Basically only religious people think it is interesting to go through a holy book chapter-by-chapter. It would almost be interesting to attempt to examine the archaeological record together, but it turns out that whenever anyone tries this with Mormons, the tiniest shred of evidence is treated as though it were thousands of times as powerful as it should be. A classic example of this is the Bat Creek inscription—not as interpreted by archaeologists (who think it’s a fraud), but as interpreted by a global-warming-denier economics professor.
The only way I can see this discussion being fruitful would be to actually build a Bayesian network for each top-level claim and then individually assign probabilities; this at least would be an interesting exercise.
The only way I can see this discussion being fruitful would be to actually build a Bayesian network for each top-level claim and then individually assign probabilities; this at least would be an interesting exercise.
An interesting idea, but in my opinion, the only way to build an accurate Bayesian network for the top-level claims would be to examine the context whence those claims come.
You could have one Bayesian network to show how likely Mormonism is, and a separate one for how likely it is for a holy book to say that otherwise. Alternately, you could just give the ratio of how likely it is if Mormonism is true and how likely it is to be stated otherwise. I suppose you’d have to calculate for a given religion, and then multiply by the number of religions.
Well really, that would be far to general. If we’re questing for the One True Religion—or, rather, the One True Belief System, with atheism included in there as a belief in the Merely Real—then we’d need separate Bayesian networks for each religion. Otherwise one of the less wacky religions would have its score brought down by one of the more wacky ones, when in fact they exist independently of one another.
Sounds like a daunting project. Shall we get started? :P
Not “any”. :3 Mormons, for example, consider the Bible to have become flawed over time. That’s why we hold high the Book of Mormon; it’s come to us more directly, and is thereby promised not to contain flaws.
Article of Faith 8:
We believe the Bible to be the Word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.
True, but it’s largely just a few differences that they specified in the Pearl of Great Price. They do not believe, for example, that the story of Noah’s Arc was caused by a mistranslation.
The bigger problems would be other religions that believe it may not have been literal, or that it may have been a mistranslation (I’ve heard it suggested that they had the same word for “land” and “world”, and the flood was actually much more localized.)
Or that “40 days” is a linguistic construction meaning literally “a long freaking time”. :P No, it’s not just a few differences in the PoGP. It’s basic errors that are quite evident—prolific, even—in the Bible. If every Christian sect read the Bible the same way, why would there be different sects? No, just because they all “believe the Bible” doesn’t mean you can use “the Bible” as one node in your network.
Can you be the sole determinant about which pieces of information do and do not matter? Let me tell you: if I had to take that “40 days” literally, I would drop the whole claptrap and take up the atheist flag. That wouldn’t be raining; that would be hydraulic mining. Nothing on earth would survive, not even an “ark made out of gopher wood”.
You’re not facing the problem. You can’t write off any of the nodes and say “well, this one doesn’t matter”. You cannot know what other people know unless you ask them. This project of mapping the Bayesian networks of every belief system on the planet is difficult, insanely difficult, impossible. That doesn’t mean you can skip over some parts and pretend they don’t matter. Do you know what happens if you try to do that in quantum mechanics? You get the wrong answer. And considering what’s at stake here, that would be devastating.
Oh, so trolling is okay if it’s against religion? :/
It would be trolling if was stated at a religious forum for the purpose of, well, trolling them. Here it is a allusion to a prevalent human bias towards self-benefiting double-think.
I know Mormons generally say that they take it literally, but I know of a few cases where they don’t. Besides that number thing, they believe angels are resurrected people, and not four-faced hooved monstrosities. I suppose with them it’s literal unless doctrine says otherwise.
With religions in general, you could try adding the probability that it happened and that it was written figuratively, and just do both.
That’s actually close to correct. Joseph Smith went through the Bible and corrected a few things; Moses is a refreshed version of Genesis chapters 1 through Noah or so; Smith also gave us a chunk of Matthew that was missing.… other than that, basically if we find contradictions, we shrug and say “must be a mistranslation”. Also, Book of Mormon takes truth-precedence over the Bible, since it’s been tampered with less. :P
So, covering the entire surface of the Earth and putting two of every animal on one boat is feasible, but raining for 40 days without destroying the boat isn’t?
The issues here are that if this happened, God would be violating the laws of physics and committing genocide.
No, you’re right, and the likelihood is that it was a localized event. Either that, or it took place so long ago that there were fewer types of animals. And then via *gasp* evolution, over the millennia we got, well, today’s diversity.
But I think it’s a tad more likely that it was a localized event. :3
Basically only religious people think it is interesting to go through a holy book chapter-by-chapter. It would almost be interesting to attempt to examine the archaeological record together, but it turns out that whenever anyone tries this with Mormons, the tiniest shred of evidence is treated as though it were thousands of times as powerful as it should be. A classic example of this is the Bat Creek inscription—not as interpreted by archaeologists (who think it’s a fraud), but as interpreted by a global-warming-denier economics professor.
The only way I can see this discussion being fruitful would be to actually build a Bayesian network for each top-level claim and then individually assign probabilities; this at least would be an interesting exercise.
An interesting idea, but in my opinion, the only way to build an accurate Bayesian network for the top-level claims would be to examine the context whence those claims come.
You could have one Bayesian network to show how likely Mormonism is, and a separate one for how likely it is for a holy book to say that otherwise. Alternately, you could just give the ratio of how likely it is if Mormonism is true and how likely it is to be stated otherwise. I suppose you’d have to calculate for a given religion, and then multiply by the number of religions.
Well really, that would be far to general. If we’re questing for the One True Religion—or, rather, the One True Belief System, with atheism included in there as a belief in the Merely Real—then we’d need separate Bayesian networks for each religion. Otherwise one of the less wacky religions would have its score brought down by one of the more wacky ones, when in fact they exist independently of one another.
Sounds like a daunting project. Shall we get started? :P
A lot of them would share the same nodes. For example, any Judeo-Christian religion will adhere to the Old Testament.
Not “any”. :3 Mormons, for example, consider the Bible to have become flawed over time. That’s why we hold high the Book of Mormon; it’s come to us more directly, and is thereby promised not to contain flaws.
Article of Faith 8:
The problem I have with the book of mormon is, jesus’s death was not enough.
What I have read it has more hoops to jump to get saved
True, but it’s largely just a few differences that they specified in the Pearl of Great Price. They do not believe, for example, that the story of Noah’s Arc was caused by a mistranslation.
The bigger problems would be other religions that believe it may not have been literal, or that it may have been a mistranslation (I’ve heard it suggested that they had the same word for “land” and “world”, and the flood was actually much more localized.)
Or that “40 days” is a linguistic construction meaning literally “a long freaking time”. :P No, it’s not just a few differences in the PoGP. It’s basic errors that are quite evident—prolific, even—in the Bible. If every Christian sect read the Bible the same way, why would there be different sects? No, just because they all “believe the Bible” doesn’t mean you can use “the Bible” as one node in your network.
The 40 days part is often considered symbolic, but the time period doesn’t really matter.
Can you be the sole determinant about which pieces of information do and do not matter? Let me tell you: if I had to take that “40 days” literally, I would drop the whole claptrap and take up the atheist flag. That wouldn’t be raining; that would be hydraulic mining. Nothing on earth would survive, not even an “ark made out of gopher wood”.
You’re not facing the problem. You can’t write off any of the nodes and say “well, this one doesn’t matter”. You cannot know what other people know unless you ask them. This project of mapping the Bayesian networks of every belief system on the planet is difficult, insanely difficult, impossible. That doesn’t mean you can skip over some parts and pretend they don’t matter. Do you know what happens if you try to do that in quantum mechanics? You get the wrong answer. And considering what’s at stake here, that would be devastating.
Is there a rule for which parts of the bible you’re not supposed to take literally, besides “whichever ones would be evidence against the Bible”?
Of course, “None of the ones that interfere with whatever actions most benefit me in the forseeable future”.
Oh, so trolling is okay if it’s against religion? :/
It would be trolling if was stated at a religious forum for the purpose of, well, trolling them. Here it is a allusion to a prevalent human bias towards self-benefiting double-think.
No, it’s an implication that the subject under consideration is exhibiting said bias.
I know Mormons generally say that they take it literally, but I know of a few cases where they don’t. Besides that number thing, they believe angels are resurrected people, and not four-faced hooved monstrosities. I suppose with them it’s literal unless doctrine says otherwise.
With religions in general, you could try adding the probability that it happened and that it was written figuratively, and just do both.
That’s actually close to correct. Joseph Smith went through the Bible and corrected a few things; Moses is a refreshed version of Genesis chapters 1 through Noah or so; Smith also gave us a chunk of Matthew that was missing.… other than that, basically if we find contradictions, we shrug and say “must be a mistranslation”. Also, Book of Mormon takes truth-precedence over the Bible, since it’s been tampered with less. :P
So, covering the entire surface of the Earth and putting two of every animal on one boat is feasible, but raining for 40 days without destroying the boat isn’t?
The issues here are that if this happened, God would be violating the laws of physics and committing genocide.
:3 Mwahaha. Marvel at my cognitive dissonance.
No, you’re right, and the likelihood is that it was a localized event. Either that, or it took place so long ago that there were fewer types of animals. And then via *gasp* evolution, over the millennia we got, well, today’s diversity.
But I think it’s a tad more likely that it was a localized event. :3