How do you know the Bible is from God?

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I am asking if you do not know, nor can you find out which is which, then why bother?

ruveyn

And you would know.

Every preacher I've seen liked to hold up his bible copy and tell everyone "this is the word of God." For some reason, they didn't call hurricanes, birth, illness, and creation "the word of God", despite God speaking things into creation.

Yes, sometimes it is.

... Even better!

I think we're "in the same ballpark" on this one.

Precisely. Until one encounters the evidence, it is pointless.

So you agree that evidence is solely something that influences knowledge? I disagree. Some evidence influences reason, and some emotions, and some faith.

If that is what you read, it is not what I was saying. A datum is a datum. Nothing more. And of course it is input for a number of distinct processes. A few airborne molecules may set me salivating at the thought of a great meal, and / or may pull my memory back to a day in 1953, or may help me conclude that herself is frying kidneys [she would not in real life].

Enough data appropriately weighted lead to conclusions that may be characterized as "knowledge" at one of the levels I currently recognize.

I do not know swhat you mean by "faith" which these days is used very variously. As I understand faith, it is to the mid levels of "knowledge" as long term memory is to short term. That is, enough data of the right type bring me to a point where reverrsing my conclusions will take a fairly large volume of apparent counterindications.

Thus, I have faith that the sun will continue to rise, and it will take more than a single week of gloomy days with impenetrable overcast to force an adjustment in my assessment.

It all comes down to faith. And that in itself becomes a philosophical debate of irreconcilable proportions.

Faith is vapor ware. Faith is dreck.

ruveyn

Faith proves nothing.

"Science adjusts it's views based on whats observed,
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved"

-Tim minchin, Storm.

better definition i cant think of.

This is a great question. People don't know whether the book is from god, they've just been told that it is repetitively and have come to accept it. Then they develop some personal attachment to the idea. For instance you ask a person why they think the book is from god and they may say something spacy like "I can feel his presence when I read the book". Well that doesn't really constitute proof - it's not very convincing to me. So I ask what does his presence feel like? They might say, "I can feel a warmth in my chest" - so I read the book, don't feel anything.

so I think maybe he has heart burn.

Last edited by wcoltd on 17 Jul 2011, 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So I asked, myself, who is Tim Minchin with the so great understanding. So I looked. Of course - I should have known. He is a comedian. There are only two ultimate authorities referenced to settle matters of politics, philosophy and religion: comedians and Youtube. Sometimes comedians ON Youtube. Master Pedant tries with links to statistics, kxmode brings in the arguably least legible Anglo bible translation, but I have been told - and shown - neither can outweigh a comedian.

So: I will simply sneer at Fnord with "Faith proves nothing." Nobody said faith proves anything. Faith derives from evidence, it is an attitude to evidence, not evidence itself - and DON"T quote Hebrews 11: 1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" at me, I know it already, and if need be I would explain it to seriously interested folk in private.

Fnord, what you need to realize is that repeeating a monkey mantra proves nothing, mumbling "faith proves nothing" in fact is a STATEMENT OF FAITH no different except in content from Shema Yisrael -m http://www.aish.com/jl/m/48954656.html - or La ilaha illa Llah - La ilaha ilallah - or I believe in God, the Father almighty ... - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed . Fine. You have faith that faith proves nothing. You know, I share that faith.

ruveyn: "Faith is vapor ware. Faith is dreck. " Every time I see one of those vacuum ads - http://www.oreck.com/ - I cringe, don't you? They could use a different type face so it does not look like a Dreck vacuum.

But back to you. Do you believe the earth goes around the sun? Even though every day you live the sky LOOKS like the sun is going across the earth? Maybe you don't believe the earth goes around the sun. After all, unless you have sat in a space craft at a fair distance for most of a year you will not have observed the earth going around the sun, and you only believe what you can see. Or have you personally studied the paths of the planets and doe the calculations and confirmed Copnericus' conclusions? That would be evidence.

But I suspect that - like me - you read the fourth hand reports of the conclusions of scientists who have msde the observations and / or done the calculations. You rely on their work, and that is not overridden by the appearance picked up by your senses. But soft - that is faith. Which you say is dreck.

oodain - back to you. AND your comedian. "Science adjusts it's views based on whats observed, Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved". Is that really so?

Does science adjust its views based on what's observed? As a scientist, I will tell you - yes and no. Suppose I conclude that mammals do internal gestation and suckle their young. Then I watch a platypus.hatching. Do I adjust my views? Likely no. I keep watching and mama feeds little platy with milk. Do I adjust my views? PROBABLY I get excited, I start gathering data, and eventually conclude either that the platypus is NOT a mammal or that not all mammals do interior gestation. But it never happens from one observation - failed equipment, operator error, poor experimental design, freak accident. You need a stack of data taller than the original data stack before you get even a minor paradigm shift.

Faith is the attitude to data that says: I trust THIS body of data and THIS conclusion until the evidence for THAT conclusion outweighs it.

I happen to have more faith in my own observations than in the statements of authority. My experiences - a tallish data stack - convince me that there are too many "authorities" who reverse themselves too often, as compatred to a fairly consistent observed world.

Some people put more faith in a particular authority, and stick to that till another "authority" talks louder, or sometimes until they notice one time too many that the spleen is not where the book says.

THOSE WHO HAVE FAITH IN AUTHORITY A will very often point to the people who have faith in authority B and shout - Unreasonable Blind Faith. The ones who have faith in Scientific America say it to the ones who have faith in the Bible - who say it back.

Stop with the slogans and look at realities.

that comedian does more thinking than most politicians i know so what is your point in labbeling him as such.

also if you real;ly looked you would see it is part of a poem incurring a meaning but not to be taken as is and with nothing else, assumption.

nor did it speak of changing on one observation nor without due diligence, again an actual point would be nice, what you're saying is common sense that any and all that actually care about the scientific method knows.

also i would argue what you are implying by faith is actually trust, a whole other word and concept.

as for the stop with the slogans, every person will use conceptualized language, it is a major factor in efficient comunication.

i would argue that most religions do not change no matter what evidence is provided which is what that quote builds on and as such i find it an accurate way of describing faith.
soe religious will seperate their religion completely from the material world making the quote mute but that would also mean that religion would have very little to actually say about the material world, probably nothing.

The quote did not say "Science always adjusts it's views on whats observed," it said "Science adjusts it's views on whats observed." That's true. for the most part, I suppose it would be more accurate to say "Science defines it's views on whats observed"

A homeless bum is perfectly capable of posing a valid argument, and a nobel laurete is perfectly capable of uttering nonsense. (just look at Paul Krugman).

To suggest that the validity of an argument or a statement has anything to do with the status of one's career is totally absurd, but lets suppose for a moment that we followed this logic. By this line of reasoning a politician or philosopher could independently recite this quote verbatim and would be correct by virtue of being a politician or a philosopher. Being a politician or a philosopher makes you no more qualified to pose an argument. Arguments ought to be judged on their own intrinsic merit, and not on the status of the person who made it.