i would appreciate that if you are going to give this a negative score that you at least support the negative marks. given that this response may challenge the belief system of most here on the intellectual site, then take a stand for what you believe or describe the results your methods produce from your evidence.
The (first) downvote of this comment is mine, though I haven’t (yet) downvoted any of your other comments. If you’d made a good-faith effort to learn how this group works, by reading through the achives, it’s very likely that you would already know why you’re being downvoted—even if you hadn’t come across any of the discussions that are about religion specifically.
Also: “The results your methods produce from your evidence”? Evidence doesn’t work that way.
i came to this forum to investigate and contribute in areas of a certain expertise, in an area not covered here.
i respectfully declare that this thread forum is absolutely flawed and circular.
the author proposes it cannot prove or disprove God = neutral outcome, is flat out weak
the gist of responses here critique, chatter, and are polluted with group think, i am reading nothing substantial.
it appears many here have a belief system and methodology that is flawed. sources and methodology supports a non-predetermined outcome.
my opinion is that it is here that results are predetermined and evidence and method made to support pre-determined [desired] outcomes.
i would like to see 1. sources 2. methodology 3. that concludes Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and is not of God.
an absolute better case can be made that Jesus Christ is of God...
God is about relationship and only through faith in Him will you find incomprehensible knowledge.
I have observed and found that human evolution forever problem solves, only to find temporary solutions, new found errors, and omissions, revealing yet another problem. this feedback loop will never cease. No argument there.
However, if a relationship in Christ through faith can increase the likelihood of one’s success in these and any other pursuit.....you have the free will and intellect to find any and every answer upon your own discovery and learning processes.
I don’t know about the rest of the people who downvoted you on this post, but I will explain my downvote:
Your charge of “groupthink” does not hold water because Less Wrong is a community for people who take on logic and “rationality” as a foundation for viewing and thinking about the world. Hence, when you say:
“i am reading nothing substantial”
what you really mean to say is:
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about because I haven’t read most of the core content on the site.”
So what can we say, really, that you won’t reject out of hand as being “groupthink”? But based on this criteria, if you were trying to be consistent you would have to shout “groupthink!” at every single organization or community whose members had similar beliefs and behaviors that were somewhat cryptic for outsiders (including all religious congregations and organizations, obviously).
As for your demand for:
sources 2. methodology 3. that concludes Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and is not of God.
It’s an absurd request and you are incorrect in making it. I’m not going to explain why, because there is too much inferential distance between us. If you actually want to understand why and what I’m talking about, you’re going to have to do a lot of reading, starting with The Simple Truth and the sequences.
Barring that though, most people here will not be interested in engaging your comments.
my opinion is that it is here that results are predetermined and evidence and method made to support pre-determined [desired] outcomes.
Are you referring to something specific you’ve seen in our way of doing things, or just assuming that since we disagree with you we must be doing something wrong?
I have observed and found that human evolution forever problem solves, only to find temporary solutions, new found errors, and omissions, revealing yet another problem. this feedback loop will never cease.
If you mean evolution in a literal sense, of course, that’s how evolution works—and it’s a feature, not a flaw, since it allows species to avoid getting stuck in a local maximum rather than finding the best configuration for their environment. That’s entirely irrelevant to the rest of your comment, though, so I expect that’s not what you mean.
If you’re using ‘evolution’ to mean ‘thought’, please don’t. It’s incredibly annoying.
However, if a relationship in Christ through faith can increase the likelihood of one’s success in these and any other pursuit.....you have the free will and intellect to find any and every answer upon your own discovery and learning processes.
We’ve actually discussed that, on more than one occasion.
Theists don’t have any observable advantage over non-theists on matters of chance. God doesn’t rig the dice for you.
In every properly-conducted study—and note that we’re using the same definition of ‘properly-conducted’ there as we do everywhere else, and it doesn’t involve looking at the results and seeing if we agree—prayer has been found to make no difference to things with objective outcomes. It does have some interesting and useful effects on emotional state, in some situations, but those can be achieved just as well through brief, secular meditation.
There are significant advantages to belonging to a social group like a church, but those advantages are social, not theistic—equivalent benefits can be gained by belonging to many other kinds of social groups, if one lives in an area that’s not hostile to non-theists. If one is in an area or situation that’s hostile to non-theists, it may indeed be clearly better to profess belief in God, to avoid being ostracized—but that’s not significant evidence that belief in God is useful outside of that kind of situation, and no evidence that God actually exists.
At this point it is traditional (and sensible) to point a newcomer to the Sequences, and equally traditional (and necessary) to admit the size of the great pile of writing that one is offering, and to suggest a few especially relevant articles.
Not that I know of, although I expect a programming whiz could scrape the web site easily enough. Eliezer is writing a book version, but I don’t know the intended timescale.
You have not provided any arguments, aside from arguments that could support any number of other mutually-contradictory claims equally well. (e.g. the argument from faith — how do you decide what to have faith in? Answer that without assuming your conclusion to be true.)
i would appreciate that if you are going to give this a negative score that you at least support the negative marks. given that this response may challenge the belief system of most here on the intellectual site, then take a stand for what you believe or describe the results your methods produce from your evidence.
The (first) downvote of this comment is mine, though I haven’t (yet) downvoted any of your other comments. If you’d made a good-faith effort to learn how this group works, by reading through the achives, it’s very likely that you would already know why you’re being downvoted—even if you hadn’t come across any of the discussions that are about religion specifically.
Also: “The results your methods produce from your evidence”? Evidence doesn’t work that way.
i came to this forum to investigate and contribute in areas of a certain expertise, in an area not covered here.
i respectfully declare that this thread forum is absolutely flawed and circular.
the author proposes it cannot prove or disprove God = neutral outcome, is flat out weak
the gist of responses here critique, chatter, and are polluted with group think, i am reading nothing substantial.
it appears many here have a belief system and methodology that is flawed. sources and methodology supports a non-predetermined outcome.
my opinion is that it is here that results are predetermined and evidence and method made to support pre-determined [desired] outcomes.
i would like to see 1. sources 2. methodology 3. that concludes Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and is not of God.
an absolute better case can be made that Jesus Christ is of God...
God is about relationship and only through faith in Him will you find incomprehensible knowledge.
I have observed and found that human evolution forever problem solves, only to find temporary solutions, new found errors, and omissions, revealing yet another problem. this feedback loop will never cease. No argument there.
However, if a relationship in Christ through faith can increase the likelihood of one’s success in these and any other pursuit.....you have the free will and intellect to find any and every answer upon your own discovery and learning processes.
I don’t know about the rest of the people who downvoted you on this post, but I will explain my downvote:
Your charge of “groupthink” does not hold water because Less Wrong is a community for people who take on logic and “rationality” as a foundation for viewing and thinking about the world. Hence, when you say:
“i am reading nothing substantial”
what you really mean to say is:
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about because I haven’t read most of the core content on the site.”
So what can we say, really, that you won’t reject out of hand as being “groupthink”? But based on this criteria, if you were trying to be consistent you would have to shout “groupthink!” at every single organization or community whose members had similar beliefs and behaviors that were somewhat cryptic for outsiders (including all religious congregations and organizations, obviously).
As for your demand for:
It’s an absurd request and you are incorrect in making it. I’m not going to explain why, because there is too much inferential distance between us. If you actually want to understand why and what I’m talking about, you’re going to have to do a lot of reading, starting with The Simple Truth and the sequences.
Barring that though, most people here will not be interested in engaging your comments.
Ingenious!
(Even if you haven’t already succeeded in that, at least you have certainly found an incomprehensible writing style.)
Are you referring to something specific you’ve seen in our way of doing things, or just assuming that since we disagree with you we must be doing something wrong?
If you mean evolution in a literal sense, of course, that’s how evolution works—and it’s a feature, not a flaw, since it allows species to avoid getting stuck in a local maximum rather than finding the best configuration for their environment. That’s entirely irrelevant to the rest of your comment, though, so I expect that’s not what you mean.
If you’re using ‘evolution’ to mean ‘thought’, please don’t. It’s incredibly annoying.
We’ve actually discussed that, on more than one occasion.
Theists don’t have any observable advantage over non-theists on matters of chance. God doesn’t rig the dice for you.
In every properly-conducted study—and note that we’re using the same definition of ‘properly-conducted’ there as we do everywhere else, and it doesn’t involve looking at the results and seeing if we agree—prayer has been found to make no difference to things with objective outcomes. It does have some interesting and useful effects on emotional state, in some situations, but those can be achieved just as well through brief, secular meditation.
There are significant advantages to belonging to a social group like a church, but those advantages are social, not theistic—equivalent benefits can be gained by belonging to many other kinds of social groups, if one lives in an area that’s not hostile to non-theists. If one is in an area or situation that’s hostile to non-theists, it may indeed be clearly better to profess belief in God, to avoid being ostracized—but that’s not significant evidence that belief in God is useful outside of that kind of situation, and no evidence that God actually exists.
At this point it is traditional (and sensible) to point a newcomer to the Sequences, and equally traditional (and necessary) to admit the size of the great pile of writing that one is offering, and to suggest a few especially relevant articles.
The ones that seem to me most relevant to the issues you are raising are the very first sequence, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, and in particular the first two articles in that sequence: Making Beliefs Pay Rent and Belief in Belief.
Or for a lighter but more time-consuming introduction to what we’re all about here, Eliezer’s Harry Potter fanfic.
How did you come here, btw?
Is there a sequential dump of the entirety of the sequences as one file anywhere? Text or HTML preferably.
Not that I know of, although I expect a programming whiz could scrape the web site easily enough. Eliezer is writing a book version, but I don’t know the intended timescale.
You have not provided any arguments, aside from arguments that could support any number of other mutually-contradictory claims equally well. (e.g. the argument from faith — how do you decide what to have faith in? Answer that without assuming your conclusion to be true.)