Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficiencies

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

19 comments:

Rich said...

Hi Lee,
I decided to wait until you opened up new articles to continue. So as far as the trinity goes, The doctrine of the trinity is not biblical. It was formed a few centuries after Christ, as you pointed out. We believe that God, the Son, and The Holy Ghost are three separate and distict beings with one purpose. The statement that if you have seen Christ, you have seen the Father, is the same likeness that any father would have to his son. Jesus is continually distiguishing himself as a distict person from his father and come to earth to do the will of his father. He never says he is here to do his own will, which would be consistant with them being one and the same person.

This doesn't refute your data quality, because according to that, it should be clear one way or the other. This is a doctrine that also was added after the bible, so doesn't that make it an addition to the scriptures? Something the bible specifically states shouldn't be done.

Rich said...

Oh, be the way , as I was reading up on the topic I ran across some info about John 1:1 that I found interesting. I wish I could find it again. Apparently this verse also is suppose to possible be about the trinity.
It states, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
Then it talked about the word was having 3 different meanings when translated into english, except I can't remember from what language, greek I think but I could be wrong.
The 1st was is a statement of existence, like the word existed. The second was links the word with God, a statement of relationship of one thing to another. The 3rd was the hard one to translate into english because the really isn't a good way to tranlate the meaning. It is meant to be a predicate, not an identity. Like saying, "George Washington is the united states." It isn't to imply that the united states and George are one and the same, but identifies George with the united states in attributes and such. Of coarse it was explained much better then I can evert dream of doing.;)

Anonymous said...

Hi Rich,
I see you've been doing some research,
Good for you! Keep it up! Learn as much as you can about the origins of Christianity all the way back to the beginning.

Thanks for that interpretation

Have you looked into Judaiism? I've taken three courses in it so far and I read Jewish websites that explain parts of the OT. I highly recommend it because no one is an authority on the OT like a Jew. They originated it, its in their language, they are the experts.

Another exercise you might want to do is make a time line and put the origin of the books of the bible in it. You'll see how Mark, Luke, Matthew and John are not even close in dates of origin and how Pauls writings bridge the gap of Mark and one of the others I can't remember. Then you might consider the important tenets that paul didn't mention, like christ being born from a virgin and such. Then you might want to consider, where are the stories of when Jesus was a Kid? Can you Imagine God as a Kid? the first place we see anything special about him is when he's like 12years old and sneaked off from his parents to be with the church leaders.
think about that, SNEAKED OFF FROM HIS PARENTS. I know he's god and all, but that is just flat out inconsiderate. anyway....I'm rambling....

Another big question for me was
Why didn't jesus write anything down? Sure pythagorus and socrates didn't write anything either but they were good half century or more before Jesus, but the likes of plato and aristotle set the standard. Aristotle developed Logic for Gods Sake, which worked unaltered until George Bool (I think) figured out how to get around an interpretive inconsistency.

It is just beyond my belief that if Jesus was God he wouldn't have written anything down and gave instructions how to preserve it.

What Lee believes is not relevant, but showing how God violates rational principles time after time to undermine his goal of getting us rational creatures to believe in him is.

Its like its not really God putting out the information, its like , oh I don't know.....like its uneducated bronze age tribal leaders, and uneducated Hellenized Jews that didn't understand their heritage (meaning such things as correctly interpreting "son of man" in the time Daniel was written, about a hundred years after alexander the great conquered that area, if I'm remembering right. He was greek you know, and the new testament was partially written in Greek. Especially the Septuagint).

Like saying, "George Washington is the united states."
or the parts in the movie "Blades of Glory" where Chaz Michaels Screams "Chaz Michaels IS Men's Figure Skating!"

Anonymous said...

If you want to see religion done right,
look at the pythagoreans.
- Their mathematics were generally ubiquitously adopted across cultures and survive today.
- Same thing with their idea of the Soul, and its incorporated into christianity
- They wrote stuff down that was verifiable and reproducible and is independent of interpretation. It just works, therefore is true.
- They originated NEW INFORMATION, STUFF THAT NO ONE ON THE PLANET HAD SEEN BEFORE, kind of like you'd expect from a godly bunch.
- And they made a comeback between 200bc and 200ce, and guess what? Jesus was right smack dab in the middle of that. hmmmmmmm, coincidence? hmmm......at least a strong correlation if not causal. hmmm, soul, essence, morality tied to essence, essence or forms exist before the world.....hmmmm
any of this ring a bell?

Rich said...

I have somewhat looked into judaiism and I find it interesting for sure. It looks like the pythagoreans will be an interesting read also. That gives me some chewin away to do in the web. I thought this was a post that would spark some interest. It may yet just be early. :)

Anonymous said...

HI Richd,
over at theology web they reviewed it but it was just their usual strategy of the typically ill-considered ad hominems with no substance. They called me "DJ's useful idiot" and then used my list of further reading as reason enough to discredit me. They evidently didn't differnentiate between the scholarly articles and wikipedia.

If a childrens book says Jesus was born in bethlehem, and I want to use it as a source, then if that datum is also accepted widely as fact, then it shouldn't matter IN A BLOG.

Anyway, I only use wikipedia as quick reference where it doesn't contradict what I've learned elsewhere. Unfortunately I can't mark my memories with references. I wish I had a photographic memory. I'm told that my grandfather that was a minister that committed suicide had a photographic memory. I suspect he "figured it out" and didn't want to live like that. anyway....

I thought I'd get some more hits too. I have my suspicions why, but we'll see when I use these as premises later on over time.

BobCMU76 said...

I don't know who DJ is, but JP is holding a few cards shy of a full deck.

I'm silently lurking, because I thought we'd exhausted the earlier discussion. I'm interested in what Rich and Rev Phil would bring to the discussion, and whoever else might pop in.

Besides, on my buffet of Bible teaching from which I pick and choose what's palatable, I think of the Gospel of John as I might liver and onions or mackeral sushi, two of the most revolting foods I know.

Clearly words are being put into Jesus' mouth by someone who is not a Jewish rabbi. I don't know how authentic the quotes are in the Synoptic Gospels, but I doubt a single word in John is authentic.

Ask me how I come to this conclusion, and I'd be hard pressed to answer, but mostly, the Jesus portrayed in John reminds me of Ram Dass.

"Jesus is God" is a declaration that I cherish, but, as I said before, it's more speculative than a priori.

If God is a cipher, Lee, then clearly He means to be that. But you begin all your arguments by assuming God does not wish to be a cipher, and the fact that he is proves either His incompetence or His invention by incompetents.

Perhaps it proves what Jesus was so often compelled to prove. He was here for His purposes, not ours.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,
Thanks for playing again. ;-)

If God is a cipher, Lee, then clearly He means to be that. But you begin all your arguments by assuming God does not wish to be a cipher, and the fact that he is proves either His incompetence or His invention by incompetents.

What principle justifies that, considering god is good, and perfect, God should be cryptic?

I'm not talking about a human principle, I'm talking about a general principle that spans categories of species, where the members of the species learn from each other.

This isn't about what Lee thinks, this is about RATIONAL PRINCIPLES.

Does it make sense to you, that if my kids teacher is teaching in riddles, using texts that do not corroborate each other to some degree and then my child fails, that I should take that as some inadequacy in my child?

Does the fact that the teachers teaching style is cryptic make my child responsible for failing?

Should anyones teaching style be cryptic when it is a matter of life and death?

Is god the only exception?

See, this violates rational principles of communication, and what you are suggesting is that god is using irrational methods to try to have a relationship with us, and you buy into this uncertainty by saying you believe it on grounds that I bet a million pounds wouldn't satisfy you in any other domain. Domains such as your childs education, or your Government, or your insurance etc.

The only way out of this is to say that you can't trust the bible, or that God is irrational so you can't trust him...er, her..sorry ( i remember now that you refer to God as Her for some reason which you haven't divulged yet, [how mysterious ;-) ], or that its all folklore.

In any case there is no reason to believe in Christianity over any other religion, and there is good reason to think that its all man-made based on a lot of strong disconfirming evidence.

If your claim that Jesus is God is speculative, then you must not have much faith in it, and if thats true, I can show you a gospel scripture that says that not all people that confess Jesus is lord will be saved.

I'll bet you believe you will be saved on faith like a mustard seed, but then again, you can't be certain of that because God has a cryptic style of communication doesn't he? And you don't know what information is accurate in the bible or not do you?

BobCMU76 said...

Lee, coloquey is fun, but other folk ought barge right in too.

Pounds, you say? Are you one who dreams of shillings still? What I don't understand is why Jefferson didn't have us adopt metric right at the beginning. I bet it appealed to him. Parochialities like pounds and furlongs and pecks of pickled peppers don't facilitate us all getting along, but at least we can know how the other guy does his thing, even when we don't. I can but metric wrenches... but discovered recently I can't buy metric drill bits. Not at Home Depot, at least.

How much trust do I put in God? He doesn't have my breakfast ready when I wake. He could. But then neither does my wife. I'm heating up a can of chili, risking heartburn while I stand out in the cold selling used bedclothes that I'll wish I could curl up in and keep warm. Of course, God could make it 20C today instead of 20F. But he won't. I trust that to be true, as much as I trust anything I eat in the morning, I must prepare.

God being a cipher is not an obstacle to trust, but is the basis of my trust. If He (I alternate gender when I speak of Her, a rhetorical quirk implying that God is categorically uncategoricable) were to meddle into minutiae, then I wouldn't trust anything around me to be like it has always been.

Harry has an interesting post recently about divination by the priests of YHWH. Which I recommend, and employ as segue into the gambler's God. I wrote William Bennett to scold him about the gambler's God... that feeling gamblers get of fortune guiding their reward and punishment through the cards, dice, reels, or whathaveyou. It's a psychological fallacy, but probably universal. Some people do believe, I suppose, that God acts through singular random occurances which don't replicate. that She acts in a coin toss. Or in the vague area hidden from human view, or even speculation, in the wave/particle duality. In gambling, one wants to know what he's trusting. And I trust probabilities, not divine influence... but... upon what basis do I trust in the absence of divine influence? That is a faith proposition. Your faith proposition is that divinity is not influential. Mine is the She is, but can't be bothered. William Bennetts appear's to be "He loves me, He loves me not." as he spins the slots for hundreds a pop, because God only makes His love known when you really put Him on the line. Nickel video poker like I play.... well of course She's not bothered. Bennett would probably ask why I bother.

I know, I know.... you're asking what the old coot is talking about... I'm not answering your question directly, but I think I'm answering. It's a Romans chapter 1 answer... God is all around us. You see the wave equation of electromagnetic behavior and say "That's nature" and I say "That's God's nature" and it's God's nature to be reliable. God would rather have us consult physicists than witch doctors. God would rather us be atheists than New Age disciples of some charismatic self claimed seer into the unseen realm. He would have us read Mark Twain more than Tim LaHaye.

So back to gambling, I want confidence that when I assure myself mystical forces aren't at play in the roll of the dice, that is more than just wishful thinking.

I'm disposed at this point not to lecture on the same, because I strain for that confidence. It is elusive. How, Lee, do you find confidence in that same belief, which I am confident that you hold along with me. Do you find that confidence under assault, ever? I do, all the time. And along with telling myself "What happens, happens" to fight off the all-too-human impluse to assign supernatural attribution, I have a vague trust in providential forces, that I'll put thus....

It's not whether the coin comes up heads or tails, but what outcomes heads and tails represent that God influences. Or is it just faith which influences that? That I'll leave for another day. I gotta get moving.

Rich said...

Hi Lee,
George Bool (I think) figured out how to get around an interpretive inconsistency.

I had to learn his logic in electronics, and it's very useful. And I actually think its Boole.

They evidently didn't differnentiate between the scholarly articles and wikipedia.

I'm not convinced that JP can. I would like to actually see him show where you are wrong of the "yea rights" and the "whatevers." I think you can trust that I will agree with you when I think you are right and disagree when I think you're wrong. I think here you are right, in the trinity being non-biblical. There are 3 distict individuals that make up what I have always refered to as the Godhead. That term is not in the bible but the concept is biblical. Three individuals that make up a governing body, God the father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Ghost.
It looks like you started the next post so I will most likely be heading over there unless something comes along here.

Anonymous said...

Thanks rich,
see ya over there!

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,
How, Lee, do you find confidence in that same belief, which I am confident that you hold along with me.
would you mind rephrasing that for me? I am not sure what you were referring to.

I feel a comment about the differences in degrees of beliefs, inference and experience, relative certainty and knowledge bubbly-wubbling in my innards.

BobCMU76 said...

Lee, somehow I'm not getting eMail notices when new comments are added, even when I subscribe.

Let's try to settle your stomach here....

I'm talking about random occurences, formally so. Flipping coins. Rolling dice. Playing video poker.

We are pretty confident, almost certain, you and I, that the mathematics of probability are well established and well tested and can reach conclusions about aggregate behavior of repeated trials.

What I was refering to is our inclination to project personality into these random events. This annoying irrational impulse to take personally how the dice fall.

I have faith that there is no personality out to get me or out to reward me in the flip of a coin. I have faith that when I mess around with I Ching reading, that the sign cast is just an arbitrary signifier with which to organize thought and conversation, not a window into destiny.

I'm pretty confident that you don't believe the outcome of a purely chance proposition is an indication of your worth or favor with the gods. What I'm asking is whether your thoughts are ever contrary to your beliefs.

You could call this a question out of John's First Epistle. It's about bona fides. Oh Brother, Where art Thou.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,
What I'm asking is whether your thoughts are ever contrary to your beliefs.
well, I solve problems and have to work around other peoples cognitive processes all day long. Part of my job is to troubleshoot global communication systems. That is why I am so interested in persuasion, argumentation, informal logic and cognitive science. So I bet my view of beliefs, relative certainty, thoughts, knowledge, decision making and what-not are different from yours.

So yes sometimes my thoughts go against my beliefs. But then I don't have much success troubleshooting systems or negotiating with a tech on the other side of the world using my beliefs, and my thoughts. I have to use a starting point like everyone else and then think it through, make a hypothesis (guess) and try it out, take what i learned from there and make a (hopefully) better guess and persuade the other tech that there is REASON to think that the problem may be on their side. They aren't going to increase their workload because I think or I believe the problem may be on their end, I have to present a persuasive evidence based argument, sometimes with data in the form of equipment logs, to get them to add me to their daily workload.

So yes sometimes my thoughts go against my beliefs, but then I gather evidence from falsification until I arrive at my solution.

In the real world, Christian Reasoning algorithms just don't cut it. In my view, this more anything else is how I wound up an Atheist.

Anonymous said...

oh yea, the email thing.
In this portion of DC they don't work for me either. But they are working and have worked in my other articles. Email notification is a global setting for the entire blog, and notifications for each article are a choice the user makes in the comment window (as you know).

That is "probably" a blog server thing and out of our control. The reason is that if any email notifications work based on what DC admins have done, then they all should. If not then the problem is in the underlying processes which would be in the domain of the Blogger/blogspot server admins.

See? inference from experience, principle, and evidence I have come up with a hypothesis that I am ready to present to 'the other side' for their consideration and action.

BobCMU76 said...

About the email thing. It was working for all articles (terminology problems, I refer to a blog as a collection of articles. When on the index page, you are at the blog. Click a headling and you reach an article. many folks call articles "blogs" and I find this to be a mis-mapped state)

At some point, it ceased working for any articles.

I'm reporting what I observe. I might have changed some global setting that override my subscription to comments for particular articles, either for this blog or for all blogspot blogs. It is not impossible that such global setting can be altered by another hand.

Granted, you have an academic interest and daily interaction with other cognative beings. Your knowledge is both analytical/empirical and self-referential/empathic, though we place a different emphasis on each. And I've probably left out a hand-full, perhaps a chest-full of epistemelogical tools.

My question of belief was specifically the absence of personality guiding a formally random process. The beginning of atheism -- that the Gambler's God is dead, never lived.

But you pretty much come up with the line "I've got to get assholes to feed me reliable facts and do my bidding, so I can do my very important service to the global organism which sustains me with generous bi-monthly tribute to my exalted humanity".

Yes, we do think differently. But that telling phrase of yours "WOKR AROUND" pretty much sums up your scorn for a God who does not feed you relibale data, or do your bidding.

Anonymous said...

HI Bob,
I'll check with our primary blog admin and see what he says about our email settings. I get emails regardless because I am in the 'admin' group, and I have been getting hit and miss emails from my other articles.

I'll answer the rest of your comment after I get through reading it.

Anonymous said...

HI Bob,
Yes, we do think differently. But that telling phrase of yours "WOKR AROUND" pretty much sums up your scorn for a God who does not feed you relibale data, or do your bidding.
you pretty much showed your scorn for me with that ad hominem.

those other people work with me to derive a successful outcome, through communication, trial and error, exchange of ideas.

God doesn't communicate with me and never has in anyway that I can understand. If you say he communicated with me all along but I wasn't listening, then you are ignoring the fact that I recognize 'other minds' that communicate with me all the time, and I pay attention. Even when they are annoying and I have to be polite. Even when its not in my best interest.

I think you'll agree that paying attention to a god when its communicating is in my best interest.

There was a point after 9/11 that I stopped 'special pleading' for god and turned my troubleshooting skills on my belief system. I turned my rational framework that i use for everything else on my God. I started applying sound principles that work in other areas of my life loose in my religious domain.

How does your god communicate with you? Had any prayers answered that wouldn't have worked themselves out on their own or have beat overwhelming odds? If so, why is it that you can expect god to do your bidding but I shouldn't?

BobCMU76 said...

Nope -- the Big Guy doesn't talk to me either. I don't much trust folk who says She does or try desperately to listen.

But your concern in these posts is specifically about the Bible's failure to meet some standard of reliablility to which you hold God accountable. I don't really hold that attitude in scorn so much as vague amusement at phrases like "IDQ design deficiency." as if God ought know SQL. (or course how could an omnicient God not know, eh? -- I think omnicience is a foolish attribute to pin to God... Perhaps God's (metaphorical) speech to Job is akin to my doctor asking me "Have you been to Med School?"

I guess I ought just drop my ill-phrased inquiry into the Gambler's God. I thought it might be pleasant, but it hasn't turned out to by anything of the kind.

Thanks for any inquiry that might address my email problem. I'm still trying to recall if I encountered some kind of global that I changed. I really have no such recollection, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened.