BSM

It depends on how you use the razor. From Skepdic.com:

As I already have wrote: "When I look at the history of how the Bible was assembled, the apparent disagreement between Christians on how to interpret it, its relation to other religious texts and religions (comparative religion),well, Occam's Razor seems to apply. In other words, when confronted with two explanations, an implausible one and a probable one, a rational person should select the probable one. I happen to think that the probable explanation for contradictions is that the Bible is man-made period."

And this really is my last word.

:wave:

Regards,

~BSM

CX

I thought it was widely understood that Paine was a "dirty little atheist".

llamaluvr

Occam's Razor is not a principle applied in the midst of improbable and probable explainations. It is used when there are two explainations, one unnessarily complicated, to suggest greater probability to the simpler one. If it did what you are trying to do, it would be redundant.

You haven't established any greater degree of plausibility or implausibility, though. And, even if you did, it wasn't due to the addition of unnessessary assumptions. That's what the razor is about.

An example of an appropriate place to use it would be when discussing the origin of the universe. If one person argues that 7 Gods created it, and another argues that one did, all other things being equal, the story with one God wins, because, if everything else in the story was equal, then there was no reason to suppose any more than one God.

Vorkosigan

Damn! Thanks, Don. That's where Mark got his scribal opposition to Jesus. From the OT.

Vorkosigan

BSM

Keith,

OK, I've given up saying the last word is the last word.

According to Sagan’s Demon Haunted World, Occam's Razor states that of the competing hypotheses that explain the data equally well, the one most likely to be correct is the one that makes the least number of assumptions and is the least complicated.

According to Shick and Vaughn in How to Think About Weird Things :

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism...nts.html#occam

http://www.2think.org/occams_razor.shtml

The Bible is man-made:
1. No known authors period. 2. Discrepancies, errors, and contradictions. 3. Copiests who were known to have added or omitted words. 4) Disagreement among Christians on how to interpret their sacred and “inspired� text in relation to such things as salvation, the nature of the Trinity, womens’ roles, sin, the nature of heaven, the nature of hell, etc. 5) Conservative Christians who believe that the Bible is error-free vs. liberal Christians who allow for some errors. 6) Comparative study of religion: Many religions have the same problems regarding their divine texts, yet only one religion can be right (at least according to Christianity). 7) A book that describes scientifically impossible events (e.g., talking donkeys, burning bushes that talk, etc.) 8) 2,000 year old texts that are 50 to 150 years removed from the events that they depict with no originals to compare to, yet there message is supposed to be true (despite the above points). In comparison, we have primary and secondary sources pertaining to Abraham Lincoln which are only 140 years old, yet scholars cannot agree with certainty whether or not he was a Christian or an infidel. Yet, the Christian would say that the Bible is more reliable despite fewer problems 9) In comparison to Christianity and the Bible, a general knowledge of how ancient texts where assembled in many cultures and religions, all of which show striking similiarities to how we know myths are created; which, suggest that the stories depicted in the Bible might also be myths. 10) A basic knowledge of the church councils and their internal strife spanning hundreds of years in relation to the assembly of "God's word" and the nature of Christ.

Generalized Christian response to the above points:
1) Faith that the Holy Spirit guided the authors whoever they were. 2. Ad-hoc explanations by apologists. 3. Faith and ad-hoc explanations by apologists 4. Apologist explanation: "Theological diversity." 5. Theological diversity. 6. Faith that our religion is right. 7) God can do anything, faith, or you’re reading it wrong: allegory. 8) Faith, ad-hoc explanations by apologists. 9) Faith, ad-hoc explanations by apologists. 10) Faith in the holy spirit, appeals to authority and tradition.

At which point the Christian states in all seriousness: The Bible is God's word.

Based on how I (and apprently others) interpret Occam's Razor, i.e.: "This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known.�

Along with: "the best hypothesis is the simplest one, that is, the one that makes the fewest assumptions."

I have to say that the evidence suggests that the Bible is man-made. If you want to say it is a matter of personal faith that is fine. Where I take issue is when you try to make it out to be something more than the evidence seems to suggest. Moreover, your position makes a boat load of assumptions and presumptions, fails to acknowledge the SAME problems in regards to other religious texts, and in my opinion violates the principle of parsimony.

Finally, a slightly embelished version of 2think's scenario:

A real life example of Occam's Razor in practice goes as follows:the Bible is God's perfect word. Three interpretations were made of this statement. One was that God via the Holy Spirt directed man to write the Bible and it contained no errors period. The second was was that God via the Holy Spirit directed man to write the Bible; but, despite bieng omniscient and omnipotent, God was unable to make man write a perfect message. Thus, while there may be some minor error, God's overall message is in tact and it is God's word. Finally, the third based on the first set of points 1-10 states that the Bible is man-made, not God-inspired, and is chock full of errors, contradictions, and discrepancies.

Occam's Razor would say that given the lack of credible evidence for scenarios one and two, the complexity involved in reconciling either of them, and the boat load of ad-hoc (and often contradictory) explanations, apologies, presumptions, and assumptions contradictory explanations, the third explanation (i.e., the Bible is man-made period) could be wrong, but until further facts present themself it remains the preferable theory.

However, I could be wrong. Is it possible for you to say as much?

~BSM

BSM

I ran out of time and need to acknowledge and correct a few mistakes in my last post.

Should read: Yet, the Christian would say that the Bible is more reliable despite many more problems

Should read: Occam's Razor would say that given the lack of credible evidence for scenarios one and two, the complexity involved in reconciling either of them, and the boat load of ad-hoc (and often contradictory) explanations, apologies, presumptions, assumptions, and contradictory explanations, the third explanation (i.e., the Bible is man-made period) could be wrong, but until further facts present themself it remains the preferable theory.

:thumbs:

~Me

Dark Knight Bob

With regards to "there are no atheists in foxholes" idea. Put it this way.

There are no theists who wouldn't break everyone of the ten commandments in a foxhole.

llamaluvr

(not me quoting Vorkosigan, but in response to Don's thing about Jeremiah 8:8...sorry, bad quotation).

Except that the scribes weren't the people who copied the law or the prophets.

The OED says:
The scribes were teachers, not copyists.

I was discussing this objection, as it was recorded on Don's webpage, with someone a year or two ago, and they suggested that the scribes both taught and copied. But that's simply ridiculous, because those are two totally different full-time jobs. It would be like me being a policeman and an airline pilot full-time at the same time.

In conclusion, a "scribe" would already be supplied with a copy of the law and the prophets, and would not be constructing their own. So, all this verse points out is that some teachers lie, which has been obvious in all eras (and the NT is all-too-willing to point that out).

llamaluvr

So, you've said the best explaination is the simplest one with the least assumptions, and you've claimed that to be Occam's Razor, which I agree with. However, where are the assumptions, and where is the evidence of the greater simplicity for your explaination? You've restated the correct definition for the Razor over and over, but each time, you've followed it with a defense implementing your principle of "if something is more probable, then it is more probable", which is definitely not Occam's Razor.

To clarify some of this, here is what I define as the Bible's extent to which it was inspired:

First off, at most, I can only say it is as inspired as it claims to be. It makes no sense to defend it to be any more inspired than that. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness". So, all of scripture is inspired. But what the heck does that mean?

It's doubtful that it means that every single word was breathed down by God. A lot of the Bible is history- stuff the writers knew about apart from revelation. They wouldn't need much help there. So, the most inspiration I can safely ascribe to those parts of the Bible is that God inspired the writers to write about those events. I would also add the qualifier that God inspired the writers to write about those events in a *credible* manner. In other words, they wouldn't lie.

What about other parts? 2 Peter 1:21 says, "For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God". So, there's a bit of a higher standard for prophecy. Those should essentially be "quotes" from God. This is in addition to, of course, the parts where God is actually quoted. Even if they are summarized or abbreviated in the texts, those parts are more inspired because at some point it was an actual quote from God.

That said, these are the "exceptions" I offer to the Bible:

* Ommissions are ok. As long as he got his story straight, if he left out some details, that's ok. Since those details are included elsewhere in the Bible, it's not like God actually left them out; only the writer did.

* Incongruencies with numbers are ok. If God didn't breathe the numbers into their head, the writers need not be expected to get every counting exercise corrrect. In passages with a heavy emphasis on numbers, the writers were far more likely to be observers anyway, and were going for an approximation, since an exact total might have actually been impossible to obtain.

* Ommissions and additions to individual Bibles are ok, where it is unclear what exactly the text was. Those aren't the fault of the writers, or of God's inspiration. Those are the fault of the copyists. If somebody misses a verse in a copy of John from 150 AD, and we only have 2 or 3 copies of John from then, then Bible translators would be doing a disservice to not say that the copy that is actually in error isn't possibly the correct one.

These parts are so far and few inbetween, and they haven't affected even minor doctrines, and we have overwhelming evidence that the copying practices of the day were very, very good, and that they really don't affect our ability to utilize scripture. At most, these are curiousities for scholars.

If the Bible's inspiration was actually nullified by errors in copies, then we could say that the modern translations of the Bible where the translators have nullified verses "offensive" to gays and women are proof of the Bible's un-inspiration, which is a ridiculous notion. In fact, if the former were true, then you could copy your own version of the Bible and purposely insert errors to validate that claim!

1) That doesn't effect it's inspiration, or lack thereof, at all.
2) These lists of "contradictions" fail to demonstrate real logical inconsistency, so, taken at face value, we can't actually say much about this. We could exhaustively go through them, though.
3) No effect on inspiration. It it did, I'd expect a lot more athiests to be in the Bible-translating business ;-).
4) Still no effect on inspiration. Anybody who comes in and comments after the divine inspiration is not part of the divine inspiration.
5) Shouldn't the athiest's belief that the Bible contains errors also contribute to this, then? Shouldn't my belief that my math textbook contains errors help me get some points back on my homework, then? If beliefs in and of themselves actually impact logical soundness, we're all in trouble.
6) Actually, many religions can be demonstrated to be logically inconsistent or unsound. Christianity's claim of mutual exclusitivity actually works to eliminate inconsistency and unsoundness.
7) It also describes a being who is omnipotent over the entire domain of the physical universe. That means that he can generate any logically consistent composition of matter, including talking donkeys. Just because you've never seen one doesn't mean there never was one. A talking donkey doesn't break any law we know to be true, so it is a possible configuration of matter that a being with total control over this domain could generate.
8) 20-80 is generally a more-accepted timeframe, but, again, how does this actually impact the claim of inspiration?
9) In the same way that the existence of other storys about sports stars invalidates the Pistol Pete story, right? The Bible has some good stuff in it, and, from the response generated over the last 2000 years, it obviously tugs at the emotions of many of its readers. Why wouldn't we expect that to pop up somewhere else? If the Egyptians enjoyed a story of a God becoming a man, how much would they like it when the real thing happened? But, as always, this doesn't impact the claim of inspiration.
10) People argue. About lots of things. You can never throw out a claim just because people argue about something related to it.

I count 9 inapplicable premises, and 1 hung jury, which makes for 1 non-sequitur. I still can't possibly see where you can squeeze Occam's Razor in there. None of those were assumptions, per se, nor were your Christian "responses".

I'll give you the fact that these cast doubt on the authenticity of copies and believers, but on the inspiration of the Bible? I don't think so. #2 could, but you have to actually back it up.

What are these assumptions? Yes, it would take a lot off effort to reconcile #1 and #2, but it the effort is not another assumption or added complexity. Every ounce of that effort is necessary to the explaination of the model. If you take it out, it is no longer a complete model.

If Occam's Razor is actually able to shave something from a model, then we should be able to identify what can be shaved from any of the 3 you've stated. And, the shaving shouldn't then make the model null and void; the model should work just as well. Shaving the inspiration of scripture from model 1 or model 2 makes a model that is basically just empty space- it certainly does not accomplish the same thing with fewer entities or assumptions.

Occam's Razor is for shaving, not cutting off the entire head.

------

So, since you keep mentioning all these supposedly obvious inconsistencies, even though I've been trying to say for a while how inobvious they are, I'm going to throw something out.

Going back to Jim Merritt's list of contradictions (after all, claims of contradictions are only as good if there's actually something to back them up), if they really are contradictions, then why doesn't Merritt take the time to actually demonstrate logical inconsistency? Either,
a) he forgot,
b) he thinks they speak for themselves, which is a bad assumption for all but the simplest of English sentences,
c) he doesn't actually know much about logic, which makes you wonder why he compiled a listing of contradictions, or
d) they're not actually contradictions, and he wants to hide that.

I'll throw out d), because I hate to assume malice on the part of anybody. Granted, this doesn't add any credibility to the notion that the contradictions aren't there, but it does cast doubt on the credibility of the list as being infallibly true.

If you're claims of contradiction are based on this or similar compilations, doesn't that say something about the veracity of your claims of contradiction?

BSM

Keith,

You write:

Apparently, depsite an omniscient and omnipotent God who can make donkeys talk, no human knows.

Tell that to those Christians who believe the opposite of you. In other words, it’s doubtful that your definition of inspired jives with other Christian’s and their definitions.

Insomuch as we have no original manuscripts or authors, and the fact one will ever be able to interview those writers, this is a HUGE ASSUMPTION. Unless, of course, you somehow know the mind of your God. In addition, being a Criminal Justice major (undergrad) I'm somewhat familiar with the many problems that are associated with the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Thus, it might behoove you to bone up on the reliability of eyewitness testimony because I'm too tired cite from more books.

Or, God never talked to the writer in the first place and they were all mistaken. In short, you have a hodge-podge of myth creation which is very similar to other cultures and their respective religions. Occam’s Razor?

Insofar as you don’t know the mind of God or the writers, this is another huge assumption on your part. Assumptions which seem to fit with "Christianity according to Keith." There are Christians who would vehemently disagree with you. Another possibility, given the typical divine attributes of your God (all-knowing, all-perfect, and all-powerful), is this: the writers made mistakes because God was not in communication with them period. Occam’s Razor?

And you know this how? Are you omniscient? Do you have a direct pipeline to God? If this isn’t a textbook example of a rationalization due to cognitive dissonance then I need have my almamater revoke my minors in psychology and sociology! Moreover, given the divine attributes of your God, one would think he could make a few mere mortals correctly copy something if his message is so darn important.

It’s funny, you appear to have a sliding standard for your God's omnipotence depending on which position you wish to apologize for: i.e., an omnipotent God who cannot make a few mere mortals get a book right. Your answer: it’s the copier’s fault. Versus incredible feats like talking donkeys and snakes, your answer: Seems to me that you use omnipotence when it its convenient to defend your God and you lessen the definition of omnipotence when there is problem that you can’t rectify (an all-powerful God who cannot direct a few mere mortals). Also, you again assume much here. Occam’s Razor?

I would disagree. It appears to me that many “Christians� have trouble utilizing scripture. See: http://www.religioustolerance.org/christ7.htm AND http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_divi.htm

Quoted from myself: "In his book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (1997), professor of religious studies Bart D. Ehrman notes that there are some 5,400 copies of the New Testament in the world today. These copies range from hand-sized scraps to full manuscripts containing all 27 books. The problem professor Ehrman points out is that one is hard pressed to find any two copies that fully agree in their wording. In fact, most biblical scholars (including professor Ehrman) feel that these differences are due to scribes making changes as they copied these texts through the centuries. According to professor Ehrman, scholars estimate the number of textual differences somewhere between 2-300,000! Or, as professor Ehrman describes it: “there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."

Occam’s Razor?

Or, for that matter, you could purposely add or leave out passages in the Bible as many Christian writers were have known to do throughout history, yet the Bible is inspired.

As for your divine inspiration, well, Christians can’t even seem to agree on this:

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: “Biblical inspiration produces a book of which God is the author…the Holy Spirit elevated all the human activity required for it’s production in such a ways that the books produced were entirely the word of God.�

In response to critiques who cite imperfections, errors, and contradictions:

“The Church holds them (OT and NT) as sacred an canonical…because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and, as such, have been handed over to the church.�

In other words, any error no matter the evidence is not an error because God is the author (some Protestants hold to this notion as well). Bias? Huge assumption? Refusal to examine the evidence? Occam’s Razor?

In addition, I have also seen other “true Christians� take the following positions:

1)The extremely liberal approach which states that the authors never claimed to be inspired or directly guided by God. They say that neither the writers nor God viewed Scripture as a revelation from God which we should follow as a pattern for our lives.

2) Others say the Bible is inspired in that the writers did put down some of God's ideas, but men may have made some mistakes or their own interpretations. For example, God gave these men a blueprint but left them to interpret is as they see best.

3) Still others say the Bible writers speak the truth in matters of religious faith and morals, but when they speak about history or science they are writing as humans and may be wrong. Therefore, we cannot accept the Bible accounts of miracles and the lives of Bible characters as necessarily true. Rather these are seen as metaphors and allegory yet they contain God’s message.

Four very differeing views which ARE “curiosities for scholars� and apparently do “affect our ability to utilize scripture.� In addition, let's once again go back to the ass example. In it you apologize for a God by saying that "It also describes a being who is omnipotent over the entire domain of the physical universe. That means that he can generate any logically consistent composition of matter, including talking donkeys."

By your defintion of logic this God could also do the following: Well, as far as what is logical consistent, we apparently do not have the same notion of what logic is. Thus, we’d only be running around in circles here. Granted, I do enjoy tilting at windmills but even I have my limits. Besides, the above points are damning enough for me.

Finally, I can’t speak for Merritt, nor do I know him. However, you seem to have taken a lot of time looking at Morgan's and Merritt's contraditions. I also seem to recall you stating that you have answers to all of these contradictions. If so, I suggest that you write an essay and submit it to the Secular Web for publication. I know I always enjoy reading well-written papers that challenge my beliefs.

Regards,

BSM