So I decided I should try to find out who Jesus actually was. I began to study the Historical Jesus. What I learned, even when reading Christian scholars, shocked me.
It seems you abandoned Christianity for the right reasons. Few are those whose disbelief is the result of extensive studies and advanced knowledge, I’m certainly not one of them.
It seems you abandoned Christianity for the right reasons.
Well, kind of. My reasons for rejecting supernaturalism are much better informed than when I originally left theism behind. I didn’t know about technical explanation, Bayesianism, or Solomonoff induction when I lost my faith.
Well, you’ve been able to understand the reasons much more clearly than you first did, but they’re still essentially the same reasons. It’s not as high a barrier as understanding quantum mechanics, for instance; once you just stop sabotaging your mental processes, atheism is the obvious conclusion.
Not to say there’s anything easy about the first part of that, of course! I’m just saying it sounds like you’d advanced far enough there at the time you left religion.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one. I can give a good argument against the existence of God these days, but when I first walked away from religious belief it was just a vague sense of “this is all BS”.
I’m still new around here, and I’m still learning how to really be rational, but after being the smartest guy in the room for so long it’s nice to learn that there’s still room to grow. On that note, what is Solomonoff induction?
Though I like Shane Legg’s formal explanation, it’s not very kind to people without mathematical inclinations. I think starting with Eliezer’s post on Occam’s Razor and Solomonoff Induction would be a much gentler introduction.
If you fall off your chair the first time you read section 8.2, you’re doing it right. Alternatively, if you think to yourself “Obviously...” you are at a far deeper level of amateur understanding than I am.
I didn’t find the sections had to be read in order necessarily, so if one is obscure you could skip around.
I didn’t know about technical explanation, Bayesianism, or Solomonoff induction when I lost my faith.
I still don’t, my comprehension is at best vague. My knowledge of history, evolution and physics is virtually non-existent. The main reason for why I don’t believe into a god is that an universe with a god seems less likely than one without god. Not because I have studied evolution and made sense of its mathematical and conceptual foundations, but simply because all other available explanations and their implications sound incredibleunlikely, even less probable than a global conspiracy among rival scientists to reach a consensus on something as complicated as the theory of evolution.
The original reason for me to abandon religion was that I perceived the christian god to be morally bankrupt.
Did you ? My guess is, at an intuitive level, you were already close. Quoting from your post :
Historical investigations use three basic criteria to determine the probability of recorded events.
There were some flaws, of course, like when you said that “miracles are, by definition, highly improbable” (probably doesn’t make the distinction between prior and posterior probabilities, and maybe (I’m not sure) some mind projection fallacy).
(Of course, that could just be me projecting my atheist slant to your believer’s post. I’m not strong enough to judge that.)
“Whoso wishes to grasp God with his intellect becomes an atheist.” — Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
It seems you abandoned Christianity for the right reasons. Few are those whose disbelief is the result of extensive studies and advanced knowledge, I’m certainly not one of them.
Well, kind of. My reasons for rejecting supernaturalism are much better informed than when I originally left theism behind. I didn’t know about technical explanation, Bayesianism, or Solomonoff induction when I lost my faith.
Well, you’ve been able to understand the reasons much more clearly than you first did, but they’re still essentially the same reasons. It’s not as high a barrier as understanding quantum mechanics, for instance; once you just stop sabotaging your mental processes, atheism is the obvious conclusion.
Not to say there’s anything easy about the first part of that, of course! I’m just saying it sounds like you’d advanced far enough there at the time you left religion.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one. I can give a good argument against the existence of God these days, but when I first walked away from religious belief it was just a vague sense of “this is all BS”.
I’m still new around here, and I’m still learning how to really be rational, but after being the smartest guy in the room for so long it’s nice to learn that there’s still room to grow. On that note, what is Solomonoff induction?
Here.
Though I like Shane Legg’s formal explanation, it’s not very kind to people without mathematical inclinations. I think starting with Eliezer’s post on Occam’s Razor and Solomonoff Induction would be a much gentler introduction.
I like this one.
If you fall off your chair the first time you read section 8.2, you’re doing it right. Alternatively, if you think to yourself “Obviously...” you are at a far deeper level of amateur understanding than I am.
I didn’t find the sections had to be read in order necessarily, so if one is obscure you could skip around.
I still don’t, my comprehension is at best vague. My knowledge of history, evolution and physics is virtually non-existent. The main reason for why I don’t believe into a god is that an universe with a god seems less likely than one without god. Not because I have studied evolution and made sense of its mathematical and conceptual foundations, but simply because all other available explanations and their implications sound incredible unlikely, even less probable than a global conspiracy among rival scientists to reach a consensus on something as complicated as the theory of evolution.
The original reason for me to abandon religion was that I perceived the christian god to be morally bankrupt.
Did you ? My guess is, at an intuitive level, you were already close. Quoting from your post :
There were some flaws, of course, like when you said that “miracles are, by definition, highly improbable” (probably doesn’t make the distinction between prior and posterior probabilities, and maybe (I’m not sure) some mind projection fallacy).
(Of course, that could just be me projecting my atheist slant to your believer’s post. I’m not strong enough to judge that.)