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
By now everyone has heard about the plane crash in the Hudson River. The "miraculous" landing was facilitated by a human being prepared for the split second decisions he had to make by a lifetime of EXPERIENCE, DATA GATHERING, DATA ANALYSIS and SOLUTION PROVIDING. PRAISE SULLY! HALLELUJAH FOR IDQ! Can I get A "HUMAN"?
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III
Sullenberger is president and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods Inc., which is a company he founded that provides
* Analysis/Assessment
* Risk Evaluation
* Strategic Vision/Mission
* Executive/Leadership Enhancement
* Targeted Training Development and Implementation
* Team Coaching
* Transition to High Reliability Organization
consulting services to business, government, aviation and health care.
He has three degrees and forty years experience combined as a commercial and military fighter pilot.
News Excerpt from CNN about Sully
US Airways captain the 'consummate pilot', CNN
The pilot speaks internationally on airline safety, and collaborates with the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California-Berkeley, whose researchers look for ways to avoid air disasters.
Sullenberger was primed to help passengers aboard the Airbus A320 survive the crisis, said Karlene Roberts, a university professor who co-directs the center.
Education: U.S. Air Force Academy, B.S.; Purdue University, M.S.; Northern Colorado University, M.A.
He was an instructor and Air Line Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member, according to a biography on the Web site of his company.
He participated in several U.S. Air Force and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations, and worked with NASA scientists on a paper on error and aviation, according to his resume.
In industries such as Aviation, Safety and Health care Information and Data Quality are fundamental. Data Gathering is audited for its accuracy and information is treated as a product.
To illustrate the point here is what the US National Transportation and Safety Board have to say about Information and Data Quality
National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
Quality - information should incorporate utility, objectivity, accuracy, and integrity.
* Utility - information should be useful for its intended audience.
* Objectivity - information products should be unbiased.
* Accuracy - factual information must be accurate, clear, concise, and complete.
* Integrity - information released to the public should be secure from tampering, modification, or destruction.
So the next time you put your safety in the hands of a professional, you better hope its an educated human that places a high degree of importance in Information and Data Quality principles.
In the last few days I've seen several people who had nothing to do with the decisions made in that cockpit thanking God for their safety, and thanking God that Sully was the right man at the right time, but Sully didn't spend his life preparing for those minutes in Church. He did it by a lifetime of working hard and using his head.
And if God had anything to do with it, then he interfered with normal human activities and interfered with the free will of numerous people. If the claim is that God did it for his Glory, then where was he? All I saw was bunch of Humans doing what Humans do best, helping each other in times of trouble, and many hard working, highly skilled, professionals doing a great job, doing what they had prepared for.
No God Required.
Crisis? Just call educated, data driven humans.
Thank Sully!
Thank the flight crew!
Thank the boat crews!
Thank safety training!
Thank IDQ!
Give the credit where the credit is due.
This documentary debunks faith healings fairly well!
Edit on March 10, 2011: This video no longer exists but here's another one,
so enjoy.
One of the most curious arguments for the existence of God has been presented by St. Anselm, René Descartes, and many other theologians throughout the centuries: the Ontological Argument. The classical formulation of the argument is (1):
1. God is that entity than which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must be necessary.
4. God necessarily exists.
Perhaps the most challenging formulation of the argument is presented today by Alvin Plantinga. Dr. William Lane Craig presents Plantinga's argument as (2):
1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then He exists in every possible world. ($$)
4. If He exists in every possible world, He must exist in the actual world.
I will discuss this particular formulation at length in this article.
The Classical Take
A brief statement about the classical version of this argument is necessary, particularly about the necessity of "necessary" being an inherently positive quality in and of itself, without regards to its referent in reality. This is not entirely clear; a fantastic counterexample would be certain events in the context of human history, which as an A-time theorist I hold to be necessary facts of existence. Suppose, for instance, that Adam and Eve existed and chose to Fall. Then, unless one is a high-Calvinist, the necessity (by asssumption) of the Fall would be a negative quality, as opposed to a positive one, as the action in the Fall brought death and damnation to Adam, Eve, and subsequently, to all of us. Therefore, it cannot be established that necessity qua necessity is an inherently positive quality of existence.
Other refutations exist of this presentation, from skeptics to believers. Hume famously rejected the argument by stating that it was logically possible to conceive the nonexistence of every entity in reality, i.e. it is logically possible to conceive that the truth value of the existence of every particular entity in the actual world is equal to "false." Geisler and Corduan endorse this objection (3).
Plantinga's Take
Plantinga opens the playing field to the set of all possible worlds. In his presentation, we are asked to imagine every logically possible world, where a possible world is defined to be a world (or state of existence) such that the set of all logical facts describing the world
p1^p2^p3^...^pn
exists without internal contradiction. Now, personally, I agree with the rather minority viewpoint that the only possible world is the actual world, given that I accept the necessity of entities in reality as my primary philosophical axiom (4). But for the sake of argument, I will accept a multiplicity of possible worlds, assumed in this case to be infinite (5). Although counterintuitive if we view Craig's presentation (6) of possible worlds as consisting only of a finite set of facts, we are assuming that the set of facts in one possible world can differ from the set of facts in another possible world arbitrarily. Let's begin the critique with these understandings.
Craig asserts all premises save premise #1 is "relatively uncontroversial," a point which I disagree heavily and will touch upon later. He then goes on to establish a priori warrant for premise #1, stating that the intuitive concept of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being must be logically incoherent to invalidate the premise. Bill first attempts to show how typical objections along the "maximally great island" lines fail, asserting "there could always be more palm trees and native dancing girls." While true, I sort of have an ill feeling that Craig's criticism is misplaced: certainly an island completely filled with dancing women to the point where nobody could move anywhere but into the ocean would be less great than if four or five women were there to greet me with some freshly cut coconuts.
Bill states the stronger criticism that such concepts are relative to the observer; perhaps, as Bill says, another person would prefer a full resort while another an empty desert island. Indeed, the person in question could be a woman who would prefer men on the island, or, in my case, some other tropical fruit apart from coconuts given my distaste for them. But that doesn't disprove the notion that a maximally great tropical island is logically possible for all humanity (who are interested in these things to begin with). Perhaps the island could contain several resorts sorted for particular tastes, and could contain areas of desertion where those who prefer to be away from civilization could relax maximally. It may be so that not every desire is satisfied by all of our prospective visitors, but the fact remains that a resort island built to maximize every interested person's preferences and leave everyone at least happy that they came is not necessarily impossible logically due to relativity in preference.
A discussion follows regarding quasi-maximal beings. Let's suppose that a logically possible world W1 exists where the maximal being exists and where Fred Sanford, say, is born with omnipotence and omniscience, but not omnibenevolence (Bill offers an example of a quasi-maximal being lacking knowledge of future events). This being may be derived in the same method as the maximal being: given the establishment of a maximal being, we may use the same logic to establish a quasi-maximal being, i.e. the necessary existence in a possible world of a being "one step down" from our maximal one.
Craig correctly states that the maximal being could choose not to create the quasi-maximal being with His creation powers, but why do we presuppose that the maximal being created? Given these premises, it is not logically impossible that a quasi-maximal being exists; perhaps in a possible world Fred Sanford and God existed side-by-side, with the only difference between the two (apart from conscious separation) being that Fred had a bit more heartburn. In this presentation, our quasi-maximal being would be uncreated, as our maximal being is. As another side note, it is possible, logically, that a quasi-maximal being created the maximal one; there is no premise that states that to be created is less in maximality than to have existed in all states of our logically possible world, only that the maximal being's existence in this world is necessary. It is my charge, then, that the challenges stand and that the a priori concept of a maximal being still presents the incoherency that Craig assumes to have been refuted. (**)
Craig then goes on to discuss an a posteriori establishment of Premise #1, but Craig treads carefully here: "I remain uncertain of this argument ... which would require us to reject various nominalistic alternatives to conceptualism such as fictionalism, constructabilism, figuralism, and so forth. Still, prominent philosophers such as Plantinga have endorsed it." (7) This concern is brought forth from Plantinga's a posteriori establishment via means of grounding abstractions metaphysically n the mind of some being, since, as Plantinga argues, they cannot be established in our own.
It took me a while to understand Craig's persistent stomachache over this (ultimately leading to the aforementioned confession of Craig's doubt about the Ontological Argument), but then I remembered that this sort of argumentation from the supposed inability to ground concepts in reality is part of Bahnsen's Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG).(8)Bahnsen, and Plantinga himself, are generally Reformed, and come from a very rationalist and highly skeptical (in the philosophical sense) worldview that Craig, an evidentialist and classical apologist, tends to shun (TAG, for instance, appears nowhere in Craig's book). I side with Craig here, but a post about this will have to wait.
There is one more difficult premise, however, that Craig accepts without discussion, but that Plantinga elsewhere (9) both understands and attempts to correct: the inductive premise #3, i.e. the premise that if this maximally great being exists in some logically possible world, He exists in all possible worlds, including our actual one.
Loosely, Plantinga describes "maximally excellent" as necessarily including the three omni-'s: benevolence, potence, knowledge. If this Being enjoys maximal excellence in all possible worlds, then this Being is "maximally great." Plantinga wishes to establish premise #3 by establishing that a maximally great Being exists in at least one possible world.
As a side quip, why are the three omni's properties of a maximal being and considered to be tops in evaluating excellence? If I were omniscient - and I'm sorry to go to toilet humor, but you see what I mean - I'd see everyone poop. Not excellent! All kidding aside, who would want to know every detail of the Holocaust, particularly if one were additionally omnibenevolent and omnipotent (but doing the Arminian thing of letting people act on their own power of choice)? But I'm being mean and too speculative, so I will grant Plantinga that the three qualities give a being a great degree of excellence exceeding beings which do not possess these qualities. I'll also be nice and grant that only one being possessing these three qualities can exist in logical possibility in a given possible world.
How are we to establish values for these omni-qualities and for the rest of the qualities of our theoretical being, or any being, for that matter? Plantinga proposes a number (assumed to be bigger than or equal to zero) describing the "excellence" of an extant entity in some possible world, and asks us to sum this excellence number over all possible worlds where the entity in question exists. Such a sum is taken only over the possible worlds containing the assumption of x's existence, for, the concept presupposes existence and therefore an "excellence number" has no value in a world where the truth value of x's existence is false. It's not even zero - it would be, if you remember Algebra, like taking the square root of a negative number while working only with reals. It's simply outside the domain!
But still, how can one metaphysically quantify "excellence" for any particular entity? Nowhere do either Plantinga or Mears propose such a means, but I'll propose a concrete definition: an excellence number represents the number of entities which the entity "x" is, in a sense, "better in more individual respects" than. This would allow God, as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, to have an excellence number equal to the (finite) sum of entities in reality, playing on the undiscussed intuitive notion here that a being with the three omni's is better than all the rest of the entities in reality.
So, taking the sum of excellence over all possible worlds well-defines a function F(x) as such:
F(x) = W1 + W2 + W3 + ... + Wn
This is the "greatness function," as greatness, remember, is to be taken as a representation of the excellence over ALL WORLDS where x exists. Here n represents the number of worlds where x possibly exists. Taking the limit as n goes to infinity gets our "greatness number" for an entity possibly existing in an infinite number of worlds. We assume our case for a maximally great being must exist in an infinite number of possible worlds, then, since if He were to exist in only a finite number of worlds the chance of His existence in the actual world, although logically possible, would be (letting k be the total number of possible worlds)
lim k->infinity (n/k) = 0,
a point which Plantinga and his critic Mears miss in their respective papers.
The conclusion of Plantinga's case for premise #3 is that
lim F(x), x:= "God"
is a number greater than all other greatness valuations F(x') taken over any arbitrary non-Godly entity x' that exists in any possible world.
Here's one killer, built on the idea formulated by Mr. Mears. Note here that F(x) (God's greatness) must be finite to make any sense. For, if
lim F(x) -> infinity,
then the coherency of the maximally great being vanishes logically (10). Therefore, this greatness must be a concrete number. Plantinga's reasoning for this has been refuted above, but Plantinga is still correct for the reason I give in the footnote: natural numbers themselves do not have a greatest upper bound, and although they cannot be used to describe actual metaphysical quantity as e.g. increasing girls indefinitely on our island, the possibility of the comparison with our "greatness function" exists inherently in the definition. Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that the function evaluates to infinity, then God's greatness, e.g. his summation of his "excellency rating" over every world in which He exists, becomes logically incoherent, collapsing the argument. (&&)
Since the existence of God over a finite subset of the (infinite) set of logically possible worlds leads to a zero-probability of His actual existence, as mentioned earlier, we must take the infinite sum. Following my coherent definition of what it means to have excellence, i.e. an integer representing the number of entities that "x" is "more excellent than" in the intuitive sense, then only one logically possible world has an excellence rating of zero for God - the one where only He exists. Therefore there are an infinite number of positive integer representations of excellence-ratings in possible worlds. Letting W1 = 0 (our excellency rating in the one world where only God exists), we have, then:
F(x) = 0 + W2 + W3 + W4 + ... > 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + .... --> infinity
proving that F(x) = infinity, rendering maximal greatness incoherent by the above argumentation. Therefore, Plantinga's argument fails under my coherent definition of "excellency rating."
Even if Plantinga would object to my definition, he must at the very least represent a function whose infinity-limit tends toward zero if we wish for the summation function F(x) to yield a finite number (to wit, the sum of 1/n^2, n from 1 to infinity, is a finite positive number, and 1/n^2 itself tends to 0 as n rises without bound, fitting our bill).
But this implies that God's excellence by any definition Plantinga wants to use, when ordered, must tend to zero and therefore gets arbitrarily small - and furthermore, must do so in a matter that still yields a finite sum (for, sum 1/n, n from 1 to infinity, is still infinity despite the fact that limit 1/n ->0 as n tends infinitely). As this is intuitively counter to our notion that these values of excellency ought to be large, it seems a tough challenge indeed to define an excellency valuation which both tends to zero when ordered, is such that the sum is still a finite number, and is so that, despite being damned near zero for all but a finite number of possible worlds, it is still greater than all other entities' excellency evaluations in each of those particular possible worlds. And that's if a coherent definition of how to evaluate an "excellency rating," apart from the one I offered, is first given!
One final point, unobserved by neither Plantinga nor Meirs - we have, in the latter part of this paper, only discussed a sum over an infinite number of possible worlds. This is the direct case allowed by Plantinga's presentation. All it would show even if every premise is true and justified is that God exists in an infinite number of possible worlds, and not the actual one, and at most with his definitions this presentation can only establish a probability of God's existence, rather than a logical certainty. (##)
I conclude that Plantinga's presentation of the Ontological Argument has been refuted, pending critiques, comments and discussions from the readers of this blog. I am looking forward to an engaging discussion.
And am hoping nobody fell asleep because of the math. :)
-Darrin
Sources and Notes
(1) St. Anselm. Proslogion, Ch. 2. Retrieved from Wikipedia. See also criticisms of this presentation in Dr. Corduan's response to this post.
(2) Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith. Crossway Publishing, p. 184.
(3) Geisler and Corduan, Philosophy of Religion, pp. 147-148. Retrieved from http://www.biblicaldefense.org/Writings/ontological_argument.htm
Corduan notes in the commentary to this post: "Of course, I'm not sure we mean it in the same sense as Hume did, but it's always nice to see it when people realize that there is an unspoken assumption underlying the ontological argument, namely that something exists." (Retrieved 1/19/09, with thanks to Dr. Corduan).
(4) See e.g. Rand, Ayn, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man Made."
(5) Mears, Tyrel. "Sympathy for the Fool," p. 87. If one buys the premise of "possible worlds" in the first place, it logically follows that the number of "possible worlds" is infinite. For, it could be logically possible for a world outside of a proposed finite set of worlds exists where I swivel my chair completely around here at my desk; one where I swivel halfway around; one where I swivel one-forth around; etc. leading immediately to an infinite set of possible worlds if one does not, as I do, hold the necessity of entities and action in the actual world as a foundational premise.
(6) Craig 183.
(7) This quote, as well as the preceding analysis and a bit more proceeding this footnote, are discussed in full on (Craig) pp. 184-189.
(8) Bahnsen mentions the inability of the non-Christian to ground concepts in "The Great Debate" versus Gordon Stein, a debate which I am planning to review in the near future, but Bahnsen's presentation of TAG leans more heavily on the inability to ground the process of reasoning. Personally, I believe the two are interrelated, if not equal processes, and at the very least the former precedes the latter inclusively (see e.g. Ayn Rand, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," or earlier Wittgenstein). See also Gordon Clark's Youtube lectures regarding his critique of Empiricism; both Clark and Bahnsen are free for anyone to watch on that website.
(9) The rest of Plantinga's quotes have been retrieved from Mears' paper, documented earlier (once again here:http://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/mears-sympathy_for_the_fool.pdf). All quotes from Plantinga are properly annotated in the work, and I have found no indication that Mr. Mears misuses or presents in a nonobjective manner any material written by Dr. Plantinga. The references to Mr. Mears himself which follow from this annotation until the end of my paper are taken, for the most part, from pp. 83-91.
(10) Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. P. 91. Plantinga uses the objection mentioned by Craig, about the paradise island that can indefinitely gain more girls and coconuts and get better. But this has been refuted earlier; Plantinga's necessary inherent maximum is present for this concept, as well. However, for the (entirely epistemological) natural numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., there is in fact no "greatest number," since infinity is not recognized as a member of the natural number set (11). Thus, with respect to the natural number set, the idea of a "maximal natural number" is incoherent, which properly captures the idea intuited by Craig and Plantinga in the "add more girls!" objection, while not escaping the context of practicality.
(11) See e.g. Royden's Real Analysis, Ch. 1.
(12) ibid.
($$) There is an issue with Plantinga's modal logic presentation of this premise that goes undiscussed here, due to my unfamiliarity with the subject (it's been over a decade since I've seen it!). Refer to http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2008/05/modal-logic.html for a criticism on this subject. (Thanks to The Barefoot Bum and Dr. Corduan for bringing this issue up in the commentary of this post.)
(**) As a side note, it may be stated that if it can be shown that two omnipotent beings exist in a logically possible world, where one of the two beings is not omniscient and one is, and if it can be logically possible that the nonbenevolent Being would wish to engage the benevolent Being, the dual omnipotence assumed in this case would render a logical impossibility. Perhaps via traveling down the quasi-omniscient chain we may always find such a "Fred Sanford" through inductive establishment on the basis of the establishment of the existence of the maximal being. This would demonstrate the necessary logical incoherency of omnipotence, and would be a logical disproof of God in any possible world.
This is merely postulation, however, since none of my premises have been established in this paragraph; but should they turn out logically sound, then assuming the existence of a maximal being in all logically possible worlds may logically lead to the existence of a quasi-maximal omnipotent, omniscient, but anti-benevolent being in every possible world, who, through the definition of benevolence, would both desire to defeat one another as their highest priority. But since both are omnipotent and omniscient, they both can and can not defeat one another; we would then establish the non-existence of God through the impossibility of the contrary.
(&&) - If we accept this quantity to be possibly infinite despite the intuited objection from the natural number comparison, we run into problems: if any other being had a "greatness valuation" F(x') = infinity, it would be impossible to quantify x' and x in greatness relation (the infinite is countable in any case by definition). As we shall see later in the paper, all it will take is for some other being x' to exist with quality in an infinite number of possible worlds to get an infinite greatness evaluation - let's say that the Devil, for instance, exists in an infinite subset of possible world, and that his valuation of excellency, given the Devil's immense powers described Biblically, is always greater than zero in each world. By the argument which follows this annotation, the Devil would, in this case, have a greatness valuation of infinity, equal to God's; even if the Devil existed in "less" worlds than God (but still existed in an infinite subset of possible worlds), we'd have to equate the Devil and God with greatness, and I don't think we want to say that.
(##) - Again, Plantinga's summation is defined over an infinite number of possible worlds, not all possible worlds. Plantinga has made the mistake in assuming that since the number of possible worlds is infinite, then the sum taken over infinity covers it. But this may not be so. For, by mathematical postulate, we may well-order all the possible worlds in this set; it might be the case that God exists in all odd-numbered worlds W1, W3, W5, W7, W9, .... so that even if Plantinga destroys my case but fails to establish how God's existence in an infinite number of worlds entails His existence in all worlds, we might have that
W1+W3+W5+W7+W9+ ... = F(x)
is a finite number indeed, establishing coherency and validating the argument, but still leaving the evens out of the consideration (the ones where it is possible God does not exist). This leaves only, in this assumed case, the probability of God to be N/2N = 1/2 for our actual world (assuming we don't know which possible world-number it is) even if we assume all of Plantinga's case as otherwise true and valid.
The Christian religion, from the perception of the conservative believer, must be kept perfect and flawless least any plague of imperfection affects both one’s God and one’s Bible.
The consequence here is that if either a flaw in God or the Bible is admitted, then the theological house of cards begins to fall just as when one domino stacked vertically in line with a thousands more is knock towards its neighbor likewise, secular logic begins to move the conservative theological mind away from the sanctuary of pat indoctrinated religious answers in turn forcing the believer to struggle with the reality of life just as he or she did before to their religious conversion.
In religion, objective truth is not the goal, but what matters is to insulate ones mind from the hard facts of the world and wrap one’s self in a theological blanket of love. When this happens, the believer becomes like an ant defending its colony and queen. Now when the ground shakes near the nest, or God forbid, the nest itself is touched; ants (like programmed and indoctrinated believers) swarm out to do battle often giving up their own life (martyrdom). Thus, at the vibration of any real or perceived threat, the colony advances forth in defense to attack and kill any threat to the safety and security of the nest (its sectarian religion / Bible) and (more importantly) the life brood of the nest itself: The queen or God.
Like a nest of Fire Ants (whose goal (like that of evangelical Christianity) is to evangelize the entire world with its nests) that have developed specialized warriors or soldiers ants whose huge jaws make them useless for little more that attacking and fighting for the colony, these Christian apologists / preachers soldier ants have development the same guard stance and move quickly to the defensive front lines to defend their doctrinal colony over and ahead of the smaller worker ants.
The sole function of the nest is again, to not so much to defend the colony (the Bible), but to defend until death what is in the center of the colony keeping it alive; that being its queen (God).
Since the queen is little good for anything but consuming food and producing eggs which hatch into more sterilized females and soldiers ants; the colony knows that (deep down in their genetic heats) without her, the entire nest is doomed and she must be protected and defended at all cost. Like the colony queen is to the worker and soldier ants, God is absolute truth who is perfect without any mixture of error and without the queen / God, the workers feel they have no more reason to live.
By comparison, the single church member (worker ant) is made to feel secure and protected in the colony along with their fellow indoctrinated, but mentally sterilized workers both bring unable to formulate any Christian doctrines themselves. However when disturbed, the specialized apologists and preachers will snap their huge doctrinal mandible jaws at any perceived threat knowing full well, that while their fellow smaller mentally sterilized workers out number them fifty to one, the workers job is not to fight (apologetics), but to support the colony (church) with food (tithes and offerings). Even thought the average doctrinally sterilized workers are equipped with small pincher months and small stingers, they quickly fall in battle due to the fact that their main function and make up is not colony defense, but colony support.
Thus, we have a similar symbiotic relationship where both the ant colony (the church) and the queen (God) must have the workers and soldier ants to care for and protect an enormous queen whose body has been rendered totally useless other than consuming food and laying eggs.
To facilitate this process, the queen in many colonies produces a sweet nectar that is consumed by the workers giving them strength to carry on until their wretched short lives past on and newly programmed mentally sterilized workers are added (evangelized) to take their place in a mindless colony with millions workers.
As I pass by the large Southern Baptist Church down the street from my house on Sunday mornings, I see is a huge nest of ants in which this large circular church is a functioning colony where the workers have brought their food (tithes and offerings) to the queen (God) while the preachers (seen as God’s vicar on earth) rewards the faithful but mindless workers with sweet sermonized nectar promises. They are assured that their huge queen (God, who is the prime mover in the creation of life) will always be there to love and protect them.
However in reality, their God-Queen is little more than an egg laying (evangelizing) figure head whose huge theological body is rendered useless being totally kept alive by the devotion to her (His) workers (the congregation as nest).
Should an independent, but objectively free thinking Secular Humanist happen to either shake the theological ground around this church nest - or God forbid - get inside the colony itself; the specialized soldier preachers and deacons will run to the defense of their God concept (knowing full well God’s huge bloated theological body is totally unable even to take care itself and must be constantly cleaned and feed simply to exist) snapping their huge mentally evolved apologetic jaws at the intruder.
But since these colony apologists can NOW no longer to attack and kill any free thinking secular invaders (Burning at the stake and torture), they try and force out the foreign / secular invader before many of the simple workers are mentally killed and even the center piece of the colony-church or God Himself is infected with secular ideas leading to theological weakness with the collapse and death of the religious nets being inevitable.
Here at DC, the contributors see this totally symbiotic relationship where a post shakes the theological ground near some doctrinal nest sending forth apologetic soldier ants and preachers snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws at any perceived threat to the cheers of the simple, but mindless worker ants (Joe the Christian).
We are constantly told by these soldier apologists that if their huge indoctrinated jaws will not stop us, then one day the queen (God) itself will craw forth from somewhere deep down inside the nest (Heaven) to do an end time / apocrylpyptic battle with us and totally crushing all its free thinking secular enemies.
But since we secular atheist see the reality of this symbiotic relationship, we know that simply by killing (deprogramming) hundreds of worker ants plus an occasional apologist / soldier ant, the queen (God) being unable to stop the battle and can only hope to lay more eggs (proselytize more converters) before the entire colony itself falls into an irreversible decline.
We also know this huge queen (God) is totally unable to even move or care for itself and must be theologically carried along by its own doctrinally sterilized anti-free thinking workers and the apologetic soldiers ants just to appear to be active.
As independent free thinking Secular Humanist, I have now shaken the theological ground and, though I may see some drive-by defenses by the mentally sterilized worker Christians, I fully except the soldier Ant-Christians apologist to come forth to do battle snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws, again not so much for the defense of their own sectarian colony, but their universal queen or the God concept itself!
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?
You can read his detailed report
right here. I want to highlight some of his statements, make some comments on what he wrote, issue a caution to him, and make a suggestion or two. Get ready. Here we go again.
About Paul Kurtz's speech, Carrier said that "...it was so full of historically naive or inaccurate statements that it seems to have embarrassed some of the scholars.” “I know it's impolitic to speak ill of the Grand Lord of Humanism (legend has it his wrath is reminiscent of Ruper Murdoch on a bad day), but I'm a suicidally honest man, and I honestly have to say there was no reason for this speech other than to please the Kurtz fans in the audience. Since that's where the money comes from, I suppose this was a practical tactic, though that's generally not how scholarly conferences are oriented.
I have to respect someone like Carrier who is a true freethinker and willing to offend Paul Kurtz, whom I have nothing but respect for at 80 plus years old and going strong. I've heard Paul speak too, and he does ramble. He seems disorganized as well. But he's probably done more for skepticism than any other living person. As far as I know he committed the funds for the conference in the first place. The organizers merely honored him by asking him to speak. He deserves that honor. [Last I read from Paul Kurtz he thinks Jesus existed. See his 1991 book, The Transcendental Temptation. He wrote: “[I]t seems to me that some such man lived, most likely in Palestine in the first half of the first century, that he was crucified or hanged, and that a sect of Christians developed proclaiming his divinity. We know very few authentic facts, however, about Jesus beyond this bare outline.” (p. 114)]
About Robert Price, Carrier said: “...though most of the scholars I found were unhappy with Price, finding him a bit of a kook, I found him funny and erudite and generally right.”
*Ahem* Richard, that means most of the scholars there would think you are a kook too. [I'm not saying you or Bob are kooks. I'm only commenting on what you yourself said]. As I have said before, do not become marginalized as a scholar. Your scholarship is too good for that to happen to you. Make sure that your book contains convincing arguments. I have no reason yet to suspect it doesn't do this. I wish you the best and I will read your book. What typically happens is that someone writes on a topic of interest and when scholars call the author a kook he will write a response in order to save face. And if this isn't convincing he will devote his whole life to defending himself. If this happens to you let it drop. Move on to other more important topics. You have so much to say about so many things. Say them. Make your statement and move on to these other topics if that happens.
About Ronald Lindsay, Carrier reported: “He...used Plato's dialogues as an example of the rapid fabrication of sayings and conversations of a historical person (it is generally acknowledged that these are not a verbatim record, and often not even true at all, of what Socrates said), proving two points in one: that rapid fabrication of unchallenged legends is not improbable but in fact routine, and that such fabrication does not entail the non-historicity of the speaker.”
I believe this is the honestly respectable position, and I applaud Lindsay for this.
About Frank Zindler, Carrier noted that "...he is somewhat infamous for excessive skepticism.”
Yes he is. Frank sent me a copy of his opening statement. As a scientist he's asking us to do history just like we do science. He wrote:"The crucially important difference for us to note today is that for all claims of existence, science presumes the negative. It will ignore all affirmative arguments if they are not supported by evidence and facts." "[T]he problem is that we have not even been trying to use the scientific method in the field of religion studies." And later reiterates his point by saying: "For the last time I shall remind you that we must always remember that in science it is not necessary to prove a negative. Science assumes the negative. If no one can provide convincing positive evidence that Jesus of Nazareth once lived, we must then resort to the tried-and-tested, successful methodology of science to account for the origins of Christianity....Any hypotheses that survive rigorous tests can then be elevated to the rank of theory. In time, one of the rival theories will predominate and gain the scientific consensus." [Emphasis is his]
My claim is that if we treat the historical past according to these rigorous scientific standards then there will not be much for historians to write about. He's demanding that the paucity of evidence found in the historical past should shoulder the burden of proof when it comes to the existence of an end times apocalyptic prophet like Jesus is depicted to be. Prophets like these were Legion in those days. My claim is also that how someone views the past is guided by control beliefs which must additionally be defended. There are several different philosophies of history that must be defended as one looks at the evidence of the past. The historian looks at the past with his particular outlook on life and it's probably impossible to do otherwise.
If one reads Carrier carefully we see that Gerd Lüdemann, Robert Eisenman, Dennis MacDonald, and Bruce Chilton all think there was a man behind the mythic traditions. I think it's important to add that G.A. Wells used to argue Jesus didn't exist, but has since changed his mind. It should also be noted that Bart D. Ehrman, one of skeptics best scholarly friends, thinks Jesus was an apocalyptic end times prophet, as I do.
Having said this it's an interesting question to me, but the money could be spent on better things. It seems as though skeptics have long ago concluded that religion is "bullshit" (ala Penn and Teller) and have now moved beyond that question to investigate other topics of interest to them. Most of them come from a scientific background, too. Since these other topics are interesting questions to them they focus on them. Having already debunked religion, including Christianity, they are looking for other things to debunk (why beat a dead horse, right?). The problem I see with such worthy interests is that there are still a great number of Christian believers in the world who will not seriously consider the possibility that Jesus did not exist. I would like to know if any Christian has walked away from his faith because of these arguments. I dare say that no one ever has (although this might change, I cannot say). It might be the equivalent of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. No one has ever become a believer from that argument that we know of (Bertrand Russell flirted with belief because of it but eventually rejected it).
Given our recent poll on the question of who Jesus is/was, an overwhelming number of skeptics think Jesus was a mythical fictional character. Some of the skeptical voters have not been reading my arguments of late. They came here just to vote because of a request to chime in on our poll, which was posted on a very popular skeptical website. They came, they voted, and they left. Still it's good they did. It shows what most skeptics believe.
There are many topics that are of interest to me, while there are only a few that I'm concerned about. The question of The Jesus Project is of interest to me, but I'm not concerned about the results. I think Christianity fails whether Jesus existed or not. I base my arguments on Jesus's existence not unlike how St. Aquinas based his arguments for the existence of God on the eternality of the universe. He thought if he could show God existed based on the eternality of the universe, then how much more so can he show God exists if the universe did come into existence at some point in time. I can do that in reverse. Even if Jesus existed then Christianity still fails.
Where can the money be better spent? I need grant money to continue my work. There is a donate button in our sidebar that helps me stay alive in these hard economic times. I need your help. I need people who are willing to donate on a regular basis, a monthly commitment if you can. Unless more money comes in I’ll be forced to get a second job. Spinoza ground lenses during the day and researched at night. What if he had to have two jobs? I’m no Spinoza by a long shot, but what if Spinoza never had to grind lenses for a living and could research and write all day long? How much better would his arguments be?
Call me arrogant if you will, but I am one person who has the arguments that can be the undoing of Christianity. [BTW, Keith Parsons emailed me recently and said: "Humility is a Christian virtue. Be proud of your accomplishment!"] I’d like for CFI and Paul Kurtz to send me on a speaking tour, allow me to revise my book one more time (if I had time I could condense it and make it more accessible to the masses), fund me to debate some high profile Christians, make me a research scholar for the CFI institute. These requests have been made by me to them, with one important person who is advocating on my behalf, and maybe some or all of these requests will pan out in the near future. But my goal is not just to understand the world, as Marx said, but to change it.
Skeptics, yes, we need to move on to other issues and be on the cutting edge of them. Let's just never forget what our common goal is and how daunting the task is. We must major on the majors and minor on the minors and know the difference between which is which.
Professor McCormick wrote to tell me he's going to incorporate some of the material in my book for his class on
Atheism. He also has
a blog which looks like an extremely good one from which the following two essays were taken:
Top Ten Myths about Belief in God
1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.
There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.
2. Myth: Prayer works.
Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.
3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.
There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.
4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.
In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.
5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.
We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.
6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.
Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.
7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.
The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.
8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.
All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it is all going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?
9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.
People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.
10: Myth: There is a God.
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Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)
1. You can’t prove atheism. You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.
Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.
As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith? Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like? Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing? (they aren’t). If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith? Faith is a bad thing? That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.
2. The evidence shows that we should believe.
If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken. Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.
3. You should have faith.
Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.
4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.
These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.
5. Atheism is bad for you. Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.
First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field. Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken. What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more. There are a number of obvious natural explanations. Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases. Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons? Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.
6. Atheists and atheist political regimes have committed horrible crimes against humanity. Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, perhaps Hitler, and their atheistic tyrannies tortured and murdered millions.
Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.” It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.
Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions. “Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”
7. Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.
Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.” For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race. There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice. But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us. Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters. Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.
Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes. Real respect is found in disagreement. The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.
8. Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.
At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference. The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines. By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method. The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals: actively seek out disconfirming evidence. The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.
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.
I often encounter comments here at DC based more on the texts and notes of either the
Schofield Reference Bible or the
Thompson Chain Reference Bible than from tools which would require an objective study of the Biblical text.
In particular, I find that one of the main deficiencies of conservative Biblical colleges and universities are their tight limitations to only the canonized Christian text as based usually on a Protestant perspective. To put this in a mathematical sense; the conservative mind set to the Biblical text and its theology is directly inversely proportional to the tools used in and the ability of the person studying the text.
The following references are very useful exegetical guides to tools for those doing studies on the Biblical text and its associated languages and versions as related to both its setting in the ancient Near East and Hellenistic worlds.
An older guide which includes tools on the Hebrew text and its versions, Intertestamental Literature and the New Testament is:
An Introductory Bibliography for the Study of Scripture
by Joseph Fitzmyer (Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 3 ed. 1990). Although dated, its guide to basic established texts and Biblical tools is still valuable.
For an up dated guide in book and CD form on the entire Biblical text as a whole, I would recommend:
Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study
By Frederick W. Danker (Augsburg Fortress Publishers; 4 ed., 2003)
Its Amazon description reads:
Danker’s indispensable volume, available since 1993 in a revised and expanded edition, has served for 40 years as the reliable guide for students and scholars to the foundational texts of biblical study: concordances, primary Hebrew and Greek texts, grammars and lexicons, Bible dictionaries and versions, commentaries, and a host of contextual tools for studying the world of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now the volume will also include a CD-ROM, powered by the Libronix Digital Library System, making this work more convenient to use, easily searchable, and ready for notetaking, highlighting, bookmarking, and use with a word processor. The CD-ROM will also include some updated bibliography and Weblinks to related material.
For those on a tight budget who could use a free on line reference to tools and versions to the Hebrew text, I strongly recommend:
GUIDE TO BIBLICAL RESEARCH
William H.C. Propp (Revised by Jeffrey H. Tigay, 1997; updated November, 2005)
William Propp is a noted scholar of the Hebrew Bible and edited the two major volumes on Exdous in The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, plus the guide has been up dated and revised by Jeffrey Tigay (A.M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures; University of Pennsylvania).
While this free online guide has its texts referenced to the library at the University of Pennsylvania, this guide is excellent because of the short and very useful comments by its two seasoned Biblical scholars.
If you want to know what I've been up to recently I've spent some time over at
God is Imaginary. I stopped commenting on page nine. The thread degenerated with some
ad hominems (as sometimes happens), but it picked up a bit after that. Enjoy.
As parents, we want our children to be happy. We want them to achieve great things. But we also want them to be good people. We want to be as proud of their kindness, generosity and integrity as we are of their achievements. How do we help them get there?
Moral development
Each religion teaches that it is the source of morality. Christians perceive themselves as "a light on the hill" without which the world would fall into moral anarchy. As a freethinker, I have had people ask -- how can you raise good children without religion?
In one sense, this question is almost silly. Research shows us that healthy human children come into the world primed to become moral members of society, just like they come into the world primed to acquire language. Moral emotions, such as empathy, shame and guilt, begin to show their presence during the toddler years regardless of a child's cultural or religious context. A toddler may pat an injured peer, or offer a grubby toy to an adult who is distressed. A preschooler may hide in the closet to cover a transgression. As a child learns to think, moral emotions are joined by moral reasoning. By age 5 or 6, they can argue long and loud about fairness.
And yet, kids don’t learn to be decent human beings without adult input any more than they learn to communicate without adult input. For a child to grow into an honest adult, for example, we have to model honesty, expect it and explicitly teach it. Traditionally, religious institutions are the place where we talk explicitly about moral concerns and ideas. Despite frequent hypocrisy, churches legitimate the idea that there is such a thing as moral community, and that it matters. So for parents who are not church goers, the question of where and how to have these conversations with our children is real.
Virtue and morality
One way to think about moral development is that bad behavior is simply the absence of virtue. When a child hurts another, it may be that their internal sense of kindness, patience or self-control has fallen short. When they sneak or steal, it means their internal sense of honesty wasn’t as strong as the external temptation.
Rather than making the bad behavior itself the focus of our attention and conversations with them, we can put our energy toward helping them to grow good qualities. This is not to say that bad behavior never needs labels and consequences. Rather, every time our child “crashes” is an opportunity to explain and encourage the virtues we are trying to cultivate.
Buried amidst the superstition and sanctified tribalism of our inherited traditions are nuggets of wisdom that can help us in this endeavour. Our ancestors have struggled for millenia to answer questions about good and how to live in moral community with each other. If we approach these traditions knowing we have a responsibility to pick and choose, we can glean the timeless useful nuggets and simply leave the rest aside. As individuals and parents, we don't have to start from scratch just because we seek to live in the light of reason and to raise our children there.
The Wisdom Commons
The Wisdom Commons is an interactive Web project that seeks to elevate universal ethics, or our shared moral core -- the ethical values that bridge across secular and religious wisdom traditions. It offers parents and educators a new tool for nurturing positive character traits. The Wisdom Commons is structured around a set of virtues that human beings generally agree are important, such as generosity, compassion and courage. As a way of promoting these virtues (and showcasing how widely they are valued), the site houses a library of more than 3,000 quotes, stories, proverbs, poems and essays from around the world. The Commons includes "god-talk" because when our ancestors valued a character quality, they often expressed this through the voice of a god or demi-god (e.g. Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself). But it also includes supernaturalism guidelines barring member/contributors from promoting otherworldly personages and ideas. The site is about what we humans can agree on, and supernaturalism is the topic of vast disagreement.
Once registered, you can click your favorite bits of wisdom to collect them in a “Personal Wisdom Page.” Soon you’ll be able to turn your collection into Mom’s or Dad’s Book of Common Wisdom, a print-on-demand book in which you can mix your collection with photos and a personal dedication. One easy way to find bits that are meaningful to you is to sign up for the “Daily Wisbit” sent out to members who request it.
Ideas for parents
1. Choose a “virtue of the week” to discuss at the dinner table. Why does this virtue matter? How is it honored in your family’s spiritual or cultural tradition? How have family members demonstrated this virtue recently? When have they seen it in other people?
2. Ask each child to find a quote that they really like. Have them read it to other family members and explain why they like it.
3. Make a game of reading bits of wisdom aloud together and giving each one a rating, thus prompting whatever discussion is needed to reach a family agreement or average.
4. Find a special quote each week that reflects your family’s values. Click the printer icon after the quote to print it out as an 8½ x 11 poster. (Available in late January.) Put it on the fridge.
5. Create a Wisdom Page and begin storing bits of wisdom you want to share with your kids. Alternately, create a shared family Wisdom Page together, with input from everyone.
When our kids start leading us
After watching me work on the Wisdom Commons with a team of software engineers and the wonderful volunteers who contributed the first 1,000 bits of wisdom to the site, my middle-school-age daughters, Bri and Marla, gave me a birthday present. Each of them adopted a virtue (justice and aspiration, respectively). They registered to create wisdom pages of their own and spent a morning researching their chosen virtues and entering quotes and poems they liked.
Then they went back to their other interests, or so I thought. Imagine my surprise and delight last month when I clicked on my “Daily Wisbit” email from the Commons and found a poem about confidence, secretly penned by Bri.
Our children not only learn from us about what it means to be good, loving, effective people, they also teach us — if we are willing to be taught. But it’s up to us to open the conversation.
Valerie Tarico, Ph.D., is a psychologist and author in Seattle, and founder of WisdomCommons.org. She is also the mother of two middle-school-age girls.
He responded to a question about whether Jesus was a real person
here. What do you think?
I do find one response of his odd but interesting: When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, “Do you really believe that?” Act as though you’ve just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator. You could say something like, “Man, those old theories have been dead for over a hundred years! Where are you getting this stuff?” Tell them this is just sensationalist junk, not serious scholarship. If they persist, then ask them to show you the actual passages narrating the supposed parallel. They’re the ones who are swimming against the scholarly consensus, so make them work hard to save their religion. I think you’ll find that they’ve never even read the primary sources.
Maybe we skeptics should do something similar when it comes to the Christian belief system! ;-) But this advice does tell us what he actually thinks of the mythicist case, now doesn't it?
Then Craig ends with this challenge: Remember: anyone pressing this objection has a burden of proof to bear. He needs to show that the narratives are parallel and, moreover, that they are causally connected. Insist that they bear that burden if you are to take their objection seriously.
What do you think when it comes to the burden of proof here?
Religious experience offers a believer the most psychologically certain basis for believing in a particular divine being or religion. When a believer has a religious experience it is really hard, if not psychologically impossible, to argue him away from his beliefs. How then is it possible for a believer who claims to have had such an experience to look at his experience as an outsider, as the OTF demands?
We can point out that the mind often deceives us and provide many examples of this phenomena (brainwashing, wish-fulfillment, cognitive dissonance). But the believer will maintain his particular religious experience is real because he experienced it, despite the odds that his brain is deceiving him about it.
We can point out that many people claim to have had the same religious experience whose beliefs are much different than his (i.e. Mormon, Muslim, Catholic, or Jew) but the believer will say his experience is true because he experienced it, despite the odds that what others believe as a result of these experiences makes it seem obvious he could be wrong.
Sometimes in the face of such an experiential argument I simply say to the believer that "if I had that same experience I might believe too. But I haven't. So why not? Why doesn't your God give me that same religious experience?" At this point the believer must blame me and every living person on the planet for not being open to such a religious experience. Depending on the religion in question that might include most every person here, up to six billion of us. But even this realization doesn't affect the believer who claims to have had such a religious experience. Some of them will simply say "God doesn't want various people to have a saving religious experience." It never dawns on these believers what kind of a mean-spirited barbaric God they love and worship, especially if such a God will send people to an eternal punishment for not having one.
There are other ways to test religious experiences as an outsider. Let me offer one example from a conversation I recently had with a friend I'll call Matt. Matt told me he knows there is an afterlife because he had a vivid dream of his father and grandfather who talked to him from beyond the grave. To him this dream was very real. His dad had died 10 years earlier and his grandfather had died 15 years earlier. But here they were both talking face-to-face with him from beyond the grave!
Now if there is one thing about dreams that everyone should know by now, it's that they can seem very real. You may actually feel like you're riding a horse, or that you were in a gun battle during WWII. So the fact that dreams seem real should mean nothing to us, well, except that dreams seem real. Dreams are just in the brain. This is what our brains do when we are asleep. We dream vivid dreams during REM sleep. So one way for Matt to understand the truth about his dream is to learn what science teaches us about the brain when a person is sleeping. That's science. That should cause room for plenty of doubt. Gone are the days of the Egyptian Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar who had dreams and demanded an interpretation of them by a soothsayer, or diviner. This is a superstitious world that is long gone, for good. As scientific understanding gains ground among the scientifically illiterate we should see dreams being used less and less to support religious beliefs.
Back to Matt. I asked him how he knew it was actually his dad and grandfather whom he was talking to. "Well," he said, "they told me things that only they could know." "Really?" I questioned. "How does that show you anything at all? If the people in your dream tell you something that you already knew about them before they died, then they're not telling you anything new. This information was already stored in your brain. There is at least one other person in that dream who knew the same things they told you, and that person is the one doing the dreaming...you! For this dream to be considered evidence to you that you were actually talking with them they would have to tell you something you didn't know that could be confirmed after you awoke."
Matt replied, "But I am sure it was them. The evidence was that I know what I experienced!"
Then I asked Matt what they each looked like. He said they looked like he had remembered them. "Were they wearing the same kinds of clothes you knew them to wear?" "Yes," he said. "Had they aged any?" "No," he admitted. Then I asked him if people in the afterlife would always look the same, wear the same clothes and stay the same age? "What are the odds that they were really in your dream versus the odds that you merely had a dream about them based on what you knew them to be?"
At this point he began having some doubts, but then finally replied, "maybe they came back to me looking like this so I could recognize them?"
Wow, isn't this something? What does it take? I don't know sometimes. But evidence? Who needs that when you have an experience?
An outsider with this kind of "insider" experience would simply have to admit he just doesn't know if the experience was real or a delusion. But a delusion it was.