How do you decide if something is factual?

[ananda]

Are you a solipsist?

I find elements of solipsism in Buddhism.

 

[Aman777]

One can easily refuse what never was. There are no former Christians because there are no Christians; no second birth; no second life; and, no second death. There is no god about which to decide if it makes mistakes. There is no trinity.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Amen?

Sure. Only God could have known the scientific Truth (that all living things came from WATER) which was announced last year www.smithsonianmag.com/.../behold-luca-last-universal-common-ancestor-life-earth-...and had it written in Genesis 1:21 more than 3,000 years ago. Your view is thus refuted unless you can explain HOW men who lived thousands of years BEFORE Science knew and correctly wrote this. Failure to do so is evidence of the literal God. Amen?

 

[Aman777]

And as for the claim that God makes no mistakes, I think that leaving the tree that he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from in an easily-accessible location was pretty bad. Like leaving a loaded gun on the table and then being surprised when the toddler picks it up and accidentally shoots himself...

God can see the end from the beginning. Isa 46:10 He KNEW Adam would sin since it was all a part of His perfect plan to make a perfect Heaven and fill it with perfect Humans in 6 Days/Ages. The verse below shows this since Jesus was crucified to pay for Adam's sins, in God's mind, from the foundation of the world.

Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, (anti-Christ) whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

 

[Gene2memE]

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.— But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
​

Some bloke called Darwin, February, 1871.

 

[Kylie]

What kind of evidence I need depends on the circumstances, the situation and the importance of the claim in this given situation. I´m sorry, but that´s the way I would word it.

I understand. But do you agree that the more unusual the situation, the more convincing the evidence needs to be?

Yes, there are undisputedly different degrees of evidence.

In that we are agreed. Do you also agree that there are also different degrees of claims?

Of course - not sure whom or what you are arguing against here.

Just making sure we are on the same page, my friend.

Apparently not. Look: You ask how I go about it; I answer the question; you aren´t satisfied with what I said and want me to use (and/or agree with) a different wording. So apparently, the way it is worded is very important to you (and understandably so). You do not simply agree with the way I worded it, so the difference between the way I say it and the way you say it makes an important difference (or else you would simply agree with me, instead of insisting that my wording should be replaced with yours. What we seem to be doing here is: finding out what difference it makes.
Besides, further down you say: "In a discussion like this, clear communication is vital."

Well, from my reading of your words, it sounds like you are suggesting that if I made some outlandish claim, you might be happy to accept it based on very weak evidence. I'm just trying to clarify your position.

Yes, sometimes I don´t demand any evidence, sometimes hearsay is sufficient, sometimes I would demand a video, sometimes I would even check if the video is edited, sometimes I want to see it happening in real life - and all sorts of stuff in between.

And does the degree of evidence you require have any correlation with how unbelievable the claim is?

Depends on what they want. One thing is clear to me, though: It´s not me who has to disprove them.

I would say that the onus of evidence is ALWAYS on the person making the claim.

And I didn´t say you said it. However, I was asking about the first, and in your response you replaced it by the latter.

Actually, you were the one who first mentioned unfalsifiability, in post 577.

You eating the sun would be extraordinary. The quality of the evidence (which we seemed to agree makes the difference) is: A video that displays what is claimed. That´s not an extraordinary quality of evidence, but a pretty ordinary one.

But didn't we agree that it is what the video shows that is extraordinary?

Well, if the laws of nature are an emanation of the universe, they cannot have brought about the universe. That´s simple logic.

Did you read what I said about the bubbles?

No, the bigger frame of reference doesn´t exclude any option. It allows for all logical possibilities.

Assuming that a watertank must itself swim in water because everything in the watertank swims in water is an unwarranted a priori limiting of the options. Allowing for the watertank to exist in different conditions than the conditions within it doesn´t exclude that it swims in water. However, if it turns out that the water swims in water, we have to let go of the idea that water is an emanation of the watertank.

I agree. But that does not always apply, as I demonstrated with my bubble analogy.

Yes.
What is unclear about "This is not what I meant?".

Because I still do not know what you meant.

Sure, exactly my point. The important part is that they actually hold it. It doens´t matter how they got to hold it.

Then I am confused as to why you said, "...it wasn´t about a belief people held, but merely about something they were told."

Yes, exactly, that´s one of the options how self-fulfilling prophecies work.
The thing is: "negative", "horrible" and so forth are subjective terms. They describe a way of experiencing.

True, but since they are both used by the same person, we can assume that there is at least some degree of accuracy there.

Should we talk about placebos?
Would you agree that expecting to fail is likely to increase the risk of failure (and that a test like the one you are suggesting is going to confirm that)?
Would you agree that successfully balancing on a high rope isn´t only a matter of skills but also a matter of confidence?

Yes, I would.

 

[Kylie]

God can see the end from the beginning. Isa 46:10 He KNEW Adam would sin since it was all a part of His perfect plan to make a perfect Heaven and fill it with perfect Humans in 6 Days/Ages. The verse below shows this since Jesus was crucified to pay for Adam's sins, in God's mind, from the foundation of the world.

Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, (anti-Christ) whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

First of all, spouting Bible verses at me isn't going to convince me that the Bible is true. If I start reading Harry Potter to you, will that convince you that Harry Potter is real?

Secondly, are you saying that God KNEW it would all stuff up, and he went ahead with it anyway?

Are you really telling me that God set up mankind in a world with instructions that he KNEW they would disobey, thus creating sin, requiring him to send himself to be sacrificed to himself to convince himself to forgive the sins of mankind, which he knew was going to happen BEFORE IT HAPPENED?

I mean,m just in case you are wondering why I find Christianity so hard to believe...

 

[AV1611VET]

Are you really telling me that God set up mankind in a world with instructions that he KNEW they would disobey, thus creating sin, requiring him to send himself to be sacrificed to himself to convince himself to forgive the sins of mankind, which he knew was going to happen BEFORE IT HAPPENED?

I mean,m just in case you are wondering why I find Christianity so hard to believe...

You mean to tell me Ford Motor Company KNOWS drivers are going to disobey traffic laws and die in traffic accidents BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, yet Ford Motor Company continues to crank out automobiles!?

I mean, just in case you are wondering why I find Ford Motor Company so hard to believe...

 

[Jimmy D]

You mean to tell me Ford Motor Company KNOWS drivers are going to disobey traffic laws and die in traffic accidents BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, yet Ford Motor Company continues to crank out automobiles!?

I mean, just in case you are wondering why I find Ford Motor Company so hard to believe...

Henry Ford was omniscient and all powerful?

 

[quatona]

Kylie, since you say you just want to understand my position, I am only going to address your questions about my positions, and ignore those parts of your post where you are already discussing). Doing both at the same time isn´t really helpful for anything, ok?

I understand. But do you agree that the more unusual the situation, the more convincing the evidence needs to be?

I am more likely to ask for evidence before I am convinced.

In that we are agreed. Do you also agree that there are also different degrees of claims?

Not really. The only distinction I would work with is "ordinary claim vs. extraordinary claim" - with the latter denoting a claim that violates everything we usually all agree upon.

Well, from my reading of your words, it sounds like you are suggesting that if I made some outlandish claim, you might be happy to accept it based on very weak evidence. I'm just trying to clarify your position.

Yes, I might. It mightn´t be that outlandish to me, after all.

And does the degree of evidence you require have any correlation with how unbelievable the claim is?

The latter is one of many factors in the first.

But didn't we agree that it is what the video shows that is extraordinary?

Yes.

Did you read what I said about the bubbles?

Yes.

I agree. But that does not always apply, as I demonstrated with my bubble analogy.

In order to find out whether it applies or not we need to operate with the larger frame of reference.

Then I am confused as to why you said, "...it wasn´t about a belief people held, but merely about something they were told."

I said it because you gave an example where people were just told something for purposes of an experiment - whether they believed it or not wasn´t part of your description.

True, but since they are both used by the same person, we can assume that there is at least some degree of accuracy there.

I doubt that. Changing the criteria is one of the ways we unconsciously make sure that they experience in a way that confirms their prophecies.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

True. But if Gloobles aren't going to be found for another 50 years, it would be a stupid person who thinks they can know anything about them today.

Yes. And thank goodness neither one of us is stupid ...

Unsupported claim. Back up this claim or it is meaningless.

And again...

In answering these points of yours, I'm going to refer to Ard Louis to explain some other aspects of how our existing beliefs play into our determination of 'facts,' whether empirical or religious (2 minute video):

Yes, I know she's a Christian. It's totally irrelevant.

I think you meant to say that you "know that she is an atheist," right?

Scott's position is that a Christian who does not view the Bible as a literal description of what happened is able to believe in evolution because evolution does not contradict anything they consider to be factual. Dawkins' position is that a Christian who believes that the Bible is 100% literal description can't also believe in evolution because the Bible contradicts evolution when you take the Bible literally.

So, they are BOTH correct, and whether or not you can be a Christian and still accept evolution comes down to how flexible your interpretation of the Bible is. Which is exactly what I said in my previous post.

...it's not necessarily a matter of flexibility, but rather one that is affected by the extent to which one subscribes to various pathways of interpretation and analyses of written texts. If we realize that some ancient writer was writing within the confines of an ancient paradigm, it would for instance be disingenuous for us to say, "Hey, they got it wrong BECAUSE we know they were trying to describe the world with identical modes of intention to those we have today ..." To say this kind of thing, as some Christians and Atheists do at times, is to be anachronistic.

Another presumption we have to be careful of in our interpretation of Christian religion and it's associated texts, and which has little to do with one's 'flexibility' in interpreting the Bible, is one's awareness of new historical factors that are later spotted and then come into play in the process of one's ongoing interpretations. of course, being aware of new insights is applicable to many things in the world that we cognitively handle, whether they be within the Bible or any other book (or even within the working processes of science itself, really).

Yeah, it';s not like there are lots of sources regarding historical events that were made at the time of those events, are there?

This doesn't mean that historians today don't have some understanding of the difference of 'history or narrative writing' that pertain to various ages of the past. This is why universities offer classes and sometimes degrees for the disciplines of Historiography and/or the Philosophy of History.

Isn't it funny how they never use hermeneutics to find out things that are objectively right or wrong, like physics, or maths? It's always with subjective stuff. "What did the author of this 2000 year old scroll mean when he wrote such-and-such?"

If this is how you perceive this, then you're not really understanding what hermeneutics is for. Hermeneutics is not a replacement for science. Rather, it is a complementary discipline that helps us view and think about the ways in which we construct and apply the methodologies by which we measure (and interpret) the world around us.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

 

[Kylie]

You mean to tell me Ford Motor Company KNOWS drivers are going to disobey traffic laws and die in traffic accidents BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, yet Ford Motor Company continues to crank out automobiles!?

I mean, just in case you are wondering why I find Ford Motor Company so hard to believe...

Is this the best analogy you have?

Do you think that Ford knows the exact circumstances of such illegal actions? Ford is not all knowing, but you claim your God is. If Ford was all knowing, I think that they would program their cars to not work on the day they would have otherwise caused a fatal collision, don't you?

 

[Kylie]

Kylie, since you say you just want to understand my position, I am only going to address your questions about my positions, and ignore those parts of your post where you are already discussing). Doing both at the same time isn´t really helpful for anything, ok?

Okay.

I am more likely to ask for evidence before I am convinced.

But what kind of evidence would you be asking for?

Not really. The only distinction I would work with is "ordinary claim vs. extraordinary claim" - with the latter denoting a claim that violates everything we usually all agree upon.

Really?

So if I told you that I crossed the road, and a bird swooped down passing right beside my head. I stopped and turned to watch it, and because of that, I missed being hit by the guy who drove his Ferrari around the corner too fast. But then the guy in the Ferrari crashed into the front of the newsagent, and I helped him escape, and in return the newsagent gave me some scratchies (those lotto cards you scratch off, I think you call them something different in other countries), and I won, and now I'm a multi-millionaire. Nothing in that story contradicts anything that we know about the world, yet it is so highly implausible that I don't think me telling anyone would be enough to convince them.

Yes, I might. It mightn´t be that outlandish to me, after all.

Does my above story seem outlandish to you?

The latter is one of many factors in the first.

How significant a factor?

Yes.

Then, for the sake of clarity, let us ignore what form the evidence comes in and instead concentrate on the information about the claim that the evidence gives us.

Yes.

And...?

In order to find out whether it applies or not we need to operate with the larger frame of reference.

My point was to show that the larger frame is not always needed to explain things.

I said it because you gave an example where people were just told something for purposes of an experiment - whether they believed it or not wasn´t part of your description.

I'm sorry, I thought it went without saying that the beliefs that a person holds are, you know, something they actually BELIEVE.

I doubt that. Changing the criteria is one of the ways we unconsciously make sure that they experience in a way that confirms their prophecies.

Still, when we have the criteria "horrible" set by one person and interpreted by another, there's very little chance that the same idea of "horrible" is being used.

 

[Kylie]

Yes. And thank goodness neither one of us is stupid ...

True.

But if a person was to say, "My religion says such-and-such, and in fifty years, science will prove me right," don't you agree that such a claim is completely unjustifiable?

In answering these points of yours, I'm going to refer to Ard Louis to explain some other aspects of how our existing beliefs play into our determination of 'facts,' whether empirical or religious (2 minute video):

I completely disagree.

He says that you can't know about God until you make a commitment. But science is nothing like that. No scientist with any integrity would ever say, "This is what I want to believe, now I'm going to go and conduct experiments and gather data to support my beliefs. And any data that contradicts me, well, that's just wrong."

I think you meant to say that you "know that she is an atheist," right?

Yeah, that's what I meant.

...it's not necessarily a matter of flexibility, but rather one that is affected by the extent to which one subscribes to various pathways of interpretation and analyses of written texts.

That sounds like exactly what I am saying. Someone who insists on treating the Bible as literal is going to have a different interpretation than someone who is willing to view it as metaphorical.

If we realize that some ancient writer was writing within the confines of an ancient paradigm, it would for instance be disingenuous for us to say, "Hey, they got it wrong BECAUSE we know they were trying to describe the world with identical modes of intention to those we have today ..." To say this kind of thing, as some Christians and Atheists do at times, is to be anachronistic.

Modes of intention? I think clear English would help here, no need for any technobabble.

In any case, since we don't even know who the authors were, we can't speak for their "modes of intention."

Another presumption we have to be careful of in our interpretation of Christian religion and it's associated texts, and which has little to do with one's 'flexibility' in interpreting the Bible, is one's awareness of new historical factors that are later spotted and then come into play in the process of one's ongoing interpretations. of course, being aware of new insights is applicable to many things in the world that we cognitively handle, whether they be within the Bible or any other book (or even within the working processes of science itself, really).

There are several archaeological finds which contradict the Bible. And if reality and the Bible contradict, then you have to alter your interpretation of the Bible, because you sure can't alter reality.

This doesn't mean that historians today don't have some understanding of the difference of 'history or narrative writing' that pertain to various ages of the past. This is why universities offer classes and sometimes degrees for the disciplines of Historiography and/or the Philosophy of History.

You make it sound as though we have rather little actual evidence of the past, and that therefore the Bible is our best source. It isn't.

If this is how you perceive this, then you're not really understanding what hermeneutics is for. Hermeneutics is not a replacement for science. Rather, it is a complementary discipline that helps us view and think about the ways in which we construct and apply the methodologies by which we measure (and interpret) the world around us.

It's still a purely subjective thing, and as such I don't see how it can tell us anything concrete about the world.

If you disagree, please show me some objective fact hermeneutics has uncovered.

 

[quatona]

But what kind of evidence would you be asking for?

I think we had covered that (i.e. the kinds of evidence I might ask for) already exhaustively and several times?

Really?

So if I told you that I crossed the road, and a bird swooped down passing right beside my head. I stopped and turned to watch it, and because of that, I missed being hit by the guy who drove his Ferrari around the corner too fast. But then the guy in the Ferrari crashed into the front of the newsagent, and I helped him escape, and in return the newsagent gave me some scratchies (those lotto cards you scratch off, I think you call them something different in other countries), and I won, and now I'm a multi-millionaire. Nothing in that story contradicts anything that we know about the world, yet it is so highly implausible that I don't think me telling anyone would be enough to convince them.



Does my above story seem outlandish to you?

No. It´s exactly how I think things go. There is nothing implausible about a chain of improbable events. Butterfly effect and all that.
Now, if you´d tell me that watching a bird is a reliable method to become a millionaire, that would be a completely different thing.

How significant a factor?

I don´t know how to answer that. Do you want a percentage or something?
I´ve told you before: I don´t seem to have a consistent system when it comes to the question when and what evidence I ask for in order to accept a claim. (To be frank, I think nobody has - but I´m not trying to make that point. You asked me how I go about it, and I am trying to answer as honestly as possible).

Then, for the sake of clarity, let us ignore what form the evidence comes in and instead concentrate on the information about the claim that the evidence gives us.

Ok.

And...?

And what?

My point was to show that the larger frame is not always needed to explain things.

That´s undisputed - it is, however, not an objection to my point that in order to find out the correct explanation, we often first have to leave the narrow frame of reference that restricts the possible results (even though, using that method, we might find out that the answer lies within the narrow frame.).

I'm sorry, I thought it went without saying that the beliefs that a person holds are, you know, something they actually BELIEVE.

We agree here. The misunderstanding may have come about due to the fact that in your description I didn´t see you even mentioning that the people believed it. IIRC you just gave the information that they had been told something.

Still, when we have the criteria "horrible" set by one person and interpreted by another, there's very little chance that the same idea of "horrible" is being used.

I guess we just disagree there completely. In my understanding, this is not how human valuating experience works. It is by far not as logically consistent as we would like it to be. (Well, again, I´d better just speak for myself!).
This spring, I took a one week trip to Rumania. One of the main purposes was to get some sun and warmth after a long and cold winter (and it was supposed to be 16-20°C there in spring). Had someone asked me "What if it will be cold there?" I would have answered "That would be a disaster, for me.". Turned out that it was around 0°C, snow, cold rain, storm and very uncozy weather throughout the vacation there - yet, I´d rate it one of my most beautiful trips.

 

[Kylie]

Okay @quatona I'm just trying to get past the fact that it seems like you are telling me that, under certain circumstances, you'd be convinced that I could turn into a squirrel if I could get enough people to swear they had seen me do it.

 

[GUANO]

Like atheism and secularism, facts do not actually exist and to even believe that they do requires faith.

 

[Kylie]

Like atheism and secularism, facts do not actually exist and to even believe that they do requires faith.

"The Earth Exists."

Are you saying that is not a fact?

 

[GUANO]

"The Earth Exists."

Are you saying that is not a fact?

No, I'm saying it's disputabe... If anything can be disputed, then, by definition, it's not a fact.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

No, I'm saying it disputabe... if anything can be disputed, then by definition, it's not a fact.

so nothing's a fact then, even your God?

 

[GUANO]

so nothing's a fact then, even your God?

This doesn't appear to be a valid statement or question but I think I understand what you're trying to say or ask---and that is correct.