death "justice"?
No, I leave rat poison out for the neighbors cats.
The tree did not cause Adam to die a horrible, painful death, or did I miss something? As I recall that was a lie and they didn't actually die when they ate the fruit. I hope that other things I have written in this thread, also included in the post now, would go a little further to explain my thoughts on this. But once again, Adam was given choices and commandments, then consequences of those choices. He was given freedo to eat from every single tree in the garden, including the tree of knowledge. He was told not to eat from it but it was left to his choice.
This idea of applying things to God that are not there is irrelevant. Nice try you guys. i would expect something more... thought provoking from all of you. Maybe in a post to come.
BTW: I like your new blog layout. I use only what Blogger gives me for now, since I am not good with html and etc.
Grace,
Jeremy
Jeremy hit the nail on the head when he wrote,
This idea of applying things to God that are not there is irrelevant
Exactly! Which is why I believe that people should base their beliefs on logic and empirical data, rather than imaginary beings that aren't there.
Toby (I'm on my wife's computer)
Hi rich,
of all of them,
yours seems to be the most direct attack on my argument, and as you pointed out may be what peter at triablogue is getting at if he would just come out at say it directly.
anyway,
I'll address your concerns in a little while when I get a minute,
HI James,
The same as most people: upbringing, culture, education, conversation, sources whose authority he accepted,
so when paul puts adam and jesus together as the reason for the crucifixion,
why does his opinion have any more weight that anyone elses?
Hi Lee,
I'll wait and see what comes of the post to comment more. but in the meantime:
doGs will be doGs won't they? what to do, what to do?
I'm thinking flood and start over. ;)
shygetz,
amen brother,
succinct, elegant, to the point.
Rich- you are right: the Bible doesn't say that Adam died a horrible death from eating the apple. But as I recall, a couple of unpleasant things did happen to him, Eve, and the serpent too. Let's see:
From Genesis 3:
16 Also God seide to the womman, Y schal multiplie thi wretchidnessis and thi conseȝuyngis, in sorewe thou schalt bere thi children, and thou schalt be vndur power of the hosebonde, and he schal be lord of thee. 17: Sothely God seyde to Adam, For thou herdist the voys of thi wijf, and hast ete of the tree, of which Y comaundide to thee that thou schuldist not ete, the erthe schal be cursid in thi werk; in traueylis thou shalt ete therof in all daies of thi lijf; 18 it schal brynge forth thornes and breris to thee, and thou schalt ete eerbis of the erthe; 19 in swoot of thi cheer thou schalt ete thi breed, til thou turne aȝen in to the erthe of which thou art takun; for thou art dust, and thou schalt turne aȝen in to dust.
Sorry, I couldn't resist quoting the Wycliffe Bible, because is is such beautiful language. But the sense is clear: Adam and Eve died, and all their progeny were punished, for biting an apple that God knew they would bite as He created them. Doesn't sound like a loving parent, or even a loving dog owner, to me.
Hi Rich, all,
I am probably going to do a follow on article justifying how I derived the low score for adam in the garden. Honestly I thought it would be obvious, but I guess its not.
but in a nutshell it will be something like this,
The viewpoint of this argument is to support the assertion and complex linked argument that the bible is folklore and is not a reliable source for knowledge about the abrahamic god.
It uses past articles as its premise to show that
- god is omnipotent
- god is omniscient
- god is perfect, so principles of efficiency should come into play
- god had a plan before the beginning,
- adam could not have surprised god, so god must have known it was coming,
- gods plan depended on adam disobeying, and having to have a blood sacrifice to reconcile it,
- and it goes on to show that the plan was the worst because he chose a blood sacrifice and neglected to consider the principle of nurturing guidance, education, training, and generally it does not reflect commonly accepted sound principles of living and principles of efficiency. Example, as you pointed out, he scrapped it all and started over with the flood. But the founder affect would have doomed that plan to failure.
- considering he knew how things were going to turn out, and presuming that he thought to create was better than not creating, he could have made them that way to start with. Since that is the case, it violates a principle of efficiency.
- Not reflecting commonly accepted sound principles of living violates a principle of quality of information.
- a missing piece that would cover the justification of how I derived the low score would be the quality of information, which tangents out of the context of the story, and questions the quality of information that makes up the story and the bible in general.
There are criteria for information quality, you can find them as guidelines for how to do a research paper, but I haven't done that article yet. So this article probably should have waited till I wrote the "criteria for quality of information" article. But that article wasn't supposed to be part of this series, it was going to a stand alone article after I'd finished this series.
The last question i directed at james used principles of quality of information as a warrant/premise (whatever your preference).
I should probably do the article arguing from efficiency as well before I continue with the series.
it would probably be a welcome break to some of our readers that are fed up my adam bombing.
and then the cherry on the cake for all this is...
"What justification do we have to question god?"
falls right back into principles of quality of information and shows that it is special pleading to waive sound principles of qualitiy of information to regard the bible as a quality source for knowledge about the abrahmic god.
it simple, until you can verify something, it should not be regarded as reliable unless you have no better options.
Lee wrote: "so when paul puts adam and jesus together as the reason for the crucifixion, why does his opinion have any more weight that anyone elses?"
My answer: I think it depends what you mean by the "reason for the crucifixion". If you mean historical reason, causal reason, then one would have to talk about the volatile nature of gathering crowds, talking about the Kingdom of God, and raising Messianic hopes. It isn't surprising historically that the Romans would apprehend and execute someone like Jesus.
What I think Paul is offering is something different. Sure, neither you nor I would share his assumption that if this happened, it must have happened because it has a purpose in the divine plan. There are parts of the Bible that leave open the possibility that not all that occurs is God's will, but that's another subject.
What Paul was giving expression to, in my opinion, was an early Christian attempt to make sense of the crucifixion of Jesus. Nothing could be more perplexing in Paul's context than the notion of a crucified Messiah. And so Paul did what any devout educated Jew of his time would have done: he turned to Scripture (and presumably used his heart to think about it - I'd say "head", but that's just one more thing that we know but Paul didn't).
As for why I continue to interact with Paul and other ancient Christian authors, the reasons are twofold. First, this is part of my heritage, a heritage that mediated to me a life-changing religious experience, and so even when I disagree with it, I remain an heir to it and keep the channels of communication open. Second, I continue to find much that Paul and other Biblical authors say challenging. The notion that the "head honcho" appointed by God could embrace a path of suffering and humility rather than domination is a powerful one. I'm not persuaded that its point has yet had the full impact it is capable of having - on Christians, not to mention on anyone else. :)
Thanks james,
do you consider yourself a christian?
Lee, Dr. Mcgrath is probably best described as a liberal Christian, a religious person, who actually shares with us the goal of debunking of evangelical Christianity. I learn from him.
I think there was a discussion of a blog post of mine "Why I am a Christian" here on your blog once in the past, wasn't there?
Yes, right here.
thanks guys I'll check it out.
This is my justification for how I derived my weighted ranking that I used in the normal-form matrix.
I'll be writing articles about the topics of information quality and misunderstanding omnipotence and omniscience later. This comment introduces the ideas.
I think some christians operate under a handicap of not being able to understand what it would mean to be omnipotent and omniscient.
they can't get their around what it means to be omnipotent, and omniscient.
- Gods omniscience clearly means that he knew what was going to happen and he had a plan.
- Gods plan clearly violates principles of efficiency because he doesn't seem to use his omniscience and omnipotence
- How is it possible that these violations of princples exist? Well lets look at the source of the data and use principles of information qualtiy to rate it.
They can't seem to get their head around is what quality information is, and if they do, they use special pleading to argue that it doesn't apply to the bible.
The Criteria for information quality or data quality are sound principles for gaining knowledge that has applications.
The bible hardly meets any of them. With that said, it cannot be verified as a source of quality information about the abrahamic god. We have to use the higher quality information we have accumulated from other sources to gain knowledge about the world.
So I suspect they'll come back with a circular argument such as "you have no right to judge god", but we can break out of that loop because we have every right to say that based on higher quality sources of information, there's no reason to trust most anything in the bible since it violates principle of information quality. the most obvious violations are that the authors are unknown, we don't know what version we have, and they
- make cliams that contradict established natural laws
- make claims that contradict established principles
- Does not fit with what you observe, or already know
- Does not have support else where. in other words does not have reliable corroboration
- it Is not internally consistent.
The reason the bible is incoherent is that the authors and compilers did not use any principles of information quality, therefore christianity turned out to be the interpretive mess that it is.
Lee,
How goes it? I haven't been able to follow very closely some of your more recent threads on Genesis due to the responsibilities of life. I wanted to comment here though...
You state:
I think some christians operate under a handicap of not being able to understand what it would mean to be omnipotent and omniscient.
they can't get their around what it means to be omnipotent, and omniscient.
A rather sweeping assertion you make above levied against Christians. Given your attempted conclusions regarding God's plan and Humanity's Free-Will, (from an earlier August thread) it would appear that you don't understand it either. I think that particular thread is one of the foundations for this Genesis-family of threads you've been doing recently. Since you started going askew back then there is no guessing where you will end up with this...
HI Jaceppe,
thanks for coming back!
The underlying theme I have is using evidence and rational principles to show that the bible fits the category of folklore more than it does anything else. Recently I came across some principles for quality of information, I thought that only existed in my head, but in fact, it reaches as far as the USDA. They have an overview of them listed on their website. If you google for Quality of Information, data quality or information quality, you will find them,
This seems to be a seminal paper on the subject
and this is one point it argues for
"* The consumer must find the data accurate. For example, the data are correct, objective and come from reputable sources. "
The question is what are the criteria for "accurate", "correct", "objective", "reputable sources".
I'm gearing up to pursue that.
I hope you'll stick around cause I'm not going to be done with genesis up to gen. 11 probably till next year.
After that I'm going to use them in diagramming christian arguments to visually show how they go wrong.
I've thought up how to represent the relationship between god and freewill in a diagram, I just haven't done it yet. I will though.
Lee,
Thanks... I'll follow along as I have time...
"* The consumer must find the data accurate. For example, the data are correct, objective and come from reputable sources. "
The question is what are the criteria for "accurate", "correct", "objective", "reputable sources".
I'm gearing up to pursue that.
Now I haven't read the paper yet so I'll know more once I do, but it strikes me as misplaced to be thinking of God and Humanity in terms Producers and Consumers.
Also, I would suggest that another important part would be ensuring that you have properly represented all of the intent of God and yet I haven't seen in any of your previous threads any thoughts or discussion by you of God expressing His Glories to creation.
Hi Jaceppe,
It seems as though you have identified that I am missing a 'qualifier' in my arguments.
that may be a valid criticism, though I've mentioned it I have not elaborated on it. This is one part of a larger complex linked argument that I am writing. I have tried to be careful to do them in order so as to avoid this type of criticism but I was bound to get out of step sometime exactly because it has interdependent parts.
I am going to get all the pieces written but its not going to be finished for a while.
as far as producers and consumers, you need to look at it deeper. Principles are not exclusive to one domain. They can be applied accross domains.
You are the consumer of biblical information and the authors are the producer. It is incumbent on the producers of the information to ensure certain principles of information quality assurance are met.
For example, not including any identifiable information about themselves is a problem. Granted that was not an issue in the bronze age, since then we have learned what a bad practice that is because it introduces unecessary problems.
for example, the thousands of different christian denominations derived from different interpretations.
and the fact that they didn't use those principles does not exclude them from criticism exactly because the sorts of problems they have are why the principles were created in the first place.
you have [not] properly represented all of the intent of God
If that is your position, then
not even a christian has any right to make any claims or statements in support of christianity that depend on that.
the "no one knows the mind of god" viewpoint puts you squarely in the middle of agnosticism with a bias in favor of God.
But I'm doing the research for the missing piece (article elaborating on metrics for information/data quality) right now. It will show that everything you think you know about god comes from a poor quality information source.
Lee,
I don't have time to post much right now, however...
you have [not] properly represented all of the intent of God
If that is your position, then
not even a christian has any right to make any claims or statements in support of christianity that depend on that. the "no one knows the mind of god" viewpoint puts you squarely in the middle of agnosticism with a bias in favor of God.
By my count that's the 2nd time you've tried to "push" me into the agnostic camp... :-) ... My comment above wasn't so much aimed at the inscrutibleness of God's purpose, rather, that there are aspects of His purpose that you are not including. I don't have time to develop this at present but I will try to and then post it later...
Regarding God's insrutibility however, I would clearly believe that there are aspects of God, His Plan, His attributes, His ways... etc... that are difficult for us to completely grasp. That does not mean we don't grasp it or don't grasp at least some of it. And, I don't believe this necessarily means a Christian is an agnostic with respect to these things because a Christian can believe certain things about God without having fully comprehended their extent in God. The Scriptures do provide indications that there are possibilities in God that we may find inscrutible; e.g. Isa 55:8-9. I think the difference in an agnostic and a Christian in these matters is that a Christian has confidence in other things He knows of God and can therefore rest (with faith) in God (i.e. that God will be vindicated, proved right, shown to be wise etc...). The agnostic would withold belief on such matters...
Jaceppe wrote: " I haven't seen in any of your previous threads any thoughts or discussion by you of God expressing His Glories to creation.
Jaceppe,
What exactly does "God expressing His Glories to creation" mean?
Are you saying that God want's us to be aware of his properties or that he wants us to subjectively think he is great?
I'm asking because we can rationally question God's methods of achieving the former and question is motivation for the latter.
For example, if God merely wanted us to know of his properties, then he could simply build in this knowledge at the time of creation or any time afterwards. This goes back to Lee critique of information quality as the most efficient and effective method of knowing God's properties. Being omnipotent, God would be able to directly transfer this information to us in exacting detail.
However, if you say that God wants us to subjectively think he's great, then I'd ask what would be God's motivation? Unlike human beings who seek praise because they have finite knowledge, God's knowledge of his greatness would be absolute since he is omniscient. He does not need us to reassure him of his greatness. Nor would human subjective perception of God's greatness make God any more or less great as his is unchanging and timeless. (in other words, would God be less great if he had intentionally decided not to create human beings?)
You might claim that God wants us to think he's great so we'll follow his rules and to increase the likelihood we'll be saved. However, if God created sin to glorify his name, then we have a problem as his motivation is circular. We wouldn't need to be saved if God hadn't created sin to make him self look good in the first place.
In addition, this is a vague goal that could rationalize any action on God's part because, in doing absolutely anything, it could be said that God was expressing his glory. This could include creating a universe that looks as if it formed naturally, etc.
As such, it appears that your retreating to this position in an attempt to avoid logical scrutiny of God's actions.
Hi all,
I'm trying something new,
I've set up a companion blog where I will work on my articles instead of googledocs so that my research can be available to anyone interested before it gets posted on DC. In the case where I need to elaborate on something, I can do it there, and work on my ideas before I post them on DC.
The Bible Is Folklore
It will also serve as an off-site backup for my articles in the case we experience more technical difficulties. Over time, all my previous articles with be copied over to it.
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