My Final Word On Religion For A While

[revots33]

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Did I say Satan created them? No, I didn't. One of Satan's greatest strengths is the power of suggestion.

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Doesn't matter if you say Satan created all the false religions, or that he only suggested them to humans. The existence of Satan in itself is so improbable that the argument is basically worthless.

It's like saying, "if Santa really has magic reindeer that would explain how he could visit every house in the world on one night." It's silly to use a fantasy creature to explain something when there are infinitely more probable explanations.

[PairTheBoard]

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The prisoners in the prisoner dilemma problem both benefit if they irrationally believe that there is a god who will punish them if they act in their own best interests. That situation is mirrored in many real life scenarios.

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I disagree that the "rational" choice in the prisoner's dilemma is to betray. Douglas Hofstadter, for example, argues that the "superrational" will recognize the other prisoner is given the same choices, which implies a symmetric payoff matrix, and therefore the optimal choice must lie on the diagonal. So they should both stay silent, since both silent > both betray.

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I hate irrationality more than you do. But I have also probably been more exposed more than you, to the unfortunate fact that at least 70% of humans are equipped with brains with such low horsepower, that teaching them to be more rational might do them more harm than good.

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I don't see how this could possibly be true, by definition.

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People are not very good at being "superrational". If we look at Voting as a more general version of the prisoner's dilemma, even the great rationalist David Sklansky cannot bring himself to be superrational and Vote.

PairTheBoard

[LA_Price]

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Most people, of course, are more concerned about the second question. Their own consciousness. Where does that come from? That's the question that draws them to religion and makes them think there is some sort of God out there.

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Isn't this question subject to the narrative fallacy, in that we only ask it because it exists. If we didn't have a consciousness no one would ever know. If the universe is infinite(or at least very,very very large), is this capability beyond the realm of possibility of occurring? I guess this could be answered more convincingly if we found other intelligent life, but are we not the evidence that consciousness can occur? I guess in order for me to believe in any kind of God, someone would have to prove to me that consciousness could not happen randomly.

You also said that

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There are however two types of religions that are bad for the world. Besides the fact that they believe in supernatural things for sure that they have no right to. One type is a religion who has monstrous rules. Worse yet if they are willing to back that up with violence. Forget the Golden Rule. The other type is one where in spite of lip service to the Golden Rule, the main criteria is belief rather than behavior. Better for us, and probably them as well, that people wou would otherwise believe that, be atheists instead.

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I think that any religion is bad that doesn't possess the doctrine to change, or the willingness to say in certain areas "I don't know". Take for instance the bible. It includes many good things like the golden rule. Yet it also takes a stance on creation. Now despite the fact the fact that there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people will still insist the earth is only 6000 years old because they embraced their religions stance of the documents infallibility. Yet 2000 years ago no one had any problem with this because they had no means of understanding how old the world was. So even though a religion can seem to contain no monstrous rules now, who knows how we will view some of those rules 2000 years from now.

Now take the constitution for example. It includes statements about freedom of religion, press, speech, etc. Yet it also included a passage about how blacks were 3/5 of a person. 200 years ago, the majority of people had no problem with this. The greatness of the document did not lie simply in what it said, but what it could say in the future. It could be amended and changed.

I vast majority of religions do not allow for change, or make that change exceedingly hard. It is for this reason that I think that believing in any particular religion is dangerous while believing in a God or Gods is not bad, as long is accompanied with the willingness to acknowledge the "I don't know" areas in life, and also able to change and reevaluate rules and beliefs.

[Taraz]

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I think that any religion is bad that doesn't possess the doctrine to change, or the willingness to say in certain areas "I don't know". Take for instance the bible. It includes many good things like the golden rule. Yet it also takes a stance on creation. Now despite the fact the fact that there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people will still insist the earth is only 6000 years old because they embraced their religions stance of the documents infallibility. Yet 2000 years ago no one had any problem with this because they had no means of understanding how old the world was. So even though a religion can seem to contain no monstrous rules now, who knows how we will view some of those rules 2000 years from now.

Now take the constitution for example. It includes statements about freedom of religion, press, speech, etc. Yet it also included a passage about how blacks were 3/5 of a person. 200 years ago, the majority of people had no problem with this. The greatness of the document did not lie simply in what it said, but what it could say in the future. It could be amended and changed.

I vast majority of religions do not allow for change, or make that change exceedingly hard. It is for this reason that I think that believing in any particular religion is dangerous while believing in a God or Gods is not bad, as long is accompanied with the willingness to acknowledge the "I don't know" areas in life, and also able to change and reevaluate rules and beliefs.

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Awesome post.

[txag007]

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The existence of Satan in itself is so improbable that the argument is basically worthless.


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My statement was simply a defense to those who claim Christianity is likely to be false because of the existence of opposing religions. In truth, those religions would exist especially if what the Bible says is true, thus negating the original argument.

Your statement that my "argument" is worthless infers that the Bible not true, but false, based on the premise that Satan's existence is improbable. However, I never said the Bible is true because Satan exists. I only said that opposing relgions are likely to exist even if the Bible is true because of what the Bible says about Satan.

Your statement, therefore, attacks a misrepresentation of my position.

[David Sklansky]

Nice try but no dice. Basically you are saying that a theory that includes the prediction that most people will disagree with it can now dismiss the fact that most people do in fact disagree with it. Or go even further and somehow claim that the existence of detractors is evidence FOR the theory.

I wonder if there is a name for that tactic which reminds me of the boy who murders his parents and asks for mercy as an orphan. If there isn't, there should be.

[PairTheBoard]

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Nice try but no dice. Basically you are saying that a theory that includes the prediction that most people will disagree with it can now dismiss the fact that most people do in fact disagree with it. Or go even further and somehow claim that the existence of detractors is evidence FOR the theory.

I wonder if there is a name for that tactic which reminds me of the boy who murders his parents and asks for mercy as an orphan. If there isn't, there should be.

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It's a tricky bit of logic but I think txag has a point, if only a minor one. Consider the Attack against a Proposition based on the Fact that a lot of people disagree with it. Is that a legitimate attack? It really depends on other factors doesn't it? Certainly history is repleat with examples of true propositions which many people once disagreed with.

Now suppose that part of the Proposition included a claim that nobody Would disagree with it. In that case the Attack would be valid because the existence of disagreement would contradict the Proposition itself. Showing it to be at least False in that part. txag007's point nullifies the chance the Attack could be valid on that particular score. It's minor point, but valid as far as it goes.

However, the main topic of debate remains open. Is the Attack on the basis of the existence of disagreement a valid one, and if so why is it in this particular case? I think the burden of proof is on those making the Attack.

PairTheBoard

[David Sklansky]

"Now suppose that part of the Proposition included a claim that nobody Would disagree with it. In that case the Attack would be valid because the existence of disagreement would contradict the Proposition itself. Showing it to be at least False in that part. txag007's point nullifies the chance the Attack could be valid on that particular score. It's minor point, but valid as far as it goes."

Minor isn't the word. But it is is kind of ingenious. I'll give you that. But the burden of proof isn't on the attackers when they use the argument that the vast majoriry of brilliant people disagree with a theory (about whatever). You say:

"Certainly history is repleat with examples of true propositions which many people once disagreed with."

And I'll take it further and and admitit is repleat with examples of true examples which almost all very smart people disagreed with. But history is also repleat with far far MORE examples of FALSE examples that most smart people disagreed with. So it is fair to use that probalistic argument. Its a simple Ba-- oops, call it what you want. Even common sense.

[PairTheBoard]

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But the burden of proof isn't on the attackers when they use the argument that the vast majoriry of brilliant people disagree with a theory (about whatever).

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So you say, and you've made this assertion repeatedly. But you define away as nonbrilliant exactly those people who end up specializing in the area of the proposition. And just how is your argument such a slam dunk on the face of it?

Most people disagree with Propositon P so therefore Proposition P must be false?

Does not follow.

Most "brilliant" people according to my definition of "brilliant" disagree with P so P must be false?

Does not follow.

I have a mathematical probability model for All Propostions of the Class P by which the probability of P being true is small?

You don't.

Most "brilliant" people by my definition of "brilliant" think proposition P is false, and they are usually right about Propositions of Type P, so my common sense tells me P is probably false.

We have no record of accuracy for the opinion of "brilliant people" according to your definition of "brilliant" for propositions of Type P. In fact, we've never had a way of determining what relationship propositions of type P even have to normal true/false propositions. So your common sense looks about as useful as the gut feeling people have about a Trillion lottery wins in a row being more than a googolplex to 1 shot.

The burden of proof is indeed on you. You don't meet it by claiming it's not.

PairTheBoard

[txag007]

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Basically you are saying that a theory that includes the prediction that most people will disagree with it can now dismiss the fact that most people do in fact disagree with it. Or go even further and somehow claim that the existence of detractors is evidence FOR the theory.


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No. Basically, I'm not saying any of that. I am not speaking of a prediction or a prophecy. I am not speaking in general terms. I am saying that the existence of other religions is consistent with what the Bible says about the nature of God and the nature of Satan. I didn't say that this was evidence the Bible is true. I said that other religions being in existence is NOT evidence the Bible is false.

To put it in your terms, if you can gather from the nature of the theory that most people might disagree with it, then you CAN dismiss the disagreements of many in that the mere existence of the disagreements do not disprove the theory. This is different than dismissing the disagreements simply because the originator of the theory predicted that there would be dissenting opinions.