I mean, suppose that God himself descended from the clouds and told you that your whole religion was true except for the Virgin Birth. If that would change your mind, you can’t say you’re absolutely certain of the Virgin Birth.
I think that latter statement is equivalent to this:
V = Virgin Birth G = God appears and proclaims ~V
P(V|G) < 1 ∴P(V) < 1
But that argument is predicated on P(G) > 0. It is internally consistent to believe P(V|G) < 1 and yet P(V) = 1, as long as one also believes P(G) = 0, i.e. one is certain that God will not appear and proclaim ~V.
Go a little farther. Let G(X) = God appears and proclaims X. For religions with acknowledgment of divine revelation, which is all major religions, P(G(X)) has been non-zero for certain X (people have received revelation directly from God). Indeed, granting ultimate authority to God, again a factor of all major religions, means that 0 < P(G(X)) < 1 for all X (granting that there is a statement X such that humans know God will not appear and proclaim X is removing ultimate authority from God and assigning part of it to humans—by the way, we can assume the space of X’s is countable so there is no problem with summing to 1). So it is not internally consistent to assume, in particular, that P(G(~V)) = 0, without abandoning ultimate authority to God (or probability theory as a way of reasoning about this stuff, as most religions opt to do).
Of course the more productive question is what evolutionary mechanisms allowed human brain architecture the ability to get so off-par with reality but productive from a Darwinian point of view. Some would argue that potential to be so absurdly wrong is what gives brains their computational power in the first place! Bounded rationality under physical constraints is a very active area of research.
I think that latter statement is equivalent to this:
V = Virgin Birth
G = God appears and proclaims ~V
P(V|G) < 1
∴P(V) < 1
But that argument is predicated on P(G) > 0. It is internally consistent to believe P(V|G) < 1 and yet P(V) = 1, as long as one also believes P(G) = 0, i.e. one is certain that God will not appear and proclaim ~V.
Go a little farther. Let G(X) = God appears and proclaims X. For religions with acknowledgment of divine revelation, which is all major religions, P(G(X)) has been non-zero for certain X (people have received revelation directly from God). Indeed, granting ultimate authority to God, again a factor of all major religions, means that 0 < P(G(X)) < 1 for all X (granting that there is a statement X such that humans know God will not appear and proclaim X is removing ultimate authority from God and assigning part of it to humans—by the way, we can assume the space of X’s is countable so there is no problem with summing to 1). So it is not internally consistent to assume, in particular, that P(G(~V)) = 0, without abandoning ultimate authority to God (or probability theory as a way of reasoning about this stuff, as most religions opt to do).
Of course the more productive question is what evolutionary mechanisms allowed human brain architecture the ability to get so off-par with reality but productive from a Darwinian point of view. Some would argue that potential to be so absurdly wrong is what gives brains their computational power in the first place! Bounded rationality under physical constraints is a very active area of research.