OP's post should be edited or something like that..
There's a pretty good discussion going on right now which some people, like me, may find interesting.

This is like i said is besides the point. I was just pointing out that adultery is not just cheating on your wife.

Right you know those parts of Gods mind that he reveals. Like his rule on adultery.

I never said i had to fully know every aspect on adultery in Gods mind or even the reasons why he's not down with it. I said i need to know the aspect of Gods mind on weather or not he wants me to commit adultery. If i doesn't reveal that part of his mind i can know it.

No im not. But you seem to be intent on hiding behind the idea that you cant fully know Gods mind in order to avoid saying you know a part of it.

I dont need to know and understand every aspect my boss's mind and the reasons why he wants me to go buy him a hammer to buy him a hammer. But he has to reveal the part of his mind that wants me to go buy one if he wants wants one. And after he reveals that part of his mind i will know that part of his mind and go buy him a hammer.

Like i said above, i don't need to know Gods mind fully to know he doesn't want me to commit adultery. But i must know the part of Gods mind that contains whether or not he wants me to commit adultery.

Im not confused but you seem to be so lets try this.

The spoiler box below contains a part of my mind that has three rules. Tell me those rules without opening and reveling my minds spoiler box.

Warning if you open the box you will know a part of my mind.

Sure. Let us take the 'aliens' 'heart attack' issue. As for the heart attack, let us pretend I think there is a relatively high chance that people in very poor health will die from a heart attack on any given night. I also think that I am in far better health than that type of person, and I believe that that significantly reduces the likelihood that such an event will happen. Then we can ascribe some rough numbers to describe how likely we think this is to happen. Let us say that we believe there is a .25% chance that a person with poor health will die of a heart attack on any given night. Now let us say that we believe that our increased level of health decreases the likelihood of the heart attack occurring on any given night about 1000 fold. This gives us a .00025% chance of dying from a heart attack tonight, or a level of confidence of 99.99975% chance of our claim being correct. So we are extremely confident that we will not die from a heart attack tonight.

As for the 'aliens' we believe it is very unlikely that the claims people have made about aliens abducting them is actually true. So we can ascribe a very low probability of this occurring, perhaps we think the probability that it actually happens is roughly .001%. Even if it did occasionally happen, that does not mean that I am being truthful that it happened to me. So let us say that we think there is a 90% chance that I am lying even if alien abductions did occur. This gives us what we believe is roughly a .0001% likelihood that my claim about aliens is correct. So we are extremely confident that I was not abducted by aliens.

We then compare these two levels of confidence: 99.99975% certainty vs. .0001% certainty that my claim about alien abduction is true.

A vague sense of confidence would just mean that you would have to ascribe a wider range of numbers. Perhaps you believe there is somewhere between a 5% chance and a 20% chance that something is true. The numbers are generally rough estimations.

This is irrelevant. We are not estimating the actual probability of a claim being true, we are estimating what we think it is.

I never said they had to. I just said it is a means of describing the process through which somebody concludes to what degree of certainty they hold any particular claim. This is why I kept saying the numbers weren't real, they were just hypothetical.

Sure. But as far as I know, you can use numbers to describe any comparative process. You seem to disagree with this, at least in the sense of comparative statements.

I disagree, religious people argue that without accepting their faith we will burn in hell for all eternity, you can't say that this argument is something you can just ignore and one that is claiming a truth.

Sorry but I'm not interested in philosophical theories unless they are based in scientific truth. Like you say, for me as well it must have a foundation of knowledge but this foundation must be a strong one.

I'm just trying to find out how you are going from Knowledge -> Christianity because the only arguments I have seen are based on circular logic, poor observations and ultimately a leap of faith, one that is missing most or all of the logical steps in between.

Another point is that I am sure being active in any community will have a rub on effect, street gangs spring to mind and the affect they have on youths growing up in the area. I have a few Christian friends but there arguments do not suffice for me on the need for evidence, it seems to me to be a very personal thing for them that they are unable to describe.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

don't be mean. he has asperger's syndrome

To be fair, both of the works he cited do attempt to provide evidence for the existence of a god. They just both do a horrible job of it. Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ is incredibly biased, asking nothing more than some very easy questions from theists. The biggest problem with with book is that he only questions Christians who already agree with his conclusion. This would be fine if he were asking for a point of view or an opinion. But this is not what the book attempts to do. The Case for Christ is primarily an attempt to establish whether or not there is sufficient historical, psychological, and archaeological evidence that Jesus was the son of God and not just some guy. Were he to make an honest attempt, it would make a lot more sense to interview historians, psychologists, and archaeologists these questions (as well as some much tougher questions) rather than Christian apologists. It would also make sense to interview at least some people who were skeptical of his conclusion.

Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict also attempts to establish that The Bible is historically accurate through a series of arguments, such as Would You Die for a Lie?, C.S. Lewis' Liar, Lord, or Lunatic, and an attempt at arguing that The Bible is historically accurate based on the number of manuscripts we have of it as well as the duration of time between the writing of the originals and the writing of the manuscripts that we do have (can't recall the name of this argument off hand). All of these arguments are terribly flawed, and do not point to the conclusion he is attempting to make. If you are already a believer, this book will especially appeal to you. It will affirm everything that you already believe and appears that he has done the work of properly investigating the historicity of the bible. However, upon closer inspection, these arguments are either logically flawed or irrelevant to his intended conclusion.

Would You Die for a Lie ignores all other martyrs for contradictory beliefs to those in Christianity. It is also presented as evidence that the claims of Christ and the disciples are true. But the argument that people do not routinely die for something they know is a lie is evidence that they believed those claims were true, not that the claims themselves were actually true.

Lewis' Liar, Lord, or Lunatic has been systematically shot down every time it has been produced: it assumes that those are the only three possibilities as to why Jesus said what he did, if he did in fact say those things. It routinely leaves out such possibilities as 'mistaken' or 'myth'. Furthermore, the argument makes faulty assertions about these possibilities, such as a liar or lunatic could not possibly make any claim that wasn't dishonest and ill intended.

Finally, even if we had the original copies of the books of the bible, that says nothing as to whether or not they are true. We have plenty of copies which are identical to the original of The Lord of the Rings. That is not evidence that what occurred in The Lord of the Rings actually happened.

Once again, an awesome post Deorum.

(I hate doing +1 yippee posts, but some posts demand it!)

Thanks for the summery Deorum, so would you say any of the books provide empirical evidence based on scientific truth? even if that truth is distorted somewhat? By the sounds of it the books are reaffirming belief through pseudo-science or flawed logic. I will attempt to read the books for myself in the coming year!

These two books are more based on social sciences rather than physical sciences. They deal more with the historical accuracy of the bible than actual arguments for the existence of god by means of science (again, when I say science I am talking about the physical sciences - physics, chemistry, biology, and geology). If you are interested in those types of arguments, I would recommend checking out books containing such arguments as the 'teleological argument', the 'cosmological argument' (most of which have now moved to the kalam cosmological argument as the original cosmological argument is very easily debunked), arguments based on the 'anthropic principle', the 'natural-law argument', or the 'transcendental argument'. Some places to start investigating these arguments would be 'I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist', 'Darwin's Black Box', or 'Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics'.

You've either completely misread my post, or completely missed the point. Being able to pull numbers out of nowhere does not constitute a very meaningful discussion of the likelihood of various events. Notice that ALL of your starting points are COMPLETELY arbitrary.

What I am saying is this pseudo-mathematical process that you are laying out does NOT correspond to how most people actually make confidence judgments on various statements. Do you think that you can really distinguish between a .25% and .26% chance of something happening? Or that such differences can actually be made manifest somehow in a decision-making process?

Perform a calculation again using things like "your confidence that you will not die of a heart attack tonight" and "your confidence that a quarter is an unbiased coin" and "your confidence that gravity will not 'turn off' tomorrow." Tell me which one you believe is more likely to be true based on the calculation. Then tell me whether you actually believe the result you obtained.

Do you realize how different 19:1 and 4:1 are? This is why I don't think numbers can effectively be placed on these types of judgments, and why I strongly suspect that if I were to try to put numbers on things I would get non-transitive relations.

This is VERY relevant. I don't believe that people work in those probabilities when they make confidence judgments. They don't do it because it doesn't make sense to them to do it. People do not make numerical guesses in their confidence statements, so forcing a numerical system on it is going to be a gigantic fail.

One last time: I'm saying that "degree of certainty" DOES NOT have a numerical value associated to it. There are all sorts of problems with trying to assert this situation:

1) As you have demonstrated, the numerical system is completely arbitrary.
2) People do not operate in a numerical system of judgment for a large majority of their decisions.
3) People are generally UNABLE to ascribe meaningful values to their confidence statements.

You should learn about the comparative statement "is a subset of" in any introductory book on set theory. This is known as a "partial ordering" in which we have a way of comparing objects in a very concrete manner, but it's not true that any two statements can be compared. (This stands in contrast to a "linear ordering" which is what your numerical scheme is forced to be.)

I don't see any connection between my claim and yours.

You'd better lay out what you mean by a "philosophical theory" that is "based in scientific truth." I don't think it will take long for you to find yourself in a self-defeating philosophical position, much in the same way OP is in.

I'll give you an example. Pick your side: Free will or determinism. Now find some way to justify what you believe about your own decision-making process and support it with "scientific truth." If you can do so, I strongly suggest you throw your ideas into this thread and fight to defend it. (If I were you, I would read the thread, first.)

In a very real sense, you are putting the cart before the horse. Scientific "fact" is an interpretation of data. But data does not interpret itself, it must be interpreted by people. People bring philosophical ideas into *HOW* they interpret data, and not the other way around.

There is ultimately a "step of trust" (what you call a "leap of faith") in any belief system, including in scientific methodology.

Do you believe that the scientific community doesn't also have a "rub on" effect? Do you really think that there's no cultural influence in the interpretation of data in the sciences? You should especially take a look at the softer sciences, the place where you will find a much more meaningful understanding of religion compared to the hard sciences. (Why? The hard sciences effectively take 'people' out of the system. But real life is all about interactions with people, so such understandings are naturally going to come up short.)

And again, I don't believe that one can be "argued" into faith. It's not like I can point to any particular piece of evidence and you will suddenly say to yourself "Jesus is LORD." This is much the same as pointing to any particular scientific result and suddenly claiming that "science is the answer to everything."

I find Aaron's attempts to construct walls, that shield him from thinking about certain subjects, quite entertaining. Sometimes he even goes further by putting walls to stop himself from thinking about thinking about those subjects.

(in case it's unclear - this is about the Deorum-Aaron back and forth)

The numbers aren't coming out of nowhere. They are descriptions of the level of confidence that you have that something is true. As I have said before, the 'starting points' aren't definitive; they are a rough estimation.

It does correspond. Again, people do not have to physically think of a number in order for somebody else to be able to describe the process as a mathematical one. Nobody has to be able to distinguish between a .25% and a .26% chance of something happening. They just have to be able to distinguish between a .25% and a 90%, for instance. .25% and .26% chance would represent virtually the same level of certainty. And they do not have to be made manifest in a decision-making process. They can, however, be ascribed to the process in order to describe it.

Very briefly, we already did the heart attack, the quarter being an unbiased coin would probably be slightly more based on the fact that people do die of heart attacks but quarters are roughly equally weighted, and the gravity one being significantly more based on two things: a) we are very confident in general relativity and b) to our knowledge, gravity has always worked the way it does. And yes I believe this result; that is to say, I believe I am more confident that gravity 'turning off' tomorrow is far less likely than my dying of a heart attack tonight or a quarter winding up being a biased coin.

Yes, they are not terribly different when the sole purpose is to compare them to things on the order of 1000:1, for instance.

They don't have to work in them. I don't know how many times I can say this: I am not saying everybody always thinks of a specific number while determining the difference in their level of confidence between to claims. The method can be used to describe the process that they do use (either by the person making the determination or by somebody else).

One last time: I AGREE. The degree of certainty can, however, be EXPRESSED by means of a system of numerical values.

1) The numerical system isn't arbitrary. It is based on how likely a person thinks something is to be true. This doesn't have to be a specific number, it can be a range of numbers, a rough estimation. The important part is the ability to distinguish between such rough estimations labeled "not very likely", "fairly likely", "very likely" etc. But even if the numerical system were completely arbitrary, that wouldn't matter. As long as the numerical system is internally consistent (ie. you ascribe a higher probability to something that you think is more likely to happen) and is properly weighted (ie. you don't assign a larger number to one degree of certainty than you do to another, when that second degree of certainty is actually higher than the first) the numerical system works.

2) I don't know why you keep bringing this up. I have always agreed with you on this. I am sure most people do not think in terms of numbers. The point is that you can describe the way that they do think through the numerical system.

3) Whether or not most people are capable of doing this is irrelevant as to whether or not it can be used to describe the process. And, assuming that 'meaningful' means 'accurate', you still seem to misunderstand that we are not talking about any sort of actual probabilities, just the general level of confidence somebody has that a claim is true coupled with the ability to understand the difference between those different levels of confidence.

are you two seriously having this argument?

with this level of detail?

for this long?

I'm so glad I bailed early. Dunno what it is (pure laziness I suspect), but when the posts start getting tl;dr I tend to jump ship.

The failure of this assumption is the whole point!

I find it amusing that it seems one must be a nihilist in order to accept religion. "Aha", says the protester "surely you must also be a nihilist to accept science".

But not really. Let's face it, nobody builds V8s based on religious texts. Vroooom vroooom! All the symphony I need to know religion is a dead end. That's the problem innit; Religion doesn't _work_.

theists know that they cannot prove their thinking, hence the word faith (aka 'lie') that they cling to. why are you wasting your time typing to them when 99% of them won't change their minds and be open to reason and logic and science regardless of how much logical proof you offer??

How does it fail?

Non-transitivity of beliefs is an example I've cited multiple times.

Your scheme works when the number of items being compared is small (say on the order of 5 statements). However, if you continue to try to compare more and more assertions, you'll find that people will say all sorts of unusual things about their beliefs.

Very simply, run this thought experiment. Give a person a list of 500 statements to assign "confidence" values to, using whatever numerical range they desire. Then ask them 1000 questions about what they think their relative beliefs are for a random selection of those statements. (For example, are you more confident in X or Y, or do you have the same confidence in both?) Do you think that the person will answer both sets of questions in a perfectly consistent manner? I would be very surprised if the person had more than 75% consistency, and completely unsurprised if the value was closer to 50%.

Unless my memory is bad, you've asserted multiple times that my position is that of a nihilist, I've never understood why you think this is so. Are you sure you mean nihilism and not something else?

What _worK_ are you anticipating religion to do?

My posts are for my own benefit. They are a means of reaffirming what I believe by considering why it is that I believe those things, as well as strengthening my ability to reason through practice. It is much easier to do these things when you have a real person challenging you about them. Anything anybody other than me gets out of my posts is just gravy.