Sure, but if you didn't know... which one would likely be a reality, Costanze or Superman? See my point?
Then I'd say bringing up jargon in the first place was irrelevant. I don't claim that having the same jargon means the claims made within the different texts are factual.
Individuals don't generally decide individually. Most of our decisions are usually kept in checks and balances of our collective co-existence with other individuals, because that's how our minds work. That's one of the reasons this forum exists. That's the reason why we have education and media.
If it was up to individuals to decide, human reality would would be an incoherent mess.
I don't believe our collective co-existence with other individuals is reliable enough to tell what is likely. We can make predictions, but due to our limited cognitive faculties, even if we say something is likely, we can’t say that it’s likely with certainty. We could say something is likely, and we could be wrong, not only about it being the actual case, but wrong about the likelihood itself. You mentioned education, and the media, and both of these sources are quite biased from what I’ve observed. That only further leads me to believe that what we may think of as likely is founded upon loose conjecture.
The way the reality of our perception is structured, we can't say whether anything is true or not beyond our own self-ascribed labels. For example, we know that 1 + 1 = 2 is true, because of how we define 1 and how we define 2 and how we define + and =.
When you begin stipulating anything else that's outside of our "model" of a label, there's no certainty that our perception is wrong, hence we go by likelihood that we inductively derive through consistent observation.
For example, do I know that sun will not explode tomorrow? No I don't. Is it possible that it can explode tomorrow? Yes, in some respect it may be. Will it explode tomorrow? I don't know, but it's likely that it will not based on what I've observed for the entirety of my life. Thus, it's useful to me to stipulate some provisional certainty in that it will not explode tomorrow.
It’s true that 1+1=2, but the numerals and symbols aren’t really relevant when talking about the reality of values. We could substitute various symbols for “1, 2, =, and +”. What really matters is the understanding of what “one” means, and what “two” means. These things exist outside of our perception; they’re not merely useful fictions we’ve made up.
As for the sun not blowing up, from what you’ve observed for the entirety of your life, you say something isn’t likely. Let’s bring back the grand multitude of humanity into this. You said earlier that individuals themselves don’t generally decide individually. The other minds serve as a checks and balances system in determining likelihood. So, if a majority of humans believed it was likely that the sun would not explode, would that in turn would make it likely? Couldn’t I say the same about God? The majority seems to believe in a god, or multiple Gods. I think we have to decide for ourselves, from our own observations, what seems to be the truth.
You shouldn't trust either. You can only trust certain methodology that has proven to be more reliable when evaluating any given claim. Men 2000 years later have better methodology than people 2000 years before. They also have a broader scope of information about similar claims to see which one is likely and which one is not. Which one matches reality, and which one is likely fiction.
Again, if Superman was written as a religious book 2000 year ago, how could you tell a difference whether it was real or not? Based on your methodology, you wouldn't be able to.
We match the reality to the claim, and if it doesn't match... then we ask for more evidence or good and valid reasons as to why the claim doesn't match the observable reality.
What does that have to do with Christian religious belief?
If Superman were written as a religious book 2000 years ago, I might accept it as true, if there were good reasons to think it were true. I think there are good reasons to think God exists, and that Jesus rose from the dead. As for miracles, I’m aware of multiple claims to miracles after Jesus’ resurrection, until present time.
I also don’t think miracles are a big deal, epistemically. If God exists, miracles would seem likely to occur, and I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
I’m not starting off with naturalism, so I’m not limited to the view that I need to prove that it’s even possible for a miracle to occur.
A possibility is a construct of mind... a model that can either match the reality, or match some version of reality that doesn't exist.
In respect to the sun exploding, the possibility that it will explode is not true unless it actually explodes.
Thus, you need to o make a proper demarcation between what's real and what's imagined. Some possibilities are unknown in scope of reality. Some are not real, and exist only as a possible version of present reality. There's a difference.
Hence, when you are appealing to possible unknown, it's not the same thing as making an appeal to the possible known.
These are not equally likely, and that's the point that you continually miss in our exchange. The possibility of sun exploding isn't the same as possibility that unicorns exist. One is appealing to what we know, and the other attempts to induce unknown into reality.
The possibility of the sun exploding and the possibility of unicorns existing are the same. There’s nothing logically incoherent with unicorns existing, just as there’s nothing logically incoherent about the sun exploding. We don’t know for sure if unicorns don’t exist.
We also don’t know with certainty that the Sun exists.
We only know that we have a perception of the Sun, but we don’t know if it’s just an illusion, and that we’re all in the Matrix.
As for appealing to the unknown, we all do that.
We don’t know a lot of things, but we all have certain beliefs that we assume are true. Ex. Metaphysical solipsism is false.
I was only stating that perceived likelihood does not affect reality. It only affects our confidence in saying something is true, or isn’t true.
Again, likelihood and certainty is derived through observable frequency. That's why we have statistics, and that's why insurance companies and casinos make money. They wouldn't if it wasn't the case.
Do people occasionally hit Jack pot? Sure. But it's very rare. Hence it's not a reliable way of getting rich. Usually, uou will lose more money than you'll gain. That's the hole point. So when you are claiming some reliability via an unreliable means... why would you object when people rule it out as less likely based on what they otherwise observe?
We can’t apply statistics to something that is claimed to have happened in the past a single time. There is a claim that Jesus rose from the dead, we look around and don’t see people rising from the dead, yet grant that he did indeed rise. We then retroactively apply the stats, and say, it’s not likely that he will have risen from the dead. But then I’ll say, sure, you thought it was unlikely, but that doesn’t change whether or not it actually happened.
The same goes for abiogenesis. I don’t see non-living things becoming living cells spontaneously. Therefore it’s not likely that abiogenesis did occur. All in all, we are limited in our understanding and we can’t say what’s likely as if likelihood has some role in determining events that by their very nature are not supposed to be common, for example, like statistics in determining when it’s likely that a person will die of lung cancer. You don’t apply statistics retroactively to special one-time events that have occurred in the past, trying to make a statement about how they probably didn’t happen since they weren’t likely to have happened. We don’t know what was likely to have happened then, and I don’t think we can even say that our methodology today is trustworthy when it comes to evaluating certain claims.
Again, not everything that's imagined as a possibility is a viable possibility, hence why we have concept of likelihood that's rooted in our understanding of reality.
Thus, if you inject via a claim anything that's not observable in our reality, it requires a justification of adequate evidence.
If there is no way to tell other than the claim itself, then from perspective of our perception of reality it's not really that different than non-existing things.
Is it possible that aliens exist? Yes. Do we live like they don't exist and it's merely a sci-fi fantasy we use for entertainment? Yes.
Again, you need to be able to differentiate between possibilities in scope of observable reality, and those that are not rooted in the scope of observable reality and you are merely injecting via a claim.
We don’t know if an intruder will come into our homes at night. Do we lock our doors and sleep with our shotguns at night. Why yes we do? It’s not likely that I will hit by a car tomorrow, but I still have car insurance. As for aliens, the government does act like they possibly exist. There are contingency plans in case they attack.
It’s also a fact that non-existent things are not the same as things that exist, that we just don’t know about.
Again, you are making an argument from ignorance here, and these arguments have proven to be extremely unreliable in our short human experience.
I’m not making an argument from ignorance. I haven’t made a claim that because we don’t know X, X is true. Rather, we don’t know if X is true, or isn’t. The broad statement that if we can’t prove X, we should act like it isn’t the case the X exists. That simply isn’t the case for all claims, and I see no reason to adopt that view.
My intent has been to address the issue of belief and how we come to belief, not to offer proof and evidence for theism.
We live in a consistent reality, and that's how we generally judge the truth claims... whether these are consistent with reality that we occupy.
We don't generally operate based on imaginary claims that we don't observe, and that's the problem with religion - it requires us to operate by imagining something that we don't otherwise observe and trust that such imagination is correct.
We live in a world of perception. We know that we experience perception, and we know that we perceive our own existence, and that we have thoughts; we don’t know whether or not we’re in the Matrix. As for claims from imagination, my religion isn’t imaginary if my religion is true. If it’s true that Jesus is the Risen Lord, and that he knows what he does, and he has given us his testimony, then it’s from his own testimony and the testimony of his disciples that I have my religion. I didn’t pull religion out of my own imagination. It’s only from imagination if God doesn’t exist, something which you don’t know. So in order to prove that it’s an argument from imagination, you’d have to disprove theism, and Christianity; not merely say they’re unlikely. You say things are unlikely based off what you do know, and that you know God and Jesus are imaginary.
So, for you it’s like this:
P1. We can say what’s unlikely based off what we know.
P2. We know Jesus’ resurrection is imaginary
P3. That which is imaginary is unlikely
C: Therefore, it’s unlikely that resurrection happened.
I agree with P3. P1, and P2 haven’t been shown to be true.
P1 cannot be applied universally. P2 simply hasn’t been demonstrated to be true, or likely.
Again, such mode of "knowledge" and "understanding" has proven to be extremely unreliable in our history, and that's why we developed better methods. And guess what, when we did virtually everything improved. We have mass communications. We live longer. We can cure more diseases. We can travel faster, etc, etc.
Hence your appeal to the other method doesn't work in scope of what seems to work better. We've tried religious way for several thousand years, and the moment we switched to science... we get a lot better results.
And that's all you really need to see.
When it comes to living longer, and having mass communications, and curing disease, those things are inventions made through discovery of specific operations, and application. I don’t think some of what you’ve mentioned is actually relevant. What do advances in technology have to do with dismantling belief in Jesus’ resurrection or miracles?
So now science comes into the picture? What about science says that miracles don’t occur, or that we ought not believe in miracles?
It gives us shiny toys? That’s quite irrelevant.
Is your argument this?
1. Science gives us neat technology.
2. Religion doesn’t.
3. Therefore science is better.
Re-reading my own statements, and looking at your replies, I don’t think you’ve adequately responded to my statements. Especially my point about our knowledge being severely limited, and I also think you’ve misunderstood my intent, which was about how and why we believe things. What you’re doing is offering an alternative which is about likelihood. As for likelihood, there’s no reason for one’s subjective likelihood to determine personal belief about every claim, including claims about Jesus.
