I like the Euthryphro dilemma, as well. It makes clear that if morality is inherently moral, then why do we need any god to tell us the answer?
How would you know inherent morality otherwise? Do we assume that everyone accurately perceives inherent morality accurately regardless of whether a god exists?
No, there is no assumption necessary. You think it is required for everyone to know what inherent morality is. From the Bible, God inconsistently commands people to do different things based on whims. The Bible doesn’t give a clear guideline of what morality is—you figure out what you think it means based on reason, and reason is the ultimate guide for your decision of what is right and wrong. Your basis is reason, not God. God is an unnecessary middleman. Prove to me that he is necessary.
If you will try to answer my question ("How would you know inherent morality otherwise?") perhaps you could prove it to yourself. I’ll bet that if you do the reasoning yourself you will be more likely to accept it than if I try to convince you.
Clearly the Judeo-Christian god is immoral by this definition because he commands contradicting actions (to kill others, and not to kill others).
I don’t think you’re perceiving a real contradiction.
Slaying an ox does not contradict “thou shalt not kill” even though humans are not specifically mentioned as the subject. Likewise, “murder” is the intended meaning of “kill” according to the context, and moreover the law was given for people to follow. Not counting Jesus, God is not people, and killing in war is not typically thought of as murder.
The Euthyphro dilemma does nothing to shed light on the epistemic difficulty of morality.
Here, you convince me that you use reason to decide whether or not killing is right and when or when it does not apply. Your interpretation determines what you think is moral.
What you appear to overlook is that my reasoning might as well be relativistic if God does not serve as the foundation.
If you think morality is inherent, how do you know that your interpretation of God’s description of morality is correct? (Answer: you don’t know, any better than any other Christian who interprets the Bible in any other way. There is no evidence for your correctness over another person’s. How could you possibly claim to know what God was thinking? Your definition of him says he is above our level of comprehension.)
Well, thanks for saving me from having to answer!
Shall I answer for you the question I asked that you did not answer?
If the God of the Bible is the source of morality, then my understanding of morality will be as superior (or inferior) to that of another person to the same degree that my interpretation of the Bible is better respecting morality. And that is no more totally subjective than counting donuts in a box. For example, one who interprets the Bible as saying that crucifying Jews is a normative moral standard has extremely thin hermeneutic legs for his argument compared to one who instead perceives a normative command to right past wrongs.
I don’t claim that God is above our level of comprehension. In contrast to the Muslim (who finds God inscrutable), I stand in the Christian tradition of thinking that some things about God may be understood quite plainly. Though as with the universe itself, an exhaustive understanding may well be impossible for finite minds.
If you think morality isn’t inherent, but is based on what God says is moral, then God is clearly immoral because he says one thing and does another.
You don’t need the Bible or God to tell you what is right or wrong, according to everything you’ve said above.
That doesn’t follow. And it would probably be dawning on you why if you had bothered to try to answer my question.
I’d love to hear the definition of the foundation of reality that people have been bugging you for.
I’d like to see those people justify the question as being coherent. Apparently the plan is to ask the question whether it is coherent or not, ignore my statement that I don’t understand the question, and then go to the continual reminder that I’m not answering the question. We’ll call it dialog, I suppose.
That contradiction is manifest is not a premise.
Incorrect. It was obviously the premise of the question you asked me ("If morality is a feature of nature, then how can god say that killing is immoral and command people to kill each other?"). The question asks me to reconcile a problem for which no argument in any detail has been advanced. I’m saying I don’t see the problem.
It is the logical conclusion from God’s two opposing commands.
I’ve briefly explained why the commands are not in opposition.
Finally, if morality is part of reality, then god is not only immoral by being self-contradictory, but unnecessary. He is simply a vehicle to communicate (quite unclearly) morality. I’m sorry, I should clarify that we’re discussion the Biblical, Judeo-Christian god right now, so my references to god contradicting himself are based on what the Bible says, and my references to him communicating ideas of morality are also based on the Bible, as it is assumed as the word of god.
Understood, though you have done your work incompletely at best.
Care to back this statement up, or are you just going to poke unfounded accusations at me?
I’m simply replying appropriately to your unfounded accusations ("god is not only immoral by being self-contradictory, but unnecessary. He is simply a vehicle to communicate (quite unclearly) morality"). I’m asking you to “found” them. If you ask me to prove your assertions wrong without displaying a willingness to provide an argument in favor of your assertions then your behavior is inconsistent.
As of now, I assume “understood” equates to, God is immoral.
That is a poor assumption. I’m just saying that I understand what you’re saying. I don’t agree with it, and you’re not proceeding beyond mere assertion so you’re not offering me any reason to change my mind.
You don’t appear to have followed the argument. You can get rid of God’s communications if you wish--that’s apparently the “middle man” of which you speak--but if morality is rooted in the nature of God and you get rid of God then you have gotten rid of morality. That’s the source, not the middle man.
You could argue that morality simply exists naturally--but how would you go about detecting it? What metaphysical basis permits you the expectation that a naturally existing morality would be apparent to thinking creatures? Would the accurate perception of morality confer an evolutionary advantage, per se?
I am not arguing anything, first off.
Given the following statement I find that very hard to believe:
If morality is a feature of nature, then how can god say that killing is immoral and command people to kill each other? And, if morality is inherently part of reality, then why are there opposing forces in the world? Your assumption/suggestion doesn’t make sense. Finally, if morality is part of reality, then god is not only immoral by being self-contradictory, but unnecessary. He is simply a vehicle to communicate (quite unclearly) morality. I’m sorry, I should clarify that we’re discussion the Biblical, Judeo-Christian god right now, so my references to god contradicting himself are based on what the Bible says, and my references to him communicating ideas of morality are also based on the Bible, as it is assumed as the word of god. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/38415/
My beliefs are inconsequential; I’m just trying to understand yours.
You’re offering me something that you believe and asking me to explain it. That puts your beliefs at issue, since the explanation may well be that your beliefs are wrong.
You are arguing that God is morality and therefore defines it. And this quite clearly is contradicted by my argument about the direction to kill vs. not kill in the Bible.
Not that you’re arguing anything, of course.
Murder is different from war, and it is different from capital punishment. If you think that the taking of the promised land was a command to murder then it is incumbent on you to argue that point, or else there’s no point in my trying to address your claim of contradiction (because there is no contradiction unless both are murder in the same sense of the term).
God commands his people to commit mass genocide against other people in the Bible, and also says thou shalt not kill in the commandments. It’s a pretty obvious contradiction, to me, but please try to explain why it isn’t.
War is not ordinarily murder. The planet has a long history of distinguishing between killing done as part of a war effort and killing as murder. The burden of proof is on you to justify equating the two.
When did I say anything about war? I am talking about the intent to kill others based on their ethnic or racial group, not war. Genocide is not war; look it up. You are changing the subject (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and drawing attention away from the point.
You didn’t explain why this isn’t a contradiction.
You never explained why it is a contradiction. Now that you’ve explained that you think genocide took place I have something to work with.
You just redefined the terms.
What term did I redefine, other than properly identifying the “kill” of the commandments as “murder”?
Above, in my other response, you also admit why you don’t need the Bible to determine when killing is right or wrong, and what type of killing is being discussed in certain cases.
I don’t remember anything of the kind. Kindly quote me directly when you receive these types of impressions.
Unless you have an argument against the obvious logical contradiction of a command to kill others and a command to not kill others without redefining the terminology to achieve your goal, then this is a clear contradiction.
Unless you have an argument in support of a supposedly obvious logical contradiction (one that actually makes it obvious) then there is no clear contradiction.
It’s very easy to make statements like that one, isn’t it? I suggest you make your argument (you’re the one asserting something), and I’ll show where you go wrong.
Both are useful. If one accepts a god that creates a world that is completely incomprehensible to its inhabitants then one has no basis for judging the existence of that god (inability to judge external consistency would be an absolute prediction of the existence of that same god). The mere assumption that sense-data offers evidence that said god is externally inconsistent with reality fallaciously begs the question. That question is properly answered by addressing the internal consistency of the system entailed by positing such a god.
faithlessgod - 12 May 2008 12:00 PM
I agree both are are useful indeed required, however only external consistency can differentiate your theism from the 9,999 minimum others. The odds of you being right are still 0.0001, too low to consider much longer.
Bryan - 12 May 2008 12:32 PM
You mean you’re about to dismiss it because of low odds???
If the odds don’t change then what accounts for the not-quite-summarily forthcoming dismissal (unless I’m misreading you)?
Bryan the ease with which you see that Mormonism, Islam, and Hinduism cannot be true (to say nothing of cannot all be simultaneously true) should make you think. Is it just barely, barely possible that a religion like Christiianity might arise with incorrect or false information in its scriptures? Don’t these other 9999 examples show that it is possible? And if it is possible that Christianity is incorrect, how shall we evaluate it? Surely it needs more than “internal consistency”—that seems pretty minor if there are large “external inconsistencies”.
Bryan the ease with which you see that Mormonism, Islam, and Hinduism cannot be true (to say nothing of cannot all be simultaneously true) should make you think.
You mean it hasn’t?
okfyts.
Is it just barely, barely possible that a religion like Christiianity might arise with incorrect or false information in its scriptures?
Sure, it’s possible.
Don’t these other 9999 examples show that it is possible?
If we needed 9999 other examples, sure.
And if it is possible that Christianity is incorrect, how shall we evaluate it?
As I’ve said, first according to worldview (including self-consistency).
Second, according to external consistency.
Surely it needs more than “internal consisitency”—that seems pretty minor if there are large “external inconsistencies”.
True, but please bear in mind that I’ve been trying to make a point with faithlessgod about the role of internal consistency.
<i>I suggest that morality is part of the foundation of reality, in that it exists as a feature of the eternal nature of God.
So far your just suggesting (asserting) that morality is a fundamental part of reality because it is the nature of god. How are you going to back that up or can you? What pray tell is the nature of god? And how do we tell the difference between what brian thinks the nature of god is and just brian’s imagination.
If I’m claiming that reality has some features then you should be able to name them without my going through it over again. Agreed?
Haven’t read where you have explained what features the “foundation of reality” has. Could you please point me to the posts where you’ve explained this. Other wise you just have to humor me.
I simply suggested (and I used that root intentionally) that morality according to my view of theism is part of reality at the level of God’s nature. God, described as a self-existent being and the creator of all else is, as such, the foundation of reality within that framework. I was not talking about a “foundation for morality” in any sense like reality and existence itself needs some type of justification. Reality simply is reality.
well it’s not quite that simple. God or a supernatural consciousness would caused existence (reality) and everything in it to exist. Which would mean that morality being a feature of existence was up to that consciousness to define. In other words subjective to that consciousness, thus being arbitrary.
But what would suggest that existence would need to be created? We have never in all of the history of mankind ever have seen or measure non-existence. The primacy of existence states the truth that existence is primary and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exists). We say that existence is primary, that consciousness requires existence, and that there is no consciousness without existence.
Primacy of Consciousness which is what theistic belief is based on ( see Aquinas) puts consciousness first and existence as secondary which is just plain silly.
And if it is possible that Christianity is incorrect, how shall we evaluate it?
As I’ve said, first according to worldview (including self-consistency).
Second, according to external consistency.
Surely it needs more than “internal consistency”—that seems pretty minor if there are large “external inconsistencies”.
True, but please bear in mind that I’ve been trying to make a point with faithlessgod about the role of internal consistency.
Could you re-summarize this distinction between internal or self-consistency and external consistency -or give some pointers the the posts --
Did you give exampes of internal/external?
Are the Christian scriptures internal or eternal?
Is the Christian notion of life after death, heaven & hell internal or external?
How does a person objectively decide whether their belief is rational or superstititous?
True, but please bear in mind that I’ve been trying to make a point with faithlessgod about the role of internal consistency.
Well I am still waiting for a response to my last post, which is clearly avoidance given the volume of posts you have provided since.
Getting impatient here with your delaying tactics lets move this on quickly.
A)Your a priori probability that having the correct god, granting that a deity exists is, at best 0.0001
B)You were asked to provided differentiable evidence to increase the a posteriori probability of your deity being correct, that is to being greater than 0.0001
C) You suggested internal self-consistency of the worldview associated with a deity.
D) Whilst there has been some confusion over external consistency, this need not concern us here since you nonetheless suggested “non-fallacious reasoning” as your method to evaluate internal self-consistency
Well to move this forward I will go with (D) and use the most charitable interpretation of “non-fallacious meaning” I can and lets see where we get. There are a number of indications that, far from your internal self-consistency criterion increasing your a posteriori probability, it will, instead, decrease it! Indeed I have not seen anything from you..yet… that would indicate it can be increased.
So here I present a tentative analysis with a tentative conclusion, that is still pending provisional confirmation or dis-confirmation based on your responses to this analysis.
1. You have repeatedly presented fallacious reasoning in these forums and this thread, as Doug and others can attest to. This cast doubt on your claim for the superiority of your self-consistent worldview, since you should have no need to use such reasoning if it is what you say it is and is also indicative that your confidence in your self-consistent arguments are misplaced.
2. Evidence of the specific inconsistency of your theism is the problems you have over Euthyphro that I have dealt with before with you and is occurring here now with others.
3. I have conversed with other Christians who do not have a problem with Euthyphro, since they take the other horn to you and so have less challenges to obtaining self-consistency. You might say they are not Christians but that is irrelevant here since we are considering competing theisms and theirs is a valid competitor.
4. You have not answered the challenge of needing a self-consistent Judaism on which to based your self-consistent Christianity. By the basic rules of probability and logic - the conjunction fallacy - such a Judaism would be more self-consistent than yours or any other Christianity or Islam.
5. If you use a completion argument whether to make an inconsistent Judaism consistent or just more complete, Muslims could use the same argument against you.
6. Whilst this only applies to your Christianity given its juxtaposition between judaism and islam, if you were to switch from 4 to 5 and back, this would be the leg hopping fallacy and evidence against your self-consistent system. I am not saying you would do this, but if you did, that is what would be concluded.
7. Other theisms have a lighter or simpler worldview, by the same conjunction fallacy these are more likely to be self-consistent
8. Deism is a theism without a worldview, if you insist on comparing them with worldviews then the principle of charity would dictate to chose the most self-consistent worldview available and, whatever it is, would be more self-consistent than yours being absent Euthyphro dilemma for starters.
I asked how much time would one spend on a theism with a 0.0001 chance of being correct. Well if finding the correct god was the most important thing in my life a brute force consideration of one god a day would take roughly 30 years! Of course we want to do better than brute force and speed up to process, hence the concept of differentiable evidence increasing the a posteriori probability. We can use such evidence to prune the theistic search space, not summarily but by standard Bayesian reasoning. At the very least spend no time on theisms with a criteria which would reduce the a posteriori probability below 0.0001. From everything I can see in the above 8 points I can tentatively conclude that your own suggested criteria does exactly that for your theism, hence it less likely than other theism and so is not worth pursing any further.
4. You have not answered the challenge of needing a self-consistent Judaism on which to based your self-consistent Christianity. By the basic rules of probability and logic - the conjunction fallacy - such a Judaism would be more self-consistent than yours or any other Christianity or Islam.
..
I asked how much time would one spend on a theism with a 0.0001 chance of being correct. Well if finding the correct god was the most important thing in my life a brute force consideration of one god a day would take roughly 30 years! Of course we want to do better than brute force and speed up to process, hence the concept of differentiable evidence increasing the a posteriori probability. We can use such evidence to prune the theistic search space, not summarily but by standard Bayesian reasoning. At the very least spend no time on theisms with a criteria which would reduce the a posteriori probability below 0.0001. From everything I can see in the above 8 points I can tentatively conclude that your own suggested criteria does exactly that for your theism, hence it less likely than other theism and so is not worth pursing any further.
These are interesting points:
(a) is it inconsistent for a Christian to criticize Judaism—
(b) how does Bryan know his religion is more correct than the others—does he expect them to come to him with revelations, or does he have to do the work.
Why would the Christian God be so elusive on one hand and send unbelievers to an eternity in hell on the other?
So what you are saying is that your internal self-consistency test, applicable to your and other theists’ systems, is based on the external criteria of Bayesian reasoning, that is terms of validity and strength and not soundness (which would an external consistency requirement)?
Your statement is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation.
Bayesian reasoning is not a criterion at all. It is a method, and might be used to evaluate various criteria. Based on what you wrote, I do not feel comfortable hazarding a guess as to what you’re trying to say.
So much for not playing semantic games Bryan! Duh!
You think it is a semantic game for me to tell you that I don’t follow the meaning of your question?
Is that charitable?
Of course it is a method, that is what methods do. You are suggesting the criterion, it seems the best method to evaluate internal self-consistency that I know of and is the same as I am using here already, so there should be no possible confusion on what I mean.
Huh? You’ve been criticizing the method I suggested. I am the one who suggested that you were (hypocritically) using the very method you criticized. You haven’t acknowledged that I was correct in that statement until (surprise!!!) now.
Now you have already agreed that each theist does not get to set the method of determining their own self-consistency, as we all realize that otherwise your suggestion just fails as an a posteriori differential evidence classifier.
Hah! I did not agree with you! You asserted the opposite! If we agree on that then you have altered your position.
So how about you state in black and white terms what method you would use to evaluate self-consistency and if is not Bayesian reasoning why it should be preferred?
OK--right after you explain why you called Bayesian reasoning a criterion.
All I know is that you mention “non-fallacious reasoning” - a method if it is anything! - which is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation - and I am still waiting for one
Meh. There was no problem with my grammar. And now for some reason you hint at triumph for you in that “non-fallacious reasoning” is a method. It seems you would be more justified in gloating if non-fallacious reasoning were a criterion, in my humble opinion. Self-consistency is the criterion. Non-fallacious reasoning is the method.
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
I have never denied the usefulness of internal consistency only discussed the problems of dealing with it without external criteria. You are now suggesting external criteria which is the point I was making.
Based on your (apparent) claim that Bayesian reasoning is an external criterion?
That could easily pass for a rhetorical trick, IMHO.
This is a rhetorical trick, clearly there has be some some external criteria otherwise there is no way to test each theist’s claims for self-consistency, they set their own terms for this and low and behold their system is self-consistent!
It sounds like you’re re-defining doctrines, texts and the like as “external criteria.” Those are all criteria internal to the system. External concerns the correlation with reality or with competing systems. If I accurately follow what you’re suggesting then you have defined internal criteria out of existence. As I already pointed out, if there is no content associated with systems (such as “Latter-Day Saints” or “Scientology") then they cannot be judged on either internal consistency or external consistency. In short, it seems very likely that you are committing a fallacy of equivocation.
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
Bryan - 14 May 2008 08:13 AM
A specific point to your theism is that since your Christianity is derived from and enhanced over Judaism, you need to start from a self-consistent Judaism and take it further. But then probabilistically yours is less likely to correct than such a Judaism by the normal rules of logic and so your odds go down not up compared to at least one version of a Jewish theism.
Good point, albeit not particularly relevant to the issue on which we disagree--unless perhaps I were to suggest that you had derived this factor based on self-consistency rather than external consistency. If you did the former then you’re implicitly conceding the usefulness of internal consistency to assist in calculating the probability that a religion is correct.
[edit]No I am granting that if this is a suitable differentiable criteria, then you need to answer this challenge else a suitable version of Jewish theism beats yours by default by increasing its a priori odds over yours [/edit]
Well I’d just be wasting my time in addressing it if you don’t accept it as a suitable criterion for differentiation, wouldn’t I?
So of what use is the challenge at this point other than as a diversionary tactic?
Clearly your diversion to getting on with the challenge is indicative that your confidence in this claimed method is possibly a facade.
“Clearly” “possibly.”
Meh. Yeah, I suppose it’s a definite maybe.
I’m dealing with the issue of internal consistency as a first order of business. If Judaism and Christianity are both superior in terms of self-consistency to other systems then both increase their a (posteriori) chances of being correct. I’ll let you determine whether or not the association with Judaism (is an issue of internal or external consistency.)
So far far you have provided nothing to increase the odds of your god being right from being at best 0.0001. Unless you deliver the opportunity value here will have expired.
Bayesian reasoning works whether I accept this self-consistency test or not!This was an opportunity to start on the challenge even with elements left to be determined, your avoidance is telling :-(
As telling as you flip-flopping as to whether internal consistency has the type of value I claim for it?
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
Bryan - 14 May 2008 08:13 AM
Well, since it’s up to me ...
You mean like if I thought it contained an internal contradiction?
No you are still missing the point (and repeating yourself). To the extent that we can, which is clearly limited here, this is a differentiable criteria theoretically applicable across all candidates in parallel which alters their a posteriori odds.
How is that supposed to follow? Are you back to judging self-consistency according to subjective impressions?
Sorry this is a non sequitur. Subjectivity has nothing to do with it, at least in my case. If you are are thinking that I think your theism is totally subjective you are right, I am waiting to see if you can show it is not. That is the whole point of this challenge, so far you have provided no evidence or argument that your theism is not entirely subjective and therefore most likely a fiction. I am not on this forums to deal with fiction so show me and us that it is not.
I don’t see how you’ve explained how your comment is supposed to follow.
I’m not interested in meeting a challenge “with elements left to be determined.” I don’t think it’s appropriate to proceed before ironing out the basics. Your proposal to speed past them seems suspiciously like what we would see from one who expects that he has nothing to gain and something to lose in the discussion.
First, I have no recollection of accusing anyone of not working hard enough to understand me (I recently told Mriana that I would work harder on my end to be better understood--not the same thing so far as I can tell).
But in answer to your question, because I don’t feel like it.
You failed to offer sufficient evidence…
Your statement is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation.
Understood, though you have done your work incompletely at best.
And others, but for now, I’ll just say okfyts and share a
When the call goes out for evidence that I accused someone of not working hard enough to understand me, we get the following (bold emphasis to indicate the quotations provided by traveler):
faithlessgod:
When you suggested internal self-consistency as your differential evidence to show the superiority and thereby increase the a posteriori odds of your god being correct, I indicated that is insufficient as a form of differential evidence and external consistency could do the trick.
Bryan:
You failed to offer sufficient evidence that internal consistency was insufficient as a form of differential evidence--and in the first place your original question was how I would suggest shifting the odds to make one religion more likely than another. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/38318/
That’s supposed to be evidence that I accused someone of not working hard enough to understand me?
Faithlessgod made an assertion without supporting evidence. I simply pointed that out while borrowing his own turn of phrase. There is no suggestion on my part that he did not work hard enough to understand me. My suggestion is that he did too little work for me to accept his assertion.
Next:
faithlessgod:
So what you are saying is that your internal self-consistency test, applicable to your and other theists’ systems, is based on the external criteria of Bayesian reasoning, that is terms of validity and strength and not soundness (which would an external consistency requirement)?
Bryan
Your statement is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation.
Bayesian reasoning is not a criterion at all. It is a method, and might be used to evaluate various criteria. Based on what you wrote, I do not feel comfortable hazarding a guess as to what you’re trying to say. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/38407/
I pointed out that faithlessgod’s statement was difficult for me to understand, adding that what he had identified as “criteria” was not a criterion but a method (part of the method used to grade self-consistency of noetic systems).
Again there is no suggestion from me that faithlessgod did not work hard enough; certainly there are grammatical problems with his statement, however, in addition to what appears to be the counterintuitive identification of “Bayesian reasoning” as a criterion. As I am in no position to judge the degree of effort faithlessgod put into his post, I make no judgment on that score. And I am consistent in that. In contrast to some, I do not tend to suggest that others deliberately misunderstand what I say (I do sometimes express surprise when the same straw man recurs after I thought I had helped stomp the stuffing out of him).
And finally:
saraaaahhhhhh:
Finally, if morality is part of reality, then god is not only immoral by being self-contradictory, but unnecessary. He is simply a vehicle to communicate (quite unclearly) morality. I’m sorry, I should clarify that we’re discussion the Biblical, Judeo-Christian god right now, so my references to god contradicting himself are based on what the Bible says, and my references to him communicating ideas of morality are also based on the Bible, as it is assumed as the word of god.
Again, the quotation has nothing at all to do with me claiming that another person has not worked hard enough to understand me.
I affirm that I understand where Sarah is coming from ("Understood") along with acknowledging the clarification she offers with her last sentence (hers beginning with “I’m sorry"). Her statement is incomplete at best because she offers assertions without supporting evidence ("if morality is part of reality, then god is not only immoral by being self-contradictory, but unnecessary” and “He is simply a vehicle to communicate (quite unclearly) morality"). It should be relatively clear that if morality depends on the nature of God (as I have suggested) then God is necessary to the moral system I describe. For that reason and more, Sarah’s argument is incomplete because it is an argument by assertion, not a series of steps leading logically toward a particular conclusion.
Reminder:
traveler:
Why don’t you just tell me I haven’t worked hard enough to understand you since that’s a tactic you have used previously.
Bryan:
First, I have no recollection of accusing anyone of not working hard enough to understand me (I recently told Mriana that I would work harder on my end to be better understood--not the same thing so far as I can tell).
But in answer to your question, because I don’t feel like it. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/3827/P495/
Supposedly a tactic I have used previously--but traveler can’t back it up.
Oh dear Bryan, it seems that you are reverting to playing your usual semantic diversionary and avoidance games. This post your are responding here has already been abrogated by the one following and that it the one you need to answer. To recap there I am accept you criteria of “internal self-consistency” and attempt to use the most charitable interpretation of your suggested method of “non-fallacious reasoning”. However and ironically I have tentatively concluded that your proposal- to avoid a brute force search of the space of theisms - would probabilistically eliminate your own theism. It is up to you to provide counter-arguments to any and all of my points there and/or to add arguments in your favor. Once this is done a provisional conclusion could be reached that would hopefully be agreed to by any unbiased impartial observer. Of course if you avoid doing this then I can only take this as an admission that you cannot and so the current tentative conclusion would win by default.
Bryan - 18 May 2008 06:50 PM
faithlessgod - 16 May 2008 03:46 AM
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
faithlessgod - 15 May 2008 12:50 AM
So what you are saying is that your internal self-consistency test, applicable to your and other theists’ systems, is based on the external criteria of Bayesian reasoning, that is terms of validity and strength and not soundness (which would an external consistency requirement)?
Your statement is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation.
Bayesian reasoning is not a criterion at all. It is a method, and might be used to evaluate various criteria. Based on what you wrote, I do not feel comfortable hazarding a guess as to what you’re trying to say.
So much for not playing semantic games Bryan! Duh!
You think it is a semantic game for me to tell you that I don’t follow the meaning of your question?
Is that charitable?
Of course it is a method, that is what methods do. You are suggesting the criterion, it seems the best method to evaluate internal self-consistency that I know of and is the same as I am using here already, so there should be no possible confusion on what I mean.
Huh? You’ve been criticizing the method I suggested. I am the one who suggested that you were (hypocritically) using the very method you criticized. You haven’t acknowledged that I was correct in that statement until (surprise!!!) now.
Now you have already agreed that each theist does not get to set the method of determining their own self-consistency, as we all realize that otherwise your suggestion just fails as an a posteriori differential evidence classifier.
Hah! I did not agree with you! You asserted the opposite! If we agree on that then you have altered your position.
So how about you state in black and white terms what method you would use to evaluate self-consistency and if is not Bayesian reasoning why it should be preferred?
OK--right after you explain why you called Bayesian reasoning a criterion.
All I know is that you mention “non-fallacious reasoning” - a method if it is anything! - which is too grammatically dicey to warrant an answer without explanation - and I am still waiting for one
Meh. There was no problem with my grammar. And now for some reason you hint at triumph for you in that “non-fallacious reasoning” is a method. It seems you would be more justified in gloating if non-fallacious reasoning were a criterion, in my humble opinion. Self-consistency is the criterion. Non-fallacious reasoning is the method.
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
I have never denied the usefulness of internal consistency only discussed the problems of dealing with it without external criteria. You are now suggesting external criteria which is the point I was making.
Based on your (apparent) claim that Bayesian reasoning is an external criterion?
That could easily pass for a rhetorical trick, IMHO.
This is a rhetorical trick, clearly there has be some some external criteria otherwise there is no way to test each theist’s claims for self-consistency, they set their own terms for this and low and behold their system is self-consistent!
It sounds like you’re re-defining doctrines, texts and the like as “external criteria.” Those are all criteria internal to the system. External concerns the correlation with reality or with competing systems. If I accurately follow what you’re suggesting then you have defined internal criteria out of existence. As I already pointed out, if there is no content associated with systems (such as “Latter-Day Saints” or “Scientology") then they cannot be judged on either internal consistency or external consistency. In short, it seems very likely that you are committing a fallacy of equivocation.
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
Bryan - 14 May 2008 08:13 AM
A specific point to your theism is that since your Christianity is derived from and enhanced over Judaism, you need to start from a self-consistent Judaism and take it further. But then probabilistically yours is less likely to correct than such a Judaism by the normal rules of logic and so your odds go down not up compared to at least one version of a Jewish theism.
Good point, albeit not particularly relevant to the issue on which we disagree--unless perhaps I were to suggest that you had derived this factor based on self-consistency rather than external consistency. If you did the former then you’re implicitly conceding the usefulness of internal consistency to assist in calculating the probability that a religion is correct.
[edit]No I am granting that if this is a suitable differentiable criteria, then you need to answer this challenge else a suitable version of Jewish theism beats yours by default by increasing its a priori odds over yours [/edit]
Well I’d just be wasting my time in addressing it if you don’t accept it as a suitable criterion for differentiation, wouldn’t I?
So of what use is the challenge at this point other than as a diversionary tactic?
Clearly your diversion to getting on with the challenge is indicative that your confidence in this claimed method is possibly a facade.
“Clearly” “possibly.”
Meh. Yeah, I suppose it’s a definite maybe.
I’m dealing with the issue of internal consistency as a first order of business. If Judaism and Christianity are both superior in terms of self-consistency to other systems then both increase their a priori chances of being correct. I’ll let you determine whether or not the association with Judaism
So far far you have provided nothing to increase the odds of your god being right from being at best 0.0001. Unless you deliver the opportunity value here will have expired.
Bayesian reasoning works whether I accept this self-consistency test or not!This was an opportunity to start on the challenge even with elements left to be determined, your avoidance is telling :-(
As telling as you flip-flopping as to whether internal consistency has the type of value I claim for it?
Bryan - 15 May 2008 09:35 AM
Bryan - 14 May 2008 08:13 AM
Well, since it’s up to me ...
You mean like if I thought it contained an internal contradiction?
No you are still missing the point (and repeating yourself). To the extent that we can, which is clearly limited here, this is a differentiable criteria theoretically applicable across all candidates in parallel which alters their a posteriori odds.
How is that supposed to follow? Are you back to judging self-consistency according to subjective impressions?
Sorry this is a non sequitur. Subjectivity has nothing to do with it, at least in my case. If you are are thinking that I think your theism is totally subjective you are right, I am waiting to see if you can show it is not. That is the whole point of this challenge, so far you have provided no evidence or argument that your theism is not entirely subjective and therefore most likely a fiction. I am not on this forums to deal with fiction so show me and us that it is not.
I don’t see how you’ve explained how your comment is supposed to follow.
I’m not inter
