Relevance of Old Testament in Modern World

[Jon Miller]

Jon, instead of posting a paper can you explain what point you were trying to make?

I obviously need to learn more, that is not meant to be a 'point', that is meant to be 'is this relevant that I can use to learn (by looking at references/etc?'.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

???????

So now you admit that God fails any reasonable complexity measure, while science doesn't?

If so, why did you object earlier?

Do you have a point here?

[Jon Miller]

Huh? No, the points that theism fails on are universality/repeatibility/etc. There is no handle on which to do experiments. Personal (subjective) experience can still be gained, and a working description can still be developed.

But a working description is obviously not a generator/etc.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Put it this way, KH. Can I come up with a generator that is you?

Not right now, and it is very arguable about whether it is even possible.

JM

[Elok]

I'm exquisitely bad at math; how could you use that Komolgorov thing to determine the "simplicity" of (for example) "God did it" versus "mass hysteria" versus "freemason conspiracy to control our brains," or anything else?

[MrFun]

Just because you're part of a group of people who got together and decided to ignore the Word doesn't make you any more of a Christian than if you'd just gone ahead and ignored it on your own.

We don't ignore the Word - we use both testaments of the Bible regularly.

[KrazyHorse]

But you ignore the parts you don't like. I get it.

[MrFun]

Yes - just as all Western Christian countries ignore parts they do not like. Such as parents putting their children to death for dishonoring them.

To that extent, there are no Christians being true to the Word if you want to take adherence to the Bible to such absurd extremes.

[KrazyHorse]

Yes - just as all Western Christian countries ignore parts they do not like. Such as parents putting their children to death for dishonoring them.

To that extent, there are no Christians being true to the Word if you want to take adherence to the Bible to such absurd extremes.

In other words, if you actually pay attention to all the crap written in the Bible (which is supposed to be the REVEALED WORD OF GOD) it leads to conclusions you don't like...

[Elok]

That's the problem with sola scriptura. It doesn't tell you which parts to ignore.

[MrFun]

In other words, if you actually pay attention to all the crap written in the Bible (which is supposed to be the REVEALED WORD OF GOD) it leads to conclusions you don't like...

Or we need to follow the more universal, moral rules/laws of God rather than follow ALL the cultural proscriptions that may have made sense for an ancient, rural agrarian culture but not so much for modern cultures.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm exquisitely bad at math; how could you use that Komolgorov thing to determine the "simplicity" of (for example) "God did it" versus "mass hysteria" versus "freemason conspiracy to control our brains," or anything else?

In practice, not directly. It is computationally infeasible, at least for now. But these techniques are slowly gaining ground in the fields of data mining and AI, and in the long run there isn't a good reason they couldn't be applied to basic science as well.

The more relevant point was that Occam's razor isn't just some convenient thing we can use to deny God whenever we want; it's a rigorous idea that we try to approximate as best we can with intuition, which acts as a check on the complaint you had.

Also, for the record, if the stars rearranged themselves I probably would accept that it was divine agency.

[MrFun]

Also, for the record, if the stars rearranged themselves I probably would accept that it was divine agency.

I'll hold your word to that, then.

[Kuciwalker]

Or we need to follow the more universal, moral rules/laws of God rather than follow ALL the cultural proscriptions that may have made sense for an ancient, rural agrarian culture but not so much for modern cultures.

i.e. you get to pick the parts of the Bible that agree with you and ignore the ones that don't.

[Drake Tungsten]

i.e. you get to pick the parts of the Bible that agree with you and ignore the ones that don't.

QFT

MrFun seems to be religious in some fashion, but he's no Christian.