tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post682275440248116514..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: Unverifiable "Knowledge" is Demonstrably Trivial.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-74858789874038269192009-10-26T18:23:48.353-04:002009-10-26T18:23:48.353-04:00Lee, If you are still monitoring this thread, I ou...Lee, If you are still monitoring this thread, I ought to let you know what happened. I simply procrastinated and looking at about a dozen posts, I don't think I'll respond after all. Call me lazy, I'd respond to just about any of this but it's a bit much altogether after all.<br /><br />One thing I'll mention though is that there was confusion when I said that it was metaphorical to call the gospels eye witnesses. I called it metaphorical, then I explained what I meant. People ignored my explanation and latched onto the label. It would be more accurate if I said that describing the gospels eye-witness accounts is metanymical. A metonym is where the part stands in for the whole. The sources for the gospels did not just see Jesus. Again, they LIVED with him. Whatever problems eye witness accounts have, it isn't on the same level as life witnesses.Rob Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937716910001145836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-16505726558118314452009-08-30T07:40:39.452-04:002009-08-30T07:40:39.452-04:00I keep coming back to one simple point when I talk...I keep coming back to one simple point when I talk to christian (sympathisers) who talk about religion being a "different way of knowing" ... pulling information "out of your ass" is indeed another way of knowing. And I readily admit that sometimes this information is correct; in which case it is obtained more quickly and often obtained when mere logic is incapable of revealing the truth. However, as tempting as it is, this information isn't much use on average. Typically, when I apply this clarifying label my interlocutors will agree that pulling information out of your ass isn't a very respectable way of knowing ... suddenly they can see the problem that a small amount of truth hardly outweighs the infinite rubbish with the same epistemological statuseeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02965182882573537193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-24862467660516056162009-08-12T23:31:46.856-04:002009-08-12T23:31:46.856-04:00okay. take your time.okay. take your time.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-64204761526763940292009-08-12T23:09:14.149-04:002009-08-12T23:09:14.149-04:00I'll follow it longer if you want me to.
Tha...<em>I'll follow it longer if you want me to.</em><br /><br /><br />That'd be splendid. course I still haven't written a word. but the order is owlmirror, scott, you, then persiflageRob Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937716910001145836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-88534305552179360972009-08-11T10:16:53.343-04:002009-08-11T10:16:53.343-04:00Hi persiflage,
maybe certainty is the absence of t...Hi persiflage,<br />maybe certainty is the absence of the feeling of doubt.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-82595510722007391272009-08-11T00:48:25.830-04:002009-08-11T00:48:25.830-04:00Hi Rob,
funny!
I'll follow it longer if you wa...Hi Rob,<br />funny!<br />I'll follow it longer if you want me to.<br />Right now I'm working on an article that is an introduction to Lord Krishna. Its called Krishna in a nutshell.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-41378045722476509282009-08-10T23:27:26.544-04:002009-08-10T23:27:26.544-04:00I have more or less finished reading the posts, mo...I have more or less finished reading the posts, mostly one's directed at me.<br /><br />And now I warn you all, you will be bedazzled by the flying fists of fury. And they fly at the blinding speed of about 1 mph.<br /><br />In other words, I currently intend to respond to the comments to me but not only will the volume make this a long task, but I myself am a very slow reader, thinker and writer. I don't know that I will get through it all within two weeks, so if that 's when you check out Lee, I suppose you'll miss out on all the zingers I'll get in on your comments.Rob Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937716910001145836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-60847599594596765042009-08-10T15:53:39.129-04:002009-08-10T15:53:39.129-04:00Here's a nice article relevant to the discussi...Here's a nice article relevant to the discussion.<br /><a href="http://www.salon.com/mwt/mind_reader/2008/02/29/certainty/index2.html" rel="nofollow">Link to Salon.com</a>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-14540320723408694422009-08-10T13:57:18.310-04:002009-08-10T13:57:18.310-04:00Hi Persiflage,
first before I answer I want to ge...Hi Persiflage,<br />first before I answer I want to get some scope and definition on what you mean by certainty.<br /><br />I mean "to what degree I commit to an idea and to what degree I am comfortable with it".<br /><br />I'll elaborate with a real life anecdote on how I justify this after you tell me what you mean by "certainty"<br /><br />from wikipedia [with my standard disclaimer]<br />"Certainty can be defined as either (a) perfect knowledge that has total security from error, or (b) the mental state of being without doubt."<br /><br />in this case i'm interested in (b).<br /><br />would you deny that doubt is a feeling? Isn't certainty the antithesis of doubt?<br /><br />I think certainty is a feeling.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-18373404729770813572009-08-10T13:45:09.979-04:002009-08-10T13:45:09.979-04:00Hi persiflage,
I'll read your comments and get...Hi persiflage,<br />I'll read your comments and get back to you and I promise I'll stick to your subject.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-65250823981520061732009-08-10T13:11:40.582-04:002009-08-10T13:11:40.582-04:00(Note: I'm not trying to run from any of the o...<em>(Note: I'm not trying to run from any of the other topics. If there is one particular subject here that anyone wants to keep pursuing, just let me know and I'm sure we can find a forum where we can more fully discuss it.)</em><br /><br />Owlmirror, yes that is better, I still don't agree with you completely, but I disagree with you less with some of those qualifications you made.Persiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-17809171957457355652009-08-10T13:07:55.755-04:002009-08-10T13:07:55.755-04:00Ok, I appreciate all the discussion. But I think ...Ok, I appreciate all the discussion. But I think if I keep going on some of this stuff (the ethics of what Jesus told doubting Thomas, metaphysical naturalism, the possibility of miracles, whether Christians are really all just “blind faith” agnostics - some really great topics here btw) then I’m going to lose sight of the subject matter of Lee Randolph’s article here.<br /><br />And it is precisely thinking about this one subject, that I am still interested in - <br /><br />Lee said - <br /><br /><em>“ … one minor quibble here (with) “2 + 2 doesn’t = 4 more because I feel that it does.” I don't think a charitable reading of my comments would lead one to think that was my claim … the evidence NURTURES the feeling of certainty, unless there is something out of "spec" going on in the brain … I agree that "feeling" has nothing to do with whether it is true or not, but if ones feeling of certainty and the truth of the matter don't coincide, then some more work needs to be done to get them to match up, presuming someone wants some measure of certainty about the matter.”</em><br /><br />So hmmm, no - not that you’re claiming that 2 + 2 is 4 because one feels that it does. I agree with you that feeling has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.<br /><br /><strong>But certainty is not a feeling.</strong><br /><br />You don’t have various degrees of certainty that you can “nurture” with evidence. Knowing something for certain is not a choice. It is something that happens to you while you are thinking. Now it is also something you can be mistaken about, and something you can be right about. And here is where I agree with Lee that constant work needs to be done to guard against mistakes.<br /><br />How I feel does not make me objectively know anything for certain.<br /><br />Knowledge can be in levels and degrees. Certainty can’t.<br /><br />Knowledge can be quantified in amounts - one guy has more knowledge than another guy. Certainty can’t because certainty is knowing something for sure - one guy can’t know 2 + 2 = 4 more than another guy does.<br /><br />But my feelings do sometimes lead to what I choose to believe. Sometimes I base my beliefs on feelings instead of evidence. Beliefs are something you choose. One is never required to believe anything unless you decided to believe it. One is required to be certain about things all the time.<br /><br />So for me to say “well … I feel certain” is<br /><br />(a) a nonsensical statement, since certainty is not something you feel. I don’t feel that I have a strong degree of certainty that 2 + 2 = 4. I don’t feel any emotion about it at all. I just know it’s true.<br /><br />and (b) untrue, because if I <em>only</em> “feel” certain, than I am not certain by definition.<br /><br />This is the topic in this thread I’m most interested. I feel if I kept going back and forth on everything, no one’s going to have time to read it all.Persiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-35181929514725024882009-08-09T04:11:44.637-04:002009-08-09T04:11:44.637-04:00~~~continued~~~
«"I think everyone was readi...~~~continued~~~<br /><br />«"<i>I think everyone was reading too much into Christ’s comment to doubting Thomas. [...] Yes, Christians misuse this verse to argue for “blind faith” all the time.</i>"»<br /><br />I'm pretty sure that the "misuse" was the direct intent of the story. The visceral references to the holes in his hands and the hole in his side, followed up by explicitly saying that those who believe without seeing are <i>blessed</i> -- this is the perfect red herring to distract from the fact that Jesus is not available now to be seen by any questioner.<br /><br /><br />«"<i>For example, the courtroom will accept evidence that is more than only physical evidence observable by the scientific method.</i>"»<br /><br />I'm really not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that courts do accept testimony? This brings us back the whole issue of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. I am not saying that eyewitnesses are always wrong -- but I would argue that they are absolutely insufficient in the case of alleged miracles.<br /><br />«"<i>Logic, reason, mathematics, economics, etc. are all abstract sciences in their own right. </i>"»<br /><br />Hm. I think that's arguable. Logic and reason are metaphysics, in the classical sense. They are necessary for science to work, but since you can reason about counterfactuals, I don't think that counts as science, which I would argue is always empirical.<br /><br />The same goes for mathematics. I think that mathematics might be defined as systematic reasoning about quantities and the properties of quantities. But you can also do mathematics which is counterfactual (e.g., non-Euclidian geometry, depending on which way space itself curves)<br /><br />Economics is a bit trickier. I'll leave it alone for now.<br /><br /><br />«"<i>There are a number of truth claims made by completely opposing religions that either side could use evidence to support - the fallibility of man for example (and there’s more to the fallibility of man than the possibility of brain damage).</i>"»<br /><br />I suppose I should have qualified the statement you're arguing with: <br /><br />There is no evidence for the truth claims about <b>the</b> reality <b>of the supernatural</b> that are made by religion.<br /><br />Better?<br /><br />«"<i>Owlmirror</i> - “But religion rejects honest testing; there is no method for self-correction. Most changes that occur in religion are based on personal preferences and emotion-based propaganda.”<br><br><i>But here, I could only agree with this as a generality. Generally speaking when looking at all religions (even Christian churches), yes. But this doesn’t necessarily demand the exclusion of exceptions to the rule. And if there is one religion or philosophy that IS true, it should encourage questions, testing, doubting, challenging and everything else since, being true, it can stand up to all of that.</i>"»<br /><br />I would again qualify my original statement:<br /><br />But religions <b>that make dogmatic claims</b> reject honest testing <b>of those dogmatic claims</b>; there is no method for self-correction.<br /><br />Better?<br /><br />«"<i>One last problem with Rob, who said</i> - “Some areas of knowledge though cannot do without subjectivity such as ethics. I take this position even against so many Christian apologists who think you can't know morality without the bible. While pure emotion is not sufficient for morality, morality is empty and pointless without it.<br /><br /><i>I don’t understand that first sentence at all - your reasoning completely loses me sometimes. Do you need the Bible to know right and wrong are real? Of course not. But what does “pure emotion” have to do with propositional moral truth claims?</i>"»<br /><br />I understood Rob to simply be saying that you actually have to care about the consequences of your actions in order to actually be ethical, and take that caring into account when discussing and arguing ethics. That caring; that motivation, in and of itself, is a pure emotion, yes?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-32077003457521419792009-08-09T04:00:46.904-04:002009-08-09T04:00:46.904-04:00«"As far as miracles go, debating whether a m...«"<i>As far as miracles go, debating whether a miracle (the supernatural interfering with/breaking the natural/physical laws of the universe) happened based on historical evidence is pointless if you haven’t asked the philosophical question first. If you don’t believe that miracles are possible, then no amount of historical evidence will convince you.</i>"»<br /><br />Well... If I may clarify my position a bit: I don't actually think that miracles, in the sense of being violations of nature, are possible. I'm a metaphysical naturalist, and I would argue that that which interacts with nature is part of nature. If God is real, and interacts with nature, God is part of nature, and his actions would only be apparent violations.<br /><br />However, I reached the conclusion that the miracles claimed to have occurred historically almost certainly did not happen for a somewhat different reason: They are inconsistent with what they are claimed to have happened for. That is, the miracles Jesus performed and the resurrection of Jesus are claimed to have been caused by a <i>person</i> that lived (or existed, if you prefer) then and is still living; one that is claimed to be all-powerful, all-knowledgeable, and benevolent. I reject the claim because such a person, if it existed, could demonstrate its existence <i>now</i>, and would have no reason to not do so.<br /><br /><br />«"<i>I think everyone was reading too much into Christ’s comment to doubting Thomas. [...] Yes, Christians misuse this verse to argue for “blind faith” all the time.</i>"»<br /><br />I'm pretty sure that the "misuse" was the direct intent of the story. The visceral references to the holes in his hands and the hole in his side, followed up by explicitly saying that those who believe without seeing are <i>blessed</i> -- this is the perfect red herring to distract from the fact that Jesus is not available now to be seen by the questioner.<br /><br />(...continues...)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-33365394499749240342009-08-09T03:06:39.122-04:002009-08-09T03:06:39.122-04:00Hi persiflage, part 3, my two cents
Except I'...Hi persiflage, part 3, my two cents<br /><br /><b><i>Except I'd make the qualification in this discussion is that “mere belief” or “faith” cannot be qualified or quantified as knowledge by definition.</i></b><br />AMEN BROTHER.<br />Now see if you can convince your brethren of that.<br />;-)<br /><br />I'd say that in reality, you should all consider yourselves agnostic.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-3043170814394761932009-08-09T03:01:07.199-04:002009-08-09T03:01:07.199-04:00Hi Persiflage, part 2, my two cents
I think ever...Hi Persiflage, part 2, my two cents <br /><br /><b><i>I think everyone was reading too much into Christ’s comment to doubting Thomas. </i></b><br />That is the problem with ambiguous information isn't it? <br /><br /><b><i>Seems like the point there was simply that Thomas had been given evidence that most people wouldn’t have. He’s NOT making any claims here to precisely how much evidence someone should have. He IS implying that not everyone will have the same amount of evidence that Thomas has. </i></b><br />I think your are right that you believe that.<br /><br /><b><i>No reasonable person would apply this to teaching their children that it’s better to believe based on insufficient evidence, or even that their children shouldn’t ask the exact same questions that Thomas did.</i></b><br />But I don't think you are right to make this claim. Analogous reasoning is the most common type of intrinsic scheme we have. That's supposedly why Jesus taught in parables. Do you deny that a child could read this an pick up "its alright to believe on little evidence?". Didn't Jesus, in effect REPROACH Thomas for doubting? That's what I was taught since I was kid, that I was arrogant for questioning because it meant that I thought I knew more than the bible! I wanted the approval of my group, my parents, my authority figures that were christians.<br /><br />Isn't that in fact what is going on with the bible in general?<br />People are taught: <br />- that to question the bible is normal but it's derived from human arrogance and god tolerates it, so humans should get past it and get on with worshiping.<br /><br />I believe the bible says this or that, but I don't believe the bible is accurate in this or that. <br />In religion, the two are conflated. If the bible says it, its true to some degree just because it exists and it is the tradition regardless of its source and origin, but <br /><b>the source and origin are one of the most important criteria in trustworthy information! </b><br /><br /><b><i>Yes, Christians misuse this verse to argue for “blind faith” all the time.</i></b><br />thank you for that, but you've just called some christians unreasonable persons, fine, but with such a small global population, can you really afford that? It would seem that the church leaders would speak out against that and adopt some method of reducing cognitive bias in reasoning about issues.<br /><br /><br /><b><i>But there are different sorts of evidence. </i></b><br />ah, yes now we're down to the nitty gritty.<br /><br /><b><i>For example, the courtroom will accept evidence that is more than only physical evidence observable by the scientific method. Logic, reason, mathematics, economics, etc. are all abstract sciences in their own right. Lee keeps referring to the safety and health aspects of the social sciences. These industries look at more than just scientifically observable physical reality. <br /></i></b><br />yes but they must corroborate and converge on an idea in more than a circumstantial way.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-13088958554009861282009-08-09T02:34:36.407-04:002009-08-09T02:34:36.407-04:00Hi Persiflage, part 1,
my two cents on your commen...Hi Persiflage, part 1,<br />my two cents on your comments on owlmirror and Rob<br /><br /><b><i>If you don’t believe that miracles are possible, then no amount of historical evidence will convince you. If you already believe that miracles are possible, then the lack of historical evidence is not going to change that belief either.</i></b><br />This is utterly ridiculous and here's why.<br />Human consensus on matters that are counter-intuitive change from generation to generation sometimes taking hundreds of years, but eventually the data wins out even if its is for inelegant reasons such as commerce.<br /><br />To qualify your statement as true requires proving that miracles have actually happened and they were explained away or not believed at all.<br /><br />how bout that virgin mary in a cheese sandwich? absolutely divine.<br /><br />Do you believe that if God walked up behind me right now that he couldn't convince me he was God? <br />Hogwash!<br /><br /><b><i>But it is possible to have a consensus that is wrong. The majority point of view can be wrong. </i></b><br />Here is that false dichotomy again, slippery slope. <br />Why does everything with you people have to be one or zero, true or false, on or off? The majority consensus gets it right good enough to work with and then the exceptions are handled as they are found and investigated. Cigarettes started out as a pleasurable pastime, then the data started coming in, then the typical science deniers came out of the wood work, then more data came in and finally we all believe that smoking, if not causes lung cancer, dramatically increases the likelihood that it will develop. <br /><br />Maybe owlmirror can retell the "western" human perception of the universe from the church to galileo, to copernicus, to Newton to einstein to Heisenberg, etc.<br /><br /><b><i>Religious or philosophical consensus's are only useful in so far as they show what a group of humanity believes to be true.</i></b><br />Stop!<br />How that belief cross-checks against the state of the world is not relevant? <br />Hogwash.<br />If a group of people hold a belief, such as "the water is safe to drink" and they start dying, they will not hold the belief much longer. Same with cigarettes.<br />If they believe the water is safe to drink and they don't die or get sick then they continue and their believe has been cross-checked against a real world state.<br /><br />If god wants us to believe in a miracle, he's going to have to do better than hiding from us. He's going to have to better than Krishna for example.<br /><br /><b><i>If every cultural universally believes in some sort of right and wrong, then that idea has to come from somewhere. </i></b><br />yes it comes from logical relationships between actors, including animals, that are turn out to be good survival schemes. Its called "emergence" recently but it has been discussed most famously by Adam Smith with his "invisible hand" talk. In engineering we call it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_cybernetics" rel="nofollow">"new cybernetics"</a> and its an extension of "cybernetics"<br /><br /><b><i>The worldwide consensus on some level of morality, however, does not necessarily prove the truth of one religion over another (unless a religion denies the fact that men believe in right and wrong in the first place).</i></b><br />you are right, its a non-sequitur.<br />Its an illusion of intelligence and intent caused by the feedback loop of the interaction of elements in the system. Pint size milk cartons were not meant be boats, but I used to put lizards and bugs in them and turn set them loose on the river. <br /><br />No-one made the milk carton with the intent to be a bug-boat, those properties emerged from the interaction of its elements. No one made morality, it just emerged as a system that better promoted survival. If that doesn't suit you for an explanation, I'm sorry, but thats just the way it happens, just like genetic diseases have killed off several breeds of dogs. The successful elements of a system promote growth, or survival or success, and the weaker parts cause catastrophic failure.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-69176087467893265102009-08-09T01:17:33.276-04:002009-08-09T01:17:33.276-04:00Hi persiflage,
welcome back, I thought you gone to...Hi persiflage,<br />welcome back, I thought you gone to a better place. ;-)<br /><br />one minor quibble here<br /><b><i>2 + 2 doesn’t = 4 more because I feel that it does.</i></b><br />I don't think a charitable reading of my comments would lead one to think that was my claim.<br /><br />Should I put it in the bayesian theorem just to be clear?<br /><br />the evidence NURTURES the feeling of certainty, unless there is something out of "spec" going on in the brain. <br /><br />I agree that "feeling" has nothing to do with whether it is true or not, but if ones feeling of certainty and the truth of the matter don't coincide, then some more work needs to be done to get them to match up, presuming someone wants some measure of certainty about the matter.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-15512214951746617932009-08-08T19:21:01.063-04:002009-08-08T19:21:01.063-04:00Owlmirror states - “Religion -- where it demands t...Owlmirror states - <strong><em>“Religion -- where it demands that truth claims about reality be accepted without evidence -- is fundamentally dishonest.”</em></strong><br /><br />And there, once again, I absolutely agree with you.<br /><br />Owlmirror - <em>“But religion rejects honest testing; there is no method for self-correction. Most changes that occur in religion are based on personal preferences and emotion-based propaganda.”</em><br /><br />But here, I could only agree with this as a generality. Generally speaking when looking at all religions (even Christian churches), yes. But this doesn’t necessarily demand the exclusion of exceptions to the rule. And if there is one religion or philosophy that IS true, it should encourage questions, testing, doubting, challenging and everything else since, being true, it can stand up to all of that.<br /><br />One last problem with Rob, who said - <em>“Some areas of knowledge though cannot do without subjectivity such as ethics. I take this position even against so many Christian apologists who think you can't know morality without the bible. While pure emotion is not sufficient for morality, morality is empty and pointless without it.</em><br /><br />I don’t understand that first sentence at all - your reasoning completely loses me sometimes. Do you need the Bible to know right and wrong are real? Of course not. But what does “pure emotion” have to do with propositional moral truth claims?<br /><br />Bringing this back to the main point of the article, Scott then said - <em>“If I come away with anything from this post it's that, given a particular view or position, there are a multitude of ways we can qualify and quantify what we consider knowledge.”</em><br /><br />Yes.<br /><br />Except I'd make the qualification in this discussion is that “mere belief” or “faith” cannot be qualified or quantified as knowledge <em>by definition.</em><br /><br />… and so I just finished reading the rest of the comments, and wow, there are probably more than 50 other topics that we could all delve into. I’ll limit any more of my comments for now, however, because I’m not too good at delving into rabbit trails without establishing more presuppositional premises first.<br /><br />interesting stuff thoughPersiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-30982182985529825242009-08-08T19:18:35.546-04:002009-08-08T19:18:35.546-04:00I think everyone was reading too much into Christ’...I think everyone was reading too much into Christ’s comment to doubting Thomas. Seems like the point there was simply that Thomas had been given evidence that most people wouldn’t have. He’s NOT making any claims here to precisely how much evidence someone should have. He IS implying that not everyone will have the same amount of evidence that Thomas has. No reasonable person would apply this to teaching their children that it’s better to believe based on insufficient evidence, or even that their children shouldn’t ask the exact same questions that Thomas did.<br /><br />Yes, Christians misuse this verse to argue for “blind faith” all the time.<br /><br />For now, I’ll ignore comments on how reliable religious texts can or can’t be. There are <em>way</em> too many questions obviously not settled here to try and suddenly discuss whether the Bible or the Koran could be true.<br /><br />I completely agree with Owlmirror that science in this sort of discussion is most usefully meant to be referring to the scientific method. Science is a methodology with a particular goal. Proving or not proving the existence of the supernatural has nothing to do with the goal <strong>by definition.</strong> <em>The same as religion should make NEVER make pretensions to use the methodology of the scientific method.</em> The scientific method is used to study and observe physical reality.<br /><br />But then Owlmirror says -<br /><br /><em>“There is no evidence for the truth claims about reality that are made by religion.”</em><br /><br />But there are different sorts of evidence. For example, the courtroom will accept evidence that is more than <em>only</em> physical evidence observable by the scientific method. Logic, reason, mathematics, economics, etc. are all abstract sciences in their own right. Lee keeps referring to the safety and health aspects of the social sciences. These industries look at more than just scientifically observable physical reality. There are a number of truth claims made by completely opposing religions that either side could use evidence to support - the fallibility of man for example (and there’s more to the fallibility of man than the possibility of brain damage).Persiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-58281876769736184302009-08-08T19:16:06.488-04:002009-08-08T19:16:06.488-04:00Whoa, I miss a couple days online and look what ha...Whoa, I miss a couple days online and look what happens. Here’s just some general comments on the discussion so far -<br /><br />Interesting stuff on those podcasts by the “On Being Certain” guy. Definitely true that our reasoning can be vastly affected by our physical make-up. This is good to know. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.<br /><br />I guess my one quibble with your latest comments would be that how certain we “feel” about something or not is not certainty at all. Knowing something (some small mathematical equation for example) as a fact should have nothing to do with how you feel about it. 2 + 2 doesn’t = 4 more because I feel that it does. What is good to point out, however, is the fact that we do feel more or less certain about certain things, and it is by controlling and acknowledging how we feel that allows us to look at what is really true and what really isn’t. I’ve gone to way too many churches that emphasize how much you feel God’s existence as opposed for logical reasons or evidence for or against. In religion, many people say that they know something essentially because how they were raised makes them emotionally desire it to be true.<br /><br />On the Rob R/OwlMirror discussion<br /><br />Of course, science and religion are different. You can test things in science in such a way that you can’t test things in religion. But that alone doesn’t mean certainty can’t sometimes be possible in both science and religion.<br /><br />As far as miracles go, debating whether a miracle (the supernatural interfering with/breaking the natural/physical laws of the universe) happened based on historical evidence is pointless if you haven’t asked the philosophical question first. If you don’t believe that miracles are possible, then no amount of historical evidence will convince you. If you already believe that miracles are possible, then the lack of historical evidence is not going to change that belief either. There are different ways of looking at evidence depending on what your presuppositions happen to be in the first place. So discussing those presuppositions first, would be the only way I could think of <em>of actually even being able to discuss it.</em><br /><br />Rob R said - <em>… all knowledge requires some degree of faith.</em><br /><br />And here is where I fundamentally disagree. And it has to do with my distinction between belief and knowledge. Faith is mere belief, not certainty. Knowledge requires a limited amount of certainty based on at least a few premises that you <em>can</em> know. Using your reason to logically deduce your way to a conclusion (2 + 2 = 4) does not require faith.<br /><br />Lee said - <em>“Once again in science as in the safety and health industries, there is a consensus on the evidence, and the different agencies proceed from there.”</em><br /><br />True. But it is possible to have a consensus that is wrong. The majority point of view can be wrong. Having a consensus on something is useful because man is pooling his knowledge together to understand reality better. Putting the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton along with those of Albert Einstein helps one understand reality better than if you were limited to the discoveries of only one of those guys. Religious or philosophical consensuses are only useful in so far as they show what a group of humanity believes to be true.<br /><br />If every cultural universally believes in some sort of right and wrong, then that idea has to come from somewhere. The worldwide consensus on some level of morality, however, does not necessarily prove the truth of one religion over another (unless a religion denies the fact that men believe in right and wrong in the first place).Persiflagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369952596655284033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-80587028379467161362009-08-08T02:37:31.006-04:002009-08-08T02:37:31.006-04:00HI rob part 5,
since owlmirror did an outstanding ...HI rob part 5,<br />since owlmirror did an outstanding job in his rejoinders, i'd like to stand on his shoulders too.<br /><br />About Eyewitness testimony you said<br /><b><i>it's hardly the weakest type of evidence. That completely depends upon what degree of visual witness we are talking about and the nature of the event and so on. </i></b><br />you haven't really looked into eyewitness testimony have you. I have, thats why I bring it up. It is such an easy target because Christians are not keeping up with the research and I am. <br />Go look up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus" rel="nofollow">Elizabeth Loftus</a> for starters. She's not related to John W.<br /><br />Why is it should we trust eyewitness testimony, committed to writing decades after the fact?<br /><br /><b><i>But here, eye witness testimony is actually metaphorical. </i></b><br />so not only is it intrisicly fallible, they embellish a little bit to make really fallible. <br />Why is it we should trust metaphorical eyewitness testimony committed to writing decades after the fact?<br /><br /><b><i>And of course, there are sources passed orally and contemporary sociological studies have shown that oral traditions within oral cultures are in fact VERY reliable contrary to previous modernistic biases.</i></b><br />not only would I like to see some sources for this, I'd like to see your justification for dismissing all creation stories from every culture please. Some of them are quite fantastic! People coming from trees, People coming from Rocks, People coming from the limbs of Gods, Trees with special powers, Talking snakes......Fantastic!<br /><br /><br />On human fallibility you wrote:<br /><b><i>Christianity also makes a big deal of divine inspiration. Of course the fact that the four earliest gospels that are very close together in so many specific and general claims speaks not just for their reliability on the common ground but their reliability in general.</i></b><br />like I said, okay, lets pick out what they have in common and make a composite of only what is in common.<br />Like I said earlier, you get a short version of mark. which doesn't include the doubting thomas story. The endorsement of reasoning schemes nurturing fraud came later to help the business (i suppose).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-63500327704606211662009-08-08T02:23:08.533-04:002009-08-08T02:23:08.533-04:00HI rob part 4,
In scholastic Christianity there is...HI rob part 4,<br /><b><i>In scholastic Christianity there is much growing consensus in a number of things. ... the new perspective on paul and the law ...is viewed positively by scholars from many different backgrounds and is growing.</i></b><br />My standard answer to my Junior Engineers in troubleshooting communications problems is<br />"growing?": <br />- How much, <br />- and how many, <br />- is it an outlier or is it pervasive.<br /><br />"[experts] from many different backgrounds and is growing": <br />- Who are the experts, <br />- What qualfies them as experts, <br />- from many different backgrounds but from a background that qualifies them to make a coherent assessment?<br />- Does it cross-check? Is it convincing to anyone outside their group?<br /><br /><b><i>I'm really only defending the one though some of what I say could benefit more than one. Of course there's no consensus that all religions are wrong, accept amongst peoples who agree with you and the minority of western atheists, but that's pretty trivial.</i></b><br />If we do a NULL hypothesis test, is this what we expect if it were a human endeavor?<br />YES. Is this what we expect from a BETTER THAN HUMAN intelligence? NO. <br />Namely because everyone would want some.<br /><br />Van Halen had a song that echoes an important universal constant, <br />"everybody wants some, how bout you? yea!"<br /><br />Everybody wants vaccinations,<br />everybody wants clean water,<br />everybody wants a telephone,<br />everybody wants doctors<br />everybody wants christianity.....OOOOOPS not true. 66% of the world dont.<br /><br /><b><i>There's two positions on religions that I find very shallow and skewed. One side (like certain more conservative elements of some religions and atheists) think that only the difference matter. The other side, the pluralists think only the common ground matters. I don't know why we wouldn't take both to be important.</i></b><br />Your right we should, but need an epistemological methodology to do that with. Got to counteract that cognitive bias, that affects not only Christians, but scientists and Dog Breeders (who select for "pretty" genetic deficiencies [ridgebacks]).<br /><br /><b><i>When you dealt with my statement on the context, you responded with a red herring:<br />Right here you have presumed the accuracy of the text, but you don't know the origin, or the author of the text, depending on which text you look at, you get different details.<br /><br />Which has nothing to do with taking the story of doubting Thomas in the context of the gospel of John.</i></b><br />When the origin and the source of a document purported to have as much importance as scripture is dismissed, the arguments over. <br /><br />You don't ignore the source and origin of imortant documents in principle. its special pleading to say that the source and origin of scripture is not important.<br /><br />As owlmirror rightly pointed out, you shoot yourself in the foot in trusting documents that you admit are partially fabricated. You have no reference point to tease out what is fabrication and what is not, therefore the whole document has an unacceptable degree of uncertainty about it.<br /><br /><b><i>Richard Burridge's book “What Are the Gospel's” which argues that the gospels belong to the genre of ancient greco-roman biographies which do not give history by the same standards of modern biographies and histories. Here, the landscape of what constitutes problematic conflict of details changes since the reasons behind a detail of the story that an ancient biographer encorporates can significantly differ from the reasons why a modern author would include a detail. A modern author would add a details event because it happened. An ancient author would wright an event to convey truth about the personality and the significance of the event.</i></b><br />Again, <br />this sounds like customers complaining about service and we can't take any action until we get past their perspective and evaluate the status, the details. <br /><br />You can't resolve anything until you get at the details, and the source and origin of the information is one of the most important criteria in trustworthy information.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-10576651132346900412009-08-08T01:50:07.401-04:002009-08-08T01:50:07.401-04:00Hi all,
I want to stand on scotts shoulders for a ...Hi all,<br />I want to stand on scotts shoulders for a minute<br /><br /><b><i>As such, it seems that what is ethical cannot be completely separated from what is factual about the nature of reality.</i></b><br />Agreed,<br />in fact they are making decisions about ethics using bronze age technology. I'm not being flippant here, it just sounds that way because the idea is so egregious.<br /><br /><b><i>However, as a Christian, it's likely you the the morality of an action is not necessarily based on it's outcome. Instead, actions themselves can be immoral for no reason other than God commands them.</i></b><br />agreed,<br />in fact the commands are notoriously ambiguous so it must be left up to those bags of cognitive bias called humans to sort out. <br />What an egregious principle to leave ethics to be sorted out by those that are not qualified, namely fallible humans.<br /><br />If we do a NULL hypothesis test on that, its what we would expect if there were nothing divine about ethics.<br /><br />another special pleading case is this idea that <br />though humans are sinful and have a natural disposition to disobey God, they are somehow immune to cognitive bias or the corruption of revelation, except if the divine revelation is given to someone outside their clan.<br /><br />hogwash.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-788878296782142562009-08-07T20:00:13.862-04:002009-08-07T20:00:13.862-04:00Wanted to add one thing here as I think it's r...Wanted to add one thing here as I think it's relevant. <br /><br /><b>Some areas of knowledge though cannot do without subjectivity such as ethics. I take this position even against so many Christian apologists who think you can't know morality without the bible. While pure emotion is not sufficient for morality, morality is empty and pointless without it.</b><br /><br />Rob, I'd guess that, ultimately, our moral compass points in relatively the same direction. Instead, I think where we differ most is the moral implications of our actions. This is defined by our world views. We think doing X will result in a better outcome. We generally agree on what what better should conditions be equal, but we disagree on the conditions.<br /><br />To use an example, our positions on abortion are likely to differ based on what we think are facts about what it means to be a person, etc. For example, should I think God gave zygotes a soul, then I'd probably have the same view as you do. But I do not. <br /><br />As such, it seems that what is ethical cannot be completely separated from what is factual about the nature of reality. <br /><br />However, as a Christian, it's likely you the the morality of an action is not necessarily based on it's outcome. Instead, actions themselves can be immoral for no reason other than God commands them.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11193595678064010528noreply@blogger.com