The final and ultimate proof for the truth of Christianity

[Jack the Bodiless]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Everyday evidence suggests that we control our destiny - what we have for breakfast, where we go for our holiday etc.. Science from first principles says that we have no choice, we are just tagging on for the ride. There is a big contradiction here.

There was a good article about that in New Scientist some time ago (I forget when exactly). Basically, researchers discovered that so-called "conscious" decisions were initiating brain states and nerve signals before the subject became consciously aware of making the decision.

The implication was that we have no free will, but we continually kid ourselves into believing that we have. We "decide", after actually making a decision, that it was "our" decision.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Rogan:

To answer Wernamuza's question, SD interpreted my comment correctly. Physics, in principle, does not and cannot allow free-will. Therefore, if you have free-will, there must be some portion of the universe which is ungoverned by physical laws. This is exactly what you need for a 'God'.

There are really only two possibilities: either a particular action is in response to a real-world trigger, or it isn't. If it is, then that's determinism.

If it isn't, then that's... well, something else. But what you're describing appears to be pure randomness: actions which must be completely pointless. Otherwise, if they are at all relevant to any real-world situation: that means they're being shaped by events, and aren't truly "free".

I would go a step further and say that the natural 'ground state' of belief is to assume that non-predictive phenomena do exist; i.e. that there are things which cannot be predicted by scientific method. The fast that science does not consider them is an assumption which science makes in order to function (and one that it should make in order to be useful). But one should be aware that it is not necessarily a correct assumption.

So God is random chaos? I don't think many theists will agree.

Someone who believes that there are no unpredictive phenomena (or believes that it is an unimportant question) is therefore making an assumption about the universe, and as such atheists have a belief in something which is non-obvious (ie. they believe that the predictive nature of physics encompases all events).

While it's true that many atheists are metaphysical naturalists and many metaphysical naturalists are determinists, I think you're making some hasty generalizations there. I see no reason why an atheist cannot believe in the existence of inherently random and unpredictable phenomena.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
There are really only two possibilities: either a particular action is in response to a real-world trigger, or it isn't. If it is, then that's determinism.

If it isn't, then that's... well, something else. But what you're describing appears to be pure randomness: actions which must be completely pointless. Otherwise, if they are at all relevant to any real-world situation: that means they're being shaped by events, and aren't truly "free".

They need not be random - just non-predictive - these are 2 different things. I think quantum mechanics muddies the situation somewhat, because people tend to think of QM as non-deterministic. But really it is - just in a random way.

In other words, if you had 10,000 identical universes to play with you could predict the outcome of a QM measurement in terms of the proportion of universes following a particular path. If you found that there was some mechanism which distorted the proportions of the universes taking different paths in some unpredictable way, then you would be observing the non-predictive phenomena I am talking about. Note that the actual final outcomes may be exactly as one would expect in a completely predictive scenario - just that the probabilities of certain outcomes have changed in a non-predictive way.

'Pure randomness' on the other hand would still be predictable in a statistical sense.

Also, I am not saying that the events need to be completely forced by the non-predictive phenomena - only that they should be influenced. Clearly the decisions you make are influenced by real world events too. There only needs to be some input of 'you' (whatever that means) into your decisions to give you (constrained) free-will.

I also do not claim to know how this input comes about....

I see no reason why an atheist cannot believe in the existence of inherently random and unpredictable phenomena.

No - I agree. But accepting non-predictivity requires an atheist to throw away the majority of the agruments they have already used against the existence of God. In other words, I think it is only a small step from non-predictivity to God and I suspect most atheists would be uncomfortable getting that close.

Of course, on the other hand, believing in a completely (statistically) deterministic universe where we have no free-will and there is no God, is a perfectly logically consistant position to take. I am merely claiming that it is an assumption.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

There was a good article about that in New Scientist some time ago (I forget when exactly). Basically, researchers discovered that so-called "conscious" decisions were initiating brain states and nerve signals before the subject became consciously aware of making the decision.

The implication was that we have no free will, but we continually kid ourselves into believing that we have. We "decide", after actually making a decision, that it was "our" decision.

I read the article, and its also says

Some of the views expressed here may be unsettling. They seem to rob us of the most cherished characteristics of the human mind. But while we are saying that our conscious experiences of self and control are an elaborate delusion, we are not dispensing with the notions themselves. We are merely shifting those mental processes traditionally associated with them away from the domain of consciousness into the unconscious mechanisms of Level 2. We accept that somewhere in our minds is a representation of a self, and there are clearly systems of control, maybe even free will. But none of these reside in our consciousness..

I personally don't believe that free will is possible, I just can't see how it is possible, but then I believe I am doomed to believe that. That said I can't discount the possibility of free will - the circumstantial evidence is too strong.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Rogan: ...Ah, I see where you're coming from.

That would be evidence of "the supernatural". Though, if these results actually started to show up, I don't see how the existence of a natural but hitherto undetected deterministic factor could be ruled out.

Still a "comfortable" distance from God though. For instance, the belief that flesh-and-blood intelligences have psychic powers to influence events is significantly more likely to me than the possibility of a Universal Intelligence with such powers (Occam's Razor). A deity would become somewhat more likely, yes.

...Heheh. Maybe Fleischmann and Pons (and a few others) have the psychic ability to induce cold fusion?

But why dismiss fairies so firmly? Isn't it at least as plausible that a multitude of lesser intelligences are responsible, rather than a single universal one?

[DaShi]

The real truth is. . .look out, CBeast!

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
That would be evidence of "the supernatural".

Yes, I suppose you could call it that, since it is 'beyond' science. But then you have to call free-will 'supernatural' too..... (which maybe you do of course )

Though, if these results actually started to show up, I don't see how the existence of a natural but hitherto undetected deterministic factor could be ruled out.

Agreed. But something can be unprovable and still true.

Still a "comfortable" distance from God though. For instance, the belief that flesh-and-blood intelligences have psychic powers to influence events is significantly more likely to me than the possibility of a Universal Intelligence with such powers (Occam's Razor).

It is really a belief that humans (or sentient entities in general) have a 'soul' since it fits rather nicely into the traditional description of a soul. Most people believe that there is some organising force to the universe, even if that is just a set of physics laws or a symmetry principle or something. Once you have the belief that you can make decisions which can influence the world, it no longer seems so far fetched to suggest that this organising principle was set in motion by a deliberate act of some sentient being. (And God said, "Let there be a local SU(3)XSU(2)LXU(1) symmetry....").

But why dismiss fairies so firmly? Isn't it at least as plausible that a multitude of lesser intelligences are responsible, rather than a single universal one?

It is not the 'multitude of lesser intelligences' I object to (Jerry Springer's audience comes to mind...) - it is more the funny wings, high pitched voices and sparkly bits following them through the air that I object to.....

[Ben Kenobi]

Jack - you have some good questions about Matthew 15

"Jesus was behaving in the manner of the OT God here: 'you're not one of My Chosen People, so **** off'."

There are a couple of reasons for Jesus' response. The first relates to the Incarnation and his mission on Earth. Jesus is limited to one place, unlike God who is omnipresent. Jesus is limited by time, he does not and cannot go everywhere or help everyone. If he were to cure everyone afflicted by demon-possession, he would have no time to fulfill his true mission, to reach the Jewish people. As the Jews were God's children, he had a responsibility to look after his children first, before the Gentiles.

I have to ask you- do you believe God is in debt to you or to other people?

Look at the response of the Gentile woman-

15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

She exhibits humility. She has sinned, and is unworthy of God's mercy in the form of healing. You cannot command God to heal you, but rather, he chooses whether or not to help.

Why is this? God has given everything to you already- you cannot give him anything that he does not already have. It's like a child requesting money to give a gift to his father. The father might give the money, but he is never gains on the transaction.

The only thing the gentile woman had to offer was her faith in God- and what was Jesus' response? He healed her after she recognised the source of her blessing was from God alone.

"There is no reason to assume that Jesus gave those instructions. Paul is an earlier and more reliable source than Matthew. Scholars are fairly confident that Paul actually wrote the works attributed to him, and did so fairly early. Whereas "Matthew" is an anonymous document compiled from earlier writings."

No- first you cite Matthew's mistranslations as a source of biblical contradiction, yet now you contend Matthew never wrote the Gospel of Matthew at all. Decide.

As for the reliability of Paul- do you now accept Paul as an authoritative historical source for biblical times?

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
To answer Wernamuza's question, SD interpreted my comment correctly. Physics, in principle, does not and cannot allow free-will. Therefore, if you have free-will, there must be some portion of the universe which is ungoverned by physical laws. This is exactly what you need for a 'God'.

I always get a bit pissed off when people compare belief in a God to belief in fairies because they are so fundamentally different in nature. The question 'Is there a God?' is a question which I feel is reasonable to ask and as such we should have an answer to it, or at least considered it.

I think the problem is that most people see the question as being 'Is there some old guy with a long white beard up in the sky making moral judgement on us?' which clearly is a little silly. We need to put it into more scientific terms, exactly as I was trying to do in the earlier post.

For example, consider the question 'Is every event in the universe caused by another earlier event as dictated by the laws of physics, or are some events unpredicted by physical laws?'. Now it is up to you whether or not you want to think about this question, but I think it has more merit than 'Do fairies exist?'. However, it is deeply related to the question 'Is there a God?', since the unpredictive phenomena could be interpreted as divine.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know what makes quantum mechanical wavefunctions collapse?

I would go a step further and say that the natural 'ground state' of belief is to assume that non-predictive phenomena do exist; i.e. that there are things which cannot be predicted by scientific method. The fast that science does not consider them is an assumption which science makes in order to function (and one that it should make in order to be useful). But one should be aware that it is not necessarily a correct assumption.

Someone who believes that there are no unpredictive phenomena (or believes that it is an unimportant question) is therefore making an assumption about the universe, and as such atheists have a belief in something which is non-obvious (ie. they believe that the predictive nature of physics encompases all events).

Rogan Josh: First I must remind you, like before obiwan, that you should check my name.
I guess, I've been misunderstood. I'm not a firm atheist in terms of not allowing a "principal cause", an "unmoved mover" or "God", if you like even giving this universe some secret sense.
What I'm absolutely reject is "religion", people who make the assumption that they have "got revealed" the "word" of God, think that some ways of worship lead to salvation or refusal to damnation etc. A God with a temper, who changes his mind over time, gets annoyed, needs attention etc. is, as you put it yourself, a bit silly. Religion and religious norms are so clearly culture-related and carry social functions that I can't see the "hand of the Holy Ghost" working there. The same goes for Holy scriptures. E.g., the OT makes perfect sense in an ancient semi-desert society with a horizon that was limited by the Euphrates and the Nile 2500 years ago...

But coming back to the "Free Will".
How do you resolve this logical conflict: Can an omnipotent being create something that restricts its potence? Free Will is such a thing. It must be independent in its cause from the creator, otherwise it wouldn't be free. It's like the old paradox-question whether God could create a stone which is too heavy for God to raise it?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
It's like the old paradox-question whether God could create a stone which is too heavy for God to raise it?

Something can be and not be at the same time, it can also be in apparently contradictary states at the same time. Shrodingers cat was designed to refute the logic of quantum mechanics, yet it still persists.

What I'm saying is that logical reasoning can be flawed when dealing with things beyond human understanding or experience. Our brains weren't designed for it.

[Zero]

I believe Masudi is wrong because the proof is wrong. In his own words, a society that emphasizes polar opposite beliefs should spawn off believers. Also, you can't test whether these common traits we find in religion is because other religion serves as subsitute for true religion (in this case christianity) or There's an universal similarity on what humans desire and those traits are represented by religion with variable differences(including chrisitanity).

if someone doesnt understand what i am trying to say, since after i read that, it seems rather unclear to me as well. I will try to explain it. But only if someone requests it cause its bit hard to put into words right now.

[Jack the Bodiless]

obiwan18:

The Caananite woman is right there, no detour needed. The text doesn't specifically state that she brought her daughter with her, but it's reasonable to assume that she would have done.

The reason for the refusal is quite clearly spelled out: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel".

I have to ask you- do you believe God is in debt to you or to other people?

I do not believe God exists. Therefore he can't be in debt to anyone.

"There is no reason to assume that Jesus gave those instructions. Paul is an earlier and more reliable source than Matthew. Scholars are fairly confident that Paul actually wrote the works attributed to him, and did so fairly early. Whereas "Matthew" is an anonymous document compiled from earlier writings."

No- first you cite Matthew's mistranslations as a source of biblical contradiction, yet now you contend Matthew never wrote the Gospel of Matthew at all. Decide.

They aren't mutually exclusive positions. It's just that, when referring to the author of the book known as the "gospel of Matthew", it's tiresome to keep putting qualifiers on "Matthew". Whenever I refer to Matthew, I mean the (unknown) author of the gospel of that name, not the disciple Matthew. Unless I'm actually talking about the disciples, of course: but, so far, I haven't.

As for the reliability of Paul- do you now accept Paul as an authoritative historical source for biblical times?

I accept Paul as a more reliable source than the gospels for things that Paul would actually have known about, like the actual career of Paul himself. But there is no good source of information about Jesus at all. Jesus himself wrote nothing, Paul never met him (except "in a vision"), and the gospels were written later by unknown persons (and both Matthew and Luke, at least, appear to be derived from earlier sources, according to Biblical scholars).

So we're left with a fairly good source for the early history of the "Jesus for the Gentiles" faction, plus writings assembled by unknown persons with unknown agendas over an unknown period of time.