JPD

I think the thread may be drifting a little - this doesn't appear to have a great deal to do with homosexuality.

Johnny Skeptic

But what about God? Why does he refuse to feed hungry people? Plenty of non-theists feed hungry people. There is much more to life than food. By debating at the Secular Web, I am helping to combat the evils of Christianity. I assume that collectively, theists around the world have enough excess money to make the world a far better place in which to live. If a God exists, I am disobeying him out of ignorance, but he has allowed millions of people to starve to death out of intent. It is a patently absurd notion that if some theists and non-theists choose to allow some people to starve to death that God ought to stand idly by and do nothing about it.

Will you please tell us why God discriminates against amputees?

I am curious why so many theists assume that they are debating atheists when agnostics are much more numerous than atheists are. I am an agnostic.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: God allowed one million people to starve to death in the Irish Potato Famine. How did that help God and those people? Is it your position that only perfect people deserve to be given food so they won't starve to death? Many evil people who never become Christians have plenty of food, and many devout and faithful Christians have starved to death. What is your definition of a righteous man? Are you a righteous man? Is it your position that whether or not a man is righteous
can be determined by what happens to him?

Angra Mainyu

Again, you beat me to most of these points.


But I’ll post too, at least to see if I can understand rhutchin: I don’t know about lurkers, but I’m interested in how some theists (in particular, Bible literalists) manage to continue believing after they see the arguments against their position. I’m a bit puzzled by that.
I mentioned the courts because you brought that up, so I thought you’d consider that a valid argument.

Anyway, there’s no “creation science”. That’s not science, as it doesn’t use the method used by science, it doesn’t assess the evidence as science does, and for that reason, creationists can’t publish in peer-review publications. What they do is religion, not science.

As for how to assess the “evidence”, the “accounts” collected in the Bible are merely claims with nothing to back them. That alone should be enough for them not to be considered as proof of anything, but in fact, there’s counterevidence (again, based on science).

As for the argument that I might evaluate the evidence as I wish, that wouldn’t leave much room for assessing the evidence, would it?
It would just be my “choice to believe” anything I wish. With that criteria, I could choose to “evaluate the evidence” and conclude that the Christian God does not exist, but on the other hand, Aphrodite does (and so does Santa Claus).

Still, I’m curious about your take on this: why do you choose to evaluate the evidence in a way that’s in conflict with science?

In general, and in case you redefine the word “science” in a particular way that would include “creation science”, I would still ask: why do you choose to evaluate the evidence in a way that supports the existence of God? And how do you manage to evaluate it in such manner?


Incidentally, I’m still not sure what your position is, with regard to the stoning thing. Some of your statements in that regard seem to contradict each other (see post 281), so I’d ask for clarification on that…


Actually, as pointed out, the historicity of Jesus is debatable, and if he existed, it’d also be debatable whether he called himself God.

But that aside, the claim that he did miracles is groundless and even further, it goes against what we know about the world, so it’s safe to say (odds ) that it’s not true.

You don’t have any support for it, other than an old book making the claim. Now, we know that miracles don’t happen in our world normally – we don’t observe any -, so much more than a claim made centuries ago would be needed to prove something that’s in conflict with our understanding of the world.

If I claim that I’m an alien from another planet, would you choose to believe in that “evidence”?
Why is biblical evidence any stronger?

I agree, and I’d like to add an example (I’m not sure if I used a similar in my replies to rhutchin in this thread or the other, but I’ll try anyway).

I claim: “8422423 light years from Earth, there’s a planet 84% the size of Earth, where orange and blue aliens live. They’re considerable more advanced than we are, have an average life-span of 893 of their years, and they speak a single language in the whole planet”.

Now, that claim is, in fact, logically possible. Would it be reasonable to say that the claim might or might not be true, and we can choose to evaluate the evidence as we wish?

I don’t think so. We know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the claim – which is actually composed of many claims, some explicit and some implicit – is false.

You mean, to obey the people who claim that there’s a God, and that their book is His word?

With that criteria, if everyone decided not to commit crimes, crime would not be a problem, either. Plus, people wouldn’t have to live under the oppressive tyranny of the God of the literal interpretation of the Bible, so that world would be better.

Of course, neither scenario is realistic.

I disagree as far as I’m concerned.

I may choose not to obey the people who claim to speak in the name of a nonexistent God, but I don’t choose not to believe in God.

I disagree (if I'm reading this right and you're saying one can make that wager; if not, sorry. Could you clarify, please?).

What if “aversions” conflict with one another?
For instance, some Christians might argue that you need to speak in tongues to be saved. On the other hand, some other Christians might see that as a sign of demonic possession.
Also, some Muslims would argue that non-Muslims go to Hell (or at least, those who rejected converting to Islam).
Finally, I could mention the Goddess of non-belief, who provides no evidence of Her existence and doesn't want people to believe without proof, so She punishes theists and rewards atheists, agnostics and other unbelievers.

I’m not sure what you mean by “mathematically insignificant” religions. Do you have any reason to believe that, say, literal Christianity is more likely than Greek Paganism?

In any case, there's always the problem of choice. I cannot choose to believe in X God, in order to avoid punishment. Of course, I could never be afraid of being punished by a non-existent God, but even if I were afraid of being punished for those who believe in said God, I wouldn't be able to believe (just to lie to save myself).

What do you mean by “fails”?
If a religion makes false claims, it’s, well, wrong, despite what the claims might be.

That aside, and with regard to theism, it depends on the religion, but, say, literal Christianity promises Heaven for a few, and infinite torture for most people. That’s infinitely worse than poverty, hunger, sickness, or anything that people could suffer in this world.

For instance, if a person is, say, a Wiccan , rhutchin’s religion would say that he or she will be tortured forever. It’s so abhorrent that it’s difficult to imagine. And yet, adherents to that religion would consider that atrocity (and billions of similar ones) acceptable (further, perfectly good and just) even though they may also be interested in feeding the hungry and healing the sick...and in punishing gay people.

A stance like that is mind-boggling to me, though not as much as the fact that they do believe in the existence of their God.

wiccan windwalker

dear Angra, you seem mind boggled about many many things. You are mistaken about "Lorenz Risk Averse Strategy" for one thing. It is a quite valid strategy and it substantially tightens up P's Wager. Remember: you have to participate in the gambit. Your existence automatically forces you to be in the game. The best risk averse "meta-plan" can be determined. Aversion conflicts with the major religions are reconciled as already shown, outland aversion strategy is handled the same way one handles any statistical outliers-one analyzes each on a carfeul evidentiary case by case basis and weights them accordingly. Again, you HAVE to play. Keyboard courage is a wonderful thing but in the real world one has to make wise choices or suffer the consequences, we could spend weeks arguing the complexities of weighing the outlier aversions, but if you really choose,after carefully examining the evidence, to weigh a non-reconcilable outlier aversion higher than the reconcilable ones, then that is your choice. choose wisely!

and Angra, my micro response to Johnny Skeptic was based in part on the fact that he says he lives close to where I do and I am in a position to call his bluff concerning whether atheists or Christians do more sacrificial charitable work for the poor, but as an aside, if there is no God, then ahteists ,of all people, should be doing the MOST, not the least to alleviate human misery, since there is no God or afterlife to cure the problem.

and agra, I think you misunderstand "infinite torture", as even many Christians do. "Holocaust" in Hebrew means to "purify by fire" and many many theologians interpret the Bible as being somewhat ambiguous, perhaps strategically so, as to what happens to a soul when it has become "purified by fire", and whether such soul is restored, or ceases to be sentient, or some "middle theory" of "perfect justice".

Angra Mainyu

Dear wiccan windwalker, I’m not sure if “many” is a good characterization of the number of things I mentioned I’m mind-boggled by, namely the facts that some theists continue to believe in their God after the arguments against Him are presented, and the fact that they consider the actions of said God to be good and perfectly just, while at the same time they might care about the poor or needy.

That aside, I disagree about the “Risk Averse Strategy”, as I mentioned before. I don’t think P’s wager can be tightened up. It doesn’t work in its original form, and it doesn’t work with your modifications, either.

First, I do not agree that you have to play, if by that you mean “choose to believe”. In fact, I have argued that it is impossible for me to play, and I’m not sure how others manage to do so.

It is impossible because I cannot choose to believe in the God of Christianity, or Islam, etc. Thus, I cannot try to avert risk by choosing to believe in such deities. Furthermore, my assessment is that the risk involved in not believing in the Bible God is zero.

As for keyboard courage, well, I’ve never claimed to be courageous. But I wonder, if you actually believe that I have the choice to believe in such deities promising heinous punishments, and that it would be a good, wise strategy to choose to believe in them, then why would you not consider keyboard courage as a display of great courage indeed?

I mean, even if you could consider my strategy of “choosing” not to believe in Bible God to be foolish, you’d have to admit, I’d be making a choice that might make me an enemy of an almighty monster. That would take some courage at least, if it’s a choice.
If the argument is that I’m just mistakenly assessing the evidence available to me, then that would seem to acknowledge that I’m not choosing.

While your reply addressed Johnny Skeptic’s posts, you made arguments about P’s wager, atheism, etc., and since I disagree, I wanted to reply.

That aside, if there’s no God, there’s no reason to think atheists would be doing the most to alleviate human misery. Some (perhaps, many) theists might do so, out of fear of punishment – for instance. But some theists could even do so even if, from their beliefs, someone could conclude it’s not so important – they can clearly conclude differently.

Finally, not all atheists will necessarily care enough to do that job. Who knows? It depends on the person.

On the other hand, some atheists might be inclined to do that, for moral reasons. The thing is, atheism is a position regarding deities (though not all atheists understand atheism in the same manner), but there are atheists who adhere to very different philosophical positions. In other words, I don’t think one could reach such a conclusion based solely on the fact that someone is an atheist.

Incidentally, some atheists might consider theism – or, more often, some theistic beliefs - to be harmful to society, which means that by spending time on-line fighting those beliefs with reason, they might be trying to help.

I don’t misunderstand “infinite torture”.

I’m not trying to interpret that that’s what the writers of the Bible meant to say. Regardless of their views, the fact is that many Christians do believe in infinite torture for “unsaved people”, so my point was – and is – that according to the beliefs of those theists, Wiccans and billions (eventually, more) of others will, in fact, be tortured for eternity. Those believers also think that their God is perfectly just and does no wrong, so said torture would be not only acceptable but perfect. Yet, many of those theists also seem to care about the hungry, the poor and the sick (though they often make exceptions if the sick, etc., are, say, gay), but they want to punish gay people – and maybe witches and blasphemers. That is, I admit, one of the stances that confuses me – but as I explained, not the one that confuses me the most.

wiccan windwalker

Angra, I guess it boggles my mind how you, and other atheists/skeptics can take such dogmatic positions on complex issues that you lack "perfect knowledge" of. And respectfully, I still think you do not fully understand "Lorenz Risk Averse strategy", because you keep saying you dont have to play, but yes, you do. Ask any mathematician sophisticated in "game theory",particularly "uncertainty theory". And you say you cant beleive somehting, and I understand that, but atheism is a type of belief or belief analog (even if you categorize it as a default position)ANY person, lacking "perfect knowledge" as to the transcendental, can at best, beleive that their theory is correct.

Therefore, you are really coming here ,it would seem, to tell us all that you dont beleive in any God or Gods. Whereas I do beleive in God. The mathematical value of your atheistic unknown is mathematically idenctical to the value of my theistic unknown.

However, utilizing the doctrine of "probabalistic functionalism" Christianity is the better "choice at Equipoise" because Christianity has the superior relative survival attributes -comparing Christianity with the known Atheistic models of Stalin, Mao,Eastern Bloc, Pol POt, Khmer Rouge,North Korea,Cuba,etc)

Angra Mainyu

wiccan windwalker, I’m sorry you’re mind-boggled as well, but could you explain which of my positions do you consider dogmatic, and why?

As for the bet, I was referring to the way in which you applied the “Lorenz Risk Averse strategy” to this case – at least, the way I think you applied it. And based on that, I said I’m not forced to play. In other words, I think you are mistakenly applying the strategy here. It can be a strategy to decide what to do, not to decide what to believe.

If my interpretation of your post was mistaken, could you clarify, please?

I have explained why I can’t play. If you think my argument is wrong, I’d like to know the reasons.

I disagree, but let me clarify my position first:
I’m not saying “no God can exist”. Of course, that depends on how one defines God. If you say God=Nature (for instance), of course God exists.

However, if you claim that you believe in a particular religion, but you have no evidence at all, your belief has no zero probability of being correct – so, your take on the mathematically identical value is mistaken. I made a mathematical argument in support of my position on post 323 If you disagree and you think that both our positions are mathematically identical in possibilities, I’d like to see your rebuttal.

Btw, that argument was a reply to the 50/50 chance argument. If, on the other hand, you say you do have evidence for your religion, that's a different matter and I'd say we have to assess the evidence.

Those were particular communist models, which had/have different characteristics, including atheism. However, atheism doesn’t imply any of those models, or communism in general.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by Chrisitianity having superior survival attributes. If you're comparing atheist political systems with Christian ones, there aren't many Chrisitian theocracies, either.

If you're comparing beliefs, we don’t know which religion has superior survival attributes (maybe Judaism, maybe Christianity, maybe Islam, maybe Hinduism). Also, atheism or agnosticism might have better survival attributes, whether you call them religions or not. Or maybe not. I'd say we just don't know.

But that aside, my point is: I don’t choose to believe in any of those religions. I could choose to pretend to believe in one, but that’s it. If your experience if different, I’d like to know how, and why you choose to believe in the God you believe in, instead of another one.

wiccan windwalker

dear angra 1. a non decision is still a decision (two doors, one will open at dawn,lady or the tiger? 2. Yes, you can assign weights of the aversions symetrically, but that is not reliable....in your religious treatises hypo for example one could argue that in comparing the B. Vedas(i apologize for the spelling)and the Koran and the Book of Satan by Anton LeVay and the Book of Mormon and the Greco-Roman/Norse writings describing their Gods and Goddesses and the Old and New Testaments of the judeo-christian Bible. that a thorough scholar who desired to achieve as close to a state of perfect knowledge about each of these as humanly possible and then carefully compare and then weigh, would study the history, context,archaeology,extra textual evidences for their validity, "form" analysis and criticism, chronology, indicias of reliabilty and authenticity, etc etc....

now,may I digress, I took William Lane Craigs personal advice and tried to study these other treatises sincerely with a fair and tabla rosa eye. Some were easier to stomach than others! and to be honest I never studied any of them anywhere near as much as the judeo-christian Bible, Also, over many years I have engaged in an informal experiment on many different apologetical/religious message boards(I have tried to get posters to get into debates on the reliabilty of these other treatises.....in fact, one question I have asked on many many message boards is this "when Krishna was teaching by the lake, did he refer to the bird as a bird of peace or a bird of war?".......quite frankly, whether Islamic, Hindu,Buudhist, etc, Ihave rarely gotten very much of a debate...and even now, Angra, I respectfully submit to you, that you and your fellow skeptics are likely not too interested in debating the Koran/vida/book of Mormon/etc.....

Now you may think I am being coy here in this inference, however, in being intellectually honest I would "bet" that most would honestly admit that some treatises resonate more than others based on the cumulative indicias of their reliabilty ,including(historical,textual,corrobaritive,functi onal probabalism, scholarly consensus, manuscript authenticity, archaeology, etc)....

NOw, honestly weighing all of these treatises and their corresponding religions should result in the effectual and reliable "running of the flow" into/throguh the "Lorenz Risk Averse Strategic MOdel" and will result in the choice of Christianity as the most risk averse/optimal one.

and p.s. there are a lot of really very pretty Christian girls in church! (and they dress and talk and comport themselves like ladies)but in fairness I am sure there are many fine atheist ladies too, and I mean no disrepect, just a bit of good natured comparison, since we are comparing many things.

Angra Mainyu

Dear wiccan windwalker, there still seems to be a misunderstanding. You argue that a non-decision is a decision. In a sense, it is, but that’s not what I’m questioning. My argument is that we don’t choose what to believe – not in the sense presented in the wager.

In other words, not believing in Christianity, Islam, or Greek Paganism is a “decision” in the sense that, based on the information available to me, I conclude that those religions are mistaken. On the other hand, it’s not a choice in the sense that I could, now, just decide to pick one of them as correct. We may be able to choose what to do, but not what to conclude.

That’s why the wager wouldn’t work, even if there were a strong advantage to believing in one of those religions. For instance, if not being a Muslim were punishable by death, I could and probably would choose to claim to be a Muslim, to avoid punishment, but I could not choose to actually believe in Islam (or Christianity, for that matter).

As for assigning equal weight to all possibilities, that would be the correct choice in absence of any evidence supporting any claims. I made my argument in order to show that if one doesn’t have any evidence in support of a claim, such claim doesn’t have a 50% chance of being true.

As I mentioned, if you have evidence that support your beliefs, then I think we should assess that evidence. However, I have to agree with The Evil One on this: the evidence for the Bible is as weak as it gets. On the other hand, the evidence against it (in rhutchin’s literal interpretation at least, but we could discuss others if you like) is quite strong.

Regarding my interests in discussing other books, I have to admit that I’m not familiar enough with most of them, though I would debate the Quran too, if you like.

As for some books resonating more than others, I agree if you mean considering the evidence available outside the book to back it (archaeological sources, etc.). As I said before, my “zero chances” argument was a response to the “50% chance with no evidence” argument.

That said, in the particular case of the Bible, I don’t find any reason to consider it accurate, in any way – to be frank, it seems quite clear to me that it isn’t.

Incidentally, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your take on homosexuality, from a religious and/or moral perspective?

P.S.: I concede that, since there are many more Christians than atheists, and with no evidence that would suggest otherwise, chances are there are many more pretty Christian girls than atheist ones. Perhaps, I should reconsider and decide to pretend to be a Christian. :devil1: :devil2: :devil3: