Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts

Circumcising the Bible

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I recently read the horrifying news story of a 20-year-old mother who was tortured with a branding iron, doused with fuel, and then burned alive in Papua New Guinea on the accusation that she was a sorceress. Police and firefighters were unable to intervene because of the angry crowd. Ironically, the news story also contained this:
Local Christian bishop David Piso told the National that sorcery-related killings were a growing problem, and urged the government "to come up with a law to stop such practice".
I found myself wondering if bishop Piso is aware his Bible contains this verse:
You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
Exodus 22:18 (ESV)

Where is Jesus's Diary? Information As A Product, Not A Byproduct

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I'd like to propose an analogy to represent the relationship between God, Us, the Bible and the World. God would be in charge, and the source and producer of information, and the majority of us would be his potential customer, subscriber or consumer. We would have a value to him and lets assign the value the number 1. So if one of us 'subscribes' to Gods information, then he correspondingly gets to add that to his return on investment.

God Continues To Operate In The Red After 4000 Years.
God is and has been working at a loss since he supposedly made himself known to Abraham. He continues to lose his investment. This year alone potentially AT LEAST 4.5 billion people are going to hell, some of them will be unborn fetuses, some of them will be Muslim Children that don't care anything about differences between religions and politics, and unless their interpretation is correct, some of them will consider themselves Christians. Most of them simply don't find Biblical Information to be believable, in the same way they simply don't find other information to be believable.

World Population: 6,790,062,216 (July 2009 est.), CIA World Fact Book [1]
Christians make up only 1/3 of the world [2] (2,263,354,072 people), and even then they are divided about who the true Christians are, so True Christians make up less than 33% of the world. The cause of divisions between the Christians is the interpretation of the text. If the text were of high enough quality, no interpretation would be needed. It would accurately reflect real world states and the Quality of Knowledge would be high and therefore the outcomes from the use of Biblical Information would improve. There would be fewer denominations, and more Christians. Gods return on investment would improve.

Quality Information and Knowledge
Civilizations are advanced by taking advantage of Quality Information and Knowledge. The machine age and the industrial revolution translated, captured and reproduced with machines the accumulated knowledge of artisans which standardized and sped up production of Goods. The increased productivity and efficiency gave companies competitive advantages. Quality Knowledge was derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information was intrinsically useful.

The Computer revolution and the Information Age transformed how information is captured, stored, distributed and reproduced. It has torn down the traditional boundaries of accessible information and put information on demand at peoples fingertips. It has increased communication and fostered collaboration and created a Global Community of people that produce, provide, maintain and consume information. To ensure quality information, the principles of manufacturing are adapted to guide information production. Quality Information is information that has been treated with some care and control to ensure its accuracy and usefulness. To ensure Information Quality, Information must be treated like a product not a byproduct. Capturing real world states as accurately as possible and as timely as possible using DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is one way to do that. Companies that treat information as a product have a competitive advantage. Quality Knowledge is derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information is useful.

Since the formulation of the principle of Falsifiability and its endorsement by Karl Popper, Science acquired scope and definition. Since that time, co-opting the computer revolution and accessible information, science has also enjoyed a revolution of a sort. Using sound principles and Quality Information, science is a method for creating Quality Knowledge and that information has proven useful. The past fifty years have arguably been the most fruitful in creating useful Quality Information and Knowledge.

Two propositions follow from this. To increase successful outcomes,
1. Organizations must create a reservoir of Quality Information
2. Organizations must use that information to create a reservoir of Quality Knowledge.

Create Knowledge with Quality information
Supposedly God wants to produce Christians, and the bible was created to aid in producing Christians. But the Bible was not created using principles of Information Quality even up to the standards of common inventory, household finance, or tax keeping of the time. The fact that accurate records are important has been understood since merchants started trading. However, scripture didn't use those simple record keeping principles about accuracy. Obviously, The Bibles accuracy and clarity was not of primary importance and the limited and splintered success of Christianity is what you'd expect and typical of organizations that create their information similarly.

Make an Inventory of What You Know In Real Time
Capturing the information about God and Salvation was not given the same importance as God and Salvation or even equivalent importance that a merchant has for his inventory, or even a household shopping list. The representation of God and Salvation in the medium of language is as important as God and Salvation itself, because the medium is supposed to represent it. If the medium doesn't represent its object accurately, then there is no accurate representation of the object to be understood. Therefore the real world states of God and Salvation are not represented anywhere for human understanding. Similar to the inventory, if records don't accurately reflect the real world state of an inventory, then the state of the inventory is unknown. It is demonstrably an open question.

It should be self-evident that the INACCURATE production of information directly NEGATIVELY impacts the PURPOSE for the production of that information.
For example, if I go to a biology lecture and I don't record it or take notes, there is not much point in going. If I don't capture the information as it occurs, then I won't be able to accurately recreate it later on the exam. My score on the exam depends on how well I record that information and am able to review it before the exam. If I were to use someone else's notes, then I'm lucky if they've "taken good notes" and I'm lucky if I don't have to INTERPRET them or look to the book for interpretation due to missing information, inconsistent representation or ambiguity. If the information is treated as a product, and DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is used to ensure that it is captured accurately in real time, then it will be of higher quality than if it is treated as a byproduct and captured after the fact from memory. The Quality of that information directly impacts the quality of Knowledge that is derived from it, and this principle is put into practice and used every second of every day and is measured periodically by such things as tests in school.

Where is Jesus' Diary? Examples of Treating Information As A Product
At the time of Christ, the Roman Centurion, in charge of one hundred troops kept a daily log book and passed that information up to his commander and that information made its way up the chain of command to be used in logistics and decision making[3].

Optometrist
When I go to the Optometrist, I do a few tasks, and the optometrist records some values on a piece of paper. Those values represent the real world state of my lenses. Any interpretation by the manufacturer of that prescription will lead to increased risk of inaccurate production of the lenses.

Airline Safety
Similarly in the airline industry, inspecting and recording the states and results of maintenance is treated as a representation of the state of the aircraft itself. If the records show that aspects of the airplane are out of tolerance, the airplane is taken out of commission.

Medical Records
In the medical field, the record that represents the health of the patient must necessarily be as accurate as possible because it is used to make decisions on the welfare of the patient.

Copying a Song From A CD
When you want to make a copy of a song off of a CD you have many options about the sampling rate. The Sample rate is how often the computer records the state of the song in realtime. The more often the the computer samples the song, the higher the quality of the copy, and you can hear the difference. It is a perceptible demonstration of Information Quality principles.

In each of these cases information is treated as a product. The person who gathers the information acts in the role of the information provider. In the case where the information is inconsistent, ambiguous or missing, a reassessment is necessary before any sound decisions or conclusions can be made. The Quality of that Information directly impacts the Quality of Knowledge derived from that information which directly leads to measurable outcomes.

Information Quality is Quantifiable and Measurable.
High Quality Information has several characteristics that distinguish it from lower quality information. Biblical Information has few of these characteristics. For example, even Christians, the consumers of information in the bible, are divided about what is accurate, and what is metaphor and this is the underlying reason for the different denominations within Christianity.

Its not a "representation of the body of Christ", its the result of Information that has a low Interpretability score.

Therefore, God continues to operate in the red after 4000 years,
not because human beings reject him,
but because they simply don't get it.

Because the Information Providers simply and demonstrably didn't do a good job.

List of Information Quality Dimensions And Their Categories That Are Used To Derive Metrics

INTRINSIC
- Free-of-Error (a dimension of Accuracy)
- Objectivity
- Believability
- Reputation

REPRESENTATIONAL
- Interpretability
- Ease of understanding
- Concise representation
- Consistent representation

CONTEXTUAL
- Relevancy
- Value-added
- Timeliness
- Completeness
- Amount of information

ACCESSIBILITY
- Access
- Security

Further Reading and References
1. CIA World Factbook

2.Religion by Adherents

3. The Laws Of The Roman People, Callie Williamson, page 209

Quality Information and Knowledge, Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Kuan-Tsae, Yang W. Lee, Richard Y. Wang
Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458

MIT Total Data Quality Management Program

Christians Must Be Agnostic

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The Use Or Intent Of Information Does Not Determine Its Quality
Over at Sophies Ladder, Jeff says
"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."


Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.

Blaming The Victim
Is the Bible reliable – not as a history or science book – but as a conveyor of information regarding the transcendental, spiritual realm? How can one ever know? There is nothing to compare it to, nothing to triangulate (aka cross-check) it with. That is really the point of all my IDQ articles. Using the information in the Bible, the Christian remains agnostic about God whether they realize it or not. For example Jeff brings up Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus.
“How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” he asks. Jesus chastises him for not knowing any better than to be so literal. “You’re a master of Israel and you don’t know these things?”

This is completely ambiguous and, additionally, lacks nurturing. Can anyone be blamed if they don't understand something that is presented ambiguously? Generally, teachers are held accountable if the students don't comprehend the information. In a small percentage of cases, the student has some individual difficulty that prevents them from grasping the information whether its ambiguous or not. When that is the case, the student is not chastised. In all cases, principle dictates that more attention is given to the student, until the student can comprehend the information. From the text it doesn't seem likely that Nicodemus was being deliberately difficult, it seems that the material was exceptionally difficult for Nicodemus, and, as we can see, it is of poor quality because it demonstrates the IDQ flaws of Incomplete Representation and Ambiguous Representation. Simply stated, Jesus did not explain himself clearly. Simply stated Nicodemus is being blamed for not understanding. Is the material impossible to convey in words? Considering how common the phrase "Born Again" is, when clearly explained, it can be "understood" by some. But Jeff says
In the case of the Bible, it is likely that it’s not possible to speak plainly, given the subject matter.


If God Engineered Us, And If We Don't Get It, It's Not Our Fault
Alright, I'll stipulate that "it is not possible to speak plainly given the subject matter" for the sake of argument and I'll point out that if the material necessary to be comprehended to obtain salvation is too complicated for our minds, then, since God supposedly engineered us, he is solely responsible. But he has another option. Being all powerful and the creator of all things gives him the option of implanting the knowledge directly in the brain. There's no excuse for the material to be unobtainable, incomprehensible unless it was of poor quality.

Getting Burned is All You Need To Know About Fire
At this point Jeff tries to build the case that
There is something very small about a concept if it can be contained in words alone.

additionally he goes off down a slippery slope. He asks
Why do we shout for joy or turn to music to express ourselves, if words alone can suffice?

but he seems to ignore the fact that plenty of understanding goes on without shouting for joy or turning to music. The theory of General Relativity and String Theory can be explained in words alone, it takes a long time, and a lot of words, but it can be done. I know because I understand them and can explain them. I can also explain how schizophrenia is produced by a genetic mutation, and how human behavior is affected by that. I can also explain the History of the concept of the Soul starting with Orpheus. In my opinion someone who says that a thing is indescribable doesn't understand it well enough to talk about it.

Data Abstraction
Jeff goes on to reference John 21:25 where Jesus says that the world cannot contain the books necessary to express the Logos. That's fine, but using data abstraction, I don't need to know how fire works or how my computer works, or how the elements in my steak marinade combine for me to benefit from them. Likewise I didn't need to know how the Logos worked for more than thirty five years as a Christian to appreciate it. When I realized that the Jihadists were right when they said that it looked like their prayers were answered and Allah guided those planes into the towers and that, to me, it looked like God was ignoring the prayers of those people jumping out of the towers I decided to stop using a double standard for my religion. I started to "cross-check" Christianity.

Circular Reasoning And Shooting Yourself In The Foot
Jeff's reasoning is circular. There is nothing to Triangulate his data except with such things as the Bible, his personal experience, the personal experience of other Christians, the personal experience of non-christians and Science. Unfortunately the more data we accumulate to triangulate with, the weaker Jeffs case gets. While Jeff continues to minimize the importance of the text of the Bible and emphasize the importance of the inner dwelling of the Spirit, he keeps using Biblical texts to support his case. The problem is that he is weakening his own case by minimizing the information in the Bible.

Christians Must Be Agnostic About The Things They Do Not Agree On
Unless Christianity can value each others information equally, they must remain agnostic on the topics they do not agree on. The topics they do not agree on get to the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Since that is the case, Christians must necessarily be agnostic about a large percentage of the things they think they know. They must be Agnostic.

Christianity is a disorganized mess and it has all the symptoms of an organization that needs their data cleaned up using the principles of IDQ.
But I think that would be its undoing, and I think that Christians know that intuitively, and that the biological algorithms for comfort and self-preservation kick in to preclude them from committing to the inference from the Data.

With help from John, Prup, an Ed Babinski article, and Sconnor, here are a list of some disputed topics within Christianity.
And following that, I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations.

- Evolution or creationism?
- Being Born Again?
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism


RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
* Data Quality Assessment
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations

IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible

Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia

IDQ Applied
* National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
* Thank Sully!

Rebuttals
* IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit
* Cooking The Books To Avoid IDQ Principles
* Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"

Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"

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Over at Sophies Ladder Jeff agrees that accuracy and reliability are important but his view of accuracy and reliability all stem from some "inner knowing". This contradicts commonly held principles about accuracy and reliability which generally holds that the source of the information is known, can be verified, represents real world states and can be depended on to accurately reflect real world states when verification is not a viable option and when planning needs to be done. But for the moment, I'll stipulate the Spiritual Realm exists.

The Sixth Sense, AKA The Spirit Detector
Jeff says
But the real world for the Bible is God and the spiritual realms
Any value placed in accuracy and reliability must therefore be in relation to the spiritual, inward truth.

In this passage he has presumed the existence of the spiritual realm. But he has not defined the spiritual realm. Where does he get the Idea that the spiritual real exists? Does he get it from the Bible? Surely he does not get it from the Bible with as much effort as he is making to distance himself from it. If he knows the spiritual realm exists, and he knows that he has the spirit indwelling, and he gets information from it, then Jeff has a spiritual detector built in. If Jeff has a spiritual detector built in, like he does for colors and sounds, then we probably all do. And in fact we have most of the world exercising their spiritual detectors in one way or another. Muslims, Hindus, (some) Buddhists, Jews, smaller religions outside the scope of the "Big Five" additionally Psychics, New Agers, Tarot Card readers, etc all have their Spiritual Detectors running gathering data that they use to make decisions with. However, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but as a I said, there is a little.

Measuring The Effectiveness of The Spirit Detector
Does the spiritual realm that he's talking about apply to the rest of those groups or is it Christian only? Which groups Spiritual Detector is collecting data that represents the state of the real world. In this sense, I mean real world to include the spiritual world. If the spiritual world exists, and it can be detected, it must overlap with humans and our earth. I suppose a good analogy would be like its another dimension. If the spiritual world can be detected, then it can be described, and if it can be described then uncertainty about it can be reduced, and if uncertainty about it can be reduced then we would have some way of measuring it in relation to other descriptions, then we could find which groups spiritual detector is the more accurate. If we can find which groups spiritual detector is more accurate, then we might be able to whittle away at the myriad of religions and their gods that exist today.

Collectors, Custodians, and Consumers
In Information and Data Quality concepts, there are three groups of people that are stakeholders in ensuring quality of accuracy of data and information. They are Collectors, Custodians and Consumers. One person can belong to any or all groups simultaneously. Jeff and the other spiritual detectors are in the Collector and the Consumer group. In IDQ it is presumed that the data collectors goal is accuracy. It is presumed that the information coming from the collectors will represent real world states, but Humans make mistakes so the data collected must be audited to ensure its accuracy. The way this is done is using the concept of "Triangulation".

Triangulation
Triangulation is an approach to data analysis that synthesizes data from multiple sources.
"Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
"Triangulation", Wikipedia
It recognizes the need to cross-check (aka cross-examine) information to ensure accuracy and reliability. The accuracy and reliability that IDQ measures and was designed to obtain cannot be equivocated to suit the observer, it has to be able to be used and applied to such things as Safety in the industries of Health Care, Aviation, Maritime, Nuclear Power, Chemical Engineering, Construction etc.

Humans Make Mistakes And Triangulation Mitigates Them
So now we just need to figure out a way to triangulate the data coming from all those spiritual detectors and find what they have in common. We can take all that data and put it in a set and reduce it to the lowest common denominator and start comparing it to other things that are relatively well understood. As I said above, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but there is some. I know one group of items in the spiritual detector set off the top of my head that are common to all of those sets of spiritual detector data, Human Cognitive Bias. Humans make mistakes, that is why there is a need to audit the accuracy of the data collectors. In my opinion, unless there is some way to increase the likelihood of any those spiritual detectors being more accurate than any other, I can only commit to agnosticism about the spiritual realm and, in principal, decisions should not be made using ambiguous information.

Jeff says
"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."

Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Data Quality Assessment
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon

IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible

Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia

IDQ Applied
National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards


Cooking the Books To Avoid IDQ Principles

6 comments
A straw man (aka misrepresentation) and a moving goal post (aka sliding window).
Over at Sophies LadderJeff has misunderstood my position.

I do not think the Bible should be used as a history book or a science book, and I know the Bible, in its current form, was not intended to be either. I know there is no warrant to take the bible as a science or history "treatise". I agree we delineate our concepts such as biology and (as he says) Philosophy (but I wouldn't have used philosophy because its not data driven) based on its intent and its purpose. Jeffs asks rhetorically
What is the proper IDQ criteria to be applied to poetry and mythology? Or better yet, what is the proper IDQ criteria to be applied to information dealing with the transcendent?


At this point he as compared the Bible to Poetry and Mythology and he used the term "Transcendent" in relation to Poetry and Mythology but I haven't seen him define what he thinks transcendent is. He seems to suggest that poetry and mythology are transcendent.

answers.com has the definition of "Transcendent" as follows.

1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception: “fails to achieve a transcendent significance in suffering and squalor” (National Review).
3. Philosophy.
1. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
2. In Kant's theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity.


Cooking the Books: Shifting the relative value of the Bible to make a point
While I assume he's using transcendent with regard to the bible as option four, I can only guess at how he applies it to poetry and mythology. And I can only guess at what the relationship is between The Bible, Poetry and Mythology. I know The Bible has Hebrew Poetry in it, and I presume that it has mythology in it, but I don't understand how Jeff views it. Usually we don't presume Poetry or Mythology as having the same importance as the Bible and tradition holds that the originating source for the bible is not the mind of humans as is the case with poetry and mythology. If Jeff wants to say that Divine inspiration originates in the mind of humans and is of the same type as any other inspiration I will go along with that, but I doubt he's willing to agree to that.

One persons Relgion is another persons Mythology
IDQ is meant to assess information that is intended for use in decision making.
It is not meant to assess poetry and mythology, but it can, and it will produce metrics. But there is no reason to apply IDQ principles to poetry and mythology because they are not intended to be accurate with respect to the real world. The writer is at liberty to record whatever she pleases with no presumption or expectation of accuracy. However, in the case of Tom Clancy, the accuracy of the information in his books adds to the appeal. Poetry's purpose is not to create text to be used for decision making but to express whatever the writer has in her head. On the other hand, generally speaking, one persons mythology is or was another persons religion. An old worn out religion becomes a mythology. We have plenty of examples of it: Egyptian, Vedic, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, and all the millions of subcultures scattered around the world. African Bushmen had a religion, Australian Aboriginees had a religion, American indians had a Religion etc.

Generally, novels and short stories are not intended as data for decision making, either, but IDQ can be applied and metrics can be derived, but its not clear why one would want to do that. However The Bible supposedly does represent real world states, some history of the Jewish people and the only record of Jesus. The question is what is the quality of that information?

IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit

34 comments
Jeff Carter over at the Blog Sophies Ladder takes issue with applying IDQ principles to the bible and sums up his own blog inserted below.


"To sum all this up, since I don’t use the Bible as a historical or scientific document – I don’t even use it as an instrument of salvation – but instead use it as a guide to help me hear more clearly the living voice of God within me, I find it highly accurate and reliable in terms of this function, which is to convey the spiritual. My advice is to stop trying to use it as history or science. It will only lead to your confusion."

I would like to point out that Jeff's criticism is only relevant to himself and people that share his viewpoint.

He has more criticisms in his article and I will address them in follow on articles, but in this Article I will focus on his dependence on the Holy Spirit. I have written an article called "Reasonable Doubt About The Holy Spirit" that demonstrates the uncertainty that the Holy Spirit actually helps interpret scripture or give understanding. I'm sure there have been and still are quite a few faithful that were wondering what the heck was going wrong while they were being tortured or burned alive by fellow Christians who believed they had the spirit indwelling. The most recent manisfestation of this that I know about is the persecution of Children as Witches in Africa. In the article mentioned above I go into more detail about Christian on Christian disagreements, torture and murder. In the "Recommended Reading" section at the end of this article is a list and short description of all my articles rebutting the concept of the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of the principles of Information and Data Quality (IDQ) are to improve decision making. Therefore the principles of IDQ can be applied to any information that is used to make decisions with. Therefore the Bible qualifies as a candidate for application of IDQ Principles. For example, legislature prohibiting Homosexual marriages, in vitro fertilization, birth control, stem cell research, segregation, womens rights to vote, slavery, laws prohibiting commerce on Sunday morning ("blue-laws"), witchcraft, not being a christian, heresey, etc. Those are just a few decisions off the top of my head that depend on the information in The Bible, but I'm sure I've missed some. One of the goals of Information and Data Quality Principles is to prevent multiple interpretations of data because multiple interpretations of the same data will lead to inefficient decision making within the organization which adversely effects progress towards the goal.

According to The World Almanac of 2005, and I'm going off memory, about 33% (over 2000 years) of the world are Christians. Thats an average gain of about 1% every 200 years. There are Christian denominations of Christian denominations because of disagreements on interpretation of scripture. Jeff belongs to a group represented by a percentage smaller that 33%. There are others that share his viewpoint absolutely, somewhat and not at all. In this day and age there is little to worry about but in bygone days, a Christian could be persecuted by other Christians over disagreements regarding Christianity. The founding of America was a result of the desire by The Puritans for religious freedom.

Christianity shares some of the same Characteristics of an Enterprise or Organization, (not necessarily a business), which suffers from inefficiency. I won't say poor performance because I want to avoid judgments and labels. Efficiency should be a metric that can be agreed upon since I think most people would agree that processes can usually be improved. Efficiency can be measured by assessing how well the goals of the organization are being met. The goal of an organization is usually issued in the form of a "mission statement" and policies, procedures and processes are derived to support the goal. The mission statement should define what the organization is, what the organization aspires to be, distinguish the organization from others, serve as guide to evaluate current activities, stated clearly so that it is understood by all, limited in scope but allow for creative growth

Christianity has a similar "mission statement" called the apostles creed. It was established to try to define what Christianity was and what it means to be a Christian. It seems that Christians were having a hard time meeting the goals of "The Great Commission" (Mark 16:14-18, Matt. 28:16-20, Luke 24:44-49, John 20:19-23, and Acts 1:4-8 ) without some more amplifying information. This fact demonstrates the existence of the IDQ flaw of "Incomplete Representation" in scripture. Below is the apostles creed that the Roman Catholic Church acknowledges as being considered as being derived in part by the apostles.

(1) I believe in God the Father Almighty;
(2) And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
(3) Who was born of (de) the Holy Ghost and of (ex) the Virgin Mary;
(3) Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,
(4) Crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried;
(5) The third day He rose again from the dead,
(6) He ascended into Heaven,
(7) Sitteth at the right hand of the Father,
(8) Whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
(9) And in the Holy Ghost,
(10) The Holy Church,
(11) The forgiveness of sins;
(12) The resurrection of the body.

Source The Catholic Encyclopedia


The apostles creed depends on quite a few things listed below, and some of those things have dependencies on the dependencies as noted below. I might have missed some dependencies but I listed enough to make my point. The Apostles Creed depends on the following:
1. Gods existence
2. that Gods representation in the Bible is accurate (depends on 1)
3. Jesus existence
4. That Jesus representation in the Bible is accurate (depends on 1, 2, 3)
5. The existence of the Holy Ghost (depends on 1, 2)
6. The accurate representation of the Holy Ghost in the Bible (depends on 5)
7. The existence of Mary
8. The accurate representation of Mary in the Bible (depends on 1, 2, 7)
9. That Jesus was Crucified
10. That Jesus was buried (depends on 3, 7, 8, 9)
11. That he rose from the dead (depends on 1, 2, 9, 10)
12. On the third day
13. The existence of Heaven (depends on 1, 2)
14. He ascended into heaven (depends on 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 13)
15. That it is possible to sit next to God (depends on 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13)
16. If he returns to Judge or not depends on the INTERPRETATION of Christians of the Hebrew Bible is more accurate that the Hebrew Interpretation of their own Bible.
17. depends on "The Church" actually being authorized by God (depends on the accuracy of 1-16)
18. The forgiveness of Sins (depends on 1 - 16 and Romans 5)
19. The resurrection of the Body (depends on 1-17)

So, unless I've misunderstood, when people in the group that Jeff belongs to say that

"To sum all this up, since I don’t use the Bible as a historical or scientific document – I don’t even use it as an instrument of salvation – but instead use it as a guide to help me hear more clearly the living voice of God within me, I find it highly accurate and reliable in terms of this function, which is to convey the spiritual. My advice is to stop trying to use it as history or science. It will only lead to your confusion."


It seems as though they don't give any importance to most of the apostles creed being true or accurate except the Holy Spirit. If they derive their meaning and understanding from the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not detectable or measurable, and the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of all "true Christians" then it is necessarily a self-centered understanding, indistinguishable from a personal bias, and demonstrably different from other "true Christians" which has enabled the justification for Christian on Christian violence.

Since the meaning given by the Holy Spirit is different among groups of Christians, then we have to wonder what the intent of the singular intelligence behind that is. The phenomena of different interpretations deriving from one source doesn't seem to be consistent with a singular intelligence but a collective. Collective intelligence within groups in an organization is consistent with different interpretations. Collective intelligence within groups in an organization is consistent with Human Behavior and does not require any other agent. Therefore there is no reason to posit any external agency except because it appears in the Bible. It is a manifestation of the IDQ Flaw of Ambiguous Representation.

That means that it matters if the representation of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is accurate. If, when applying IDQ metrics we determine that the quality of information about the topics in the Bible have a low accuracy rating relative to their potential, then since the information about the Holy Spirit is contained in that information, it will negatively impact the Believability rating of the information which decreases the likelihood that the information about the Holy Spirit is of Good Quality. For those mathematically minded, this may be a starting point to apply a meaningful Bayesian analysis to the probability of the likelihood that scripture represents real world events.

If the Quality of Information about the Holy Spirit is poor relevant to its potential, and there are disagreements among those who have the Holy Spirit indwelling and disagree about the nature and characteristics of the Holy Spirit, then one cannot say they have a good understanding of what the Holy Spirit is or does. They are agnostic with respect to the Holy Spirit.

In future articles the two metrics I will focus on in my application of IDQ Principles to the Bible are Accuracy and Believability. Once the Accuracy rating is derived, it can be used to derive the believability rating. Once I am finished rebutting Jeffs Article and then J.L. Hinmans over at Cadre Comments I will provide an article showing the calculation of the ratings.

Recommended Reading
Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit
This article is an exploration of some stated and less disputed characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I purposely tried to avoid claims about the Holy Spirit that were disputed between denominations and Churches. I use these relatively undisputed claims as my core premises to construct the argument in favor of the Holy Spirit in order to express doubt about it.
The Role of Persuasion in The Question Of The Holy Spirit
This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.
Children Are Targets of Nigerian Witch Hunt
Introduces the problem of Children in Africa being harmed and killed because the congregation are being persuaded by Evangelical Church Leadership that the children are possessed.
The Holy Spirit and The Analogy of The Flame
This article compares the Holy Spirit to a flame and attempts to weaken the claims found in the bible about the Holy Spirit. The flame informs in a way that the Holy Spirit does not.
Feelings As A Result of The Indwelling of The Holy Spirit
Discusses flashes of intense emotion that I used to attribute to the Holy Spirit but now I realize is apparently a biological response to some hardwired morality/altruism/excitement that humans have built in.

IDQ Flaw of Meaninglessness Representation In The Bible

35 comments
Very little in the Bible can be understood as it is written. To be understood as relevant and applicable to today necessitates speculation, interpretation and pre-processing for general consumption. The Bible, as it is written, has become meaningless even though Church leaders try to speculate, interpret and derive meaning from it. Since Christian leaders don't agree, large portions of the data in the Bible is demonstrably meaningless which is a result of the Information and Data Quality flaw of "Meaningless Representation".

This Article is part seven of the series of articles applying Information and Data Quality (IDQ) Principles to the Bible. The purpose of the series is to show that the Bible is not a reliable or trustworthy source of information about God because it has problems from its origin identified in Information and Data Quality research as causing inaccuracy and unreliability. Links to the previous articles are listed below.

1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies

A brief review of Meaningless Representation(1) follows.

Meaningless representation
When the information system contains superfluous information then it can lead to a situation where the Information System does not accurately represent (map back to) a real world state. For example this can occur by the use of too many descriptive terms, undefined terms or some minor addition to the story intended as an elaboration. Meaningless states can still represent Real World states properly, however it is not a good design in principle to include meaningless data if for no other reason than users may expend resources and make commitments based on the data only to later discover the data to be meaningless. For example, the ancient Greek historian Heroditus, while accurate to a large degree, is known to have exaggerated and to have uncritically included information from apparently unreliable sources.

Figure 1 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state .

Figure 1



Operation Deficiencies - Garbling:
Meaningless State
In human terms, garbling occurs at the point of "consumption" or reading and interpretation. In Information Systems, it occurs at operation time or when the database is being accessed. Garbling occurs when a Real World state is incorrectly mapped to a wrong state in the Information System. There are two cases in which this occurs. If a meaningless state exists, then Real World mapping will be to a meaningless state, or the mapping might be to a meaningful but incorrect information state. This can occur as a result of inaccurate data entry or omissions of real world states at the creation or origin of the data. Analogous examples of this type of garbling are legends, folktales and the "Artistic License" of the author or originator.

Figure 2 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by the superfluous datum.

Figure 2


GENESIS 1-11 IS REGARDED BY SOME LIBERAL CHRISTIANS AND JEWS AS BEING METAPHORICAL
The terms "Divinely Revealed" and "Divinely Inspired" have no consensus therefore they are meaningless terms with respect to the Bible. Additionally, the Bible contradicts established knowledge about such things as the principles and laws of physics of the Universe and Biology. If the Bible was divinely revealed then the fact that its metaphorical should have been divinely revealed. If it was divinely inspired, what does that mean? There is no consensus so it is meaningless. Christianity is meaningless because of its ambiguity, sliding windows and moving goalposts of criteria and definitions. I heartily endorse every Christian to take up their Bible and read it two or three times cover to cover and THINK HARD about what it says. Use your own brain to figure out what it means. Don't let anyone do your thinking for you.

Below are a few lines starting at the beginning of the Bible to ask some critical questions and do some thoughtful elaboration. Please follow along in your Bible.

GENESIS
1:1. So where did God come from? If a creation is evidence of a creator, and if everything that exists is created, then if god exists, he is evidence of his creator or he is "a special case" with no precedent and no extra-biblical evidence or God is a result of apologetic "special pleading" fallacies.
1:2. Is similar to pre-existing Egyptian creation myths
1:3. Where did the light come from without suns? Some speculative "Pre-light"?
1:4. Darkness is the absence of light. To say that light and dark "can be separated" is meaningless.
1:5. This depends on Gen 1:4 being true so its meaningless as well.
1:6. The ancients thought there was as much water in the sky as on the earth somehow being prevented from falling.
1:7. Depends on Gen. 1:6 being true so its meaningless
1:8. Also depends on Gen. 1:6 being true so its meaningless as well.
1:9. This is similar to the pre-existing egyption creation myth of Atum creating a hill out of the watery chaos to become the Egyptian city of Heliopolis so he could stand and then have his temple built on it. The Bible neglects to mention that there is more water than land and there are more than one land mass, which makes it meaningless to "gather the water into one place so that land can appear".
1:10. God named the land and the sea. But that presumes there was and always has been one original language, when it is known that this cannot be true due to the variety of fundamental differences and mutually exclusive features of the languages of the world. Communication between members of a species is not unique to Human Beings. And should there have been an original language that God spoke, then to guarantee its preservation to this day would have been a reasonable and efficient way of guaranteeing the integrity of the Data recorded in the Bible.

As one goes line by line through the Bible elaborating and assessing the information contained within, its mythological character should become undeniable to most people. If we take the Bible to be 100% true when we start reading it, then as we go through it and find statements that we know to be false and we find statements whose truth depends on false statements, then we should reduce our percentage of belief with every fact shown to be false.

Below is an overview of some major but not all inclusive problems with the remaining chapters of Genesis up to chapter eleven. Why is Genesis important? Because it lays the foundation for the human necessity of redemption by way of the Human Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

GENESIS 1 continued
* Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths
* Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era

GENESIS 2
ADAM AND EVE
The Story of Adam and Eve is considered a metaphorical story in Liberal Christian Circles. Several disconfirming facts are listed below with links to my articles elaborating on them.
- Being made in the image of God is meaningless, there is no consensus on what "the image of God" is.
* Disqualifying Adam and Eve. There is no reason outside of the Bible to accept this story as representing a Real World event.
* Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil. Shows how the Christian Tenet that humans are "incompetent" nullifies any reliable interpretation of the Bible or any knowledge supposedly gained through flawed Human reasoning.
* GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity. Shows how lack of Genetic Diversity would prevent the establishment of a Robust and Healthy population.
* Genesis 2:4b-20: Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa. Discusses a correlation between Hebrew and all other Folklore typologies regarding the first humans.
* Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths. Discusses a correlation between Hebrew and all other Folklore typologies regarding Eve.

GENESIS 3: THE FALL OF MAN
- Killed an animal and made clothes for them, the eyed-needle first showed up about 45,000 years ago with the Cro-Magnons(7).
* Adams Sin Was An Emergent Behavior. Shows how the physical makeup of the first Humans guaranteed the emergence of the behavior they subsequently got punished for.
* Gen. 2-3, Normal-form Game Matrix Shows That God Chose The Worst Outcome. Shows that the omniscient God Character in the Bible chose the worst possible outcome for his creation guaranteeing all the problems that subsequently occurred.
* Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent. Shows how Adam and Eve did not have enough life experience to make good decisions.
* Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey.
* Gen. 2:6-9, God Ignored Adams Admonishment Option. Shows that using effective principles of parenting, Adam and Eve's transgression warranted nurturing correction rather than expulsion and the handicap of being cursed by a God.

GEN 4 CAIN AND ABEL
- Founder effect. Due to lack of genetic variation, the effect of the small percentage of natural mutations are amplified in a population generally reducing the efficiency of the organism and increasing the probability of birth defects.
* GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity
- Where did the other people come from, where they all first and second generation relatives?
- 4:17 he built a city and called it Enoch. People first lived in caves then around 28,000 years ago starting building shelter structures out of Mammoth bone(7). How did they go from cavest to bone structures to cities in one generation?

THE MARK OF CAIN
- The Mark of Cain is meaningless. There is no clear consensus on what it was.
- It was thoughtlessly regard by some as Black Skin, justifying racism. However all Cains offspring would have been destroyed in the Flood if the Flood had really happened. Any critical analysis of the text would have revealed that inconsistency.

GEN 5 DESCENDENTS OF ADAM
- no one lived that long, the human body cannot support it. Accumulated DNA Damage guarantees that.
* Wikipedia, DNA Damage Theory of Aging

GEN 6 CORRUPTION OF MANKIND
- Nephilim? Very similar to the Greek Titans.
- Similar to Babylonian myths, Enuma Elish
* Wikipedia, Enuma Elish
- Mathematically and Logistically, the Ark doesn't add up.

GEN 7 THE GREAT FLOOD
- Similar to Babylonian myths, Enuma Elish
- Where did all the water come from and go?

“The book of Genesis says of the Flood that ‘… all the high hills that were under the whole of heaven were covered…’ Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were 10,000 to 20,000 feet of water on the surface of the earth, equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it rained for forty days and forty nights, or for only 960 hours, the rain must have fallen at a rate of at least fifteen feet per hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.” - John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy, (Collins Publishers, 1988), p. 13.


GEN 8 THE FLOOD SUBSIDES
- God evidently changed his mind and said that he would never do that again even though "every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood". God cannot logically change his mind if he knows everything from the beginning. Once he knows the future, the future is set. If the future changes, then he didn't know it. If he knew of a finite number of outcomes, he should have know which one would happen, thereby making all other outcomes irrelevant.
- The earth would be a big marsh after that.

GEN 9 COVENANT OF THE RAINBOW
- Founder effect again.
- The rainbow is a refraction of light and can be reproduced in the lab. It would have been present before the flood unless the physics of the world was different prior. Since God set it up as a "note to self", God cannot be omniscient.
- Noah was mad at Ham so he cursed his son Canaan? All Ham did was tell his brothers that Noah was Naked. Any other interpretation is pure speculation.

GEN 10 DESCENDENTS OF NOAH
- Founder effect again.

GEN 11 TOWER OF BABEL
- How does an ancient Zuggarat no more than 170 meters tall threaten a god and space travel doesn't?
- There was never a single language. The exact definition of Language differs from one theory to another, but it is evident that other species have forms of communication, therefore, it is likely that communication and language develop within a culture, therefore independent of each other.
Wikipedia, Origin of Language
- DNA Damage guarantee humans can't live much more than 120 years.
- God didn't know everything because he was evidently surprised by how capable humans were to build the Zuggarat.

MEANINGLESS ITEMS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
If the Bible was Divinely inspired or Divinely revealed, then its truths should be timeless, not just applicable to the the time frame they were written. Apologists will tell you that the authors were speaking to people of their time, but that excludes any influence that an omniscient being would have had. In fact, plenty of "truths" originating from the ancients have survived relatively uninterpreted and sound to this day, specifically mathematics. Likewise, an omniscient being could be expected to do just as well as its human creations in creating and preserving ideas.

The New Testament is full of meaningless things. Here are a few examples.

DO CHRISTIANS NEED TO LIVE UNDER OLD TESTAMENT LAW OR NOT?
It seems clear that Jesus intended Christians to keep the old testament laws without apologetic equivocation.

17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
19"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.


TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK, ON ITS FACE, IS BAD ADVICE
It enables bad behavior to continue. The middle ground is the more appropriate where harm is minimized and less harmful behavior is nurtured. As it is written, it is meaningless without some further interpretation and speculation on the intention behind the speaker, namely God as Jesus. And who is qualified to interpret the intentions of God?

38 "You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.'
39 "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
40 "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.
41 "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
42 "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

Are Christians saved by Faith, Works or Both?
Depends on who you talk to. There is no consensus therefore it is meaningless.

JESUS COMMITS A FALLACY
"Whoever is not with me is against me" and "whoever is not against us is for us". Logically this is mutually exclusive and it is a fallacious reasoning scheme. If you have three groups of people, committed, rebellious, and ambivalent, then Luke 12:30 would exclude 66% percent while Mark 9:40 would only exclude 33%. Luke would exclude the Middle while Mark would include them. What happens to those that don't care one way or the other? Who knows? Therefore its meaningless and logically inconsistent coming from the mouth of God.

Luke 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters."
Mark 9:40 "For he who is not against us is for us."


Is it possible that God revealed his word to Joseph Smith?
Again, it depends on who you talk to. There is no logical reason that it could not have happened, especially if it presumed that Gods interaction in peoples lives is ongoing to this day.

PRAYER IS MEANINGLESS
My article on "The Promise of Prayer"
Why does one pray? God should already know what is desired. People should not be able to influence God if he has a plan and already knows everything in advance. Does he need or want praise? How does a perfect being need or want anything?

I invite the reader to continue to apply what they already know to elaborating and evaluating the data in the Bible.

References and Further Reading
1. Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
2. GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity
3. Wikipedia, DNA Damage Theory of Aging
4. Wikipedia, Enuma Elish
5. John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy, (Collins Publishers, 1988), p. 13.
6. Wikipedia, Origin of Language
7. Human Prehistory and The First Civilizations, Brian M. Fagan, The Teaching Company

My Criticisms of Genesis One through Three consolidated.
Highlights the characteristics and typologies of Near Eastern folklore in the Bible and points out where it deviates from what we know about history and nature.

1. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths
2. Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era
3. GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity
4. Genesis 2:4b-20: Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa
5. Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths

Criticisms of the Story of Adam and Eve (AKA Adam Bombing).
1. Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil
2. Disqualifying Adam and Eve
3. Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent
4. Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey.
5. Gen. 2:6-9, God Ignored Adams Admonishment Option
6. Adams Sin Was An Emergent Behavior
7. Gen. 2-3, Normal-form Game Matrix Shows That God Chose The Worst Outcome

Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficiencies

19 comments
This article will show how the concept of the Trinity was derived from the Design Deficiency of incomplete representation in scripture leading to "Garbling" causing Scripture to map to a meaningless state. The Bible has many instances of incomplete representation but for the sake of brevity, this article will focus on "Jesus as God". It highlights some disconfirming evidence which refutes the proposition that "Jesus was God" can be rationally determined from the text.

This Article is part five of the series of articles applying Information and Data Quality Principles to the Bible. Links to the previous articles are listed below.
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture

Presuming that Jesus was Jewish, and that Jesus was a rabbi, and that Jewish rabbis were experts in Jewish theology, and Jesus was an expert in Jewish theology, in John 14:6-11 Jesus was not referring to himself as god but more likely referring to a Jewish teaching regarding their view of the relationship between God and Man with respect to the soul. It can also be seen that Jesus did not clearly and unequivocally state that he was the incarnation or personification of God.

The example used in this article could be used for two types of IDQ deficiencies depending on the context. If we presume for the sake of argument that it is true that Jesus was God, then the example falls in the category of the IDQ deficiency of Incomplete representation. If we presume that Jesus was not God then the example would fall under the category of Ambiguous Representation. However, I would prefer to use the presumption that Jesus was God and handle it as a an Incomplete Representation and save the Ambiguous Representation for another example.

As described in my article "Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture"(1), in order for an information system to accurately represent real world events, each of the Information System data must "map" to a real world event.
A brief review of Incomplete Representation and Mapping to a Meaningless State(2) follows.

Incomplete representation
If the Information System is missing some information about the real world, then the information system cannot accurately represent the state of the real world for which it was intended. This is termed as "incompleteness". Figure 1 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and two instances of Data in the D column. One instance of a Real World state is not represented by the Data in column D.

Figure 1


Operation Deficiencies - Garbling:
Meaningless State

In human terms, garbling occurs at the point of "consumption" or reading and interpretation. In Information Systems, it occurs at operation time or when the database is being accessed. Garbling occurs when a Real World state is incorrectly mapped to a wrong state in the Information System. There are two cases in which this occurs. If a meaningless state exists, then Real World mapping will be to a meaningless state, or the mapping might be to a meaningful but incorrect information state. This can occur as a result of inaccurate data entry or omissions of real world states at the creation or origin of the data. Analogous examples of this type of garbling are legends, folktales and the "Artistic License" of the author or originator.

Figure 2 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by the superfluous datum.

Figure 2


The Trinity
The concept of the Trinity was a hotly debated topic for generations that came to a head in 325ce when it was formally adopted as a tenet by the Council of Nicaea(3). It lead to accusations of Heresy, religious persecution and according to sources lead to the poisoning of Arius(4).

Jesus was Jewish and a Jewish principle is that the "soul" is part of God that God has hidden in us, and we are to show it to other people through our lifestyle, and by doing so Gods influence on the earth will be released.
On the website Askmoses.com, Rabbi Shlomo Chein(5) responds to a request to define the Jewish soul. He says

" A person is known as a "miniature world". The soul can perhaps be explained as a "microcosm of G-d". By allowing his G-dly soul to be expressed within his own existence the Jew can bring G-d into all of existence."

"So the next time you face adversary, feel ostracized, or question your ability to carry out your Divine mission of Judaism, remember, G-d is not only with you, He is in you."


But Scripture tells that Jesus said the following about himself which has been used to justify the concept of the Trinity. If Jesus really said this and he was a Jewish Rabbi it is not likely that he meant that he was God on Earth.

John 14:6-11
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."
8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.


So if John 14:6-11 represents the type of thing Jesus said about himself, and Jesus was a Rabbi, Jesus probably had the same concept as Rabbi Chein and was not saying that he was God incarnate. It seems to be a misinterpretation of a Jewish teaching that was not part of Gentile culture. Understood as the Jewish viewpoint of the soul, it makes more sense, but understanding it as Jesus saying that he was God on Earth, can only be described as DOUBLETALK.

Jesus never clearly said that he was God on earth, and he never said that he, God and the holy spirit were one substance. Therefore, if it is true, and it was not included in the scriptures, it is the design flaw of incomplete representation. It has been shown through IDQ research that "Poor data quality can have a severe impact on the overall effectiveness of an organization"(2) and "Poor data quality can have substantial social and economic impacts"(6). Christianity has had a relatively poor adoption rate compared to Mathematics which was developing about the same time(13). Mathematics adoption is practically ubiqutious where Christianity is not. These results can be explained, when compared to Christianity by the relatively high quality of information about Mathematics, its relevance, utility, reproducability, and resultant plausibility.

The scriptures recognized the problem with Information and Data Quality, but the insight they demonstrated was typically human and poor when compared to their peers. They had no divine guidance about how to handle this "divine revelation". Instead, they handled it inadequately by warning against false prophets and worrying about the "correct" interpretation of scripture which has resulted in a very splintered church(7). Not even the "Holy Spirit" has been effective in preserving the true meaning of the text across Christian Churches and denominations. Due to lack of clarity, many interpretations have been derived from poorly designed scripture and have resulted in the three major divisions which are The Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestant Churches. Further competing interpretations have lead to each of those divisions having various subdivisions resulting in tens of thousands of denominations. Furthermore this has historically led to Christian on Christian violence which leads to a doubt about the Holy Spirit(8) and is not likely to be something intended by Yahweh or foreseen by him, or those that put words in his mouth. Christians will equivocate this point calling it "the body of Christ" pointing to the parable of the grape vine, but we know through real world experience, trial and error, applications in business, war strategy and a field of research that it is a weakness and a sign of poor performance, so much so that there are sayings addressing it, "United we stand, divided we fall", "Divide and Conquer" and "Divide and Rule".

God showed remarkable lack of insight by not providing instructions for ensuring the Quality of Data and Information, or in picking the right people that would have done it naturally or that would have figured it out without compromising their free will. The Fact that Jesus verifies scripture as Gods word and it can be shown to be of such poor quality is further disconfirming evidence that the scripture is the word of god and that Jesus was god on earth. From the text, it cannot rationally be determined whether Jesus was God or not and interpreting John from the view point of a Jewish Expert, Jesus was just repeating a Jewish teaching about the soul.

Below are some lists showing how poor quality data has lead to the splintering of Christianity and its poor 33% performance world wide over 2000 years(9).

A Short List of Christian Denominations
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

A List of Inter-Christian controversies
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

References and Further Reading
1. Overview Of IDQ Design Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
2. Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
3. Wikipedia - Formulation of the doctrine of the trinity
4. Wikipedia - Arius
5. Askmoses.com, Rabbi Shlomo Chein describes the Jewish Soul
6. Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
7. Wikipedia - Christian Denominations
8. Reasonable Doubt About The Holy Spirit
9. Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents
10. Wikipedia - Arianism
11. Wikipeda - Trinity
12. Wikipedia - Christology
13. Wikipedia, History of Mathematics

Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture

32 comments
The originators of scripture had a remarkable lack of insight when creating scripture considering it was revealed to them by God. Apparently God didn't reveal to them some fundamental principles in ensuring they were creating quality information and data that would stand the test of time and generations.

This article introduces Information and Data Quality design deficiencies which will be elaborated on with scriptural examples in follow on articles and will serve as quick reference for them. It is part four of a series on applying IDQ priniciples to cross-checking the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible. Links to the preceding articles follow.
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible

What are Design Deficiencies?
As the saying goes "Do it right the first time" many industries recognize and practice the principle of ensuring quality early in the production cycle to avoid problems later in the cycle or in the market(27). As a marksman knows when taking aim, a tiny deviation from the target at the source can lead to large deviation at the target. By not ensuring data integrity and quality at the creation of scripture, many problems have manifested themselves and continue to appear as the scripture gets older. Metaphors do not retain their integrity in meaning over thousands of years. Some of the problems have led to persecution for heresy, divisions in the church and division of the Churches into denomintations until there are tens of thousands of variations of Christianity in existence. For example, they may all agree that Jesus died on the Cross, but they don’t all agree on his nature.

With these kinds of problems it is no wonder why after close to 2000 years, Christianity has only a 33% mind share while all other religions together total 66%(28). Its not that people are evil so they don't believe, it is that there are no compelling reasons to believe in Jesus. Comparing all these religions to some other philosophical ideas that were developing in parallel about the same time, Mathematics has become ubiquitous while the various religions are still languishing under the weight of implausibility(26).

The originators of scripture had a remarkable lack of insight when creating scripture considering it was revealed to them by God. Apparently God didn't reveal to them some fundamental principles in ensuring they were creating quality information and data that would stand the test of time and generations. And furthermore God had a choice in who he revealed scripture to. Using the law of large numbers, he would have been able to analyze and consider any number of millions of starting points for his desired outcome to include the one person that would start a path of reliable transmission of the data from person to person(29). He, like no one else, had the ability to choose the one in ten million starting point that would have gotten the scripture to this point uncorrupted.

Overview of Proper Representation and Design Deficiencies
Some fundamental deficiencies in data design and creation have been identified in the field of Information and Data Quality through research and trial and error(3). Each of them will be defined in this overview and then how they relate to scripture will be elaborated on separately in follow on articles.
They are as follows.
- Incomplete representation
- Ambiguous representation
- Meaningless representation
- Garbling by mapping to a meaningless state
- Garbling by mapping to a wrong state

Proper representation
In order for an Information System (IS) to accurately represent real world events, each of the datum in the Information System must "map" to real world states. Each real word state must be accounted for in the information system. Having more than one instance of a Real World state (a record) is appropriate if it represents an aspect of the Real World state that hasn't been previously accounted for. To have more than one instance of a record of the same Real World state doesn't add any significant value, but a record of the same Real World state that has related data, in another context for example, adds value if it doesn't lead to a meaningless Real World state such as a contradiction. For example, having two instances of the same story do not add any value unless one of the stories has different information in it which does not contradict the other. Figure 1 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and four instances of Data in the D column. Each Real World state is represented by a datum in the information system with one instance of a Real World state being represented by two instances of data in the Information System.

Figure 1.


Incomplete representation
If the Information System is missing some information about the real world, then the information system cannot accurately represent the state of the real world for which it was intended. This is termed as "incompleteness". Figure 2 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and two instances of Data in the D column. One instance of a Real World state is not represented by the Data in column D.

Figure 2



Ambiguous representation
While it is permissible to use to a multiple datum to represent one real world state, it is not permissible to use one datum to represent two real world states. If multiple Real World states are represented by one datum there is not enough information with which to accurately represent either Real World state. This situation is called "Ambiguity". It is similar to incomplete representation because it can be considered an instance of missing information, even though one datum could incompletely represent two instances of a Real World state because it is not specific enough. It is analogous to using the term "she" in a conversation when discussing an event concerning multiple women. By not specifying which "she" is being referenced, the details of the event become unclear because the "she" being referred to is ambiguous.

Figure 3 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and two instances of Data in the D column. One instance of a Real World state is not represented by the Data in column D but instead, two instances of Real World states are represented by one instance of an information state.

Figure 3



Meaningless representation
When the information system contains superfluous information then it can lead to a situation where the Information System does not accurately represent (map back to) a real world state. For example this can occur by the use of too many descriptive terms, undefined terms or some minor addition to the story intended as an elaboration. To say that in a battle some person or group chose a brilliant strategy and exhibited exceptional strength or bravery may mean that an unintended desperate situation has been incorrectly represented and will be incorrectly interpreted. This situation happens often in television, movies and songs about historical events such as the Spartan battle with the Persians at Thermopylae depicted in the movie "300" or Egyptian Hieroglyphs documenting events in the lives of pharoahs.

Figure 4 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state .

Figure 4



Operation Deficiencies - Garbling:
Meaningless State
In human terms, garbling occurs at the point of "consumption" or reading and interpretation. In Information Systems, it occurs at operation time or when the database is being accessed. Garbling occurs when a Real World state is incorrectly mapped to a wrong state in the Information System. There are two cases in which this occurs. If a meaningless state exists, then Real World mapping will be to a meaningless state, or the mapping might be to a meaningful but incorrect information state. This can occur as a result of inaccurate data entry or omissions of real world states at the creation or origin of the data. Analogous examples of this type of garbling are legends, folktales and the "Artistic License" of the author or originator.

Figure 5 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by the superfluous datum.

Figure 5



Map to a wrong state
Figure 6 illustrates this phenomena by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by a valid however incorrect or unintended information state.

Figure 6


In successive articles I will explore each IDQ design deficiency and give a biblical example.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
1. Wikipedia, "Data Management"
2. Information Quality at MIT
3. Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
4. DMReview, Data Management Review
5. IQ-1 Certificate Program
6. Wikipedia, 2003 Invasion of Iraq
7. How Accurate Is The Bible?
8. Datalever.com
9. Wikipedia, Tanakh
10. Null Hypothesis
11. Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
12. IQ Benchmarks
13. Reasonable Doubt About Adaption Theory
14. IQ Trainwrecks
15. Robert Harris' VirtualSalt
16. Data Quality Assessment
17. Cornell University Library
18. Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agnecies
19. East Tennesee State University Researchers Toolbox
20. George Mason Univeristy
21. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Evaluating Internet Resources
22. The Virtual Chase, Criteria for Quality in Information--Checklist
23. Know Your Bible
24. Wikipedia, Authors of The Bible
25. Ancient HistoriansPart 1, Part 2
26. Wikipedia, History of Mathematics
27. Data Quality Requirements Analysis and Modeling
28. Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents
29. Making Sense of Probability