No see, that's not evidence. That is hear-say (or worse, hear-see)
Those witnesses have not testified, nor is that verse verifiable.
Therefore, it's reasonably possible that it didn't happen, and you're just taking some bible verses word for it.
You specifically said you would believe the 500 or so eye witnesses. But, you haven't heard from 500. You've heard from 1-2 claiming that another 498+ would attest the same miracle.
This is beyond spotty investigation. It's plain gullibility.
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Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
According to the [Buddhist] lunar calendar the first month is the miracle month. When Shakyamuni was forty, six great Hindu teachers, who represented the six schools of Hinduism that existed at the time, challenged Shakyamuni to a competition of miracles. At that time great kings and noble families sponsored teachers who could perform miracles. So Buddha accepted the challenge. He accepted because many would be benefited and achieve the arhat state and people of the future would be inspired to practice as a result of his demonstration. The first day to the fifteenth of the first month are precious and the fifteenth is especially great. The competition happened in the Bihar in India at Sravasti. 80,000 Buddhists and 84,000 Hindus attended the competition.
On the first day Buddha held his toothpick, put it on the ground and it turned to the wish fulfilling tree. It was decorated with jewels, like a Christmas tree. On the second day Buddha manifested two wish fulfilling jewels. The third day the king offered to wash Buddha's feet. When Buddha washed his feet, he threw the water and it became a pool with the eight special qualities of water. Whoever drank or touched it were healed. Today there is a well there where small amounts of water are offered for sale. It is useful for treating disease. On the fourth day it rained and the rain filled the eight canals. The fifth day Buddha emitted golden light from his mouth and people could see beings of the six realms being liberated. On the sixth day Buddha transformed some energy and everyone became clairvoyant and knew each others minds. On the seventh day Buddha manifested as the wheel turning king and many people converted to Buddhism. Up to that time the Hindu teachers had not shown miracles. On the eighth day the gods from Indra's palace sponsored the meals. They served Buddha and made offerings to him. Buddha's hand pressed the side of his seat and a thundering sound was emitted. Five frightening giant cannibals came out of the ground and they went for the seats of the Hindu teachers. Vajrapani also threatened the Hindu teachers. The Hindu teachers ran away. Vajrapani manifested a great storm. It became a tornado which picked up the Hindu teachers and their retinues and tossed them in the water. 60,000 Hindus converted that day and many monks attained the arhat's state and understanding. The gods showered flowers. (Source; emphasis added)
164,000 > 500. Clearly Buddhist miracles are better attested than Christian ones!
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Oh for the love of... no. Unless, that is, you hollow out your notion of faith so that it applies to everything everybody believes regardless of content -- and once you do that, the word fails to make useful distinctions. On this position you must also be equally willing to say that believers in gravity stand on faith, or that believers that 1+1=2 stand on faith, or that disbelievers in the tooth fairy stand on faith.
I think I understand what you mean now. The reason I didn't consult a resource is that I have tried before, but wasn't able to quite grasp the concepts. I need a reactive source to point out my errors in thinking.
Thank you for being patient and helping me understand a little more.
Crashing00, I think I need to take a moment to both wipe egg off my face but also offer up an apology. When I first read through the thread I read your 1st response but somehow didn't connect it with you and instead just took your 2nd post, and without the first post for context it made you sound a lot different than it seems you are.
Having read both I think we are both really two sides of the same coin. What you call faith, I call blind faith, we both seem to agree is a bad thing. The belief in something without reason, or willingness to accept new information, and facts.
Only difference seems to be you approach it more from an analytical and scientific about it where as I would approach it more from a metaphorical and spiritual means.
Sorry if I misread/understood you.
I don't see any other way of reading you. Let me put it to you this way: Name a belief a faithless person could hold. If you cannot, then your definition of faith encompasses all beliefs and is vacuously possessed by everybody. In other words, it reduces exactly to "everybody believes things."
The reason "everybody believes things" doesn't really do justice to what I am saying is because of what it's describing. Namely it's stating a simple action that people do, IE believing things. My meaning isn't to describe what people do but instead describe what they are, IE people of faith. This description is important because it breaks down, to me, what people are at their core.
To kinda rephrase it, although I'll be honest it's kinda a bad analogy, it would be like saying Peyton Manning is "just plays football." To say that is all there is to him simply doesn't do him justice for how great he is and what he means to that sport.
Side Note--I enjoy the discussion we have been having about Godel's Theorums but beginning of the week is crazy for me and I haven't been able to read up on Goodstein's Theorem that you posted. As it seems this part of the discussion is starting to move away from the original topic would you mind if I PMed you about it later in the week when I have more time to read into it?
Crashing00, I think I need to take a moment to both wipe egg off my face but also offer up an apology. When I first read through the thread I read your 1st response but somehow didn't connect it with you and instead just took your 2nd post, and without the first post for context it made you sound a lot different than it seems you are (...) Sorry if I misread/understood you.
No problem. Ironically, the second post has the less-than-cordial tone it does because I got a little frustrated that people seemed not to be reading the first post!
The reason "everybody believes things" doesn't really do justice to what I am saying is because of what it's describing. Namely it's stating a simple action that people do, IE believing things. My meaning isn't to describe what people do but instead describe what they are, IE people of faith. This description is important because it breaks down, to me, what people are at their core.
Then we're back to square one; we're equivocating again. If you define faith to mean believing things, then everyone has faith, but it doesn't have any special meaning beyond just that. If you want to define faith so that it has some additional special meaning, then fine, but it need no longer be the case that everyone has faith, because that conclusion required that faith was devoid of special meaning. "Core being," "spiritual essence," and all that other baggage is a product of of what you and I are now calling blind faith.
To kinda rephrase it, although I'll be honest it's kinda a bad analogy, it would be like saying Peyton Manning is "just plays football." To say that is all there is to him simply doesn't do him justice for how great he is and what he means to that sport.
To be honest, sports analogies are going to be completely lost on me. The most I can say is this: consider two predicates: "plays football" (analogous to "believes things") and "plays football as well as Peyton Manning." (analogous to "believes things + extra special properties of faith that you haven't been clear about") We've agreed that "all football players play football;" you expect us to conclude, with no further evidence or argument, that "all football players play as well as Peyton Manning."
In other words, whatever properties you are ascribing to faith beyond merely believing things, you must tell us why everyone has those properties. If you do not do so, then you are actually invoking what we have agreed to call "blind faith."
Side Note--I enjoy the discussion we have been having about Godel's Theorums but beginning of the week is crazy for me and I haven't been able to read up on Goodstein's Theorem that you posted. As it seems this part of the discussion is starting to move away from the original topic would you mind if I PMed you about it later in the week when I have more time to read into it?
I prefer to have any such discussions in public so that it is open to anyone else who might be interested to read, scrutinize, comment, or question. I am also much more likely to put more time and thought into a public post than a PM. That being said, if you really want to do it via PM, that's fine too.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Let's take another proposition for which no evidence one way or the other seems to be forthcoming: "Eleanor of Aquitaine owned a red qipao." How would you approach this? Would you assign it the same level of confidence that you would its contradiction, "Eleanor of Aquitaine did not own a red qipao"? Probably not. First of all, what we know about qipaos seems to indicate that they are 19th-Century Chinese garments, and thus it seems doubtful that we would find one in a 12th-Century European context. Similarly, what we know about consciousness seems to indicate that it is an evolved feature of biological life, and thus it seems doubtful in a cosmic creation context.
But maybe our information on qipaos is wrong, or incomplete. Maybe they're more universal than we think. Even then, we can consider the specificity of the proposition. Of all the things Eleanor could own, "Eleanor owned a red qipao" covers just a single possibility, whereas "Eleanor did not own a red qipao" covers all the rest. Similarly, "A consciousness created the universe" covers just a single possibility whereas "A consciousness did not create the universe" covers all the rest. Any particular random factual claim about a thing, in the absence of any reason to suggest it, is far more likely to be wrong than right. Thus its negation is far more likely to be right than wrong. So it would be unreasonable of us to assign equal levels of confidence to atheism and deism. We can't be absolutely certain, but we can be pretty confident that atheism is the correct theory.
As we've discussed before, the specificity in your examples might lead a reader to equate the odds between them.
"A sentient force created the universe" does not offer just a single possibility and is more likely than any particular religious representation. I am not stating that this possibility is more likely than "a non-sentient force created the universe"; Were I to passively equate "Eleanor owned a red piece of clothing", I would certainly be overstating the odds.
Well then I guess everything you see on CNN is then also hearsay.:shrug:
This doesn't work. Reputable news outlets like CNN have processes to verify that they're reporting accurate things. Hearsay is when a person's information is based solely on other people's say-so of which the first person has no first-hand knowledge, and the information can't be adequately substantiated. Although news outlets' reporting may superficially resemble this in the first aspect, typically their reporting has been substantiated by their processes and so doesn't qualify as hearsay. The hearsay in the case of the Bible verse is that you have said that there are 500 witnesses to an event on the basis of an account (the verse) of that event (of which you have no first-hand knowledge) which you haven't been able to substantiate (actually having 500 independent accounts of the event would be helpful).
If someone would say to you. "You know yesterday I had coca puffs for breakfast." Seeing as I where not their to witness this event I would believe it to be true as a matter of faith. This person is honest. He has no reason to lie. I can believe that he did indeed eat coca puffs for breakfast.
That is all Christianity asks of its followers. To take this issue about Jesus as a matter of faith. We take the people who where eye witnesses to his majesty's accounts as a matter of faith.
One of the reasons you gave for trusting the person's account of what they ate for breakfast is that they are honest (you've likely determined this based on prior interaction with that person). A track record of reporting accurate things can be said to give similar trustworthiness to future reporting by a news outlet.
The other reason you gave is that "he has no reason to lie," but that's because what he had for breakfast ultimately has no significant consequence, whereas the validity of Christian beliefs may have, as some Christians put it, "infinite" consequences. Ideally, news outlets will report things that have some consequences, but while the reasons you gave are sufficient to believe the breakfast statement, they aren't necessary to believe any given thing in particular (that is, it's sometimes reasonable to believe things that have significant consequences or about which someone might conceivably have a reason to lie).
So, I could write that 200 million people were witness to my being crowned Grand High Emperor of Earth and Supreme Final Arbiter of Justice, but that's only one account, and it can't be substantiated. It's not 200 million accounts just because I said so.
The reasons you gave make believing the person's account of his breakfast not a matter of "faith"* but a matter of judgment (even here the content matters, as you probably won't believe he ate two tires for breakfast). Believing events just because they're described in the Bible requires a significantly greater amount of credulity, just as believing my statement about being made Grand High Emperor requires greater credulity than believing a statement about how tall I am (assuming I don't give a ridiculous number). The fact that it's reasonable to believe one thing someone might say doesn't imply that it's reasonable to believe anything anyone says.
* If having reason to believe something doesn't alter whether the belief is a matter of "faith," then having faith just means believing things, as said earlier in this thread.
"A sentient force created the universe" does not offer just a single possibility and is more likely than any particular religious representation.
Granted. But this trivial fact of logic papers over the more significant fact that sentience by itself is hugely specific. Look around - how many different things are sentient? Just human beings. Stars aren't sentient. Black holes aren't sentient. Interstellar hydrogen isn't sentient. Rocks aren't sentient. In all the vastness of the universe, we find sentience in just one environment: a particular variety of the collection of complex self-replicating organic chemical patterns that cake just the very surface of a certain liquid-water terrestrial planet.
Even as far as life on Earth is concerned, sentience is unique. There's been life here for over three billion years and multicellular life for a billion. Multicellularity has evolved independently at least 25 times; complex eyes, up to a hundred; powered flight, four times (and gliding many more); defensive mechanisms like thorns and shells, tens of thousands of times. But it has taken all those aeons for sentience to evolve even once. There was nothing easy about it and nothing inevitable about it. If a meteor had hit central Africa five million years ago and wiped out the great apes, there's no reason to believe that it would not have taken another billion years for the same sort of hyper-complex brain to find its way down the path to sophisticated insight, foresight, and language - if it ever happened at all.
So, though I cannot outright disprove the claim that a sentient being created the universe, I can regard it with the same incredulity that anyone would give the claim that the universe was created by a being with a five-foot flexible proboscis or an enzyme that can digest nylon or any other specific feature of a specific organism adapted to a specific purpose on this planet.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
"A sentient force created the universe" does not offer just a single possibility and is more likely than any particular religious representation.
Granted. But this trivial fact of logic papers over the more significant fact that sentience by itself is hugely specific. Look around - how many different things are sentient? Just human beings. Stars aren't sentient. Black holes aren't sentient. Interstellar hydrogen isn't sentient. Rocks aren't sentient. In all the vastness of the universe, we find sentience in just one environment: a particular variety of the collection of complex self-replicating organic chemical patterns that cake just the very surface of a certain liquid-water terrestrial planet.
Even as far as life on Earth is concerned, sentience is unique. There's been life here for over three billion years and multicellular life for a billion. Multicellularity has evolved independently at least 25 times; complex eyes, up to a hundred; powered flight, four times (and gliding many more); defensive mechanisms like thorns and shells, tens of thousands of times. But it has taken all those aeons for sentience to evolve even once. There was nothing easy about it and nothing inevitable about it. If a meteor had hit central Africa five million years ago and wiped out the great apes, there's no reason to believe that it would not have taken another billion years for the same sort of hyper-complex brain to find its way down the path to sophisticated insight, foresight, and language - if it ever happened at all.
So, though I cannot outright disprove the claim that a sentient being created the universe, I can regard it with the same incredulity that anyone would give the claim that the universe was created by a being with a five-foot flexible proboscis or an enzyme that can digest nylon or any other specific feature of a specific organism adapted to a specific purpose on this planet.
But that's the rub with infinity... If we truly want to mark things with chance, you have to admit the odds take an odd turn. I've heard atheists contend that infinity means that infinite versions of oneself must exist.
After all, the odds the vast non-sentient universes coming into existence from nothing cannot even be comprehended. Atheism asserts this is the most likely possibility. Meanwhile, religion accommodates existence without beginning, and the infinite so large that repetition need not occur.
Moreover, the qualities you compare to sentience do not entirely correlate because sentience generates ideas. While a creator with an elephant trunk might exist, having that trunk does not inherently tilt it towards creativity. By our observations, our sentience impels creation. While this will undoubtedly be cited an anthropomorphism, is it foolish to suspect an infinite sentience might also create?
Hearsay is when a person's information is based solely on other people's say-so of which the first person has no first-hand knowledge, and the information can't be adequately substantiated.
So we should every account that is not eye witnesses? What about the people who that interview eyewitnesses? Is everything they say then also hearsay?
If you doubt the accounts of people who interview eye witnesses then you should doubt just about everything a historian can claim.
Hearsay is when a person's information is based solely on other people's say-so of which the first person has no first-hand knowledge, and the information can't be adequately substantiated.
So we should every account that is not eye witnesses? What about the people who that interview eyewitnesses? Is everything they say then also hearsay?
If you doubt the accounts of people who interview eye witnesses then you should doubt just about everything a historian can claim.
No. The Bible verse you cite could be considered as an eyewitness account, so that isn't the reason. You could use it to say that there were 500 people at the event, if it occurred, but not that there are 500 accounts of the event. (And supposing there were 500 people at such an event, we might wonder where their accounts of that event are.)
The content of an eyewitness account is important in determining how much additional investigation should be done to accept it. You don't need to investigate whether someone in fact ate a common breakfast food, but you would if, for instance, someone witnessed a murder.
An exceptional event is going to require some exceptional evidence in its favor. One account of it occurring is insufficient.
Moreover, the qualities you compare to sentience do not entirely correlate because sentience generates ideas. While a creator with an elephant trunk might exist, having that trunk does not inherently tilt it towards creativity. By our observations, our sentience impels creation. While this will undoubtedly be cited an anthropomorphism, is it foolish to suspect an infinite sentience might also create?
It's not foolish to suspect a sentient entity might be creative. But the argument you're making begs the question by presupposing that the sentient entity exists. Formally, you're reversing the events in the probability expression: you're talking about P(U|G), the probability of the universe given God, rather than P(G|U), the probability of God given the universe. It would be formally parallel for you to have said that Zeus is an angry and capricious storm-deity, and therefore it is not foolish to suspect that he might periodically destroy stuff with storms. P(S|Z), the probability of storms given Zeus, is high. But this says nothing about P(Z|S), the probability of Zeus given storms, which I think we can agree is very low. (Or for a more mundane example of the error, consider the difference between P(J|W), the probability that a randomly selected person is Angelina Jolie given that they're a woman, i.e. one in about three and a half billion, and P(W|J), the probability that a randomly selected person is a woman given that they're Angelina Jolie, i.e. 100%.)
You are also presupposing that the universe was generated through a creative process. It would admittedly be strange for the universe to be generated through a creative process without there being a creative mind behind it. But we have no indication that this is the case. In fact, lots of things are created without being creative. An elephant, for instance, often creates large piles of elephant dung, and I doubt it puts much thought into the process. Why should we suppose that the universe is more akin to a human artifact than to dung? There is in dung a rich variety of complicated structures, and it supports all kinds of living things (which as far as universe-analogues are concerned puts it way ahead of our own sterile inventions). So maybe both mind and proboscis are irrelevant to the origin of the universe. Maybe we should be looking for an infinite gastrointestinal tract.
I apologize if my logic is faulty, that is why I am posting this, for clarification. If there is any fault along my reasoning, please kindly point it out to me and explain.
If someone asserts there is no supernatural power/are no supernatural powers, but cannot yield proof to disprove their existence, are they in essence expressing a belief such as someone who does believe in the supernatural and also has no proof for their claim?
Yup. Christians believe in God, Athiests believe in logic or rational.
It's not foolish to suspect a sentient entity might be creative. But the argument you're making begs the question by presupposing that the sentient entity exists. Formally, you're reversing the events in the probability expression: you're talking about P(U|G), the probability of the universe given God, rather than P(G|U), the probability of God given the universe.
To play Devil's Advocate, Bayes' Theorem says that P(G|U) = P(U|G)*P(G) / P(U), so if you're talking about one, you're really also talking about the other. Now, obviously, you still have those other pesky terms to worry about, which might mean that P(G|U) is low even if P(U|G) is high, but I don't know that it's fair to claim that P(U|G) is high "says nothing about" the value of P(G|U).
To play Devil's Advocate, Bayes' Theorem says that P(G|U) = P(U|G)*P(G) / P(U), so if you're talking about one, you're really also talking about the other. Now, obviously, you still have those other pesky terms to worry about, which might mean that P(G|U) is low even if P(U|G) is high, but I don't know that it's fair to claim that P(U|G) is high "says nothing about" the value of P(G|U).
Okay, yes, in general P(A|B) has a relationship with P(B|A). However, in this case P(U|G) and P(U) are simply 1, so P(G) is sort of left dangling.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Moreover, the qualities you compare to sentience do not entirely correlate because sentience generates ideas. While a creator with an elephant trunk might exist, having that trunk does not inherently tilt it towards creativity. By our observations, our sentience impels creation. While this will undoubtedly be cited an anthropomorphism, is it foolish to suspect an infinite sentience might also create?
It's not foolish to suspect a sentient entity might be creative. But the argument you're making begs the question by presupposing that the sentient entity exists. Formally, you're reversing the events in the probability expression: you're talking about P(U|G), the probability of the universe given God, rather than P(G|U), the probability of God given the universe. It would be formally parallel for you to have said that Zeus is an angry and capricious storm-deity, and therefore it is not foolish to suspect that he might periodically destroy stuff with storms. P(S|Z), the probability of storms given Zeus, is high. But this says nothing about P(Z|S), the probability of Zeus given storms, which I think we can agree is very low. (Or for a more mundane example of the error, consider the difference between P(J|W), the probability that a randomly selected person is Angelina Jolie given that they're a woman, i.e. one in about three and a half billion, and P(W|J), the probability that a randomly selected person is a woman given that they're Angelina Jolie, i.e. 100%.)
You are also presupposing that the universe was generated through a creative process. It would admittedly be strange for the universe to be generated through a creative process without there being a creative mind behind it. But we have no indication that this is the case. In fact, lots of things are created without being creative. An elephant, for instance, often creates large piles of elephant dung, and I doubt it puts much thought into the process. Why should we suppose that the universe is more akin to a human artifact than to dung? There is in dung a rich variety of complicated structures, and it supports all kinds of living things (which as far as universe-analogues are concerned puts it way ahead of our own sterile inventions). So maybe both mind and proboscis are irrelevant to the origin of the universe. Maybe we should be looking for an infinite gastrointestinal tract.
I thought the atheist "existence by chance" was predicated on extremely long periods of time producing inevitability. Perhaps I misunderstand the atheist arguement?
It's not foolish to suspect a sentient entity might be creative. But the argument you're making begs the question by presupposing that the sentient entity exists. Formally, you're reversing the events in the probability expression: you're talking about P(U|G), the probability of the universe given God, rather than P(G|U), the probability of God given the universe. It would be formally parallel for you to have said that Zeus is an angry and capricious storm-deity, and therefore it is not foolish to suspect that he might periodically destroy stuff with storms. P(S|Z), the probability of storms given Zeus, is high. But this says nothing about P(Z|S), the probability of Zeus given storms, which I think we can agree is very low. (Or for a more mundane example of the error, consider the difference between P(J|W), the probability that a randomly selected person is Angelina Jolie given that they're a woman, i.e. one in about three and a half billion, and P(W|J), the probability that a randomly selected person is a woman given that they're Angelina Jolie, i.e. 100%.)
You are also presupposing that the universe was generated through a creative process. It would admittedly be strange for the universe to be generated through a creative process without there being a creative mind behind it. But we have no indication that this is the case. In fact, lots of things are created without being creative. An elephant, for instance, often creates large piles of elephant dung, and I doubt it puts much thought into the process. Why should we suppose that the universe is more akin to a human artifact than to dung? There is in dung a rich variety of complicated structures, and it supports all kinds of living things (which as far as universe-analogues are concerned puts it way ahead of our own sterile inventions). So maybe both mind and proboscis are irrelevant to the origin of the universe. Maybe we should be looking for an infinite gastrointestinal tract.
I presupposed an entity as your contingency did. "If a creation was born of an entity, it is as likely to be non-sentient, have an elephant trunk and poop out creation as it is be sentient and intentionally create it." Note that the pooping nonsentient entity here is essentially the "something out of nothing" argument.
As to this second point, that I did not mean to imply that creation is contingent on intention, rather that it is likely a sentient being might incline to be creative. I agree, creation can occur without planning.
To clarify, I am not advocating "intelligent design" theologies.
I personally am a Bible college student. I grew up in a Catholic background in which I was not interested in in the least bit. And im not preaching, I hate spiritual debate. I can give you the Biblical reference that shows why most people do not believe the supernatural and never will. James 4:8 states that "Come near to God, and He will come near to you." The first statement in the portion of scripture is that we have to come near to Him, THEN He will come near to us. Most people dont experience the supernatural because they are not seeking an active relationship with God. When you do seek Him, even just knowledge of Him, He begins to move. Then, the unexplainable starts to begin to be clarified. Once someone experiences the undeniable, the unexplainable doesnt matter as much.
I thought the atheist "existence by chance" was predicated on extremely long periods of time producing inevitability. Perhaps I misunderstand the atheist arguement?
There's not one "atheist argument". And the difference between an extremely long period of time and an infinite period of time is, well, infinite.
"If a creation was born of an entity, it is as likely to be non-sentient, have an elephant trunk and poop out creation as it is be sentient and intentionally create it."
As far as we know, yes. You argued that sentience disposes an entity to create and thus tips the odds in favor of that hypothesis, but other non-sentient qualities might also dispose an entity to create in different ways, so the hypotheses balance out.
Oooooooooooooooooooooh
No see, that's not evidence. That is hear-say (or worse, hear-see)
Those witnesses have not testified, nor is that verse verifiable.
Therefore, it's reasonably possible that it didn't happen, and you're just taking some bible verses word for it.
You specifically said you would believe the 500 or so eye witnesses. But, you haven't heard from 500. You've heard from 1-2 claiming that another 498+ would attest the same miracle.
This is beyond spotty investigation. It's plain gullibility.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think I understand what you mean now. The reason I didn't consult a resource is that I have tried before, but wasn't able to quite grasp the concepts. I need a reactive source to point out my errors in thinking.
Thank you for being patient and helping me understand a little more.
Having read both I think we are both really two sides of the same coin. What you call faith, I call blind faith, we both seem to agree is a bad thing. The belief in something without reason, or willingness to accept new information, and facts.
Only difference seems to be you approach it more from an analytical and scientific about it where as I would approach it more from a metaphorical and spiritual means.
Sorry if I misread/understood you.
The reason "everybody believes things" doesn't really do justice to what I am saying is because of what it's describing. Namely it's stating a simple action that people do, IE believing things. My meaning isn't to describe what people do but instead describe what they are, IE people of faith. This description is important because it breaks down, to me, what people are at their core.
To kinda rephrase it, although I'll be honest it's kinda a bad analogy, it would be like saying Peyton Manning is "just plays football." To say that is all there is to him simply doesn't do him justice for how great he is and what he means to that sport.
Side Note--I enjoy the discussion we have been having about Godel's Theorums but beginning of the week is crazy for me and I haven't been able to read up on Goodstein's Theorem that you posted. As it seems this part of the discussion is starting to move away from the original topic would you mind if I PMed you about it later in the week when I have more time to read into it?
No problem. Ironically, the second post has the less-than-cordial tone it does because I got a little frustrated that people seemed not to be reading the first post!
Then we're back to square one; we're equivocating again. If you define faith to mean believing things, then everyone has faith, but it doesn't have any special meaning beyond just that. If you want to define faith so that it has some additional special meaning, then fine, but it need no longer be the case that everyone has faith, because that conclusion required that faith was devoid of special meaning. "Core being," "spiritual essence," and all that other baggage is a product of of what you and I are now calling blind faith.
To be honest, sports analogies are going to be completely lost on me. The most I can say is this: consider two predicates: "plays football" (analogous to "believes things") and "plays football as well as Peyton Manning." (analogous to "believes things + extra special properties of faith that you haven't been clear about") We've agreed that "all football players play football;" you expect us to conclude, with no further evidence or argument, that "all football players play as well as Peyton Manning."
In other words, whatever properties you are ascribing to faith beyond merely believing things, you must tell us why everyone has those properties. If you do not do so, then you are actually invoking what we have agreed to call "blind faith."
I prefer to have any such discussions in public so that it is open to anyone else who might be interested to read, scrutinize, comment, or question. I am also much more likely to put more time and thought into a public post than a PM. That being said, if you really want to do it via PM, that's fine too.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
As we've discussed before, the specificity in your examples might lead a reader to equate the odds between them.
"A sentient force created the universe" does not offer just a single possibility and is more likely than any particular religious representation. I am not stating that this possibility is more likely than "a non-sentient force created the universe"; Were I to passively equate "Eleanor owned a red piece of clothing", I would certainly be overstating the odds.
This doesn't work. Reputable news outlets like CNN have processes to verify that they're reporting accurate things. Hearsay is when a person's information is based solely on other people's say-so of which the first person has no first-hand knowledge, and the information can't be adequately substantiated. Although news outlets' reporting may superficially resemble this in the first aspect, typically their reporting has been substantiated by their processes and so doesn't qualify as hearsay. The hearsay in the case of the Bible verse is that you have said that there are 500 witnesses to an event on the basis of an account (the verse) of that event (of which you have no first-hand knowledge) which you haven't been able to substantiate (actually having 500 independent accounts of the event would be helpful).
One of the reasons you gave for trusting the person's account of what they ate for breakfast is that they are honest (you've likely determined this based on prior interaction with that person). A track record of reporting accurate things can be said to give similar trustworthiness to future reporting by a news outlet.
The other reason you gave is that "he has no reason to lie," but that's because what he had for breakfast ultimately has no significant consequence, whereas the validity of Christian beliefs may have, as some Christians put it, "infinite" consequences. Ideally, news outlets will report things that have some consequences, but while the reasons you gave are sufficient to believe the breakfast statement, they aren't necessary to believe any given thing in particular (that is, it's sometimes reasonable to believe things that have significant consequences or about which someone might conceivably have a reason to lie).
So, I could write that 200 million people were witness to my being crowned Grand High Emperor of Earth and Supreme Final Arbiter of Justice, but that's only one account, and it can't be substantiated. It's not 200 million accounts just because I said so.
The reasons you gave make believing the person's account of his breakfast not a matter of "faith"* but a matter of judgment (even here the content matters, as you probably won't believe he ate two tires for breakfast). Believing events just because they're described in the Bible requires a significantly greater amount of credulity, just as believing my statement about being made Grand High Emperor requires greater credulity than believing a statement about how tall I am (assuming I don't give a ridiculous number). The fact that it's reasonable to believe one thing someone might say doesn't imply that it's reasonable to believe anything anyone says.
* If having reason to believe something doesn't alter whether the belief is a matter of "faith," then having faith just means believing things, as said earlier in this thread.
Even as far as life on Earth is concerned, sentience is unique. There's been life here for over three billion years and multicellular life for a billion. Multicellularity has evolved independently at least 25 times; complex eyes, up to a hundred; powered flight, four times (and gliding many more); defensive mechanisms like thorns and shells, tens of thousands of times. But it has taken all those aeons for sentience to evolve even once. There was nothing easy about it and nothing inevitable about it. If a meteor had hit central Africa five million years ago and wiped out the great apes, there's no reason to believe that it would not have taken another billion years for the same sort of hyper-complex brain to find its way down the path to sophisticated insight, foresight, and language - if it ever happened at all.
So, though I cannot outright disprove the claim that a sentient being created the universe, I can regard it with the same incredulity that anyone would give the claim that the universe was created by a being with a five-foot flexible proboscis or an enzyme that can digest nylon or any other specific feature of a specific organism adapted to a specific purpose on this planet.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
But that's the rub with infinity... If we truly want to mark things with chance, you have to admit the odds take an odd turn. I've heard atheists contend that infinity means that infinite versions of oneself must exist.
After all, the odds the vast non-sentient universes coming into existence from nothing cannot even be comprehended. Atheism asserts this is the most likely possibility. Meanwhile, religion accommodates existence without beginning, and the infinite so large that repetition need not occur.
Moreover, the qualities you compare to sentience do not entirely correlate because sentience generates ideas. While a creator with an elephant trunk might exist, having that trunk does not inherently tilt it towards creativity. By our observations, our sentience impels creation. While this will undoubtedly be cited an anthropomorphism, is it foolish to suspect an infinite sentience might also create?
So we should every account that is not eye witnesses? What about the people who that interview eyewitnesses? Is everything they say then also hearsay?
If you doubt the accounts of people who interview eye witnesses then you should doubt just about everything a historian can claim.
No. The Bible verse you cite could be considered as an eyewitness account, so that isn't the reason. You could use it to say that there were 500 people at the event, if it occurred, but not that there are 500 accounts of the event. (And supposing there were 500 people at such an event, we might wonder where their accounts of that event are.)
The content of an eyewitness account is important in determining how much additional investigation should be done to accept it. You don't need to investigate whether someone in fact ate a common breakfast food, but you would if, for instance, someone witnessed a murder.
An exceptional event is going to require some exceptional evidence in its favor. One account of it occurring is insufficient.
It's not foolish to suspect a sentient entity might be creative. But the argument you're making begs the question by presupposing that the sentient entity exists. Formally, you're reversing the events in the probability expression: you're talking about P(U|G), the probability of the universe given God, rather than P(G|U), the probability of God given the universe. It would be formally parallel for you to have said that Zeus is an angry and capricious storm-deity, and therefore it is not foolish to suspect that he might periodically destroy stuff with storms. P(S|Z), the probability of storms given Zeus, is high. But this says nothing about P(Z|S), the probability of Zeus given storms, which I think we can agree is very low. (Or for a more mundane example of the error, consider the difference between P(J|W), the probability that a randomly selected person is Angelina Jolie given that they're a woman, i.e. one in about three and a half billion, and P(W|J), the probability that a randomly selected person is a woman given that they're Angelina Jolie, i.e. 100%.)
You are also presupposing that the universe was generated through a creative process. It would admittedly be strange for the universe to be generated through a creative process without there being a creative mind behind it. But we have no indication that this is the case. In fact, lots of things are created without being creative. An elephant, for instance, often creates large piles of elephant dung, and I doubt it puts much thought into the process. Why should we suppose that the universe is more akin to a human artifact than to dung? There is in dung a rich variety of complicated structures, and it supports all kinds of living things (which as far as universe-analogues are concerned puts it way ahead of our own sterile inventions). So maybe both mind and proboscis are irrelevant to the origin of the universe. Maybe we should be looking for an infinite gastrointestinal tract.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Yup. Christians believe in God, Athiests believe in logic or rational.
But there's nothing about being an Atheist that requires rationality.
To play Devil's Advocate, Bayes' Theorem says that P(G|U) = P(U|G)*P(G) / P(U), so if you're talking about one, you're really also talking about the other. Now, obviously, you still have those other pesky terms to worry about, which might mean that P(G|U) is low even if P(U|G) is high, but I don't know that it's fair to claim that P(U|G) is high "says nothing about" the value of P(G|U).
Okay, yes, in general P(A|B) has a relationship with P(B|A). However, in this case P(U|G) and P(U) are simply 1, so P(G) is sort of left dangling.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So everything is ****?
I thought the atheist "existence by chance" was predicated on extremely long periods of time producing inevitability. Perhaps I misunderstand the atheist arguement?
I presupposed an entity as your contingency did. "If a creation was born of an entity, it is as likely to be non-sentient, have an elephant trunk and poop out creation as it is be sentient and intentionally create it." Note that the pooping nonsentient entity here is essentially the "something out of nothing" argument.
As to this second point, that I did not mean to imply that creation is contingent on intention, rather that it is likely a sentient being might incline to be creative. I agree, creation can occur without planning.
To clarify, I am not advocating "intelligent design" theologies.
As far as we know, yes. You argued that sentience disposes an entity to create and thus tips the odds in favor of that hypothesis, but other non-sentient qualities might also dispose an entity to create in different ways, so the hypotheses balance out.
Well, no, not unless regular elephant poop coming out of a regular elephant is also "something out of nothing".
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.