Fake News Reporting Thread

[Kidlicious]

Kid, the lottos almost always have negative EVs, the money that you save by not playing the lotto is more valuable to your utility on all the curves that I can think of. The less money you have the more utility that lotto money would have for you.

You can actually think of other utility curves. For example, someone wants to be super rich, not when they are old. They want to be super rich tomorrow. In that case investing in the stock market is pointless.

[Proteus_MST]

...
What does science claim about God? Be careful, there's a difference between what science says and what scientists say.

It usually upholds some kind of gentlemans agreement with religion, by not making all too many statements about "god/s".
Indirectly it makes a statement ... for one, by making the gaps in which god can hide smaller and smaller ...
for the other, by giving us the tools to make statements about the veracity of biblical stories.

Archaeology, for example has found signs to indicate that YHWH was originally a storm god in a bigger pantheon of gods ... and may have had a wife named Ashera.
It also casts doubts on lots of "historical" strories in the olf testament.
Similarly natural sciences do away with the myth about the earths (and lifes) creation, as well as about stories like the great deluge.
They also fail to see any influence (or need for influence) in the geological and evolutionary history of earth and its fauna and flora ... to the contrary, more and more earth gets removed from the center of the universe to being just an ordinary planet ... one with life, yes, but not one which is so special that it is unthinkable that other planets couldn't also harbor life.
Likewise man gets taken aside a little ... from the crown of creation that dominates all other beings (and is separate from them ... not an animal but something superior, distinct), to "just" another animal, that derives its status at being special more or less only from the fact that it could do things better (better communication, better handling of tools) and refined the ability more and more, over 100ks of years

From a historical perspective, it's not just the Jews that record evidence of a significant flood. The Babylonians do as well. How do you reconcile this fact?

That's easy ... the captivity of the jewish upper class in Babylon.
It resulted in the jewish intelligentsija coming into very close contact with the babylonian culture, including epics like Gilgamesh and the mentioning ot Utnapishtim.
It more or less inspired the flood story of the bible (after all, what bigger "proof" yolu can breing for YHWHs might, if you include a story where he just destroys all living beings, because he can.
And what bigger scaremongering tactic there can be (as with the stories of the great deluge and of Sodom and Gomorrha) in order to get "believers" to behave the "right way".

I wouldn't disclaim that the origin of the original flood story was some local flood, however

[Proteus_MST]

You can actually think of other utility curves. For example, someone wants to be super rich, not when they are old. They want to be super rich tomorrow. In that case investing in the stock market is pointless.

Considering the slim chances to win the big prize, buying lots of lottery tickets is pointless as well

[Jon Miller]

I would agree that science is 'attacking' so called 'literalist' interpretations of Christianity. But these only became popular relatively recently (last ~300 years), you could argue as a response to the Enlightenment and the age of Reason. But this was never the core of Christianity, as far back as Augustine (so probably before).

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [1 Timothy 1.7].” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1 Chapter 19 Paragraph 39)

JM

[rah]

God was always used to explain what we didn't understand/know. As we know more the less we need a God. But as long as we're going to eventually die, the need for God will never disappear completely. Now if we stop doing that, all bets are off.

[Jon Miller]

There will always be a significant amount that we don't know. See https://www.amazon.com/Island-Knowle.../dp/0465049648

JM
(written by a strong atheist)

[Kidlicious]

Considering the slim chances to win the big prize, buying lots of lottery tickets is pointless as well

You don't know what the utility of a lottery ticket is and why it varies between consumers. It's not zero.

[Proteus_MST]

You don't know what the utility of a lottery ticket is and why it varies between consumers. It's not zero.

You mean that the "belief" in a big win has an utility value for said person, that vastly surpasses any realistic probability calculations, letting her invest extraordinary amounts of money in this belief.

Sure, that may be. This surely also is the basic for addiction to gaming machines (and other games) in Casinos (this and the simple neuronal connection between gaming and the release of Dopamine in the limbic system (especially around the NAc-area)

[Kidlicious]

You mean that the "belief" in a big win has an utility value for said person, that vastly surpasses any realistic probability calculations, letting her invest extraordinary amounts of money in this belief.

Sure, that may be. This surely also is the basic for addiction to gaming machines (and other games) in Casinos (this and the simple neuronal connection between gaming and the release of Dopamine in the limbic system (especially around the NAc-area)

People who buy lottery tickets have realistic expectations and aren't addicted. Stop making a fool out of yourself.

[Proteus_MST]

People who buy lottery tickets have realistic expectations and aren't addicted. Stop making a fool out of yourself.

Depends on the amount of money the spend ... also depends on the expectations they actually have ...
if they spend a little money because well, it is a fun little thing and maybe they might win sometimes, you will never know, then they seem to be quite realistic ...
if they spend large amounts of money and then expect this money not to be lost (but rather have exaggerated expectation about their chances to win), then their expectations are far from realistic

[rah]

There will always be a significant amount that we don't know. See https://www.amazon.com/Island-Knowle.../dp/0465049648

JM
(written by a strong atheist)

I think death and after will always be the front runner.

[Aeson]

I think death and after will always be the front runner.

The meaning of life is up there too, ranking higher than death and the beyond for most of most people's lives ... and science almost surely will never be able to answer that. For one thing, there likely isn't a factual "meaning of life", and even if there is, it is unlikely that it would ccomfort any given person who is searching for the "meaning of life", and so any factual answer that science could provide would at best be meaningless, or worse, detrimental to the person. In both cases it would push the person to reject the answer and perhaps even science itself.

If instead we think of science developing a method for helping people find the "meaning of life" for themselves, rather than finding a factual "meaning of life" ... you need predictive algorithms that can map out a person's potential futures exactly, and thus can give them a roadmap that will work for them. Science currently would say that's impossible. Even if it's possible, helping one person find their "meaning of life" may make helping another person find their "meaning of life" impossible. Such as if 2 brothers at some point are competing for the affection of one woman, who happens to be the best possible mate for both of them. One will find happiness and meaning, the other will marry her.

[Kidlicious]

Depends on the amount of money the spend ... also depends on the expectations they actually have ...
if they spend a little money because well, it is a fun little thing and maybe they might win sometimes, you will never know, then they seem to be quite realistic ...
if they spend large amounts of money and then expect this money not to be lost (but rather have exaggerated expectation about their chances to win), then their expectations are far from realistic

No. It doesn't matter how much money they spend. What you are saying has nothing to do with economics. People who spend more money simply want to risk more for the chance to get rich soon.

[Kidlicious]

The meaning of life is up there too, ranking higher than death and the beyond for most of most people's lives ... and science almost surely will never be able to answer that. For one thing, there likely isn't a factual "meaning of life", and even if there is, it is unlikely that it would ccomfort any given person who is searching for the "meaning of life", and so any factual answer that science could provide would at best be meaningless, or worse, detrimental to the person. In both cases it would push the person to reject the answer and perhaps even science itself.

If instead we think of science developing a method for helping people find the "meaning of life" for themselves, rather than finding a factual "meaning of life" ... you need predictive algorithms that can map out a person's potential futures exactly, and thus can give them a roadmap that will work for them. Science currently would say that's impossible. Even if it's possible, helping one person find their "meaning of life" may make helping another person find their "meaning of life" impossible. Such as if 2 brothers at some point are competing for the affection of one woman, who happens to be the best possible mate for both of them. One will find happiness and meaning, the other will marry her.

There's no such thing as "their meaning of life." There is only a meaning of life if there is a creator because only he can mean something when he created life. And I see no reason why science can not help us find out what that is.

[Jon Miller]

I think death and after will always be the front runner.

And I will agree with your previous statement that what will really change (possibly kill traditional, but the traditional of 4000 years ago is already basically dead so I like 'change') religion is if we are able to upload consciousness into machines or some other way to 'cheat death'.

JM