Ranking the certainty of beliefs

[NoAvailableName]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

For number 6, I’m not positive if I got the text correct, but this is intended to refer to the 1970s translation of Matthew 5:32 in Catholic Bibles.

Rank them in order of which you are most certain. Ties are of course allowed. Make note of any that you believe with 100% certainty, and any you believe with less than 50% certainty (i.e. ones you don’t agree with), and ones you believe with 0% certainty(i.e. ones you are completely sure are wrong)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but I thought the answers might be enlightening.

 

[Moonstruck888]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

For number 6, I’m not positive if I got the text correct, but this is intended to refer to the 1970s translation of Matthew 5:32 in Catholic Bibles.

Rank them in order of which you are most certain. Ties are of course allowed. Make note of any that you believe with 100% certainty, and any you believe with less than 50% certainty (i.e. ones you don’t agree with), and ones you believe with 0% certainty(i.e. ones you are completely sure are wrong)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but I thought the answers might be enlightening.

I spent a lot of time doing something similar, graphing theories, some succesful and some falsified against how certain the beliefs behind them were and how easy the observations involved in formulating them were to make.

 

[Angel7]

1. 90%
2. 90%
3. 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000%
4. 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000%
5. 50% (I am not sure)
6. 50% (I am not sure)

 

[Moonstruck888]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

1. 100%
2. 100%
3. 0%
4. 0%
5. Don’t know
6. Don’t know

 

[Marc_Anthony]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

For number 6, I’m not positive if I got the text correct, but this is intended to refer to the 1970s translation of Matthew 5:32 in Catholic Bibles.

Rank them in order of which you are most certain. Ties are of course allowed. Make note of any that you believe with 100% certainty, and any you believe with less than 50% certainty (i.e. ones you don’t agree with), and ones you believe with 0% certainty(i.e. ones you are completely sure are wrong)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but I thought the answers might be enlightening.

1. 95% (people will almost always mean this when they add 2 and 2 but for high quantities of 2 it could be 5. Somebody on this site has that as their signature.)
2. 99% (I’m 100% on nothing)
3. 99%
4. 99%
5. 45% (I think the best translation is probably fornication but that could lead to some confusion about the indissolubility of marriage, so that translation isn’t terrible.)
6. 70% (I still think fornication, but that’s not a bad translation. Closer, anyway.)

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

For number 6, I’m not positive if I got the text correct, but this is intended to refer to the 1970s translation of Matthew 5:32 in Catholic Bibles.

Rank them in order of which you are most certain. Ties are of course allowed. Make note of any that you believe with 100% certainty, and any you believe with less than 50% certainty (i.e. ones you don’t agree with), and ones you believe with 0% certainty(i.e. ones you are completely sure are wrong)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but I thought the answers might be enlightening.

1. 90%
2. 90%
3. 1googolplex%
4. 1googolplex%
   5/6) 50% (I would need the greek and the latin texts to decide and dont want to look for them)

FSC

 

[NoAvailableName]

I’ll give my answers… I didn’t mean for people to give exact probabilities for all of them but rather to reorder them

1. 2 + 2 = 4 (100%)
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
4. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

I am as certain about number 1 as I can be about anything.
Number 2 can’t be known with the same certainty as number 1.

Starting at number 4, they are all well below 50%.
Not sure about number 3.

None of them get a 0.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Can I just point out that it is impossible to me more than 100% certain of something.

 

[NoAvailableName]

Moonstruck, Angel7, FidesSpesCarita — overconfident in their beliefs

Angel7, FidesSpesCarita, and Marc Anthony all give surprisingly low percentages for 2 + 2 = 4. I meant it in a strict mathematical sense.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Moonstruck, Angel7, FidesSpesCarita — overconfident in their beliefs

Angel7, FidesSpesCarita, and Marc Anthony all give surprisingly low percentages for 2 + 2 = 4. I meant it in a strict mathematical sense.

So you were trolling when you started this?

How can you be overconfident in the belief that 2 + 2 = 4 or that Mars is not going to crash into the Earth in 24 hours?

Mars cannot crash into the Earth in 24 hours and 2 + 2 cannot be unequal to 4.

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

Moonstruck, Angel7, FidesSpesCarita — overconfident in their beliefs

Angel7, FidesSpesCarita, and Marc Anthony all give surprisingly low percentages for 2 + 2 = 4. I meant it in a strict mathematical sense.

Yeah, its a weird thing, but when you add some things they dont match up to the mathematical predicition in real life. Chemical equations, for instance, almost never end at what the predicted yield is. So 2+2 does not ALWAYS equal 4. It is simply what it USUALLY equals.

And I am not over confident in my beliefs. I have absolute FAITH. Faith and confidence are two very different things.

Reordered then (I figured that is what you wanted, but I played the sheep and followed the crowd)

3
4
1
2
5/6 tied

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[FidesSpesCarita]

So you were trolling when you started this?

How can you be overconfident in the belief that 2 + 2 = 4 or that Mars is not going to crash into the Earth in 24 hours?

Mars cannot crash into the Earth in 24 hours and 2 + 2 cannot be unequal to 4.

NAN was referring to our faith in Catholicism, not the 2+2 drivel.

AND FTR, my answers to mars and 2+2 were slightly in jest, but can be taken seriously.

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[NoAvailableName]

So you were trolling when you started this?

No

How can you be overconfident in the belief that 2 + 2 = 4

We answered the same way to this question – 100%

or that Mars is not going to crash into the Earth in 24 hours?

I highly doubt it will, but I am not as confident that it won’t as I am that 2 + 2 = 4, which I know with logical certainty.

I meant that you were overconfident with your 2 0s and your 100 with respect to earth/mars collision.

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

Can I just point out that it is impossible to me more than 100% certain of something.

Thats part of why I think it is funny. Sorry, dry humor (especially when people dont know me) does not come across well…

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[NoAvailableName]

Thats part of why I think it is funny. Sorry, dry humor (especially when people dont know me) does not come across well…

FSC

Yeah I decided not to nit-pick the greater than 100 numbers since they could have just been a weird attempt at hyperbole. However, Marc Anthony does have an interesting statistical faux pas in his numbers

 

[JohnDamian]

90%
99%
99%
100%
90%
10%

 

[Moonstruck888]

I meant that you were overconfident with your 2 0s and your 100 with respect to earth/mars collision.

Just calling is as I see it my friend.

 

[shelby2014]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

.

1 - if you weren’t trying to trick us, it would probably be used as a control.
3 and 4 tied - If you believe 3 then you believe 4 because the church has said so.
2 - I think all things are possible with God, so we can really never be sure of this.
5 and 6 - don’t know, don’t care, I refer to 3.

 

[slywakka250]

1. 2 + 2 = 4
2. Mars will not collide with the earth tomorrow
3. The Catholic church is the one true Church started by God
4. Use of ABC (artificial birth control) is wrong.
5. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
6. The best possible English translation for Matthew 5:32 is “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (except for lewd conduct) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

For number 6, I’m not positive if I got the text correct, but this is intended to refer to the 1970s translation of Matthew 5:32 in Catholic Bibles.

Rank them in order of which you are most certain. Ties are of course allowed. Make note of any that you believe with 100% certainty, and any you believe with less than 50% certainty (i.e. ones you don’t agree with), and ones you believe with 0% certainty(i.e. ones you are completely sure are wrong)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but I thought the answers might be enlightening.

1. 40%

If it is in fact “true” that 2 + 2 = 4, A great deal is established, and much of scepticism is put to rest it would seem. Mathematiclaly, it *seems *true, but only if I trust my ability to reason, i.e, Like Descaretes discusses, I am not deceived by a demon. I am hesitant to give this a strong belief, though I wish I could.

1. 5%

I don’t see anything stoppingn this from happening, so how could I know with any real certainty that Mars won’t collide with earth? yea it hasn’t happened yet probably, but I could certainly imagine it happening.

1. 50%

There seems to be a lot of evidence for this provided God exists, which I will assume for my percentage as given.

1. 50%

5,6 I don’t get what these are all about.

 

[RobNY]

To make this interesting you should add:

(7) I exist.

(1) and (7) seem to each be certain, but in different ways. (1) is a certain truth of reason whereas (7) is a (certain) introspective truth [strictly speaking, all introspective truth is certain].

To choose to rank either (1) ahead of (7) or (7) ahead of (1) is to betray a fundamental bias toward either truths of reason or towards introspective truths (which are biases common to the ancient world, and modern world respectively).

I would suggest that perhaps one cannot rank them against each other, although my bias/intuition is certainly to put (1) ahead of (7).