Biblical matters

[OneMore]

I see it differently from both Tighter and Tozer. We believe stuff for at least two reasons (there may well be more), either through the weight of empirical evidence or on the authority of someone we trust. While there can be significant agreement on the former, the latter is more problematic. The same holds for both Christians and non-Christians. It all depends on who or what you trust. Christians trust the bible because they find its analysis of the human condition convincing and, on that basis, accept those bits that aren't open to empirical analysis. Non-Christians do not find its analysis of the human condition convincing and therefore do not trust it and consequently do not accept those bits that aren't open to empirical analysis.

As before, though, your language is confused here. People don't "believe" in things because of empirical evidence. Belief is entirely the wrong word to use. Belief relates to opinions or convictions, not to facts or deductions. Your use of the term "belief" when it comes to what is deducible from empirical observation suits the point you seek to make but it is not, in fact, a belief. Extending your earlier suggestions, one could argue about belief in gravity but it doesn't make it the right term. Empirical observation delivers either facts or expectations, which is what I mentioned in my previous post. Expectations are, effectively, the degree of probability with which something will occur, given individuals' prior experinces. Or the probability that something happened in the past, given analysis of all available information. This is fundamentally different to belief.

This is a mistake that I think a lot of religious people deliberately and quite cynically make, even if they don't realise they do it. Fundamentally, it is an attempt to rationalise everything in terms of belief, particularly when something is, implicitly, not known. It is a fallacy to do so, however. The process behind beliefs and expectations are entirely different. Let me put it like this: I do not believe that the big bang happened; I expect that it did with a fairly high probability, given the weight of evidence that supports it. If new evidence becomes available that challenges this, I will update those expectations. This is not the same process as belief - belief would require accepting something with a probability of one, regardless of the evidence for, or against, it.

I think there is value in getting down to the semantics here Neil, but I'm not certain you've nailed it.

Or at least I can't quite get my head round the idea that you do not believe I the big bang, in spite of expecting that particular hypothesis to be correct.

Some people believe in things having weighed the evidence (in a court a jury may ask themselves if they believe a particular version of events, or testimony or whatever) - I feel like this is an acceptable use of the word believe.

What is belief? Good question. I've no idea. How does it relate to the word faith? Or hope? Or expectation?

I believe we'll beat Edinburgh tomorrow. My belief may be evidenced by me sticking a fiver on the result. It's a future event though, so the reault cannot be known, does that make it a leap of faith? Have I any evidence we'll win? Ermm... Some, I guess, like they're awful and we have the potential to be less awful?

I don't know.

[UlsterAreBrill]

Brillo, I did you the respect of reading some of your pastor friend's writing. Strictly in terms of mentalism I could take slightly more of a shine to him than some of the local Presbyterians who appear to be terminally dull & tending towards the old fire, brimstone & repent ye sinners, whose blackmouthed pessimism really pishes me off.

That said, though some of the pastors words are appealing, such as his notion that dull of spirit ultra conservatives are only two thirds men as they don't have the Holy Ghost in their hearts, in reality, as Tender says, for the likes of me, these are just differing brands of mentalist, debating the finer points of something I simply find full of holes, and lacking in credibility.

Still, as I often say, barring the harm I associate with organised religion, for the individual mentalist, I don't begrudge you whatever comfort you derive from your affliction.

PS I know for a fact that the pastor hasn't said anything useful for over 50 years. Then again neither has my grandfather, a man of genuine wit and turn of phrase who died around the same time.

Tozer was a good man, big fan of his books and his sermons. But as you and someone else above said, it is stating the obvious you don't understand or "get" it. In essence Christianity at time does not make "logical" sense, most notably our 'salvation', or reason for abtaining salvation. It, on a human level, doesnt make total sense (not that the whole of Christianity does not make logical sense, just some)

As for your opinion of Presbyterians, I am a baptist, however I agree that some, not all, but somes preaching of the gospel leaves a lot to be desired, I could take or leave it, as for some Presby ministers teaching, it is some of the best in my eyes (again, some not all). The way I see it preaching death & destruction just paints a bad picture, true as it may be. Most of my friends & myself "repented" through conversations with others rather than anything which was shouted from the pulpit.

[Russ]

I believe I am an Apache Helicopter

[Dave]

I need a day off to catch up on this thread

[solidarity]

I see it differently from both Tighter and Tozer. We believe stuff for at least two reasons (there may well be more), either through the weight of empirical evidence or on the authority of someone we trust. While there can be significant agreement on the former, the latter is more problematic. The same holds for both Christians and non-Christians. It all depends on who or what you trust. Christians trust the bible because they find its analysis of the human condition convincing and, on that basis, accept those bits that aren't open to empirical analysis. Non-Christians do not find its analysis of the human condition convincing and therefore do not trust it and consequently do not accept those bits that aren't open to empirical analysis.

As before, though, your language is confused here. People don't "believe" in things because of empirical evidence. Belief is entirely the wrong word to use. Belief relates to opinions or convictions, not to facts or deductions. Your use of the term "belief" when it comes to what is deducible from empirical observation suits the point you seek to make but it is not, in fact, a belief. Extending your earlier suggestions, one could argue about belief in gravity but it doesn't make it the right term. Empirical observation delivers either facts or expectations, which is what I mentioned in my previous post. Expectations are, effectively, the degree of probability with which something will occur, given individuals' prior experinces. Or the probability that something happened in the past, given analysis of all available information. This is fundamentally different to belief.

This is a mistake that I think a lot of religious people deliberately and quite cynically make, even if they don't realise they do it. Fundamentally, it is an attempt to rationalise everything in terms of belief, particularly when something is, implicitly, not known. It is a fallacy to do so, however. The process behind beliefs and expectations are entirely different. Let me put it like this: I do not believe that the big bang happened; I expect that it did with a fairly high probability, given the weight of evidence that supports it. If new evidence becomes available that challenges this, I will update those expectations. This is not the same process as belief - belief would require accepting something with a probability of one, regardless of the evidence for, or against, it.

Thanks Neil. As I said, it's been a long time since first arts philosophy. So, are you using 'believe' to mean something like 'accept as true without sufficient empirical evidence'? What term do you use if evidence is ambiguous and you have to come to a conclusion and act on it? Or is 'believe' never appropriate?

[BaggyTrousers]

Brillo, I did you the respect of reading some of your pastor friend's writing. Strictly in terms of mentalism I could take slightly more of a shine to him than some of the local Presbyterians who appear to be terminally dull & tending towards the old fire, brimstone & repent ye sinners, whose blackmouthed pessimism really pishes me off.

That said, though some of the pastors words are appealing, such as his notion that dull of spirit ultra conservatives are only two thirds men as they don't have the Holy Ghost in their hearts, in reality, as Tender says, for the likes of me, these are just differing brands of mentalist, debating the finer points of something I simply find full of holes, and lacking in credibility.

Still, as I often say, barring the harm I associate with organised religion, for the individual mentalist, I don't begrudge you whatever comfort you derive from your affliction.

PS I know for a fact that the pastor hasn't said anything useful for over 50 years. Then again neither has my grandfather, a man of genuine wit and turn of phrase who died around the same time.

Tozer was a good man, big fan of his books and his sermons. But as you and someone else above said, it is stating the obvious you don't understand or "get" it. In essence Christianity at time does not make "logical" sense, most notably our 'salvation', or reason for abtaining salvation. It, on a human level, doesnt make total sense (not that the whole of Christianity does not make logical sense, just some)

As for your opinion of Presbyterians, I am a baptist, however I agree that some, not all, but somes preaching of the gospel leaves a lot to be desired, I could take or leave it, as for some Presby ministers teaching, it is some of the best in my eyes (again, some not all). The way I see it preaching death & destruction just paints a bad picture, true as it may be. Most of my friends & myself "repented" through conversations with others rather than anything which was shouted from the pulpit.

Brillo, that bit in red, would you take it away, work on it a bit for a while, take out the mumbo jumbo & give me something in intelligible English. What you have there, to me, is babbling nonsense which is a bit like a dictionary, plenty of words, indeed every book ever written it's all in there, but of itself it tells no story, makes no sense, except in terms of individual words.......... or most of them.

Thanks in anticipation.

[BaggyTrousers]

I think there is value in getting down to the semantics here Neil

Semantics, eh Yin?

Perhaps the most complicated thing about trying to drill down there is that so many of our words have multiple meanings and without the intonation of voice, the written word is notoriously difficult from which to understand exactly the intention, no matter how clearly we think we have read a passage or even a sentence.

How many times have we seen some post here being misunderstood, despite the author believing it's message is clear. Of course some of that will be intentional obfuscation, by perhaps Snipe or BR .......... maybe even me.

So I've no problem with folk discussing semantics, though I'd caution that as often as such efforts bring clarity, the point of discussion here just as often as not becomes lost.

Fire away ould hand.

[Neil F]

I think there is value in getting down to the semantics here Neil, but I'm not certain you've nailed it.

Or at least I can't quite get my head round the idea that you do not believe I the big bang, in spite of expecting that particular hypothesis to be correct.

Some people believe in things having weighed the evidence (in a court a jury may ask themselves if they believe a particular version of events, or testimony or whatever) - I feel like this is an acceptable use of the word believe.

What is belief? Good question. I've no idea. How does it relate to the word faith? Or hope? Or expectation?

I believe we'll beat Edinburgh tomorrow. My belief may be evidenced by me sticking a fiver on the result. It's a future event though, so the reault cannot be known, does that make it a leap of faith? Have I any evidence we'll win? Ermm... Some, I guess, like they're awful and we have the potential to be less awful?

I don't know.

As before, though, I think it is important to differentiate between belief and expectation - to me, at least, a belief is an absolute. If I said I believed in the big bang, I would imply that I think the big bang happened with a probability of 1 and that all alternative explanations are false. That is not my position - I find the big bang the most plausible explanation, given what we currently know. Given that there are limitations on what we know (and possibly can know), it would be wrong for me to state that I believe in the big bang, when what I'm really making is a conditional statement on the probability of how things began. That is exactly the same as what individuals in a jury are asked to do. I realise it's a subtle differentiation but I also think it's a very important one - not least in the context of some of the examples raised by other posters in this thread.

Of course, you may well be right that I am not quite right on the distinction - I am no philosopher (although I did live with someone writing a PhD thesis on the philosophy of time travel for a couple of years, which simultaneously ruined nearly all science fiction and convinced me about the uselessness of some field of study), after all. At the same time, it is important to draw distinctions between absolutes - like religious beliefs - and expectations based on the evidence - like the big bang, or Ulsters chances against Edinburgh tomorrow night. That said, hadn't Edinburgh been to tom kite for so long, I might chalk your suggestion down to belief and, indeed, irrationality having seen the crap Ulster have served up the last four weeks...

Thanks Neil. As I said, it's been a long time since first arts philosophy. So, are you using 'believe' to mean something like 'accept as true without sufficient empirical evidence'? What term do you use if evidence is ambiguous and you have to come to a conclusion and act on it? Or is 'believe' never appropriate?

Here, again, I would use expectation - as I said above, I view that as a conditional statement. Fundamentally, one is using language to turn a continuum into a binary statement. In that regard, in common conversation I may well use words like "belief", without thinking about what they really mean. In fact, though, what I should say is that I expect something or other to be the case. I could go further and state that I expect something to be true with a given probability but I bore most people to tears at the best of times... To me, the belief or faith that has been talked of in this thread is inherently binary. Put another way, I'm not convinced the big fella in the clouds would be particularly enamoured with anyone who rocked up to St. Peter at the gates and said, "I was a good person and I expected the Christian god to be the one true God with a probability of 62% and therefore loved Him with 62% of my heart, let me in please!"

Ultimately, making binary statements from a continuum of probabilities is where the ambiguity in what we're talking about comes from. I'd also adventure to say that it is also why, as OneMore says, I myself may not have nailed the exact terminology. At the same time, I think it is important to differentiate between the two.

[OneMore]

... That said, hadn't Edinburgh been to tom kite for so long, I might chalk your suggestion down to belief and, indeed, irrationality having seen the crap Ulster have served up the last four weeks...

Well well....

[UlsterAreBrill]

Sorry for delay Baggy, what I was saying is that it is not outrageous that you do not 'get' Christianity, I wouldn't try to understand anything I don't believe, or don't want to believe, as for some of the big doctrine (fundamental ideas), specifically the nature of how people become Christians, from a logical perspective, is quite unreasonable, but in a good way; therefore if I find the basis of what I believe unreasonable or illogical, there is no chance that you will understand it or believe it... but that's probably nothing you already didn't know

[Tender]

I'm half baked right now and this thread is truly tripping balls. Mentalists

[BaggyTrousers]

Sorry for delay Baggy, what I was saying is that it is not outrageous that you do not 'get' Christianity, I wouldn't try to understand anything I don't believe, or don't want to believe, as for some of the big doctrine (fundamental ideas), specifically the nature of how people become Christians, from a logical perspective, is quite unreasonable, but in a good way; therefore if I find the basis of what I believe unreasonable or illogical, there is no chance that you will understand it or believe it... but that's probably nothing you already didn't know

Brillo, let's be very clear. It is not that I don't get religion, not simply Christianity as you suggest. The fact is that I believe it to be utter superstitious nonsense and it never ceases to amaze me that many people I know to be relatively intelligent, swallow it.

I mean we all know that like being a wee orangebastard is inculcated into many of our citizens from birth, so it is with religion, the ultimate "get 'em young" organisation. For vast swathes of the population, they are trained from before the age of reason to believe, to have faith and many live with it.

"Proof" of the efficacy of the childhood training is the logically strange fact that very very few people make a reasoned decision to change the branch of whatever religion they are inculcated into. Surely commonsense would suggest that with the many strands of various religions, a goodly number might think, actually I think that is a better way of looking at things, but no, most stick with the religion of their antecedents. I find enormous level of simple acceptance peculiar.

I'm sure you'll have heard this before but it's apt: When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

You dismiss literally thousands of gods Brillo but your one is real. Sounds feckin' mad doesn't it? I'm mean really, the rest are all bullshit ................ but not yours.

Anyway ould hand, I have no pretensions to successfully convincing you of your madness.

[big mervyn]

Essentially, Brillo believes several thousand gods ard a crock o shyte.
Baggy: several thousand + 1

Brillo did have faith that Ireland would win last night. Where's them beads?

[rorybestsbigbaldnoggin]

I'm half baked right now and this thread is truly tripping balls. Mentalists

I like this guy.

[promenader]

I think there is value in getting down to the semantics here Neil, but I'm not certain you've nailed it.

Or at least I can't quite get my head round the idea that you do not believe I the big bang, in spite of expecting that particular hypothesis to be correct.

Some people believe in things having weighed the evidence (in a court a jury may ask themselves if they believe a particular version of events, or testimony or whatever) - I feel like this is an acceptable use of the word believe.

What is belief? Good question. I've no idea. How does it relate to the word faith? Or hope? Or expectation?

I believe we'll beat Edinburgh tomorrow. My belief may be evidenced by me sticking a fiver on the result. It's a future event though, so the reault cannot be known, does that make it a leap of faith? Have I any evidence we'll win? Ermm... Some, I guess, like they're awful and we have the potential to be less awful?

I don't know.

As before, though, I think it is important to differentiate between belief and expectation - to me, at least, a belief is an absolute. If I said I believed in the big bang, I would imply that I think the big bang happened with a probability of 1 and that all alternative explanations are false. That is not my position - I find the big bang the most plausible explanation, given what we currently know. Given that there are limitations on what we know (and possibly can know), it would be wrong for me to state that I believe in the big bang, when what I'm really making is a conditional statement on the probability of how things began. That is exactly the same as what individuals in a jury are asked to do. I realise it's a subtle differentiation but I also think it's a very important one - not least in the context of some of the examples raised by other posters in this thread.

Of course, you may well be right that I am not quite right on the distinction - I am no philosopher (although I did live with someone writing a PhD thesis on the philosophy of time travel for a couple of years, which simultaneously ruined nearly all science fiction and convinced me about the uselessness of some field of study), after all. At the same time, it is important to draw distinctions between absolutes - like religious beliefs - and expectations based on the evidence - like the big bang, or Ulsters chances against Edinburgh tomorrow night. That said, hadn't Edinburgh been to tom kite for so long, I might chalk your suggestion down to belief and, indeed, irrationality having seen the crap Ulster have served up the last four weeks...

Thanks Neil. As I said, it's been a long time since first arts philosophy. So, are you using 'believe' to mean something like 'accept as true without sufficient empirical evidence'? What term do you use if evidence is ambiguous and you have to come to a conclusion and act on it? Or is 'believe' never appropriate?

Here, again, I would use expectation - as I said above, I view that as a conditional statement. Fundamentally, one is using language to turn a continuum into a binary statement. In that regard, in common conversation I may well use words like "belief", without thinking about what they really mean. In fact, though, what I should say is that I expect something or other to be the case. I could go further and state that I expect something to be true with a given probability but I bore most people to tears at the best of times... To me, the belief or faith that has been talked of in this thread is inherently binary. Put another way, I'm not convinced the big fella in the clouds would be particularly enamoured with anyone who rocked up to St. Peter at the gates and said, "I was a good person and I expected the Christian god to be the one true God with a probability of 62% and therefore loved Him with 62% of my heart, let me in please!"

Ultimately, making binary statements from a continuum of probabilities is where the ambiguity in what we're talking about comes from. I'd also adventure to say that it is also why, as OneMore says, I myself may not have nailed the exact terminology. At the same time, I think it is important to differentiate between the two.

Now that's a sentence you don't often come across on a rugby forum.