On the Necessity of Proving Things

[Schn]

But I think it’s enough that I read from a science textbook most days a week (as required by school). However, all that I’m reading are testimonies from people who wrote the textbook. I have never seen many of the things they are talking about and I probably will never see them. Many of the laws discussed are based on foundations that the authors assume to be true. They aren’t proven in most textbooks. Yet, I believe all that they tell me to be true, not because of any empirical evidence, but because it is reasonable to do so.

No it’s not. Believing because it’s reasonable to do so is fake. The candidate belief must first be examined before you decide it’s reasonable. So because it’s reasonable isn’t a reason. You should believe in science textbooks because if you wanted to, you could repeat the experiments that lead to those conclusions and obtain the same result. This is the core of science.

 

[Syntax]

No it’s not. Believing because it’s reasonable to do so is fake. The candidate belief must first be examined before you decide it’s reasonable. So because it’s reasonable isn’t a reason…This is the core of science.

“Believing because it’s reasonable to do is fake.” So what makes you think passing tests is the only guide to deciding which beliefs are reasonable? Saying “because it’s reasonable to believe this” isn’t a reason.

If past scientific theories which were successful by passing tests were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the that our currently successful theories are even approximately true.

 

[AlbertBall]

The Bible is a historical text treated like all other historical texts! ** And historians look to it to back up historical claims all the time.** I never even suggested you evaluate the “god claim” based on the text. I am trying to get to your criterion of what counts as sufficient historical textual evidence, and what does not. So tell me: when is textual evidence sufficient to support a historical claim, and when is it not sufficient? Where do you draw the line? Or do you just arbitrarily reject things you don’t want to believe?

The bible is historical? Like the flood??? No! The bible is full of nonsense, LIKE THE FLOOD!

 

[Syntax]

The bible is historical? Like the flood??? No! The bible is full of nonsense, LIKE THE FLOOD!

Lol! I’m not talking about those instances of reported miracles in the Bible and you know it. Are you dismissing that Ramses existed? Or the Greeks, Pontius Pilate, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Babylonians? Of course the Bible is historical. And historians look to it, comparing accounts with other documents and finding a wealth of detailed corresponding historical facts.

You strawman everyone all the time and are completely incapable of having an intelligent conversation because of this very flaw. You’re rude, close-minded, and biased. I’m just wasting my time here.

 

[Syntax]

No, my friend, I did not misunderstand anything. It is you and WSP who misunderstand the requirements and the meaning of empiricism. You set up a strawman in the form of “knowledge can be gained only by the senses” - which is **NOT **what empiricism says, and then happily burn it into the ground. Well, good riddance. That is not what empiricism says. It is quite sad that such an obvious point has to be told over and over again. No matter how many times I, and many others have pointed it out, someone will come back with the same BS, and present it a “glorious argument” against empiricism.

What would you say if someone claimed that logic is self-contradictory, because the laws of logic cannot be proven logically? You would ridicule such a dumb claim. And so do I when I point out that empiricism is not supposed to be proven empirically, just like logic is not supposed to be proven logically. I hope you see the parallel, but my hopes are not high. However, maybe you will surprise me. It would be a pleasant surprise.

Materialists and empiricists gladly agree that abstract type of knowledge is not verified, proven, substantiated by sensory observation. So there you go. If you wish to take a poke at empiricism, be my guest, but at the very least **understand **what empiricism IS. Building strawmen can be fun, but it does not raise your credibility in a discussion. You only revealed your ignorance with the claim that “empiricism is the idea that things can *only *be true if proven empirically”. Obviously you are not a mathematician, otherwise you would not have said something so patently false.

Revelation is only some other human’s claim - in which he claims that he experienced God in some fashion or another. The so-called “miracles” are also just human claims - that something actually happened according to their senses. But those claims cannot be substantiated, and as a matter of fact, the Catholic Church does not even require you to accept some other person’s claim of revelation. But all those are just human claims of a sensory (name removed by moderator)ut… nothing more. And you accept their claim, and sometimes their claim of some supporting data. All that is a kind of “sensory knowledge”.

That is your business. But stick to it, and understand that all the revelations, miracles etc… are human claims of some sensory observation of a real or imagined event.

Remember: “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu”. All our thoughts and ideas start with observation - though they do not end there. We create new ideas, new abstractions. People have seen horses, have seen antlers and horns, so they combine the two and come up with an imaginary animal: a unicorn. If someone claims to have seen a unicorn, you would be within your rights to demand actual, physical evidence (evidence and proof are NOT the same!) for such a claim. When such an evidence is not forthcoming, it is rational and reasonable to reject the claim (Hic Rhodos, his salta!). Mind you, it is not a “proof” that the claimant was wrong, he may have seen the result of a genetic experiment, and may have actually seen a bona-fide unicorn. But as long as the evidence is lacking, it is rational and reasonable to reject the claim.

The other incorrect (but frequently claimed) assertion is: “absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence”. It is an evidence of absence and a very strong evidence it is. The correct form would be: “absence of proof is not a proof of absence”. But then again I (and many others) have pointed that one out before - and I am willing to bet dollars to cents, that it will come back again.

 

[Image_of_God]

No it’s not. Believing because it’s reasonable to do so is fake. The candidate belief must first be examined before you decide it’s reasonable. So because it’s reasonable isn’t a reason. You should believe in science textbooks because if you wanted to, you could repeat the experiments that lead to those conclusions and obtain the same result. This is the core of science.

“You should believe in science textbooks because if you wanted to, you could repeat the experiments that lead to those conclusions and obtain the same result.”

The quoted statement from the paragraph you typed is nothing more than an assumption. How do I even know that these experiments can be repeated and give me the desired result? (It’s impossible to repeat them all) Because of reason. There is simply no way around it. It is what is called “common sense”. I believe that the matter I see exists simply because it is reasonable, not because of any empirical proof. Likewise, why do I believe certain historical events happened and others didn’t? Because of reason.

 

[Image_of_God]

Lol! I’m not talking about those instances of reported miracles in the Bible and you know it. Are you dismissing that Ramses existed? Or the Greeks, Pontius Pilate, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Babylonians? Of course the Bible is historical. And historians look to it, comparing accounts with other documents and finding a wealth of detailed corresponding historical facts.

You strawman everyone all the time and are completely incapable of having an intelligent conversation because of this very flaw. You’re rude, close-minded, and biased. I’m just wasting my time here.

You are definitely right about this. Many of the people of the Bible, like Cyrus the Great, for example, coincide with the accounts of other documents. The history of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah also coincide with other historical documents. The reason why people refuse to believe this is simply because of what the Bible is (or what they think it is).

 

[R_Daneel]

“You should believe in science textbooks because if you wanted to, you could repeat the experiments that lead to those conclusions and obtain the same result.”

The quoted statement from the paragraph you typed is nothing more than an assumption. How do I even know that these experiments can be repeated and give me the desired result? (It’s impossible to repeat them all) Because of reason. There is simply no way around it. It is what is called “common sense”. I believe that the matter I see exists simply because it is reasonable, not because of any empirical proof. Likewise, why do I believe certain historical events happened and others didn’t? Because of reason.

And your “common sense” can cause you tremendous losses, if you are willing to put your money up. Here is a game I offer to you: We assemble 30 people in a room, randomly chosen from the street. I will bet a 1000 dollars that at least two of them celebrate their birthday on the same day of the year. You can offer your 1000 dollars that all of them celebrate their birthday on different days of the year. Common sense tells you that you have a huge chance to win. After all it is only 30 people, and there are 366 days. I am willing to play this game hundreds of times. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?

 

[R_Daneel]

You are definitely right about this. Many of the people of the Bible, like Cyrus the Great, for example, coincide with the accounts of other documents. The history of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah also coincide with other historical documents. The reason why people refuse to believe this is simply because of what the Bible is (or what they think it is).

That is not true. The fact that there are events and places described in the Bible which are corroborated by external sources does not lend any credence to the events which are not corroborated by such external sources. If a math textbook would contain thousands of correct theorems and their rigorous proofs, and one incorrect theorem with a faulty proof, then the existence of those thousands of correct ones would not validate the faulty one. There is no “correctness” by virtue of association.

Why do you guys commit such elemental fallacies?

 

[mary1173]

Inferred knowledge is obviously inferior to direct knowledge. We have no direct access to anything but our stream of consciousness…

It is inferior because there is always the possibility of error where human beings with finite intelligence are concerned

I have not used the word “prove” in any of my posts related to the OP.

Quite right.

This part needs some remarks, too. You speak of “probability” as something “inferior”. Suppose you have access to the result of series of die-rollings. You have no direct access to the die itself.

The results are your only “tool” to make inferences of the dots on the sides of the die. Suppose you receive a sequence of “6, 6, ,6,… 6” - say a hundred times. Based upon this hard data, you can draw two possible inferences: 1) all the sides of the die have 6 dots on them; and 2) there are some sides, which do not have 6 dots on them. (For the sake of simplicity we assume that the die does not have a piece of lead imbedded in it.)

If you set up the hypothesis that the die only contains sides with six dots, you can make a prediction that the next roll will also be a six. The next roll is indeed a six. This result will substantiate or **verify **or **confirm **your hypothesis. However, that is not a proof of your hypothesis. It is indeed possible that the die does contain at least one side which does not have six dots on it. The probability is getting lower and lower every time a six is reported.

You can also make a hypothesis that the die has at least one side with a different number of dots on it. You make a prediction that the next roll will not be a six. However, a six is reported, and that weakens your hypothesis.

At some point we can make a conclusion that the die has six dots on all six sides. It will never be “hard-proven”, unless you can personally examine the die and see for yourself. Nevertheless, somewhat sloppily we can declare that the die is uniform, and has only six dots on each side. For all practical purposes we “proved” our hypothesis. But truly, the word “prove” should not be used here. The word to be used should be “substantiate”, “verify”, “confirm”, etc…

In practice, we usually have no way to personally examine the die itself. We must draw inferences based upon the results of the experiments. But this is not “inferior”, as long as we keep in mind that it is theoretically possible that the result is “tainted”, the die indeed “may” have 6 different sides, and we just happened to be “lucky”.

The word “prove” should be reserved to the exact (abstract) sciences, where one can use deductive logic to show that the hypothesis follows logically from the axioms. It is unfortunate that the usage is not always proper, and thus allows sloppy propositions to be made. Such sloppy propositions are acceptable in everyday parlance, but inexcusable in a philosophical conversation.

You want proof of God’s existence… Have you come to learn about the faith, or provide words of hatered, deciet, vice and anger for what happened to you at some point here today? I’m sure God isn’t the reason for your anger…even though like Thomas you doubt unless you can see God. Do you believe in Christ? That he existed? He did exist…many religions testify to this…these religions also testify to Jesus ability to perform miracles. And of the Apostles and their ability to forgive sin and lead exemplary lives. The Torah spoke of Christ’s coming, The Bible down through the ages has foretold of Christ’s coming and redeeming mankind. How does the body form? From what gives it its ability to become a body? What is the origin of sperm? of cells that split to form organs, eyes, teeth? What is in charge of all of this scientific proof? God is. God does not sit in outter space. He is on another plain of existence. Heaven is not upward into outter space. It is in a different dimension than our own. This is why we cannot see God. And what our finite and feeble minds cannot fathom we often reject outright. Faith is not blind…The Bible is a compilation of what happened in REALITY down through the ages. The prophets were real, God did speak to their minds, to write what was and is to come. The saints who were on this earth, including the apostles SAW Christ, and Mary, were spoken to by Christ and Mary, and were told to write what they saw down…

 

[R_Daneel]

You want proof of God’s existence…

That would be nice…

Have you come to learn about the faith, or provide words of hatered, deciet, vice and anger for what happened to you at some point here today?

Hatred? Anger? What the heck are you talking about?

I’m sure God isn’t the reason for your anger…even though like Thomas you doubt unless you can see God. Do you believe in Christ? That he existed? He did exist…many religions testify to this…these religions also testify to Jesus ability to perform miracles. And of the Apostles and their ability to forgive sin and lead exemplary lives. The Torah spoke of Christ’s coming, The Bible down through the ages has foretold of Christ’s coming and redeeming mankind. How does the body form? From what gives it its ability to become a body? What is the origin of sperm? of cells that split to form organs, eyes, teeth? What is in charge of all of this scientific proof? God is. God does not sit in outter space. He is on another plain of existence. Heaven is not upward into outter space. It is in a different dimension than our own. This is why we cannot see God. And what our finite and feeble minds cannot fathom we often reject outright. Faith is not blind…The Bible is a compilation of what happened in REALITY down through the ages. The prophets were real, God did speak to their minds, to write what was and is to come. The saints who were on this earth, including the apostles SAW Christ, and Mary, were spoken to by Christ and Mary, and were told to write what they saw down…

Myths are dime a dozen.

 

[AlbertBall]

Oh my word! You’re a coward! You avoid answering question so you can hide.

Question, what question?

 

[AlbertBall]

Lol! I’m not talking about those instances of reported miracles in the Bible and you know it. Are you dismissing that Ramses existed? Or the Greeks, Pontius Pilate, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Babylonians? Of course the Bible is historical. And historians look to it, comparing accounts with other documents and finding a wealth of detailed corresponding historical facts.

You strawman everyone all the time and are completely incapable of having an intelligent conversation because of this very flaw. You’re rude, close-minded, and biased. I’m just wasting my time here.

This debate ended the second you lot tried to claim the evidence for the moon landings are the same as the bible. When you are dealing with that level of ignorance debate becomes impossible.

 

[AlbertBall]

And your “common sense” can cause you tremendous losses, if you are willing to put your money up. Here is a game I offer to you: We assemble 30 people in a room, randomly chosen from the street. I will bet a 1000 dollars that at least two of them celebrate their birthday on the same day of the year. You can offer your 1000 dollars that all of them celebrate their birthday on different days of the year. Common sense tells you that you have a huge chance to win. After all it is only 30 people, and there are 366 days. I am willing to play this game hundreds of times. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?

These people simply do not understand science. Anyone that understands the method knows that testimony in the way it is accepted in religion has NO PLACE in science. For them to claim that it is a double standard to accept the evidence of the moon landing yet reject the bible is so stupid it makes my head hurt.

 

[R_Daneel]

These people simply do not understand science. Anyone that understands the method knows that testimony in the way it is accepted in religion has NO PLACE in science. For them to claim that it is a double standard to accept the evidence of the moon landing yet reject the bible is so stupid it makes my head hurt.

There is not a whole lot one can do about it. We can either leave, or we can attempt to educate them. Some might listen. And the ones who are not just ignorant, but obnoxious about it, the easy way out is to ignore them. That is what I am doing. Let’s not generalize, there are quite a few people with whom one can conduct a civilized conversation. The rest is a small, but very loud mouthed minority. Ignore works wonders. Not that they realize it, but it is their problem.

 

[mary1173]

That would be nice…

Hatred? Anger? What the heck are you talking about?

Myths are dime a dozen.
It would be wouldn’t it. But because God’s world is not of ours it is infinite
And as you point out here in your arguement of every last infantesimle area of the Bible, when or where God is, things you have stated previous, it shows that you are here to argue that God does not exist
If all the Bible is to you is a myth…go somewhere else and bother someone else. Because you are apparently not in the search of God…just an argument.

 

[Schn]

“You should believe in science textbooks because if you wanted to, you could repeat the experiments that lead to those conclusions and obtain the same result.”

The quoted statement from the paragraph you typed is nothing more than an assumption. How do I even know that these experiments can be repeated and give me the desired result? (It’s impossible to repeat them all)

lol this cracks me up. If you can’t understand the flaw when you say there’s too many to repeat them all, I can’t help you.

Because of reason. There is simply no way around it. It is what is called “common sense”. I believe that the matter I see exists simply because it is reasonable, not because of any empirical proof.

Sense data is pretty good. And there’s no evidence for alternative explanations of the world.

Likewise, why do I believe certain historical events happened and others didn’t? Because of reason.

Do you mean intuition or something? Cause following reason is basically the opposite of what you seem to be doing. Many concepts with large backing of evidence are unintuitive.

“Believing because it’s reasonable to do is fake.” So what makes you think passing tests is the only guide to deciding which beliefs are reasonable? Saying “because it’s reasonable to believe this” isn’t a reason.

Where did I mention passing tests? If you’re talking about experiments, you should use logic to get from “evidence” to “greater likelihood of being true”.

If past scientific theories which were successful by passing tests were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the that our currently successful theories are even approximately true.

Hmm. Yes. I guess evidence doesn’t matter. Well, screw gravity, I’m going to fly! Taking the inaccuracies of past models as evidence present ones are incorrect is fallacious.

These people simply do not understand science. Anyone that understands the method knows that testimony in the way it is accepted in religion has NO PLACE in science. For them to claim that it is a double standard to accept the evidence of the moon landing yet reject the bible is so stupid it makes my head hurt.

It is, man. It is possible that the evidence can be faked (regardless of amount of evidence). Therefore it is a 50-50 chance it actually happened. I guess the bible can be faked but again it is like 50-50, so they are equal reasonable.

 

[mary1173]

lol this cracks me up. If you can’t understand the flaw when you say there’s too many to repeat them all, I can’t help you.

Sense data is pretty good. And there’s no evidence for alternative explanations of the world.

Do you mean intuition or something? Cause following reason is basically the opposite of what you seem to be doing. Many concepts with large backing of evidence are unintuitive.

Where did I mention passing tests? If you’re talking about experiments, you should use logic to get from “evidence” to “greater likelihood of being true”.

Hmm. Yes. I guess evidence doesn’t matter. Well, screw gravity, I’m going to fly! Taking the inaccuracies of past models as evidence present ones are incorrect is fallacious.

It is, man. It is possible that the evidence can be faked (regardless of amount of evidence). Therefore it is a 50-50 chance it actually happened. I guess the bible can be faked but again it is like 50-50, so they are equal reasonable.

uch:my head hurts I need an aspirin…and a cookie.

 

[R_Daneel]

proof of God is not of this world. God’s world is infinite.

The trick is that God is supposed to be active in this world. God is supposed to love us. And “love” here is not some wishy-washy emotion, it is action, on hehalf of the loved ones. Where is that? Where is God’s helping hand? What does God do, here and now to help us to be “saved”?

ok so I misspoke…disbelief and need of finite proof…you are pissing people off you know.

I can’t help that. I stay polite, even though the problems I present are provocative. Fortunately there are quite a few posters around here with whom I can conduct a polite conversation, even if we only agree to disagree at the end.

If all the Bible is to you is a myth…go somewhere else and bother someone else. Because you are apparently not in the searchof God…just an argument.

I took the liberty of correcting an obvious typo in your post.

The moderators will take care of that, at their convenience. If you wish to petition for my removal, it is your right and prerogative to do so. Now, let me ask you this: “precisely what makes the Bible different from all the other sacred books of other religions?”. For example the Koran, or the Book of Mormon? How do you decide that all those other books are “fakes” and yours is the “real McCoy”? What criteria do you use? It is meant as a serious question.

 

[Schn]

I took the liberty of correcting an obvious typo in your post.

The moderators will take care of that, at their convenience. If you wish to petition for my removal, it is your right and prerogative to do so. Now, let me ask you this: “precisely what makes the Bible different from all the other sacred books of other religions?”. For example the Koran, or the Book of Mormon? How do you decide that all those other books are “fakes” and yours is the “real McCoy”? What criteria do you use? It is meant as a serious question.

Geographical location, religion of parents, religion of friends, religion (if any) of school attended.