quote:I did say contempt, which is rather stronger than disapproval. And I generally cut children quite a bit more slack than adults.
My brother is 26 (hardly a child). He is addicted to drugs. Contempt is a mild way to describe how my family feels about his addiction. We manage to still love him. We feel that a person isn't entirely defined by his actions. Hopefully we are not the only ones capable of thinking that way.
quote:If they're wrong, they're wrong.
So you have enough knowledge to know that they are wrong? I find it ironic that you cling to your beliefs (ie. all theists are idiots) more strongly than some of the most ardent of theists. So which is more dangerous to society, the one that refuses to admit that he is wrong, or the one that is willing to admit his understanding is incomplete?
quote:As for treating people as inferiors, well, intelligence is the one aspect that everyone discriminates on, whether they admit it or not. I'm just more open about it.
But you certainly are not open to the possibility that there may be people in the world that are more intelligent than you that disagree with certain views of yours. Either that or you define "intelligence" too narrowly.
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Well, I suppose I might manage not to actively hate my sister, should some cult manage to suck her in. I do believe I would still argue quite violently with her, though.
quote:So you have enough knowledge to know that they are wrong? I find it ironic that you cling to your beliefs (ie. all theists are idiots) more strongly than some of the most ardent of theists.
Well, I've heard all the arguments, and I've made up my mind. If someone presents a new argument that I haven't heard before, I'll consider it carefully. So far that hasn't happened on this forum. It is permissible to make up one's mind about evidence, you know. In this case I dismiss it, and then act on that dismissal.
quote:But you certainly are not open to the possibility that there may be people in the world that are more intelligent than you that disagree with certain views of yours.
No, I'm not, actually. And this is for three reasons : First, I really am very intelligent. Second, so are my colleagues, some of them even smarter than me, and they agree with me on the subject. In fact, of all the scientists I know personally and admire as intelligent, not one is a theist. Third, whenever I argue with a theist, if that theist is honest, sooner or later the argument comes down to "Well, this is what I believe because it makes me feel good." (enochville did reach this point quite quickly, which does at least argue a certain basic honesty.) That's just not a very good way to convince me of intelligence.
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You make me laugh, KoM. It's amazing how much you cling to your intelligence. I mean, there are so many parallels between you and the greatest of the world's religious fanatics. I don't see how you are any better than the people you have so much contempt for. Frankly, there isn't a shred of scientific evidence that can change my belief in God. I believe that God acts according to the laws of nature. My belief is not the typical, "God said it should be done and *poof* there it was" kind of belief. That just doesn't make sense to me. Do you not think that an all-powerful being could not possibly manipulate things in such a way that there would be absolutely no evidence of involvement? Why would he do that? Who cares? I don't. It doesn't matter to me. I believe what I believe because I've seen what following the things I've been taught has done for my life. I've also seen what ignoring those teachings does to me. I much prefer the way things go for me when I do the things I've been taught. Intelligence is nothing to me. Understanding is everything. I want to understand people. I want to understand what drives them to act the way they do, what makes them happy, what makes them sad. And frankly, your actions reveal some of the most base and primitive characteristics of human nature. I don't care what you believe. It is not religion that causes war and hatred. It's unyeilding, unfeeling attitudes such as your own, regardless of what brings that attitude out, that causes all the the evil in this world. Frankly, you are nothing to me, KoM. Just a tiny little man who thinks he's everything. And I'm sorry if you'll never be anything more than that to me.
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quote:Well, I've heard all the arguments, and I've made up my mind. If someone presents a new argument that I haven't heard before, I'll consider it carefully. So far that hasn't happened on this forum. It is permissible to make up one's mind about evidence, you know. In this case I dismiss it, and then act on that dismissal.
I guess I'm confused. Sometimes you say that some type of god cannot possibly exist and anybody that entertains the idea that he may exist is an idiot and that there is no possible way that you are wrong. Then you say that the great part of science is that they never admit that they know all that there is to know. They fully realize that they may have an incomplete understanding due to limited resources and knowledge and so stand ready to revise any theory when new information is found. Then you go back to saying that all theists are most definitely wrong. And then you come back and say that you are open to ideas (although you already know they are wrong). It's one thing to believe firmly in the evidence you have. It's quite another to believe that someone is completely wrong even though you can't prove it.
quote:First, I really am very intelligent.
This I do not doubt, though I think you'd be very interested in this link. Interesting link
quote:if that theist is honest, sooner or later the argument comes down to "Well, this is what I believe because it makes me feel good."
No. The argument comes down to, "Well, we can't really prove or disprove God's existence. Because of that limitation, this is why I choose to believe in God." That in itself does make any statement about intelligence. It's your concept of what you believe an intelligent person is that convinces you of intelligence, or the lack thereof.
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Humility, now, there's an interesting virtue. I'm not certain about this, but I believe it's only with Christianity that it gets its status as a Really Good Thing, at least in Western culture. (I admit to not being quite certain how Buddhists and Hindus feel about it. I know the latter are big on mortification of the flesh, but do they also think humility is a good thing?)
Now, I do think you might have done better to link to this page, which gives the actual definition of the word. Including the etymology :
quote:Middle English, from Old French, from Latin humilis, low, lowly, from humus, ground.
Isn't it interesting that a religion which survived on donations and by supporting the power of kings, should seek to convince its listeners that being lowly is a good thing?
quote:Sometimes you say that some type of god cannot possibly exist and anybody that entertains the idea that he may exist is an idiot and that there is no possible way that you are wrong.
I do not think I have actually said this; as I agreed at the start of this thread, it is certainly possible in principle for any number of gods to exist.
quote:Then you say that the great part of science is that they never admit that they know all that there is to know. They fully realize that they may have an incomplete understanding due to limited resources and knowledge and so stand ready to revise any theory when new information is found.
Right. Remind me again which part of the information presented on this thread was new? The other good thing about science is that when a theory is discredited, it's damn well dropped. That's how we make progress.
quote: Then you go back to saying that all theists are most definitely wrong. And then you come back and say that you are open to ideas (although you already know they are wrong).
I do not think I said the latter. I said "If any theist should present new evidence, I would consider it carefully." Emphasis on new. I do not see where in this I pre-dismissed anything.
As for all theists being definitely wrong, well, they are, based on the available evidence. I don't really feel it's necessary to make that kind of qualifier every time I post something, but I hope that makes my position clearer.
quote:No. The argument comes down to, "Well, we can't really prove or disprove God's existence. Because of that limitation, this is why I choose to believe in God." That in itself does make any statement about intelligence.
I prefer my own formulation, but I think yours is about equivalent. It comes back to the argument I had with Tres earlier in the thread : In the absence of evidence, is it reasonable to believe in an entity? If you say yes, then you are logically bound to also believe in the IPU, etc, etc. Or if you prefer only to believe in feel-good things, which admittedly the IPU is not ("No, of course she's not safe. She's the Unicorn. But she's Good. Safe, indeed! *snort*") there's things like "Jennifer Lopez loves me dearly," or "The aliens will land tomorrow and solve all our problems". (Ok, that one is fairly closely related to religion.) I call such a position foolish.
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I think the problem is that KoM hasn't actually identified what he really believes yet. I'll see if I can help.
Atheists are usually characterized by one or two of three statements: "I believe there is no God," "I don't believe there's a God," and "I believe there is no evidence of God."
Anybody who actually takes one of these views would be tolerant of intelligent people (like the majority of Hatrackers) who claim to be convinced of the existence of God through evidence, because none of those views precludes it as a possibility. Unfortunately, KoM isn't tolerant; therefore, his view can't be any of those three. Modus Tollens saves the day.
It's "There is no God," or "There is no evidence of God." Maybe both. I lean more toward the latter in KoM's case. There is no evidence; therefore, your evidence is false or cannot support your hypothesis. QED.
If this isn't the case, maybe someone can please explain to me how it's possible to hold one of the three main atheist viewpoints and still be full of contempt for anyone who disagrees.
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quote:Isn't it interesting that a religion which survived on donations and by supporting the power of kings, should seek to convince its listeners that being lowly is a good thing?
Who associates humility with being lowly? I was thinking primarily of the first definition: not arrogant or prideful. I don't think Christianity is the only group that feels that's a good thing. Well, at least I hope not.
quote:As for all theists being definitely wrong, well, they are, based on the available evidence.
I'm sorry but no matter how smart you think you are, you are not qualified to make that statement.
quote:In the absence of evidence, is it reasonable to believe in an entity?
Oh yes, I keep forgetting that your interpretation of evidence is the only one that's correct.
Added: As much fun as this discussion is proving to be, I have other plans for the evening which I believe will be even more fun than conversing with you. I would love to continue this later, though I don't know what exactly that would accomplish.
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The problem is that KoM refuses to take into account subjective evidence. I don't mean to say that it should be accepted it without question - but if I say that the primary reason I believe in God is that keeping his commandments makes me and the people around me happy, anyone listening should understand that that's very strong evidence for me. They don't need to include it in their list, but they need to understand that it's perfectly acceptable for a rational person to do so.
It's that hurdle KoM's having troubles with for the most part. I think he doesn't want to acknowledge it, either, because then he'd have to admit that the lot of us theists are actually rational beings.
Not all evidence can be objective. Specifically, predictions that have to do with how the experimenter reacts to certain actions simply cannot be objective. To test them, you have to become a subject, and that's all there is to it. I acknowledge that this is outside the realm of science (which demands objective repeatability), but it's not outside the realm of a general search for truth.
I love my children. I can't prove it, and I can't provide anyone with an objective, repeatable experiment, but I have plenty of subjective evidence. Some truths can't be obtained any other way.
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quote:The problem is that KoM refuses to take into account subjective evidence.
I refuse to take into account contradictory evidence. All those Moslems, Satanists, Aesirtru, and whatnot make exactly the same claim for their particular fairy tale. They all seem very sincere. But all that subjective evidence cancels out, leaving nothing. If the world were split into miserable atheists and happy theists, you might have a case. But it itn't. There are plenty of unhappy theists about, some of them unhappy to such a degree that they will kill themselves over a point of politics. So this argument proves nothing except that some people are happy. Gee, what a surprise.
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Now you're confused with what this thread is about.
If I have subjective evidence that I love my children, and someone else has subjective evidence that I hate them, yes, that would cancel out, in a sense. You wouldn't be obliged to believe either of us. But it doesn't mean that we're both irrational. We could both be perfectly rational and still have opposing beliefs.
That's what this thread was about: whether theists can be rational. It's not about what's actually true, funny enough, but you keep trying to make it into that.
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Sigh. Once more, with feeling : Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence? And you're quite right, I don't accept the subjective evidence that people give for their religions, for the reasons I outlined above. The point is, neither should you.
As a matter of fact, I think your point, about having to become a subject, cuts both ways. Have you tried, lately, dropping your belief in your god, and seeing what kind of person that makes you?
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sigh. Once more, with feeling : Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence?
I think that hating a group of people because of what they believe is irrational. You seem to be doing that. My goodness, you're irrational. You're the most irrational person I've ever seen in my entire life! Holy cow! What an irrational being! There's never been another person on earth more irrational than you! Do you realize how much energy and time you waste trying to convince believers of their lack of intelligence? I "waste" less time on religion that you do in pointless arguments. It's all really funny to me.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sigh. Once more, with feeling : Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence? And you're quite right, I don't accept the subjective evidence that people give for their religions, for the reasons I outlined above. The point is, neither should you.
Once more, with feeling: some truths are inaccessible without an appeal to subjective evidence. Surely you believe this. Not everything is objectively, independently testable. Science has its limits on truth-seeking.
That being the case - that some subjective evidence must be considered - who are you to tell me what kind of subjective evidence I ought to consider (even if none at all) and then, when I don't, call me irrational? A rational person is at liberty to accept whatever kind of evidence is available. He should take its reliability into account, of course, and I do.
I'm not asking you to accept my subjective evidence. I'm asking you to accept that I have subjective evidence. You don't even have to believe me to do that - just say, "Okay, but that doesn't apply to me." Anybody who can see the fine distinction between "I don't believe in God" and "I believe there is no God" ought to be able to figure this out.
quote:As a matter of fact, I think your point, about having to become a subject, cuts both ways. Have you tried, lately, dropping your belief in your god, and seeing what kind of person that makes you?
Not lately, no. I've tried it in the past, and it didn't work out. Nowadays, I've amassed too much evidence to disbelieve outright - I just can't do it and be honest with myself.
What you're really after, I think, is this question: "Have you recently tried acting opposite what the scriptures prescribe?" Yes, I have. And guess what - their predictions held, and I was unable to reject the hypothesis that they were giving me good counsel. I'm not going to go into detail - this isn't a confessional - but yes, I've tested most of these predictions both ways.
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quote:Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence?
If one believes in something irrationally which is true, does that make it any less true?
No one is completely rational, not even you - have you succeeded yet in tearing away any of us from our beliefs? Very few, if any...yet you keep trying. It seems that you believe something will happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sigh. Once more, with feeling : Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence?
No, it is not. Sort of by definition, you know?
The question is one of evidence. Also, whether evidence needs to be of "proof" strength, or whether strong circumstantial evidence can suffice.
KoM, you don't get to define the terms ahead of time to force a result to your liking. That's not honest. Anyone can say, "I define evidence this way, and that kind of evidence is lacking; therefore this isn't rational." You're just chasing your tail with that. Trying to justify a conclusion that you've already decided on.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sigh. Once more, with feeling : Is it rational to believe in something in the absence of evidence?
No, it is not. Sort of by definition, you know?
Thank you. Now we can move on to the evidence, right?
quote:The question is one of evidence. Also, whether evidence needs to be of "proof" strength, or whether strong circumstantial evidence can suffice.
I'm willing to accept circumstantial evidence; I am asserting that there is none - because contradictory evidence cancels out. If everyone in the world said "Well, I can feel that the god of Abraham is the right one", then that would be strong circumstantial evidence. But since that isn't the case - in fact, plenty of people give 'internal' evidence that directly contradicts that faith - internal evidence is plainly not good enough. If two witnesses agree that there has been a killing, but disagree on the culprit, where the death took place, what time it was, the murder weapon, and the identity of the victim - then I think few DAs would prosecute. Sufficiently contradictory evidence is useless.
It's also rather interesting that people tend very strongly to 'feel' that the god their father worshipped is the right one. Bit of an interesting correlation, that.
quote:Not lately, no. I've tried it in the past, and it didn't work out. Nowadays, I've amassed too much evidence to disbelieve outright - I just can't do it and be honest with myself.
What you're really after, I think, is this question: "Have you recently tried acting opposite what the scriptures prescribe?" Yes, I have.
Um, no. Apart from going to church, which I guess you can do for the purely social aspects, atheists and theists define living well in pretty much the same ways. So if that's all you require, why not drop the extraneous belief? You've only got so much brain, you know - filling it up with distracting clutter is a bad idea.
quote:If one believes in something irrationally which is true, does that make it any less true?
Less true, no. More rational, also no. Rationality is the stronger criterion; and because we cannot ultimately determine truth, the only useful one.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'm willing to accept circumstantial evidence; I am asserting that there is none - because contradictory evidence cancels out. If everyone in the world said "Well, I can feel that the god of Abraham is the right one", then that would be strong circumstantial evidence.
I completely disagree. I don't think it'd even be weak circumstantial evidence. Do you know what circumstantial evidence is? It isn't "a lot of people feel that way". It's "observable circumstances are consistent with the premise". Strong circumstantial evidence is when it's not only consistent with the premise, but when it is strongly consistent. In other words, when the circumstance becomes increasingly difficult to explain without the premise.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: But since that isn't the case
<sigh> See, you know what happens when you assume? You wind up continuing down a silly path. Your "since that isn't the case" is empty, because no one claimed it to be the case. Except you.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: It's also rather interesting that people tend very strongly to 'feel' that the god their father worshipped is the right one. Bit of an interesting correlation, that.
But increasingly irrelevant to the question at hand. "Emotions are not a tool of cognition". I know there are people who try and use them that way, but you can't blame me for people like that. They exist in all quarters.
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starLisa, I suggest you take another look at comrade trouser's post :
quote:The problem is that KoM refuses to take into account subjective evidence. I don't mean to say that it should be accepted it without question - but if I say that the primary reason I believe in God is that keeping his commandments makes me and the people around me happy, anyone listening should understand that that's very strong evidence for me.
Since that is what I was arguing against before you jumped in, I (once more completely failing to read your mind; so sorry!) assumed this was the circumstantial evidence you referred to. If not, are you going to be putting forth ID again? We;ve already got a thread for that, but let me assure you, you have not convinced me that there is anything at all that cannot be accounted for without the Easter Bunny.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: starLisa, I suggest you take another look at comrade trouser's post :
quote:The problem is that KoM refuses to take into account subjective evidence. I don't mean to say that it should be accepted it without question - but if I say that the primary reason I believe in God is that keeping his commandments makes me and the people around me happy, anyone listening should understand that that's very strong evidence for me.
Since that is what I was arguing against before you jumped in, I (once more completely failing to read your mind; so sorry!) assumed this was the circumstantial evidence you referred to. If not, are you going to be putting forth ID again? We;ve already got a thread for that, but let me assure you, you have not convinced me that there is anything at all that cannot be accounted for without the Easter Bunny.
I wasn't referring to that post. I was referring to your post in which you were responding to me. I had no idea that you were lumping in something someone else said. For the record, I completely disagree with Lord Trousers. "If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." --Anatole France
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Good, it seems we agree at least a little more than I thought. However, if I am correct in believing that you are going to propose the Torah, plus Intelligent Design, as your circumstantial evidence - then I'm going to stand by 'that ain't evidence', for the reasons I outlined earlier in this thread and the ID one. If you have something else, speak up now, or forever hold thy peace!
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Out of curiousity, starLisa: which part do you disagree with? I'm not trying to start an argument - it just wasn't clear from what you wrote.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'm willing to accept circumstantial evidence; I am asserting that there is none - because contradictory evidence cancels out. If everyone in the world said "Well, I can feel that the god of Abraham is the right one", then that would be strong circumstantial evidence. But since that isn't the case - in fact, plenty of people give 'internal' evidence that directly contradicts that faith - internal evidence is plainly not good enough. If two witnesses agree that there has been a killing, but disagree on the culprit, where the death took place, what time it was, the murder weapon, and the identity of the victim - then I think few DAs would prosecute. Sufficiently contradictory evidence is useless.
Good gracious, I thought you said you were intelligent.
YES, it cancels out - to the outside observer, trying to judge who is right. That I have to keep bringing this up tells me you're not really making an effort. (Are we that far beneath you?) We're not trying to decide who's right, we're trying to decide who's rational.
I only have so many ways to emphasize text on a web forum, and you're reaching the limit. If I have to make this statement again, it'll be in all caps. I don't like to yell. Please try to understand this one single point, okay?
I'll put it in a more abstract setting: suppose you are given a set of five dots and asked to fit a function to it with least squares error. You have some prior knowledge about the problem. Suppose you fit a line. Another person is given the same problem, but has slightly different prior knowledge. He draws a quadratic.
Do these conclusions cancel each other out? Are you both wrong? Possibly. Are you each rational? YES. The point is that both people, given the same data, came up with different answers. This stupid little example - the likes of which, by the way, comes up an awful lot in my graduate studies - proves that it's possible for rational people to disagree. It's even possible for them to disagree with you.
Back to your example: If two witnesses agree that there has been a killing, but disagree on the culprit, where the death took place, what time it was, the murder weapon, and the identity of the victim - are they both irrational in their beliefs about the crime?
Maybe. It's much more likely you've got the wrong person or people as witnesses, so this is sort of a nonsense example. The thing is, religions don't differ that much - they generally have much more in common than not. Religion is more like two people disagreeing on the culprit, agreeing on most of the other general details, and disagreeing on a lot of small details. In that case, I'd say both witnesses are rational. Small details tend to look very different from different points of view.
quote:It's also rather interesting that people tend very strongly to 'feel' that the god their father worshipped is the right one. Bit of an interesting correlation, that.
It's a commentary on the reliability of the evidence. If you've got sufficient evidence of less than perfect reliability, though, you can still believe and be perfectly rational. Bayesian inference systems like Kalman filters do this all the time.
quote:
quote:Not lately, no. I've tried it in the past, and it didn't work out. Nowadays, I've amassed too much evidence to disbelieve outright - I just can't do it and be honest with myself.
What you're really after, I think, is this question: "Have you recently tried acting opposite what the scriptures prescribe?" Yes, I have.
Um, no. Apart from going to church, which I guess you can do for the purely social aspects, atheists and theists define living well in pretty much the same ways. So if that's all you require, why not drop the extraneous belief? You've only got so much brain, you know - filling it up with distracting clutter is a bad idea.
This misunderstanding is my fault. There are things that theists define as living well that atheists just don't.
Here's an example. My scriptures say that an appeal to Christ will immediately begin to bring about relief from guilt. Atheists wouldn't experience that, having no reason to appeal to Christ. I have - and I've tried it both ways. I've let guilt fester, I've tried other ways to make it disappear, and done other things in this area borne of stubborn pride. Only an appeal to Christ works and brings peace. I've experimented on both sides of this prediction, and found that it held.
Any single example can be explained by something else, but I've done it many times. Of course, we could admit dementia as an explanation. The thing is, I've experienced some things that can't be explained by that. Here's an example - a time where I suddenly knew something that, based on material science, I shouldn't have known.
In my church, we (fathers) give blessings to our little children. Officially, it's to name them, but we say other things as the Spirit directs.
I was blessing my son Joseph. I said some things that were surprising to me, things that taught me about myself and about him - but it was what I didn't say that was most useful. In the middle of it, I suddenly knew that he was a very intelligent little boy. The knowledge was accompanied by a feeling so strong that I couldn't speak for a while.
Yeah, so he was three months old at the time.
Fast-forward almost two years. He had never said a word, or even pointed. He walked around grunting a lot. We started getting worried, because if language is significantly delayed, it impedes a child's aptitude to reason later in life. My mother brought up autism, which we hadn't considered yet, and we freaked out and took him to a doctor.
There are a few different treatments for language delay, and we picked one under the assumption that there was an intelligent kid in there who didn't know how to express himself. In other words, my extra knowledge helped us make a critical decision about his development. We taught him sign language, and his language skills exploded.
So is he really intelligent? Fast forward to now: he's 3 1/2 years old, and he reads Dr. Seuss books to himself. We know it's not all memorization because he backs up and sounds out words when he realizes he gets them wrong, and he reads books he hasn't had read to him. We didn't even teach him - we taught his sister, who is two years older. He must have been listening to that, and memorizing words and drawing inferences about letter sounds when we read to him.
It's not the only time I've had knowledge poured into my head from an outside source, but it's one of the most dramatic, and the one of a few that best isolates all the variables. If enough evidence like this piles up, believe me, it makes a believer out of you.
[ November 14, 2005, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: lord trousers ]
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Yes, yes, and you remember the hits and forget the misses. About your guilt, I'm sorry your church programmed you so well. If I feel guilty about something, I generally try making amends to the one I've offended, instead.
There do exist points on which reasonable men might differ; but the existence of a god is not one of them. Your point about prior assumption is spot on : If you did not already believe in a god, none of the stuff you've quoted to me would be evidence for one. So if you dig one level deeper, you think you have evidence of your god, because... you believe in your god. Doesn't sound quite so rational when you put it that way, does it?
Returning to your analogy about the least-squares fit, yes, one of those people is, in fact, wrong. You can determine which one by taking more data points, or measuring the ones you have more precisely. Now, before you start shouting, if they both have some theoretical justification for their fit shape, then neither is necessarily being irrational; however, the one whose fit is worse should be prepared to give up his theory. (Assuming of course that the data are good enough that a fit would be conclusive.) But if there is no reasonable theory at all, then yes, I'd say they are both being irrational, at least if they stick by their proposed fit shapes come hell and high water. The analogy begins to break down here, because different fit shapes are a bit like religions, but there's no fit shape to match atheism, except maybe 'these data are completely random'. But even then you'd get some kind of fit, which come to think of it may mean it's a good analogy after all.
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quote:Rationality is the stronger criterion; and because we cannot ultimately determine truth, the only useful one.
Love is rarely rational. Yet life is so much darker without it.
quote:So if you dig one level deeper, you think you have evidence of your god, because... you believe in your god. Doesn't sound quite so rational when you put it that way, does it?
When I dig down to the core of it, my evidence of God is that He told me that He exists. How is that irrational?
Elder Boyd K. Packer:
quote:The skeptic will say that to bear testimony when you may not know you possess one is to condition yourself; that the response is manufactured. Well, one thing for sure, the skeptic will never know, for he will not meet the requirement of faith, humility, and obedience to qualify him for the visitation of the Spirit.
You can stand there arrogant in your armour of unbelief and ridicule those of us who believe. You can lecture us rudely about your superiority, your pride, because you cannot see what we can. And how can we respond? As well try to describe the sunrise to a blind man. But we still know something that you will never let yourself know.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Yes, yes, and you remember the hits and forget the misses. About your guilt, I'm sorry your church programmed you so well. If I feel guilty about something, I generally try making amends to the one I've offended, instead.
I suspected this response. Thanks for assuming that I don't. At any rate, I'm talking about specific offenses against God (which, again, atheists don't have to worry about) and against myself.
I don't forget the misses. It turns out - and I'd probably be burned alive by some for claiming this - but scriptural predictions, for me, have a success rate in the low 90's. Yes, sometimes they don't work. (Gasp!) The thing is, they've proven themselves so useful that 1) I'm not prepared to give them up on the sub-10% that don't turn out, and 2) the correct ones' overall usefulness indicates that it's not necessarily God's problem.
quote:There do exist points on which reasonable men might differ; but the existence of a god is not one of them.
Quite a strong statement. Speaking of circular reasoning...
quote:Your point about prior assumption is spot on : If you did not already believe in a god, none of the stuff you've quoted to me would be evidence for one. So if you dig one level deeper, you think you have evidence of your god, because... you believe in your god. Doesn't sound quite so rational when you put it that way, does it?
...and if you dig one level deeper, you can always find some reason to dismiss someone else's subjective evidence of God, because... you believe there isn't any.
Isn't rational thought wonderful?
quote:Returning to your analogy about the least-squares fit, yes, one of those people is, in fact, wrong. You can determine which one by taking more data points, or measuring the ones you have more precisely. Now, before you start shouting, if they both have some theoretical justification for their fit shape, then neither is necessarily being irrational; however, the one whose fit is worse should be prepared to give up his theory.
Yep.
quote:(Assuming of course that the data are good enough that a fit would be conclusive.) But if there is no reasonable theory at all, then yes, I'd say they are both being irrational, at least if they stick by their proposed fit shapes come hell and high water. The analogy begins to break down here, because different fit shapes are a bit like religions, but there's no fit shape to match atheism, except maybe 'these data are completely random'. But even then you'd get some kind of fit, which come to think of it may mean it's a good analogy after all.
Of course it is. It so happens that inductive bias, as described in information theory and machine learning, is an extremely good model of human bias in general. There are some results from the study of bias that you, thinking your beliefs the only possible rational ones, might not like. Here's one: you can't learn or generalize without bias. Another: you can't prove that one bias (or one person's bias) is better than another in general. There's no logical way to approach it.
You can't prove that one person's evidence standards are better than another's. You can make an argument that's convincing to some - and usually to yourself - but that's about it.
Where the analogy breaks down is that, in the mathematical model, only objective evidence, available to both people, is considered. In the human model, this isn't necessarily so. We're often concerned with truth that has no objective evidence - and I'm not talking about just religion.
I'm sorry, but as much as you'd like it to be so, neither you nor anyone else who has ever lived has built his entire belief system from concrete first principles and objective evidence only. As soon as you realize your own bias, you might be ready to forgive theists of theirs.
Posts: 73 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I'm going to post once in this thread and leave it as is. This will probably offend just about everyone here (I apologize to those I like in advance), but it needs to be said(written).
Arguing over the internet is like winning the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you are still retarded.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: My scriptures say that an appeal to Christ will immediately begin to bring about relief from guilt. Atheists wouldn't experience that, having no reason to appeal to Christ. I have - and I've tried it both ways. I've let guilt fester, I've tried other ways to make it disappear, and done other things in this area borne of stubborn pride. Only an appeal to Christ works and brings peace.
Hm. I'm reasonably sure I've found other workable alternatives. Which ones did you try before resorting to Christ?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:The problem is that KoM refuses to take into account subjective evidence.
I refuse to take into account contradictory evidence. All those Moslems, Satanists, Aesirtru, and whatnot make exactly the same claim for their particular fairy tale. They all seem very sincere. But all that subjective evidence cancels out, leaving nothing.
You realize, don't you, that there's no validity to that argument. Competing and conflicting claims can mean three things:
One is right
The other is right
Both are wrong
Why do you think the third option has some sort of special status?
You're lazy, O King. Faced with competing and conflicting claims, you can look into them and really compare them to see if one has a stronger claim than the others. After that, you can make declarative statements about your results.
Alternatively, you can say, "It's not worth my time, so I'm not going to bother." And then just stay away from the argument.
But you want to be able to make the declarative statements without bothering yourself to actually look at the competing claims. That's lazy.
I repeat: a guy in a cave and a dozen bereaved friends don't have a claim that compares to a couple million people all seeing and hearing the same thing at the same time.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: Out of curiousity, starLisa: which part do you disagree with? I'm not trying to start an argument - it just wasn't clear from what you wrote.
It was this:
quote:if I say that the primary reason I believe in God is that keeping his commandments makes me and the people around me happy, anyone listening should understand that that's very strong evidence for me
Correlation isn't causation. If you do something you believe in, in a community of people who share those beliefs, it's going to probably make you and the people around you happy. So long as you aren't hurting anyone. That's independent of the beliefs in question.
If you were a Wiccan, in a community of Wiccans, then keeping the Wiccan Rede would make you and the people around you happy just the same. Using the word "evidence" -- even "evidence for me" -- is a misuse of language.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: Here's an example. My scriptures say that an appeal to Christ will immediately begin to bring about relief from guilt. Atheists wouldn't experience that, having no reason to appeal to Christ.
I've heard of Christian Scientists. This is the first time I've heard of Christian Psychologists.
If you're feeling guilty, then you need to look at where the guilt is coming from. If it's coming from something that you're doing which isn't right, well... there's an obvious solution there.
A guy walks into a doctor's office and says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doctor tells him, "So, nu? Don't do that!"
In other words, if the guilt is coming from something you're doing wrong, stop doing it. If it's coming from anything else, like being guilty that you have all four working limbs when there are others who don't, you simply need a therapist. Or a reality check.
Also, it isn't just atheists who have no reason to appeal to your deity. Do try and remember that.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: If you were a Wiccan, in a community of Wiccans, then keeping the Wiccan Rede would make you and the people around you happy just the same. Using the word "evidence" -- even "evidence for me" -- is a misuse of language.
Out of curiosity, do you reject the idea of subjective evidence in general?
"Correlation isn't causation" applies to deductive logic only. We're talking about inductive logic, where if you have enough different correlations, you're justified in assuming causation.
You're in danger of making the same mistake as KoM in this regard. While I have to put forth my evidence one point at a time and he has the opportunity to dismiss each in turn, I didn't come to my conclusion serially. I take the evidence as a whole, and in that form, it's very convincing to me.
Going back to the curve fitting analogy, it's like this: you have an intial hypothesis that the points are uncorrelated. For each point, rather than considering them as a whole, you evaluate each independently and dismiss them all because you can show that any of them could have been produced randomly. Well, duh. Each independent point can be produced by a uniformly random process.
You have to consider "enough" points to even begin to make a judgment between noise and data, "enough" is defined subjectively, and there's no way to prove that one person's "enough" isn't. "Enough = 0" - each point independently, which is KoM's stance with regards to religion - isn't provably bad, but it's provably very limiting. With "enough = 0," it's simply impossible to make any generalizations (which is what fitting a curve is) except "this is random."
KoM obviously doesn't always do this, because he's capable of generalization. (Otherwise, he'd be a mindless vegetable.) People who use "enough = 0" don't want to find a generalization.
Personally, I believe that the accuracy of the predictions of the scriptures, my peace with God, the happiness I claim from keeping the commandments, enochville's material evidences, and the things I sometimes just know (always accompanied by a feeling I associate with the Spirit of God) which turn out to be extremely useful, all combine to make a very convincing argument - for me.
---
I'm not going to quote the "guilt" part. While I appreciate your attempt to help me psychologically, I realize that it was a miscommunication.
I've just realized that people in my faith - and probably most Christians - pile more connotation into the word "guilt" than most people. We mean the "guilt" that most people do - the shame of conscience which convinces you that you were wrong and that you need to change - and also a loss that's sort of independent from that. That basic guilt of conscience is supposed to fade with time, and if someone's made restitution and changed, and it's still an incessant, emotionally debilitating presence, then yes, that person needs a therapist.
The rest of it, which we also often call "guilt," is a loss of a sense of peace with God. For me, accepting Christ brought a sense of peace into my life that I didn't have before. Keeping the commandments of God keeps it around, and I feel it more strongly when I pray or read the scriptures. Doing something wrong - as well as making me feel guilt of conscience - drives it away.
It's that that doesn't return without an appeal to Christ. What I've tried is the same kinds of things I do to alleviate guilt of conscience, and that never works.
I can't really describe it better than that. The feeling of peace with God is experientially defined.
quote:Also, it isn't just atheists who have no reason to appeal to your deity. Do try and remember that.
I didn't say "my God," I said "God." People who believe in a god of some kind almost invariably appeal to it somehow. Otherwise, what would be the point?
Anyway, I apologize for any offense.
Posts: 73 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: If you were a Wiccan, in a community of Wiccans, then keeping the Wiccan Rede would make you and the people around you happy just the same. Using the word "evidence" -- even "evidence for me" -- is a misuse of language.
Out of curiosity, do you reject the idea of subjective evidence in general?
Would you define that for me, please? I can't answer your question unless I know what you mean by subjective evidence. If you mean emotional responses that can easily be caused by things that a person experiencing them isn't aware of, then yes, I reject it.
I had a friend who was into Wicca. She's also a Ph.D. in Physics or some such. I asked her, "How can you be so sure that the magick you say you've experienced is real, and not just something taking place in your head? Her response was: "Why would that matter?"
See, for her, the effect was the important thing. She wasn't making objective claims on the basis of her subjective feelings. Only subjective claims, which is entirely legitimate. She labeled what she experienced as "magick", so fine.
You're making objective claims on the basis of subjective feelings. But you must realize that feelings can come from any number of things.
Look... let me give you an example. I'm an Orthodox Jew. I'm also a lesbian. As you might surmise, this doesn't exactly grease the social wheels for me in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Now... I'm firmly convinced that I'm not doing anything against Jewish law. I'm good with God. I'm not so good with the community. So when I go into a synagogue and feel people staring holes into my back, I feel uncomfortable. One might say that if walking into a synagogue makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable, maybe there's something wrong with Orthodox Judaism. Maybe I'm feeling something spiritual in that synagogue that my soul recognizes as icky.
But that's not the case. And I happen to be aware of what it is that's causing me discomfort. But take someone 25 years younger than me, who is an Orthodox Jewish high school student and a lesbian, but hasn't really figured out what she's feeling yet. She might get the same nervous feelings going into the synagogue and not realize what's causing them.
The same thing is true for you. You say that accepting your deity made you start to feel less guilty. Hasn't it occurred to you that this reaction is inevitably what will happen if you are convinced that accepting your deity is the right thing to do? Regardless of the truth or falsity of the proposition?
Emotions are a automatic reaction which works off of our values. To the extent that we attain or keep our values, we are happy. To the extent that we lose or faily to gain our values, we are unhappy.
If you think that being wealthy makes you bad (you know, camels, needles, eyes, etc), then being wealthy is going to make you feel guilty. You aren't feeling guilty because of the money, but because you have internalized a set of values which considers poverty praiseworthy and wealth... not so much.
Most people never really look at their values. They just internalize them unconsciously from their environment. And that means that they're going to have emotional reactions that they can't account for rationally. The most common response to that is to look for any explanation, rational or not.
I'm convinced that God exists. I'm convinced that He gave us His Torah and that He wants us to live according to it. But have I ever had some sort of spiritual vision of Him? Not that I'm aware of.
And it's not as though I'm closed-minded to the very idea. I mentioned that Wiccan friend of mine. I have actually experienced "magick". One time, but that was enough. It's not an experience that I'd like to repeat. Nor can I prove to anyone (myself included) that it wasn't some kind of illusion or delusion.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: "Correlation isn't causation" applies to deductive logic only. We're talking about inductive logic, where if you have enough different correlations, you're justified in assuming causation.
Not necessarily. The number of correlations isn't important if each one is attributable to other things. Lots times zero is still zero, right?
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: You're in danger of making the same mistake as KoM in this regard.
<sigh> I can't win for losing. I'm tempted to just say "a pox on both your houses" and be done with it.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: While I have to put forth my evidence one point at a time and he has the opportunity to dismiss each in turn, I didn't come to my conclusion serially. I take the evidence as a whole, and in that form, it's very convincing to me.
I have the same problem with Mr. King. He revels in it, too.
Though I'm not sure what you can mean by not coming to your conclusion serially. If it was a lot of different correlations, it sounds like you did come to the conclusion serially.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: Going back to the curve fitting analogy, it's like this: you have an intial hypothesis that the points are uncorrelated. For each point, rather than considering them as a whole, you evaluate each independently and dismiss them all because you can show that any of them could have been produced randomly. Well, duh. Each independent point can be produced by a uniformly random process.
You have to consider "enough" points to even begin to make a judgment between noise and data, "enough" is defined subjectively, and there's no way to prove that one person's "enough" isn't. "Enough = 0" - each point independently, which is KoM's stance with regards to religion - isn't provably bad, but it's provably very limiting. With "enough = 0," it's simply impossible to make any generalizations (which is what fitting a curve is) except "this is random."
KoM obviously doesn't always do this, because he's capable of generalization. (Otherwise, he'd be a mindless vegetable.)
Heh.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: People who use "enough = 0" don't want to find a generalization.
On the other hand, human beings are quite capable of looking at the constellation Cygnus and honestly claiming to see a swan there. That's induction, but I'd claim that it's delusional. I can see how Ursa Major could look like a dipper, but a bear? Pull the other one.
That's the problem here, I think. You claim that you have a lot of data points. I think you're taking the same one or two data points and just repeating them a lot. Heck, you couldn't even be a Christian if you were sufficiently well versed in Judaism to understand Christianity's inherent flaws.
Listen, the night before last, Locke and Sayyid (from the show Lost were in my dream. Honestly. Locke was on my side of whatever was happening, and Sayyid definitely was not. Which is kind of funny, because when I'm awake, I'd much rather have Sayyid watching my back than Locke.
Is it strange that I dreamt two characters from a show I like a lot? Okay, maybe it's a little strange that I didn't dream about Kate, but never mind that. The thing is, my environment is full of TV shows. If I were to dream about Santa Claus, well, 'tis the season, and all. It doesn't imply anything real.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: Personally, I believe that the accuracy of the predictions of the scriptures,
Uh... yeah. Like the part about a patrilineal descendent of David becoming king and ushering in an era of peace? Whereas you don't have a patrilineal descendent of David, by your own claims, and being called a king by some occupying government doesn't make you one, and I must have missed that era of peace. And then there's the parable about the tree and how bad things can't come from a good tree, which combined with the horrendous history of Christendom seems like a self-imposed verdict.
I hear this "prophecies fulfilled" thing from Christians all the time, and hardly any of them have a glimmer about what the prophecies in question were really saying. Sorry, but it's irksome.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: my peace with God, the happiness I claim from keeping the commandments,
Don't get me started on those commandments. But like I said before, happiness doesn't come from anything objective. You'd be just as happy keeping the real commandments if you were an Orthodox Jew. It's a matter of your values.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: The rest of it, which we also often call "guilt," is a loss of a sense of peace with God. For me, accepting Christ brought a sense of peace into my life that I didn't have before. Keeping the commandments of God keeps it around, and I feel it more strongly when I pray or read the scriptures. Doing something wrong - as well as making me feel guilt of conscience - drives it away.
Well, it would, wouldn't it? You must see that it's going to do that completely independent of whether your religious beliefs are true or not.
quote:Originally posted by lord trousers: It's that that doesn't return without an appeal to Christ. What I've tried is the same kinds of things I do to alleviate guilt of conscience, and that never works.
That's because you're in an environment where the Christian ethos is taken as a given. KoM is right about that. It's a matter of indoctrination. You feel good when you do what you think is right. And you think this stuff is right because you're soaking in it (Palmolive reference, dating myself again).
You may not notice it, any more than the average person notices air, or any more than a fish notices the water he swims in, but I assure you that it's there. Heck, I grew up in the US, and I get warm fuzzies from the Christmas carols every year. It doesn't mean that it's not annoying to me. But it's the water I was born swimming in, and it feels nice to me despite my knowing better.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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So what you're actually saying is, if nobody had told you about Jesus, you woulld not have this additional guilt that requires little OCD-ish rituals to still? What an amazingly good argument for your faith.
Lisa, I think I mentioned this already, but there are not millions of people claiming to have witnessed Moses smash the Golden Calf, or whatever event you refer to; there is one man, the author of the Pentateuch, claiming millions of witnesses. And, incidentally, lying through his teeth in an extremely obvious manner. Come now; the population of Memphis, at the time, might have been as much as twenty thousand. Even a single million, marching through the Sinai desert? Ridiculous.
By the way, the ID thread has been a bit derailed, but I would appreciate your thoughts on my last post directed to you. I am really quite interested in your thought process there.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: So what you're actually saying is, if nobody had told you about Jesus, you woulld not have this additional guilt that requires little OCD-ish rituals to still? What an amazingly good argument for your faith.
First, you (probably understandably) misunderstand what I mean by guilt. I explained it a few posts back. If nobody had told me about Jesus, I wouldn't have this extra peace of soul - which, besides making me feel nice and stuff, helps me become a better person (in ways that, were I to describe it, would detract from the current discussion). When I do something wrong, I lose it. It's something extra, and the extra something is good.
You're presupposing that the something extra is extra guilt. That's the wrong way to look at it. I suppose you could claim that the first derivative is identical, and it might be - but you're missing a positive constant.
"OCD-ish" is a gross misrepresentation. I get on my knees and ask for forgiveness, using regular English words. Though it's a cute thing to think about theists, we're not all flagellants.
Also, I'm saying that this prediction the scriptures make about peace of soul, sin and repentance, given the other evidence, is good evidence. You can't isolate them from each other.
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Um, no. Each piece of evidence has to be able to stand on its own; otherwise you are building a house of rotten planks.
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Each premise has to be true in order for the conclusion to be true. However, you cannot ignore a premise which has been stated and then claim that the conclusion must be false, you must instead evaluate the premises.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Right, and I have evaluated each piece of evidence presented. However, as I think comrade trousers pointed out, this is not deductive but rather inductive logic. Now, he is correct in claiming that many small pieces do add up; but only if each small piece is reliable in the first place! You cannot evaluate them as a whole; there is no emergent truth.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Lisa, I think I mentioned this already, but there are not millions of people claiming to have witnessed Moses smash the Golden Calf, or whatever event you refer to; there is one man, the author of the Pentateuch, claiming millions of witnesses.
Yeah, and you were wrong before, too. And... this is kind of interesting... if you claim it again, you'll be wrong yet again. You might notice a pattern here.
At some point, all the Jews became convinced that we'd always known the Torah to have been something that we handed down from teacher to student, parent to child, etc. That's a lot of people. A lot of very stubborn people.
You'd certainly have records of the fight. Hell, even in Egypt, where things were autocratic to an amazing degree, they weren't able to completely wipe out the memory of Akhnaton. There's a limit to what can plausably be seen as having been covered up. Unless you're a conspiracy theorist, in which case no limits apply anyway.
You're looking at today, when Jewish sectarians are prevalent. But even the sectarians of 2000 years ago (the last time it was this bad) all agreed that the Torah had been given by God to Israel at Sinai.
No reasonable mechanism can account for such a universal belief. Even the Samaritans, who were vicious enemies of the Jews around the time of Ezra (who some claim to have "redacted" the Torah), have almost exactly the same Torah (the written part, anyway), which they also remember as having been given to Israel at Sinai.
You can't just say: "Well, it happened gradually", because you'd have a record of that.
Can I "prove" that God gave us the Torah? Nah. But assuming the converse leads you into circumstances that are virtually impossible to explain. That'll do for me.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And, incidentally, lying through his teeth in an extremely obvious manner. Come now; the population of Memphis, at the time, might have been as much as twenty thousand. Even a single million, marching through the Sinai desert? Ridiculous.
Silly man. So you reject the possibility of miracles, and then point out that (barring miracles), there's no way a couple of million Israelites could have spent 40 years trekking through the Sinai desert. To which I can only say: duh. Circular reasoning is somewhat lacking in impressiveness.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: By the way, the ID thread has been a bit derailed, but I would appreciate your thoughts on my last post directed to you. I am really quite interested in your thought process there.
My knowledge of biology as a field is pretty much on the level of your knowledge of Judaism, I'd guess. I'm no expert myself. All I can do is rely on sources that seem reasonable to me, and make what logical arguments I can. For my part, I'd like you to take a look at the material Hogan included in his book. While he's not an expert either, he's brought a lot of sources together, and maybe some of what he wrote will answer some questions for you.
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You are being evasive. I am not an expert in biology either; but come on, I'm not asking difficult questions. All I want to know is what you require for speciation to have occurred, in addition to the child being unable to breed with the parent. I'm perfectly happy to have you quote from some source; but if you cannot give some kind of rationale, then I request that you admit speciation has, in fact, been observed.
As for Hogan : As I said, I'm no expert on biology. But I am an expert on physics, and Hogan gets it just plain wrong. I don't see why he should be any more reliable for biology. And for that matter, this bit here :
quote:No mutation that added information to a genome has ever been observed to occur, either naturally or in the laboratory.
is mere misdirection : Where does he define 'information'? If he means Shannon information, which is the usual sense of the word, then he's just plain lying, because hundreds of such mutations have been observed. If he means something else, he should make it clear. And, I might add, he clearly isn't aware of the mutation that allows some bacteria to eat plastic. (Polystyrene? Nylon? One of the synthetics, anyway.) An ability that they didn't have before, expressed by a mutation creating a new protein - added information if ever there was any.
OK, so I looked at your book; now why don't you answer my question? Or if you do insist on referring the amtter to 'experts', then I suggest that you do so all the way, and let the biologists decide. Oops - they already have, and it's evolution all the way. You can't have it both ways.
quote:At some point, all the Jews became convinced that we'd always known the Torah to have been something that we handed down from teacher to student, parent to child, etc. That's a lot of people. A lot of very stubborn people.
A lot of very stubborn, almost completely illiterate people. Come now : The reason Akhnaton couldn't be removed entirely was because there was a relatively large literate class, a lot of papyrus, and that wonderful desert sand for maintaining the scrolls. A bunch of nomads, carrying only such literature as could fit in their heads? Two generations, and you could convince them they'd always believed in Santa Claus. Moreover, I don't think you have a real sense of the time between the events described in Exodus, and the time when the Israelites were a city-dwelling people with a written history. The difference between 1020 BC (reign of Saul) and 1400 BC (approximate Exodus) would take us back to a time well before the founding of the US. How many people, today, in a highly literate society that values education, really know very much about the War of Independence? Much less the Thirty Years' War, which is a much closer analogy to the time involved.
Another point : If there were even two million Israelites at Exodus, how the devil did they manage to get their asses kicked to the point that Sennacherib could besiege Jerusalem? Two million people should be something like three hundred thousand fighting men; that's about the size of the Roman army at the height of the Principate. Come now, this is ridiculous.
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OK, in spite of my earlier words, I've read up to chapter four of the book. It's mainly the good old 'lack of transitionals' argument, with plenty of references to 'trade secrets' and very little naming of names. A quick trip to TalkOrigins would have saved you a lot of trouble; I quote pretty much at random :
quote:The major functional difference between the ancient, large amphibians and the first little reptiles is the amniotic egg. Additional differences include stronger legs and girdles, different vertebrae, and stronger jaw muscles. For more info, see Carroll (1988) and Gauthier et al. (in Benton, 1988)
Proterogyrinus or another early anthracosaur (late Mississippian) -- Classic labyrinthodont-amphibian skull and teeth, but with reptilian vertebrae, pelvis, humerus, and digits. Still has fish skull hinge. Amphibian ankle. 5-toed hand and a 2-3-4-5-3 (almost reptilian) phalangeal count. Limnoscelis, Tseajaia (late Carboniferous) -- Amphibians apparently derived from the early anthracosaurs, but with additional reptilian features: structure of braincase, reptilian jaw muscle, expanded neural arches. Solenodonsaurus (mid-Pennsylvanian) -- An incomplete fossil, apparently between the anthracosaurs and the cotylosaurs. Loss of palatal fangs, loss of lateral line on head, etc. Still just a single sacral vertebra, though. Hylonomus, Paleothyris (early Pennsylvanian) -- These are protorothyrids, very early cotylosaurs (primitive reptiles). They were quite little, lizard-sized animals with amphibian-like skulls (amphibian pineal opening, dermal bone, etc.), shoulder, pelvis, & limbs, and intermediate teeth and vertebrae. Rest of skeleton reptilian, with reptilian jaw muscle, no palatal fangs, and spool-shaped vertebral centra. Probably no eardrum yet. Many of these new "reptilian" features are also seen in little amphibians (which also sometimes have direct-developing eggs laid on land), so perhaps these features just came along with the small body size of the first reptiles.
Plenty of transitionals in the literature; all you have to do is look.
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quote:A lot of very stubborn, almost completely illiterate people
There are plenty of primitive peoples who have passed down some very accurate oral history. However, regardless of the illiteracy of the general population, the religious leaders were highly literate men who kept records.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:At some point, all the Jews became convinced that we'd always known the Torah to have been something that we handed down from teacher to student, parent to child, etc. That's a lot of people. A lot of very stubborn people.
A lot of very stubborn, almost completely illiterate people.
<laugh> And you base that on what? A lack of inscriptions? Most inscriptions were on stelae, which were explicitly forbidden in the Torah. And we did write on parchment, which has a poor shelf life.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Come now : The reason Akhnaton couldn't be removed entirely was because there was a relatively large literate class, a lot of papyrus, and that wonderful desert sand for maintaining the scrolls.
<blink> What scrolls? Have scrolls been found that refer to Akhnaton? Wow... that sounds like a pretty major discovery. Mind giving me a link?
Or do you mean clay tablets?
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: A bunch of nomads, carrying only such literature as could fit in their heads?
Again, based on what?
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Two generations, and you could convince them they'd always believed in Santa Claus. Moreover, I don't think you have a real sense of the time between the events described in Exodus, and the time when the Israelites were a city-dwelling people with a written history.
Heh. I don't have a real sense of the time? You're funny.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: The difference between 1020 BC (reign of Saul) and 1400 BC (approximate Exodus) would take us back to a time well before the founding of the US. How many people, today, in a highly literate society that values education, really know very much about the War of Independence?
Our society was a tad more literate than the US is, O King.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Much less the Thirty Years' War, which is a much closer analogy to the time involved.
Another point : If there were even two million Israelites at Exodus, how the devil did they manage to get their asses kicked to the point that Sennacherib could besiege Jerusalem? Two million people should be something like three hundred thousand fighting men; that's about the size of the Roman army at the height of the Principate. Come now, this is ridiculous.
I have to agree. Given your comment about my not grasping time spans, I just think it's cute that you managed to bring Sennecherib (c.700 BCE) into it.
Israel and Judah had split about two and a half centuries before that. The first couple of generations after the split were filled with vicious and devastating civil wars between the two kingdoms, and Egyptian invasions. This slammed them sufficiently that they needed to team up to fight against the Moabites.
Then, about 50 years before Sennecherib hit the scene, the Assyrians began to conquer the known world. They attacked both kingdoms (but mostly the northern one) again and again. They conquered it in pieces over the years and deported the inhabitants to the north, populating their territory with conquered people from the north.
Sennecherib's father, Sargon II, completed the conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel, and probably took most of Judah as well. There are inscriptions showing their conquest of Lachish, which, after Jerusalem, was the biggest city in Judah.
So by the time Sennecherib came by, just about all that was left was Jerusalem. No millions of people. Not any more.
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Based on, if the nomadic Jews had a literate class, then they were assuredly unique. And I stand by my point about the two million : Such a people would have been invincible; I don't care how many civil wars they had. The most deadly civil war in recorded history, the Thirty Years', which also had intervention by outside forces and was fought in extremely nasty ways - 'Magdeburg quarter, meaning 'kill every last one', is still an expression in Germany - killed perhaps as much as a fourth of Germany's population. Taking my earlier estimate of 300k fighting men, that gives us 225k remaining. Dividing by two for two kingdoms, we get about 100k. That is an enormous, mind-bogglingly huge army. If the Assyrians had defeated any such people, you may rest assured they would have bragged about it. (And yes, they did; to the tune of 'oh, and by the way, the Israelites are now paying tribute. Go us.' Not exactly what you'd do if you had just defeated the largest army the world had ever seen. I mean, we're talking about some hill bandits destroying an army that is a goodly fraction of the modern US armed forces, here.)
quote:Our society was a tad more literate than the US is, O King.
You are seriously claiming literacy greater than 95%, several hundred years before Christ? As you are so fond of saying, based on what?
I still await your response on the speciation.
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