There's also an assertion that the Hebrews fled slavery in Egypt, which we know with reasonable certainty isn't true, even though it's repeated over and over. I'm sure the authors really and truly believed what they wrote, so long as you aren't of the opinion that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch. That doesn't mean that the authors can't be deluded.

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The effects of consciousness can be measured. Human bodies can be measured and observed. Free will in the sense of complete determinism, sadly, does not hold up. I'm going to confess my own irrationality here and say that I believe it to be so anyways because of a philosophic argument. I generally don't insist on it when making a case. (This is not to say that free will in a more colloquial sense isn't observed. We are not pre-programmed machines, and this can be demonstrated.)

"The Bible is not entirely fictional. It is entirely reasonable that a religious text that depicts places that existed in order to add credibility to the tale. Who would believe a God whose exploits were all centered on a planet in a far off galaxy?"

Scientology disproves this statement.

Infact, I recently read somebody who was saying that the later the religion was invented, the more likely the religion is to be more crazy than the beliefs of the general public at the time. That is, the newer religions appear to get crazier and crazier as time goes on, as does the understanding of old religions. (in his view)

Since when did anyone take Scientologists seriously?

Edit: Oh, burned!

Edit edit: I probably should have phrased that as "What rational person would believe a God whose exploits were all centered on a planet in a far off galaxy?"

I have seen many suggestions that the time line of the bible, and the book written in the 1200s which reports to give a recording of history based on the bible, does not match archeology.(i.e. perhaps that book is wrong. I know the Talmud has their own history off by over 60 years. i.e. non biblical events we know happened, and which we have outside evidence stating it happened, but in a different year.) I have however seen many reports and papers which state that there were a group of slaves in Egypt known as the Ivri, and many reports and papers which also state that Egypt did not record any of its "losses."

But of course, the bible conveniently says that the pharaoh did not know Joseph.

I am not going to get into an argument of if the event happened or not, or if the event happened the way the bible says it happened, but I do dispute the claim that it "certainly isn't true."

I agree with the overall sentiment here. The problem arises when you start trying to distinguish fact from fiction. Like any other ancient text, you look for corroboration. The really big problem is that there is very minimal agreement between different religious systems that didn't overtly influence each other. The Greek pantheon largely supplanted the Roman pantheon which had some influence on the Celtic and Iberian pantheons. Judaism gave rise to both Christianity and Islam. The African tribal religions resemble each other. The Iroquois and Sioux myths influenced each other. The Incans and Aztecs influenced each other. We can go on and on like this for a long time. It would be reasonable to assume divine revelation if there was substantial agreement between, say, the Romans, the Sioux, the Incans, and Islam. But there isn't. That, all by itself, casts doubt on the claims of each. It doesn't disprove any of them, but it does mean that, for one religion to position itself as the herald of any sort of truth, it has to provide better evidence than all of its detractors.

Atheists can and should be held to the same standard. They can't go about it in the same way, though. You can't prove non-existence. Part of me thinks that, if you could, it'd already be done. What you do instead is chip away at the underpinnings of the opposing arguments themselves. The religious texts are more or less taken care of, much to the chagrin of Protestants everywhere. There isn't any good evidence of ongoing divine activity. What's left are the philosophic arguments, and those will probably continue until the end of time. Philosophy, by its nature, allows untruth to perpetuate. Modern psychology has given us some clues as to why (the nature of memory, perception, and language and the ways in which we fill in the gaps left by each), but it hasn't solved the problem by any stretch of the imagination. We use philosophic principles, like Occam's Razor, as a sort of preliminary sorting between likely and unlikely assertions, but even that's fallible, and I'll be the first to admit it. It doesn't mean it's not useful. It does mean that ideas that fail that test bear a higher burden of proof.

Scientology isn't really crazier than other religions; it's just that when something crazy (Like the doctrine of the ressurection or original sin) is repeated often enough, it starts to sound less crazy. Also, scientology, while involving aliens, is very much human-centric.

I am making the claim that most people are not really rational, and that all people hold some irrational beliefs. Thousands of people apparently take Scientology seriously.

"There isn't any good evidence of ongoing divine activity."

-- I am curious, does Christianity have the same tradition of Judaism. i.e. that divine revelation stopped with the destruction of the temple?

That is, the very beleif system is built around the idea, that no temple = no overt divine revelation.

But personally, I hold that even if there was overt divine revelation, that would not change any person's belief. I hold this view because of the story of the golden calf. The story itself should say something, regardless of your take on the historical accuracy of the text. (I don't think you have any other ancient religious text showing disbelief amongst its protagonists as you do within the Jewish Bible.)

Again, the idea is that it is crazier compared to the understanding of the world by the people of the time. Not crazier by our standards.

Catholicism says that public revelation ended with Jesus and that all private revelations would be nothing more than reinforcement of what we already have. Protestantism says that revelation in all senses ended with Jesus. Both say that Jesus established a new covenant. For a Catholic, this means that Jews are still in good standing with God because God would not go back on his word, but there's that issue of the sacrifices not being offered anymore. For most Protestants (they're a varied group), this means that the Mosaic Law has been fulfilled by God himself and is a complete non-entity; salvation comes through Christ and the Bible alone, and you're likely going to hell. Jesus is reported as having said very explicitly that his chosen disciples can cure the blind, the deaf, the mute, and the lame and that there will always be disciples who can do such, though. It ain't so.

Hmm, but you agreed upon understanding that public divine revelation ended by the time the second temple is destroyed. Which is interesting in itself. Though I wonder what public miracles the Koran has, if any.

Also, if I were to be a Christian with belief in that prophecy, I would wonder if any countries without Christianity have discovered medicines that cure the blind, deaf, the mute and the lame.

Regardless, in the 1800's-mid 1900's, there was no curing blind or deaf people, but there were lots of Christians.

And at the lowest level, a car and a plane are both machines, communism and capitalism are both economic systems, etc. etc. I believe the statement was meant to be inflammatory and served no real point. Yours is less inflammatory and serves a point, although once again, I feel it may be operating at a level of abstraction that makes the comparison less relevant.

The advantage I have is that I'm not advancing an argument of my own. I'm not trying to tell Verithrax what evidence ought to be. What I am trying to do is point out that you cannot make a statement like "there is no evidence for God's existence," then back that up with a definition of evidence that has basically been solely formed to suit your argument and/or is intrinsically inconsistent with its own standard. This is why your interaction with my imaginary dialogue, while it helps me understand your own views a bit better, doesn't interact with my main point, nor do my criticisms of Verithrax's selective formation of evidence constitute hypocrisy.

If I said, "Your commitment to empiricism automatically rules out any non-empirical claims regardless of merit. This is problematic. You should only believe the Koran." THEN I'd be a hypocrite.

The tack you took was, "I don't consider evidence X credible," which is a lot more consistent and a lot less patronizing. To maintain, however, that only empirically replicable results count as evidence puts a lot of bodies of what we normally consider knowledge in a very bad position. Mathematics. Logic. History. And even various aspects of empirical sciences, themselves.

I think my time bomb was just ticked because:

A) There are a lot of people in this thread making very aggressive statements without the rigor or the intellectual capital to support them. I realize this is the Internet, but still.

B ) I hear people say things like, "Religious people believe things based on faith, but -I- believe things based on evidence." I find this sort of sentiment to be neither honest about how religious people interact with evidence, nor the amount of faith required in the epistemic systems of the person who made this sort of statement to begin with.

And this, probably, is the point of the matter in which I'm most interested. I don't think empiricism has a privileged epistemic position, myself, and I've yet to hear a good reason from anyone who is not David Hume as to why someone would think it did.



Why? Why does WWI get a free pass? Is it the authority of the sources that communicate it to you?

Why?



But as an empiricist, should you not, in fact, accept the possibility?

Why do some ideas that do not meet your standard become "facts waiting for proof" (e.g. gravity) while others become "impossibilities?"

Ah, I believe Verithrax was in the right on that last point as opposed to you. I believe Christianity would be greatly affected if God did not exist. I also believe the ramifications for the philosophical world might be a bit more widespread than both you and he seem to regarding Socrates, but that's not really a point I'm tremendously interested in debating over.



Why would anyone assume that? Verithrax and Xavius are quite clear that any reasonable person opts for Occam's Razor, which means that the more natural theory would be that the light was failing on its own. That would be my own guess, too.

But how is that good enough? If an eyewitness writes, for example, that, during the Battle of Lexington, a contingent of "Indians" who had been following the lines of battle made a surprise raid on the British side, why should you believe that?

Just out of curiosity, how many people does it take to establish credibility in this way?

Obviously, twelve people who attested to seeing a resurrected Jesus and choosing martyrs deaths before recanting isn't sufficient. What if a hundred people saw someone die, then walk around, later? What if a football stadium full of people saw someone tumble from the top bleachers and break his neck. The medical professionals on the sidelines pronounced him dead. An hour later, he came out of the locker room with some bumps and bruises.

At least, that's what the stadium full of people are saying.

I'm not asking this to be flip; I'm asking because I'm trying to determine the parameters of what, for you, counts as evidence and whether or not you are consistent with it.



That's not a bad theory, but that's not actually how the scientific community operates. Without introducing all the variables of what research ends up in what journals and the politics of promoting certain sets of results and supressing others, I think we can agree that, by and large, there's a lot of trust and appeal to authority that goes around.

Further, empirical results do not satisfy the scientific community that a given conclusion is true. This is most likely due to the fact that one cannot separate facts from interpretation, but needless to say that debate rages in the scientific community on a number of issues. Why is this? Why cannot empiricism be the final arbiter for these people?



Then it's not a difference.

, though we have theories about how gravity works. However, when the undisputed, experimental proof of the source of gravitational pull is found, the down-pulling elf worshippers are going to feel a tad silly.

What if it turns out it's elves?

You obviously don't think it will, though. Why not?

Sorry for the double post, but this is not the case.

How's your knowledge of recent excavations of the Temple of Solomon and Egyptian kudurrus?

Some reason I thought I heard on NPR that there was a case in the 1850s of a man committing suicide after he was cured of blindness, cause he was disappointed with what he saw. (it was a report on a man who was recently cured with gene therapy)

Which are historically irrelevant by 1000 and 400 years respectively, assuming the veracity of less documentable parts of Exodus.

http://blog.case.edu/singham/2006/11/30/th...earths_the_past

Haven't heard it, but if you can find a link, I'd love to look into it for reasons completely other than the debate at hand.

I was looking for a link earlier, unfortunately, there are too many "double blind" suicide studies out there.

Oh, I sure hope I'm not one of those people, I'm actually trying to be reasonable about this one.



Empiricism is based on observation and experimentation, which fits very nicely with my fallibilist view on things. (I will elaborate on this shortly, when I get to the part where you ask a few more direct questions on what counts as sufficient experience.)



WWI doesn't get a free pass, it was merely an example. Yes, it is the authority of the sources. My trust in this authority, however, is not an implicit one: I do not blindly accept whatever is given to me. These sources contained a large amount of knowledge which I observed to be true about the present and I judged that they had no motive to lie. Therefore, the information they gave me about subjects that I did not have the capability to directly confirm was most likely accurate, provided it had the same level of accuracy that the previous information I obtained did. In addition, this knowledge was confirmed by many other sources I deemed to be equally reliable. I understand, however, that the information I have may be wrong. I could have been given misinformation (maliciously or unintentionally) or I could have misremembered existing information.



Because I am skeptical. I am constantly inundated through many sources with claims about fantastic occurrences, whether they be the nutjob on late-night radio going on about his encounter with the Jupiterians (apparently the surface of Jupiter is very Earth-like) or the haunted house shows on the Sci-Fi channel. None of this information is coming from a "trusted source" as mentioned above, and various bits of information frequently contradict themselves.



Perhaps "refuse to accept the possibility" was the wrong phrase. I do not accept the factuality of the statement because of its high improbability. It is entirely probable that self-powered human flight is possible. The probability, however, is phenomenally small.



Do keep in mind that I am an atheist, am convinced that God does not exist, and I see Christianity getting along just fine. If God does in fact exist, he is doing nothing to the physical world, yet Christianity would get along just fine anyway. A belief system does not actually have to have a belief in something factual.



Hm, perhaps this was a bad example. Stupid Enlightenment, making everyone at least sort of rational. My point was that people want to quantify the unknown, an anthropomorphizing it is a very clear way to quantify it.



There is no clear definition for me of what counts as evidence. The quantity of the source does matter, but not so much as the quality. I would not trust the hundred people who saw someone die, then walk around. There are conditions that mimic death that a panicked bystander may not be able to recognize. Plus, the mob mentality principle applies: if a few loud people can convince more people that something is true, it will quickly spread through a crowd. Three mistaken people could easily turn into a hundred mistaken people.

The medical professionals, however, are a more credible source, but I cannot rule out the possibility of them making a mistake. While I would doubt neither the group of a hundred nor the football stadium full of people as to whether or not someone appeared to have died and then come back to life, I remain skeptical about the possibility of someone actually, clinically dying and then coming back to life. If the event did truly occur, however, I would want an explanation from a credible source.

What, however, defines a credible source? For me, the judgement process is largely internalized and difficult to quantify. For example, a professional is fairly credible on matters relating to their field. I can trust a Java programmer to tell me about Java, and a cyclist to tell me about good bikes. People I know and trust are more credible than people I don't when it comes to observations about events, though their interpretations of events can be doubted.



Alright, perhaps I am a bit naive about how the scientific community operates. But this does take me back to my earlier point. Scientists do not immediately accept the work of other scientists, which is why debate exists. What some may claim to be empirical, others may claim to be fallacious, and this is why experiments are constantly being performed on contested topics.



So far, none of the scientific discoveries we have made have anything to do with elves or fairies. As an extension of this pattern, it is unlikely that gravity is influenced by elves. If it is, I will personally do a little dance in front of the closest national laboratory I can find to thank the elves for their tireless service.

elves add mass to the world the world causes gravity, thus the elves do effect gravity maybe only slightly?