Testing a Hypothesis about the Supernatural

[The Grand Nudger]

The plural form of "jack shit" is not "proof", Steve..lol.

[GrandizerII]

Ultimately, to do a proper Bayesian analysis, Steve needs to be intellectually honest enough to agree with the conditional probabilities and the stuff that we actually observe to be true.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Ultimately, to do a proper Bayesian analysis, Steve needs to be intellectually honest enough to agree with the conditional probabilities and the stuff that we actually observe to be true.

But that would mean not ignoring inconvenient points and questions raised by people or repeating yourself incessantly.

[GrandizerII]

Ultimately, to do a proper Bayesian analysis, Steve needs to be intellectually honest enough to agree with the conditional probabilities and the stuff that we actually observe to be true.

But that would mean not ignoring inconvenient points and questions raised by people or repeating yourself incessantly.

You and I know very well that's not likely to happen given his posting history.

[KevinM1]

Of all things to point to as the "truth" of the nt.....acts?

No one....no one..... thinks that acts is anything other than fictional.  As to your "evidence"...

1 Is just the reassertion of the fact that you believe.  Neither I nor any other non-christian finds it as compelling as you do.
2 Is..yet again, the claim.
3 Is an even more fatuous claim than the last
and 4..well...a-e can be and have been conclusively disproven.  Your personal threshold for belief is ludicrously short.  More fundamentally depressing..though..is that you could have summed your entire post up by simply stating that you believe, and think that your beliefs are..like, totally the best!  I believe that you believe that...but how do you think a statement of your preferences is supposed to establish the accuracy of your beliefs?

Thank you for saving me the time.

[SteveII]

Again with the "no evidence" nonsense. 

You keep referring to us pointing out that you have "no evidence" as us not being critical thinkers. But that would only be true if it was incorrect.

You have no evidence.

Responding to this by saying that this is a sign of us not being critical thinkers is a fallacious Ad hominem argument. Rather than respond to the point raised you attack the character or attributes of the people making the argument.

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of, the message of and the insights of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

It's hilarious and tragic that you think that's evidence. It's not evidence. As I said, using your standard of evidence, Harry Potter would be evidence of the existence of witches and wizards. Funny you ignore this point.

That's an comparison I would expect from a 5th grader. An I would tell the 5th grader the same thing, that is a stupid comparison. 

Regarding the general interpreting of evidence as to who Jesus might really be (the crux of Christianity), there is all kinds of evidence to weigh.

- Documentary (both actual and inferred--by careful textual examination). There has been no other set of writings so thoroughly investigated in the history of the world.
- The presence of churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and somehow it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that. I read recently that over a period of 50 years, at least nine authors wrote 27 books containing no less than 55 major doctrines and 180 doctrinal concepts centered on one figure – Jesus Christ.
- Paul and his writings on application and affirmation of the major claims--done before the Gospels were independently written.
- This one can't be stressed enough: the unlikelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard an alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have. If you think that having an alternate theory on one or two will make your case, it will not--these are a package deal. Address them all or or your objections are meaningless.

You could write books on any one of the points above (and people do). The point is, it is not as simple as saying "there is no evidence" There are layers upon layers of evidence that one person or another will find somewhere between uninteresting to compelling.

You have no evidence. Just a few deliberately half-baked definitions which you use for arguing for whatever magic you wish for. If you had clear definitions then you'd be able to answer the following question rather than continually ignoring it:

How is a supernatural cause different from a natural cause if both affect the nature that we can sense?

Because even if you could try answering this (you can't) then it wouldn't help you.

Because we know that in the past supernatural explanations have been shown to be incorrect when we've managed to come up with a natural explanation.

How can you tell the difference between a natural explanation that we do not yet have and a supernatural explanation that we will never know?

The supernatural is just a placeholder for natural explanations that we have not yet arrived at. And for you it's just a way of convincing yourself that you are justified in believing the fairy tale you were brought up with.

And you still think you're a critical thinker Dunning Kruger boy?

I have answered this way too many times. I can't help that you have comprehension problems. Go back and read and reply to a specific response if you want clarification.

[GrandizerII]

Steve ...

the claims made in the Bible are not [good] evidence that the Bible events are true. Stop making a fool out of yourself.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is a case example of something referred to in sociology as the phenomenon of confusing doctrine.  It's endemic to successful religions (and also political movements..though, in context, that might be splitting hairs) because it has two key advantages over a clear ideology.  The first being the breadth of options available to believers.  No matter what they believe, no matter how mutually contradictory any belief sets contents might be...they can at least point to some assumed authority that confirms that predisposition.  This allows a belief set to deal with changing attitudes and mores without resorting to perpetual reactionism.  I say "allows"..bcause ebven though it presents the option...belief sets schism at an alarming rate regardless of their inbuilt flexibility. Secondly...and perhaps even more importantly, the breadth of mutually contradictory propositions plays off our tendency to become exhausted..intellectually.  We only spend so much time trying to figure out what..if anything..is true among a wide enough set of propositions we desire to hold simultaneously true. The paradoxical nature of many belief sets comes to be seen..in the minds of believers..as an affirmation of their accuracy. Mystery as explanation. Koan as wisdom. Confusion as certainty.

Can it be simulataneously true that the supernatural is not testable, or that a supernatural cause is not observable...if we then assert that people witnessed miracles and personally interact with the gods that form their asserted cause?

Can it be simultaneously true that god is unobservable but also the best explanation for anything..particularly, better than observable explanations for the very same things?  No, ofc not.  

Are arguments to the effect of asserting things like fine tuning or objective morality broadly or rationally or even by invocation of probability indicative of gods?  How could they be?  Three options present themselves in both.  Option a being that there is no fine tuning or no objective morality.  Option b that there is but each is better explained (see above).  Option C being that a god did do both even if no god is required to do either (see option b).  Out of three options..only one is even close to a god claim...and it's not a particularly strong one.

Are the myths and legends of religious believers really indicative of the truth of their contents?  Only if hercules and hera are equally real and for the same reasons.  

All of this passes for a rational belief among believers, but only because the intellectual capacity of the believer has already been completely exhausted by the simple act of forming them and they have endless opportunity to form a contradictory defense of whatever they just said when faced with a refutation of the last thing..and this will repeat itself again with the next thing. It's a tight psychological knot, lol. The fact that we see this play out in a range of social and mass movements..the amount of study done on it, and any clear demonstration of the pitfalls of this approach fall on completely deaf ears..however, because..in response...the believer thinks that their beleifs are certainly true. That their gods are really real..and while all of the above may apply to every other mass movement or ideology or religion....it just can't apply to their own.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Because even if you could try answering this (you can't) then it wouldn't help you.

Because we know that in the past supernatural explanations have been shown to be incorrect when we've managed to come up with a natural explanation.

How can you tell the difference between a natural explanation that we do not yet have and a supernatural explanation that we will never know?

The supernatural is just a placeholder for natural explanations that we have not yet arrived at. And for you it's just a way of convincing yourself that you are justified in believing the fairy tale you were brought up with.

And you still think you're a critical thinker Dunning Kruger boy?

I have answered this way too many times. I can't help that you have comprehension problems. Go back and read and reply to a specific response if you want clarification.

OK, now I know that you are deliberately lying. You have not answered the question. How does it feel to be a liar?

True you tried (and failed) to answer other variants of the same question, but not the following.

How is a supernatural cause different from a natural cause if both affect the nature that we can sense?

Point me to the post where you answered this specific question you liar.

Your unsatisfactory answers are the reason why I pose a different question each time. If you had a meaningful definition of supernatural then you'd be able to answer all these questions properly.

If you could answer it, it would be easy to do so rather than just belittle me.

Liar for Jeebus. Intellectually dishonest. Lazy at best.

[Ravenshire]

In every instance, examining a natural effect will not give you information on the supernatural cause.

If examining the effect says nothing about the cause, how in the fuck do you determine the cause to be something supernatural? By your own words, your claim is that you cannot determine a supernatural cause.

You are attempting to cross the barrier or blur the lines between science and metaphysics. 

No, that would be you trying to blur that particular line.

---

Just chuckling like mad at the argument ...

A:You have no evidence
S: Looks! Maths! Scary symbols! Probability and Bayes theorem you'll have accept me on! Not at all garbage-in-garbage-out!
A: You have no evidence.
S: You aren't accomplished as me at logic. You refuse to listen. You aren't critical thinkers. <swans off>
A: None of which changes the fact that ... you have no evidence.

Ah, the "no evidence" card. That's the card unthinking, unsophisticated, critically-thinking impaired atheists play. It is trivially easy to prove you wrong: Let's try an easy one related to the earlier post: Luke. Why is Luke not evidence?

And we come full circle... Your argument that unsupported assertions of fact is somehow evidence still falls completely flat Stevie. But, even if you accept unsupported testimony as evidence, nothing in the buy-bull is testimony. It's the recording of oral traditions decades, at least after the alleged events. On other words, hearsay. That's why Luke is not evidence.

---

So, to say that I have no evidence is simply wrong.

No, to claim you have no evidence is quite accurate. That you accept the hearsay (at best) in the buy-bull as evidence merely demonstrates that you set the bar for evidence exceedingly low.