That would mean that they are pretending to believe it is true, not actually believing it.

"Jesus was a real person who said many things and ever since then people have been killing each other because that can't quite agree how he said them." - Terry Jones

Path of least resistance. The more stringent the code, the more energy you have to expend in order to follow it. Add in human nature (anger when feeling slighted, discomfort at the thought of speaking unpleasant truths rather than placating lies, the urge to take advantage of situations that can provide personal gain rather than seeking a more selfless approach), and the difficulty level spikes.
Edit - And of course, any time you add in biological factors like your body's obnoxious supposed need to reproduce with everything that has a pulse, the difficulty level goes right through the roof.

No, that would mean they adapt, trust and conform to the exemple given by an authority becoming their world reference on truth/falsehood. It's a cognitive bias. You internalise the discourse that minimises contradiction with the most convenient (or chronologically first) authority. Some variations on this, in different contexts, are called "stockholm syndrome" and they also imply sincere adhesion.

It's one exemple. Another exemple is "the girl on that ad is hot therefore this shampoo is probably better" or "these surfers look cool so pepsi tastes significantly better than coca".

Someone can think that a tradition wouldn't be passed on if it weren't true, and take the fact that it is being passed on as an indication that it is true. If someone it on the Internet or some scientist claimed it, then that would count as a indication that it was true. If you heard something from your parents or a friend, then they are indicating to you that it is true, and if you pass it on, then you are indicating to someone else that it is true. Exactly, I don't think it is possible to form a belief in a total vacuum, but that is precisely the claim that people are making when they say a belief doesn't have any evidence.


The problem with that fallacy is that it is true that not everyone who claims to belong to a group actually belongs to that group. If you say no true Scotsman drinks tea, when drinking tea has nothing to do with what qualifies as a Scotsman, then it is a fallacy. However, if the distinction relates to what qualifies as a Scotsman, then it is not a fallacy. Disagreement about what qualifies as a Scotsman doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is committing a fallacy, just that one or both of them are wrong.

You are correct, evolution can be defined as the change of allele frequency over time. Biogenesis and speciation are what require billions of years.

Hi H-Edwards!,

We got into this a little earlier. He was asking about my personal authority to say what I was saying, which is different from an "authoritative copy of the Bible"--just so that other readers don't accidentally confuse the two different uses of "authority" here. As we covered in previous posts, the Bible is a small library of writings that go together from over 1500 years and not just a single writ. We also mentioned the scientific discipline called "Textual Criticism" which pieces together the flow of text copies in place over history. The "authoritative copy" you mention would be each individual separate writ from each author over time. These individual letters, books, etc, are called, "autographa." We laypeople would just call them "the original." Then there's some discussion about that, some of which is based on this weird academically liberal (non-scientific) idea of if-I-can-imagine-it-then-it's-true. For a more clear explanation of these things than I can give writing here, I suggest you look up Dr. Daniel B. Wallace. He's one of the foremost authorities in Textual Criticism. If you use iTunes, you can use the iTunes Store for iTunes U and find some of his work there. It's in small chunks. The longest I think, is 20 minutes. It's not a continuing podcast, but a for-now-finished set of defining explanations and examples.

Now, you're questioning what I mean by literacy, and it's more than just "simple" literacy. You're right; I should clarify. Now, you're asking, essentially (or stating that your are curious about) how one can read something when we don't know if it's what the author really wrote. That's different from what I meant by literacy, but I'll get to that in a sec. When I said literacy, I was referring to a couple of steps. First is the basic ability to read and understand something, much like you can understand my sentences even if you don't understand an allusion I make. This involves basic understanding of syntax (something quite lacking amongst most people I see post in forums), grammar, vocabulary, and even out as far as idiomatic language. It's pretty easy to understand something's core meaning, especially if you are able to separate it from all of the later implications that would come from a something. These things are readily comprehensible. (For example, it's easy to understand when I say that I have only $5 cash on me. IN CONTEXT, you would understand that this implies I don't have enough to buy lunch for both my buddy and me if buying lunch is the context. But first, you can easily understand the statement that I have only $5 and no more because you know what the words mean and there are no idioms. You can also understand what the meaning of my $5 limitation is in the context, especially if I said, "Hey bud, I have only $5. I can't buy us both lunch." you do this in conversations yourself. Your buddy asks you if you can spot him for lunch with you, and you answer, "Sorry, I have only $5," as a form of "sorry, no." We separate that from the potential effect of not having enough money, that you might end up eating lunch alone. That's not what the statements means, and so that effect of having only $5 is not explicit there, and so is not the core meaning of the statement. We could just but the buddy lunch and go without or merely get a drink each, etc., as other non-explicit effects. So, we do not read, or are not supposed to, read these possibilities into the text and call them the "meaning," They aren't the meaning.)

The next step of "literacy" that I was referring to is simple. It's what I was asking Monkey to do to demonstrate his case that Catholicism is Christian, where our given is that Christianity is defined by the Bible. One can do this with the passages I posted from both the Bible and the Catholic Cannons. Several of the cannons talk about merit and works. One of them said that if anyone claims that his good works are of God working through him and do not merit him any favor with God (that the good works don't earn you Brownie Points with God but are instead God using you to do good things), then the person who makes such a claim is anathema--considered damned to hell (and automatically excommunicated). Catholicism teaches (I think it's in that list I posted, I think) that you have to do things that earn your favor with God, to merit His favor. That is, what you do causes God to love you and thus get "saved" from hell. If you look at the Ephesians 2 passage, that cannon on merit exactly contradicts the Bible. Ephesians 2 describes that salvation is not of our works (earning merit) but by grace (gift, cannot be earned) through faith (which we're also given by God) so that no one may boast ("hey, look at what I accomplished!") and for the purpose of good works that God sets out. Doing things to appease a deity is paganism. Christianity is the opposite. So, comparing the cannon to scripture, we see that they contradict each other. That's what I meant by literacy. The bible says that if do a good work, like serving my neighbor in love through my vocation or feeding the poor, that I can understand it is not any good in me (there isn't any) but is God working through me as the result of Him saving me. The Catholic cannon came along later and says that by my claim, I'm to be declared damned (as if they had the power to damn me). Oh, but I they wouldn't declare me damned if I denied God's involvement if I said, "My good deeds for these poor people are because of my effort, as I deny that they are God doing good through the faithful believers, and will earn me standing with God," then they'll say I'm approved by them. By literacy, I was referring to the common ability to understand statements. Then, one can start seeing the contradictions between different things. The result is seeing that the Catholic cannons the basis of the -ism)

Now, you were getting at how literacy matters if we don't have the autographa in order to have what was for-certain written by Paul, the original author. As a side note, if you apply that to any and all of our other historical texts, the biblical texts have a MUCH MUCH closer relationship between the copies we have and the dates of the originals. If time between an extant copy and the original were used as I criterion for discarding a text, we would discard almost all of ancient history long before we got down to the NT texts. I say that as a side note. Now, even the most ardent detractor among Textual Criticism scholars admits that of all the variations found between copies (that counts things like words getting misspelllt or accidentally copying a line twice, etc.), that none of these variations have any affect on the doctrines of Christianity. That detractor harps on the fact that variations exist in order to conjure up all kinds of ideas, but then buried his admission that these variations have no bearing on Christian doctrine in the end notes of his book--an admission that undermines most of the points I've ever heard him try to argue. Talk about being educated beyond one's intelligence! In fact, we have very good evidence that points us to the autographa. And that's what the discipline of Textual Criticism is all about. Getting away from copies of scripture from archeology, we also have quotations of the NT letters and Gospels in the writings of the early church. It's both in the writings of guys like Irenaeus or Polycarp (discipled under John) and in sermons written by other Chrstians, early pastors/elders/deacons (pick a title). Just with NT text being qouted in other writings, we can re-assemble all but 11 verses of the NT. I think it's 11. Between that and the copies of the texts themselves, we have excellent resources to give us the authors' intended works--letters, narratives, testimonies (Revelation).


...continued....

So all "traditions" that have been passed on are "true" ?

...continuing...

Therefore, I can read Ephesians, even check words and phrases in Greek, and compare it to the Catholic Cannons. Your assertion that no "authoritative copy" of the Bible exists is common and really glosses over a lot of what's really going on in terms of the reliability of the texts. Once people start investigating the Bible, such statements tend to stop getting uttered. Unfortunately, these over-broad, un-detailed assertions are still floating around and giving new hearers the wrong idea that a simple statement like that is all that's going on.

You brought up a good curiosity. Thanks! I suggest you look into Daniel B. Wallace. You'll find more than I've repeated here, and this is quite long for a forum on a gaming site. Haha. Thanks for bringing it up.

I logged in to see if the weekend sale had anything from my wishlist. It said I had a (1) reply, so I started poking around, skimming and working backwards, and found yours. I don't know where all the discussion has gone after your post, but it looks like the main antagonist is still not looking up anything anyone has given him and still has not answered my question. However, I demonstrated above one of the refutations to his assertion. And dang, I didn't even get to go looking up more RCC examples. That's good though; I enjoyed writing this for you more than I would have enjoyed that.

Take care, God bless, etc.
I gotta get back to work now
I think Soyeong is trying to say that there are traditions that do not reflect truth and may even have basis in things that are not spiritually accurate (false religions and incorrect ideas about God). So, a tradition can be based on and/or express things that are not true.

Hey, my elephant posts went through! Ok, I'm off. Have a good afternoon y'all!

The size of the universe can be used as evidence to form the belief that there is a "really high probability" of aliens existing. That in turn can be used as evidence to form the belief that aliens do exist.
Those are reasons why it would be difficult to do, not why no one has been able to do it.

Well, on a basic level, the why part would be either inability or unwillingness to limit themselves to that moral code.

That is ridiculous, increased probability in itself is not evidence. With that kind of logic you can have evidence for all kinds of things.
Hey, did you know there are billions of humans on earth? Isn't that evidence that at least some of them must be fairies? I mean a billion is an unimaginably high number.
Also, did you know there are unbelievable amounts of O2 molecules on earth? Isn't that evidence that at least one of them must really be a pixie in disguise?

Come on, misuse? Who says you get to define meaning? :)

Anyway, check evidentialism on wiki, this is actually a philosophical school of thought. To me the really interesting part of it is how it assumes all beliefs are evidence based, which actually would be (is I expect) opposed by huge numbers of religious folks for whom belief is rather defined by freely chosen faith.

Yep, i agree, probability can't be used as evidence... evidence means proof, probability means chance.

More than half the earth is water and yet to be explored - correct, proof
There might be mermaids in the water - chance
Because the water on earth is so much and unexplored, that proofs the existence of mermaids - you see what i mean, can't work that way :)