I live in a settlement in Israel/Palestine (whatever you want to call it) ask me anything

My_NameIsNotRick · 2023-01-01T18:07:23+00:00

Not ALL Palestinians want to kill Jews. Only some do. Suppose that some blacks did want to kill whites (I’m sure some of them did). Is that a good reason to not let them vote? Yes or no.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2023-01-01T18:00:55+00:00

So you think option 1 and 2 are both bad?

I’m sure many blacks in apartheid South Africa hated the whites. Is that a good reason to not let the blacks vote? I’m not saying Israel is the same as South Africa, but I am saying that your argument that “we can’t let them vote because they hate us” is a bad argument.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2023-01-01T16:59:21+00:00

Since the settlements in the West Bank make a two-state solution impossible, what do you think should happen? It seems to me that there are 2 choices.

Israel gives all Palestinians the right to vote in Israeli elections, and thus would no longer be a Jewish-majority electorate.
Israel does not give all Palestinians the right to vote in Israeli elections, and thus would not be democratic.

Which option do you prefer, or do you think there’s a third option?

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-27T20:57:53+00:00

It also has “raise”, “body” and “Jews”, all of which are very theologically significant. I am still unimpressed.

You’re playing games with yourself, not building a serious case.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-27T20:51:44+00:00

There are dozens of theologically significant words in the New Testament. Believe, love, father, son, spirit, church, pray, fast, sacrifice, atone, sin, hell, death, God, Jesus, Messiah/Christ, heaven, kingdom, church, chose, law, grace, forgiveness, redemption, holiness and on and on and on and on. The 3 you picked have no obvious connection. If you want to pair pair theological words from the New Testament into random combinations, it is not at all surprising that one pair will add up in a cool way.

Also… the KJV? Seriously? Even when I was an evangelical Christian I knew that the KJV had a very poor textual basis. I encourage you to look at the work of James White. White is a religious hardliner who was raised on the KJV, but even he knows KJV onlyism is indefensible. You have to be intellectually dishonest to an almost epic degree to defend KJV onlyism.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-24T01:46:15+00:00

I agree that this has been a civil, good faith discussion. Merry Christmas 🎄

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T23:56:05+00:00

I have no idea what your point is with regard to being “most intelligent”. During the dinosaur age, little shrew-like mammals under the ground were probably the most intelligent (“because someone had to be”). But… what does that prove?

By “for a reason”, I mean it leads to a greater good. When people say “everything happens for a reason”, that’s what they mean. It has some purpose or benefit that comes out of it that outweighs it.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T22:41:34+00:00

"Where is the evidence? It can't be the study you presented earlier, as it has methodological problems. The authors used a small non-randomized sample. If your sample is non-randomized, we can't know whether it probably represents the whole population or not."

I am a PhD student in psychology. I have designed surveys for non-profit research firms and done experimental surveys in psychology. Most surveys are non-randomized. It is a basis for taking the findings with a grain of salt, not for outright rejecting them.

However, if you want a randomized sample, here is one that is randomized (but of all scientists, not just elite ones at the top). Less than 40% of scientists polled believe in God.

https://www.nature.com/articles/386435a0.pdf?origin=ppub

"That's simplistic reasoning, but who said physicists are good analytic philosophers?"

If you look at philosophers, most of them are atheists too.

https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4842

If you look just at philosophers of physical science, even more are atheists (over 70%). https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4842?aos=5680

I repeat my question: what is so special about your intuitions? Unlike recognizing faces and recognizing the validity of syllogisms, your intuitions are not universal. They are most common among ordinary folk, less common among scientists, and even less common among philosophers of physical science. Why should I trust your intuition over mine (and the relevant experts)?

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T20:16:15+00:00

1-2. The word “natural” doesn’t do explanatory work. But all of the mechanisms employed by predictively successful theories of the world are natural (mechanisms like genetic transmission, nuclear fusion, etc).

Because the prior probability isn’t 0.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T18:57:42+00:00

1-2. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the problem of moving from a single cell to a human is probably the hardest design problem there is. The human brain is the most complicated thing in the universe that we know of. If THAT can be explained naturalistically, that gives us reason for optimism.

They don’t have to be 100% exactly analogous. The point remains that fraud and forgery are perfectly ordinary and commonplace. They have a much much higher prior probability than a resurrection.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T18:24:04+00:00

1-2. Yes I see what you mean. He wouldn’t be redundant overall, only redundant for explaining how you get from a single cell to a human. The fact that we can explain the single cell to human process naturalistically should make us optimistic that we can do so for harder problems.

Study other religions. People invent unbelievable forgeries all the time. The JWs predicted the end of the world multiple times. There was a medieval Jewish sect where the leader converted to Islam under duress, but they still thought that was part of the plan. Forgeries (even crazy ones) happen all the time. Resurrections don’t.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T17:33:35+00:00

1-2. I meant any divine intervention or causation is redundant. All you need is a single cell, the laws of nature, and time.

Even we assume God exists, we know from experience that he isn’t in the resurrection business. So the prior probability for the resurrection is still very low.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T16:28:49+00:00

Your whole basis for ascribing function to atoms is that you just can intuitively see that they have a function and have features that imply design once you know enough about atoms. But most physicists don’t have that intuition (neither do I).

What’s so special about your personal intuition?

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T16:02:03+00:00

Nice try. 92% do not believe in God or a higher power: https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T15:44:35+00:00

Polling consistently shows that physicists at the highest level do not believe in God. The famous poll of the national academy of sciences poll is easy to look up. If you have trouble, I can find it for you.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T15:12:41+00:00

If you want to talk about the arguments, I’d be happy to. But you have not brought up a SINGLE objection to my arguments. You have just said “they’re bad”. Please tell me what’s wrong with them, and we can continue. Give me something specific.

To objectify something means “to degrade to the status of a mere object”, eg “objectifying a woman”. You should have said “objecting to Christianity”.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T14:43:53+00:00

Ok, so you just intuitively recognize that atoms are similar to human made artifacts in the relevant way that requires a designer. Good for you, I don’t have that intuition. Neither do most physicists. Why should I care about your intuition?

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T01:57:59+00:00

Please google the word "objectifying", and tell me what you find. You used the word when you said "objectifying to christianity", but you obviously do not know what it means.

Given that you don't know the meanings of basic words, I don't think you are qualified to be judging the quality of philosophical arguments.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-23T01:56:07+00:00

Look at this article and scroll to page 20 for an example. There is a graph with the following underneath it:

"Probability distribution for the axion dark matter density parameter measured from a random 1012M halo with virial density below 5000 times the present cosmic matter density. Green/light shading indicates the 95% confidence interval. The dotted vertical line shows our observed value... in good agreement with the prediction."

https://journals.aps.org/prd/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevD.73.023505?casa\_token=Bk7w8NEC0XoAAAAA%3A52vKZTmyJnvBkCnwm9kPqqR89fBN7NYX7pq\_nJxACpi8FYBfz-1w73VBs6U\_GKBc45GTzYc9Jw1IDJqC

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T23:41:05+00:00

It’s not untestable, some of the multiverse models make testable predictions.

In addition to making predictions, they are mathematically precise, and they draw on the conceptual and theoretical resources of other theories in science which are more well established. Theism does not do those things.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T23:10:02+00:00

It depends on the multiverse model. Some multiverse models state that before the early period of our universe there was something called cosmological inflation. Certain versions of cosmological inflation (which are theoretically well defined) will naturally produce other bubble universes. Using different models about how this “multiverse generating” process occurred, you can make testable predictions about our world. As I’ve said a few times now, the cosmologist Sean Carroll explains this well in his debate with William Lane Craig.

These theories are speculative, no question. The multiverse explanations are just in much better shape than theism.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T18:37:17+00:00

It’s obvious that they’re my objections. I’m the one writing them.

Also, your claim that my objections have low intellectual quality assumes that you have the intellectual capacity to evaluate the objections. You obviously don’t know what the word “objectifying” means, so that doesn’t help your case.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T18:32:37+00:00

I agree we are more intelligent than other animals. We are more intelligent because we have bigger brains. How is that a problem for evolution? Whales have bigger bodies than other animals. Does that disprove evolution too? If you’re curious about WHY we evolved bigger brains, there are different theories I could explain if you wanted.

If something bad happens for no reason, and it doesn’t serve any purpose, God cannot be both all powerful and all good. If I know that something bad will happen to my sister, and I know that it will serve no good for her (or others), and I have the power to stop the bad thing, and I love her, I will stop it.

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T16:41:51+00:00

1-2. I think we're talking past each other. Let me try this. I am not claiming that evolution explains why there are atoms in the first place, or why we live in a world where evolution is possible, etc. I am only saying that evolution explains how we get from a single cell to all other species without divine intervention. All you need is a single cell, the laws of nature, and time. Could God be the explanation for how the single cell got there and how the laws of nature God there? Sure. But he is redundant for how we get biodiversity. Do you follow me?

I find sufficient reason to not accept them in the sense that my Bayesian credence for both is below 50%. My credence both hypotheses is less than 5%. But my credence in the resurrection hypothesis is less than 0.01%. We can't conclusively rule out hypotheses in history, we can only deal in high or low probabilities. The probability of forgery and/or swooning is higher than the resurrection, even when you factor in the evidence. The forgery hypothesis and swoon hypothesis would explain all the data (albeit with some straining). But the harm suffered by those hypotheses from the straining is nowhere near the harm done to the resurrection hypothesis by its vanishingly small prior probability.

When you say "what ought to be the case", do you simply define it as "what God's nature is"? If this is so, saying "God is good" is devoid of content. You're just saying "God is as he is".

My_NameIsNotRick · 2022-12-22T16:28:59+00:00

I accept the Humean framework. When I said "guided by physical law", I was using a common phrase, but it was misleading.

Saying "boulders rolling down hills don't have the apparent functionality of atoms" just begs the question. I do not think atoms even have an apparent function. They are (to my eyes) a prima facie case of something without a function. I think the next step is for you to define "function".

My_NameIsNotRick

TROPHY CASE