INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

A successful crime boss is competent, greedy, and corrupt.

Well put. Another false criteria for non-theistic abjectly fails.

 

[Repox]

A successful crime boss is competent, greedy, and corrupt.

The theory applies to all areas of activity, moral judgments are irrelevant. Just name the activity and you will find a status hierarchy reflecting competence of members. Competence for any particular activity is based on group consensus. If there are no group members whereas a person is engaged a task without the physical presence of members, there will always be a reference group. There can be no activity without a reference group, real of imaginary. Maybe that is more than you wanted to know, but I can't help myself, I am a co-author of the theory. The theory has nothing to do with religion, unless you want to do an analysis of socio-metric networks for religious groups or activities. In other words, the theory is value neutral.

I once did some research into deviant activities and found the theory works very well in all areas of crime. The best burglar in town may not get caught, and when he does he has more money in the bank than all other burglars. In prisons, you'll find status hierarchy of prisoners based on reputation and success rates for particular crimes, kind of like a peeking order.

 

[Repox]

I think there is some merit in the theory. However I can find no relevance between it and what you responded to. I made a secondary claim about experts being experts because they are right more often than the rest of us. Your claim seems to validate mine. Was that your intent with what you provided. I am interested in what you said but you must clarify what was meant by it.

Here's a clarification.

The theory applies to all areas of activity, moral judgments are irrelevant. Just name the activity and you will find a status hierarchy reflecting competence of members. Competence for any particular activity is based on group consensus. If there are no group members whereas a person is engaged in a task without the physical presence of other members, there will always be a reference group. There can be no activity without a reference group, real of imaginary. Maybe that is more than you wanted to know, but I can't help myself, I am a co-author of the theory. The theory has nothing to do with religion, unless you want to do an analysis of socio-metric networks for religious groups or activities. In other words, the theory is value neutral.

If you want to apply the theory to religious activities, you'll find the theory works perfectly well. Name the activity, ask group members whom they regard as the most holy, or the most competent religious person. After a methodical ranking, you have a merit scale for the entire group. This will produce a "status criteria" or rules for determining the value of group members. You'll find members ranking of each other to be fairly consistent. The more group members interact, the more certain they are of status rankings, etc.

Before it comes up, there is one area of activity that you may think challenges the theory. How about hermits, they have no contact with other hermits so they can't rank one another, or won't because they are hermits. Well, what if you got all these hermits in the same room, say a barroom in hermit country? I predict they would eventually, through much discussion, determine who are really good hermits, and who are really bad hermits. With a lot of discussion, the hermits would be able to rank each other, hence a hermit status hierarchy.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That was not the original claim that generated the discussion.

It was the claim in the post I was responding to. And it's relevant to the fact that you seem to like the appeal to authority argument, since you use it quite often.

The original claim was that faith is infantile. I would suggest that faith is the smartest concept possible but I would not have used Newton in the argument the way I did.

I would suggest that faith is the complete opposite of what you think it is. But I'd like to know why you think it's the smartest concept possible.

 

[1robin]

There is a simple argument that demonstrates how your own analogy works against you. Those in what I shall call Group 1 (that is every person, including you) accept the reasoning that objects A may exist as state of affairs X, where A exists in general experience, but only if both A and X are subject to possible experience. “Aliens exist in some part of the universe” is a premise subject to possible experience in that we know by what means this could be verified, by space travel for example. But in Group 2 only those of a prejudiced mind or a dogmatic faith also believe that from the existence of A the existence of X can be assumed when only the former is available to us in general experience and the latter is excluded in possible experience. So Group 2 counters its own reasoning in Group 1 in order to make an exception, as a speculative plea from faith, while having nothing in general experience to corroborate it.

Possible experience adds nothing to existence. In all probability we will never access the core of the Earth and yet we claim to know exactly what exists there. You are also making the mistake of placing the Christian God outside experiential verification. Billions of Christians claim to have experienced God in ways more substantial than our traditional senses. If I understood your claim it has two flaws. It equates possible verification with existence, and places what can be experienced outside experience. However they are far to basic of mistakes for me to believe you made them. Maybe I misunderstood. I stead of using letters normally reserved for variables try and use actual entities and maybe it will be clearer. The supernatural can be just as apprehensible as the natural, in the natural. The only difference is the nature does not bind the supernatural nor is the supernatural dependent on the natural. An angel (which I have never seen) would be just as real as big foot (which I do not think anyone has seen).

But now I’ll show what is really wrong with your argument that cause is supernatural (or exists beyond what is natural)
You are arguing to a principle that: “A thing that doesn’t contain its own explanation must therefore be supernatural” in order to state that causality is a supernatural phenomenon. The problem, though, is that could also apply to the world as a whole, since there are lots of things in the world that are yet to be explained. But the world cannot be both natural and supernatural!

That was not really my argument. My claim was that a thing must have an explanation given everything we know. It is possible it could not but that would defy everything we know. If it's explanation does not lie within nature then it must lie beyond nature, in the supernatural. For some reason the supernatural gets labeled with a theological definition and by virtue of rejection of the theological the supernatural is ruled out based on nothing. If you just imagine the supernatural as reality in a category that does not depend and is not governed by the natural it is no less likely than the natural. The terms are almost arbitrary. Why would the weird world of the Quantum be any less supernatural than an angel. It does things our laws about the natural say can't be done, yet it is arbitrarily termed natural. Reality does not obey our classifications. Bears do not care that they are called mammals. Classification is descriptive not prescriptive. The supernatural is no less likely because it is called by that name. You cannot get rid of something experienced by billions by terminology.
Neither you nor I know that causation applies beyond the natural. My speculation however is consistent with everything we do know, your is inconsistent with everything known. You are equating something unknowable with something unlikely without justification. It is an assumption but it is a very probable assumption. If science can make improbable assumptions by the library full then making probable assumptions is valid even if it makes God more likely.

We don’t understand how the human brain retains information; so we might well say:

The human brain doesn’t contain its own explanation

The brain does not contain it's own explanation. A brain never produced a brain.

Therefore the human brain must be supernatural!

I did not draw a conclusion similar to this. The brain has a theoretical explanation of it's existence within the natural. I think it is a bad explanation but it may be true. So the brain does contain a potential natural explanation of it's existence. Cause and effect and many other things do not. However to be technical no matter or natural agent or force has a natural first cause known or even possible. So ultimately the brain gets regressively explained until it runs out of natural explanations, but your use of the example does not represent my claims.

And it cannot be said: but the human brain requires a cause because everything that exists but doesn’t contain within its nature the explanation for its existence must have a cause, as that also implies a cause to explain causality, which is incoherent!

That is why I did not say that. I said everything has an explanation. If it does not have a natural explanation it must have (or probably has) and explanation beyond nature. The brain has one for it's immediate cause, so no appeal to the supernatural is needed. Your example does not represent my claim.

Continued:

 

[1robin]

But causality is contingent, and so if God is the supernatural cause of the world and causality is also supernatural, then we have something that has the possibility to not exist as an explanation for something that has no possibility of not existing, which is a contradiction.

I did not say causality was supernatural. It may be but I did not say so. I said it's explanation is supernatural. That is not a contradiction. A car exists whether the engineer must exist or not. My father designed parts for the Saturn 5. It exists yet my father did not have to exist. I also deny that it is possible for God not to exist. Many times I allow the claim just for argumentation sake but I do not believe it is true. In fact if you get into the fantasy land of multiverses God must exist absolutely and I believe that he must in any scenario but I understand that you would not agree. To me the existence of anything, fine tuning, information, etc... make God a necessity, or at least a God like being.

Are you seriously trying to say those two sentences are equivalent? “We do not know cause and effect apply to the supernatural.” In a single sentence you’ve managed to beg the question and make an argument from ignorance.

I am saying hat within the context they were given yes they are similar.

This is the sun totality of what the analogy amounts to:
1) They didn’t know some fact or facts about the world.
2) We don’t know that there is anything other than the world we experience
Note that 2 also applies to 1
And what “other realms of reality”? (!) There is only reality, the one in which causality actually exists.

This seems to be a premise but I do not see a conclusion so I have no idea whether I agree or not.

What I’m saying is your claim is not falsifiable and you have the burden of proof that can’t be met, and so it’s a fallacy because you’re making an argument from ignorance, by which anything can absurdly suggest anything. Also if you are asserting that it is a “likely truth” then that is in the arena of probabilities and contingent truths, which can only be settled by general experience. So explain, without arguing in a circle, where in general experience the supernatural is confirmed?

Scientific claims require falsifiability not philosophical or theological claims. Something can be just as true as anything else whether falsifiable or not. I do not even agree that it should be a criteria for science but it is a self imposed one so they must obey it. I have no such criteria. My criteria is only that my views do not contradict fact. I also adopt the criteria that my views be among the best explanations for the evidence but it is not required of my position. BTW materialism does not obey it's own standards so they cannot condemn the violation of standards I do not even have. Almost all theoretical science is an argument from complete ignorance. This is that double standard stuff again. It is also another procedural objection. A client is no less guilty if his rights were violated while obtaining evidence. My interest is in truth or the best efforts at it, this is an example of being interested in a certain result independently of the truth. My claims are true or false completely independently of your criteria, procedures, or terminology.

That is not what “contingency” means. Even in a colloquial or vernacular sense it only means “not certain” or “possible”. You’ve written it exactly as you would like to believe it, in order to suit the argument you’ve been making, which is incorrect. I’ve given the definition again below. If you disagree you can always look up the meaning in a dictionary, adding “logic” or “phil” to the search criteria, or better still go to something like Wikepeidia for an in depth explanation.

I did not write that. That was the first official definition I found. It is exactly the same definition used by philosophers. I know this well because contingent/necessary confused me for years and I researched it quite a bit.

Philosophy Dictionary Theological and Philosophical Dictionary

Something that does not exist in and of itself but depends for its existence upon some other being.
Contingent being definition | Philosophy Dictionary

con·tin·gent [kuhn-tin-juhnt] Show IPA


adjective

1. dependent for existence, occurrence, character, etc., Contingent | Define Contingent at Dictionary.com

We are not discussing the colloquial definition but the modal being definition of contingent.

“A contingent proposition is neither true nor false. “The world is contingent upon God”, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything else, is a statement that is possibly true or possibly false. So contingent existence means that a thing may or may not be: that is to say without necessity. Whereas “A triangle has three sides” is a contingently true statement, necessarily so because the concept of a triangle is analyzable by its having three angles”.

I think the universe is dependent on God but that was not my claim. My claim was that it is dependent and whatever it is dependent on is not contained in the universe (as far as we can tell at this time). The universe does not contain the explanation of it's self. The best explanation is God but that is not provable. One is a fact the other a best fit, possibility.

Everything in nature is subject to cause and effect, which necessarily requires mutation and movement, since one thing acting in relation to another in time is the definition of causality. But there was no time before the Big Bang and therefore causality could not pre-exist the beginning of the universe, and so cause and effect, which acts in relation to time as mutation and movement, is only intelligible after the universe began. Therefore causality began with the world. But if everything beyond nature was somehow subject to cause and effect, then it follows that God would have been dependent upon mutation and movement, which contradicts the notion of a timeless, immutable, unmoved mover. And if God wasn’t dependent upon causation then he had no means by which he could create the world. In either case God is impossible.

That is how we perceive cause and effect in the natural. There exists no reason to extrapolate the actions of a thing in one medium to another completely different medium. If so fish would say that air can't be directly used for oxygenation. I cannot say how things would operate independently of time. I can say there are many reasons to think everything must have a reason or explanation but I could not explain how that is carried out in a foreign environment. I can say that people exist in China but they operate by different laws than we have. I can say flight is possible in space but it works in a far different way that in an atmosphere. I can say particles exist in Newtonian physics and the Quantum but they act very differently. In fact cause and effect exist in the macro and the quantum but appear to act in radically different ways which also confuse time domain understandings. How much more radical in the non-natural? Many philosophers discuss this but it is not something I care to. Our minds have limits. Mine does anyway.



Hope your back problems get better. I have them as well and they suck.

 

[1robin]

Forgive me but you have not once got remotely near to addressing this, which is why I keep putting it in front of you. You have agreed with Craig’s formulation of the Kalam argument. “According to Craig, every kind of explanation is either a logico-mathematical explanation (which, because it is abstract, is incapable of explaining the fact that something comes into existence), a scientific explanation (which can explain events occurring within the universe, but not the coming-to-be of the universe itself) or a personal explanation, involving an agent doing something for a reason.”

I agree with the core of Craig's argument. Your statement from him does not appear in his essential points of the cosmological argument. That statement was an adjunct expansion he gave in a talk or paper. It does not appear in his usual explanations of the argument. I have no opinion on that statement it's self. I do not have the education nor have I spent the time to check into that sidebar of the argument. I can however point out the problem in your extrapolation. A creation does not imply the need of the creation. Regardless of what Craig says or what I think about it that is what your statement was. I have responded to it several times. God was no less God before the universe existed. An artist is no less a person or an artist whether he paints a certain picture or not. I can graduate as an engineer and be no less an engineer if I went into selling ready made pottery. There exists no contradiction between the completeness of a being and an expression of that being. He did not need to create us nor anything else. It follows that he did not need to create an environment for our use because he did not need to create us. He chose to create he did not need to. I do not know if Craig was right or not but what you based on his statement is not right.

I said God created something for himself or for others. But if God is omnipotent and all sufficient then he has no needs for he is, and has, everything by definition. So that is contradiction number 1. But a further absurdity is evident if it is said that he created the world for others (contradiction number 2), because there were no others, and so things that do not exist cannot benefit from being brought into existence. There are two further possibilities, equally absurd, one is that God created the world by accident and the other is that he wasn’t aware that he’d created it.

Your mistake is equating a desire or choice to act with a necessity or need to act. I have pointed this out three times. That is completely wrong and there exists no argument without it. You are compounding the same mistake by implying that the needed environment for a creation implies a necessity to create both the environment and the creation that needs it. It is a choice not a necessity. You could say that once he chose to create us then an environment was necessary to actuate that choice but there exists no contradiction or problem in doing so. Your "problem" or inconsistency is a paper tiger based on an incorrect premise.

A personal being made a choice, a choice requires a reason and a reason is explicable. And whatever the reason God had for creating the world leads to contradiction (examples 1 and 2, above).

Not unless his choice's explanation was need and it was not. Not one verse in the Bible implies God needs us for anything. Where in the world are you getting his? I am a technician. I may or may not express my knowledge or desire in constructing a device. I have no necessity to do so, my reasons for doing so are not need of the device, I am no less a person or technician without a device. You are inventing a problem out of thin air. I am not exactly sure how to (if it was even possible to know) explain why God chose to create but need is certainly not included. Again where in the world are you getting this? It is not from the Bible and it is not from philosophy.


1. Your statement by Craig is not a part of his core cosmological argument. Here is a site from Oxford that gives a test on Craig's cosmological claims. I got a 100%, see what you get and see if there is any question that includes that statement.
2. I do not agree or disagree with his statement at this time.
3. Your extrapolation from his statement contains an error in it's premise.
4. I have no idea if the error exists in his original statement or not but does in your example.

 

[1robin]

It was the claim in the post I was responding to. And it's relevant to the fact that you seem to like the appeal to authority argument, since you use it quite often.

Of course I do. It is appealed to in every form of academics. It is a chief methodology in law. It is relied on constantly in science, philosophy, mathematics, everything. It is only objected to if it gives inconvenient suggestions concerning God. It also is NOT a fallacy unless used as proof of truth. Fallacy is an over abused and misunderstood crutch used by your side exhaustively. The original argument was that faith is infantile. I gave examples of the greatest thinkers who did not generally hold infantile views (but the most sophisticated and intellectual views in history) having faith. I did not say they only held true views just mature views. Your statement is irrelevant and incorrect.

I would suggest that faith is the complete opposite of what you think it is. But I'd like to know why you think it's the smartest concept possible.

Because it is the best explanation for the facts. Even if it was only equally as good an explanation of reality as a whole (among others) it would be the far better choice. Only with it is there objective morality, meaning, human worth, hope for the future. The worst possible, most irrational, most infantile choice possible would be to deny the only eternal hope for humanity if it was a viable possibility (and it is far more substantial than that). Lets say that a polio vaccine had a 50% chance of working. The stupidest possible determination would be to not choose to take it. I see it as a denial of any ultimate hope for purely self contradictorily preferential reasons. Now that is infantile.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Of course I do. It is appealed to in every form of academics. It is a chief methodology in law. It is relied on constantly in science, philosophy, mathematics, everything. It is only objected to if it gives inconvenient suggestions concerning God. It also is NOT a fallacy unless used as proof of truth. Fallacy is an over abused and misunderstood crutch used by your side exhaustively. The original argument was that faith is infantile. I gave examples of the greatest thinkers who did not generally hold infantile views (but the most sophisticated and intellectual views in history) having faith. I did not say they only held true views just mature views. Your statement is irrelevant and incorrect.

But you’re not really using it in the manner described here. You’re using it to say, “Look at all these brilliant men in history that did brilliant things in their field of interest. They believed in god, and they’re brilliant men, therefore, that is evidence for the existence of the god I believe in.” It’s really not though, because a person can be quite brilliant in one area and not so brilliant in all other areas (as pointed out by myself and others).

Because it is the best explanation for the facts. Even if it was only equally as good an explanation of reality as a whole (among others) it would be the far better choice. Only with it is there objective morality, meaning, human worth, hope for the future. The worst possible, most irrational, most infantile choice possible would be to deny the only eternal hope for humanity if it was a viable possibility (and it is far more substantial than that). Lets say that a polio vaccine had a 50% chance of working. The stupidest possible determination would be to not choose to take it. I see it as a denial of any ultimate hope for purely self contradictorily preferential reasons. Now that is infantile.

Belief in something without evidence is the best explanation for the facts? How does that work?
I would strongly disagree that belief in something without evidence is the only path to morality, meaning, human worth and hope for the future. Far from it. Wishful thinking is not, in my opinion, the only eternal hope for humanity and for you to say that it’s the choice (out of the 2 choices you’ve listed) not associated with contradictorily preferential reasons is strange to me. Facing reality for all it is, and dealing with it and making the best of it, is not infantile.

I don’t know where this 50/50 polio thing comes into play, unless you’re playing the Pascal’s Wager angle here.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Of course I do. It is appealed to in every form of academics. It is a chief methodology in law. It is relied on constantly in science, philosophy, mathematics, everything. It is only objected to if it gives inconvenient suggestions concerning God. It also is NOT a fallacy unless used as proof of truth. Fallacy is an over abused and misunderstood crutch used by your side exhaustively. The original argument was that faith is infantile. I gave examples of the greatest thinkers who did not generally hold infantile views (but the most sophisticated and intellectual views in history) having faith. I did not say they only held true views just mature views. Your statement is irrelevant and incorrect.

I've stated it before and I shall again. The idea must stand on its own merit without the need for appeal of any kind. It doesn't matter if the followers are adept or not or if its the majority or not. If the idea can't stand on its own then it doesn't in debate.

 

[cottage]

Possible experience adds nothing to existence. In all probability we will never access the core of the Earth and yet we claim to know exactly what exists there. You are also making the mistake of placing the Christian God outside experiential verification. Billions of Christians claim to have experienced God in ways more substantial than our traditional senses.

In possible experience we don’t have to mine our way into the earth’s core to know there is a core to the earth. We may not know exactly what might be discovered in the earth’s core but we know the earth and its core actually exist. The supernatural by comparison cannot be accessed in possible or general experience. And “Billions of Christians” is a fallacious argument (bandwaggoning) that at best can only mean that a number of people have some unspecified element of belief in Christian theology, and from a belief in X it does not follow that X is true. And in any case an argument from a doctrinal belief-as-faith is not an argument from general experience, which means that every person that does not hold to belief in X counts against those that do, and every believer that hasn’t actually experienced God also counts against your argumentum ad numerum.

The only difference is the nature does not bind the supernatural nor is the supernatural dependent on the natural.

That is a declarative sentence confidently spoken as if it were informing us of some truth.
But as a matter of literal fact the supernatural, as a notion or idea, for that is all it is, happens to be logically dependent upon the natural world. There is no argument that I’m aware of that demonstrates that supernatural entities or experiences can exist independent of the empirical world. It is undeniable that every argument or experience begins from and remains in the actual world.

An angel (which I have never seen) would be just as real as big foot (which I do not think anyone has seen).

But only if an angel actually existed! In the case of Big Foot (or Leprechauns etc) there is evident cogency in the principles of both general and possible experience. If someone claims to have seen Big Foot we simply ask “Where?” and then proceed to go into the woods, mountains or whatever, to look for it. And if, after a number of diligent searches, we do not find Big Foot, nor even any evidence that suggests such a creature abounds, we may conclude from probability that there is no such creature. But now someone claims that “God exists”. How in general or possible experience are we to go about corroborating that claim?

That was not really my argument. My claim was that a thing must have an explanation given everything we know. It is possible it could not but that would defy everything we know. If it's explanation does not lie within nature then it must lie beyond nature, in the supernatural. For some reason the supernatural gets labeled with a theological definition and by virtue of rejection of the theological the supernatural is ruled out based on nothing. If you just imagine the supernatural as reality in a category that does not depend and is not governed by the natural it is no less likely than the natural. The terms are almost arbitrary. Why would the weird world of the Quantum be any less supernatural than an angel. It does things our laws about the natural say can't be done, yet it is arbitrarily termed natural. Reality does not obey our classifications. Bears do not care that they are called mammals. Classification is descriptive not prescriptive. The supernatural is no less likely because it is called by that name. You cannot get rid of something experienced by billions by terminology.
Neither you nor I know that causation applies beyond the natural. My speculation however is consistent with everything we do know, your is inconsistent with everything known. You are equating something unknowable with something unlikely without justification. It is an assumption but it is a very probable assumption. If science can make improbable assumptions by the library full then making probable assumptions is valid even if it makes God more likely.

Quick point first: I’m not swayed by speculative scientific theories; I don’t make a case for them so please attribute them to me or include them in your arguments to me. And may I remind you that you’re not arguing to a vague, supernatural or deist first cause. Your argument is essentially Classical Theism. So, you are arguing to a necessary, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, personal being that freely chose to bring the world into being. Now “God is the necessary being and creator” and if God created the world then causation is necessary for creation, for otherwise “God didn’t create the world” might be true, which is impossible if “God is the necessary being” and creator. But causation isn’t necessary and therefore “God didn’t cause the world” implies no contradiction, and from which it follows that “God is the necessary being and creator” is false. And if God isn’t the creator then it must follow that there is no necessary being since God can only be known through his creation. Therefore it is impossible to demonstrate a causal God - which makes God impossible.

I did not draw a conclusion similar to this. The brain has a theoretical explanation of it's existence within the natural. I think it is a bad explanation but it may be true. So the brain does contain a potential natural explanation of it's existence. Cause and effect and many other things do not. However to be technical no matter or natural agent or force has a natural first cause known or even possible. So ultimately the brain gets regressively explained until it runs out of natural explanations, but your use of the example does not represent my claims.

You argued that a thing which doesn’t contain its own explanation must therefore be supernatural in order to state that causality is a supernatural phenomenon. The human brain, or mind, is still a complete mystery. Consciousness for example doesn’t contain its own explanation and therefore consciousness must, according to your reasoning, be supernatural.

That is why I did not say that. I said everything has an explanation. If it does not have a natural explanation it must have (or probably has) and explanation beyond nature. The brain has one for it's immediate cause, so no appeal to the supernatural is needed. Your example does not represent my claim.

But that’s just begging the question! Your argument is that a thing which doesn’t contain its own explanation must therefore be supernatural. I’ve said the functions of the brain (i.e. the mind) are unknown to us and that, according to your reasoning, makes it supernatural. You now say those functions have an “immediate cause”, which means you’ve rejected your own criterion in this particular case!

 

[cottage]

I am saying hat within the context they were given yes they are similar.

“They did not know animals existed on continents unknown to them. We do not know cause and effect apply to the supernatural.”
The two things are not in the least similar! The people in your analogy, individually and collectively, had the benefit of empirical knowledge. They stood on terra firma, felt warmth and the cold, saw sunsets, and could hear the wind, they smelled burning wood and could taste their food. Their limited world was familiar, it sustained them, and they learned by cause and effect – that is to say from general experience. The supernatural by comparison has no intelligible meaning other than as mystical beliefs, an inclination towards superstition, or a substitute for what is not known or cannot yet be explained.

I did not write that. That was the first official definition I found. It is exactly the same definition used by philosophers. I know this well because contingent/necessary confused me for years and I researched it quite a bit.

Philosophy Dictionary Theological and Philosophical Dictionary

Something that does not exist in and of itself but depends for its existence upon some other being.
Contingent being definition | Philosophy Dictionary

con·tin·gent [kuhn-tin-juhnt] Show IPA


adjective

1. dependent for existence, occurrence, character, etc., Contingent | Define Contingent at Dictionary.com

We are not discussing the colloquial definition but the modal being definition of contingent.

Well, I'm sorry, but the above is highly misleading, or a complete misrepresentation! I suggest you look at sites that are better informed or explain the subject matter more fully.
A necessary statement is one that must be true. A contingent statement is one that may be true and may be false. If a statement is contingent then neither it nor its negation is necessary. Now whereas all necessary propositions are true in all possible worlds, contingent propositions may be true in some possible worlds but false in others. “The North Sea is everywhere 100 feet deep” is contingently false – but contingency also implies possibility – so it could be true! But neither of those contingent statements is necessary.
It does not follow from the definition of anything contingent that it must answer to some other thing, and any statement to that effect is simply begging the question.
Therefore to assert that contingency means that “Something that does not exist in and of itself but depends for its existence upon some other being” is itself a contingent statement!
Theist philosopher Gottfried Leibniz formulated his cosmological argument known as the Argument from Contingency. To paraphrase the argument very roughly, every contingent thing has potential and as such may exist or not exist – or in other words, the contingent world and mankind are not logically necessary. The next step is to say there is some uncaused cause, a Necessary Being that has no potential to exist but rather cannot fail to exist, and upon which contingent things depend. We can see immediately that there is something wrong here. The argument wants to demonstrate its truth in logic alone, but then exigently calls upon the material world for support! That a necessary being cannot have the potential to not exist must be logically true. And it is also true that the contingent world is not logically necessary; it simply doesn’t have to be. But if we agree that the material world isn’t logically necessary then where does the legend: ‘Everything must have a cause’ have its logical foundation? It is the case that every effect must logically have a cause only in the sense that the term ‘effect’ implies the term ‘cause’; but there is no logical necessity outside this meaning, just as we might say that mermaids are part fish, part human, but which is not to say that mermaids must exist.

Contingent being does not logically imply necessary being, nor any other thing, as its cause.

I think the universe is dependent on God but that was not my claim. My claim was that it is dependent and whatever it is dependent on is not contained in the universe (as far as we can tell at this time). The universe does not contain the explanation of it's self. The best explanation is God but that is not provable. One is a fact the other a best fit, possibility.

Your assertion that the universe is dependent is a claim that you’ve yet to establish. The universe doesn’t have to have a reason to explain itself, but an intelligent, personal being does have to have a reason or purpose for creating the universe.

Hope your back problems get better. I have them as well and they suck.

Thank you. But my problems are entirely the result of foolishness - a motorcycle racing accident. Reap as ye shall sow, as they say. :thud:

 

[cottage]

I agree with the core of Craig's argument. Your statement from him does not appear in his essential points of the cosmological argument. That statement was an adjunct expansion he gave in a talk or paper. It does not appear in his usual explanations of the argument. I have no opinion on that statement it's self. I do not have the education nor have I spent the time to check into that sidebar of the argument. I can however point out the problem in your extrapolation. A creation does not imply the need of the creation. Regardless of what Craig says or what I think about it that is what your statement was. I have responded to it several times. God was no less God before the universe existed. An artist is no less a person or an artist whether he paints a certain picture or not. I can graduate as an engineer and be no less an engineer if I went into selling ready made pottery. There exists no contradiction between the completeness of a being and an expression of that being. He did not need to create us nor anything else. It follows that he did not need to create an environment for our use because he did not need to create us. He chose to create he did not need to. I do not know if Craig was right or not but what you based on his statement is not right.


Your mistake is equating a desire or choice to act with a necessity or need to act. I have pointed this out three times. That is completely wrong and there exists no argument without it. You are compounding the same mistake by implying that the needed environment for a creation implies a necessity to create both the environment and the creation that needs it. It is a choice not a necessity. You could say that once he chose to create us then an environment was necessary to actuate that choice but there exists no contradiction or problem in doing so. Your "problem" or inconsistency is a paper tiger based on an incorrect premise.




Not unless his choice's explanation was need and it was not. Not one verse in the Bible implies God needs us for anything. Where in the world are you getting his? I am a technician. I may or may not express my knowledge or desire in constructing a device. I have no necessity to do so, my reasons for doing so are not need of the device, I am no less a person or technician without a device. You are inventing a problem out of thin air. I am not exactly sure how to (if it was even possible to know) explain why God chose to create but need is certainly not included. Again where in the world are you getting this? It is not from the Bible and it is not from philosophy.


1. Your statement by Craig is not a part of his core cosmological argument. Here is a site from Oxford that gives a test on Craig's cosmological claims. I got a 100%, see what you get and see if there is any question that includes that statement.
2. I do not agree or disagree with his statement at this time.
3. Your extrapolation from his statement contains an error in it's premise.
4. I have no idea if the error exists in his original statement or not but does in your example.

I can see no refutation of my argument, and your objection appears to consist in this rather empty passage below:

“He did not need to create us nor anything else. It follows that he did not need to create an environment for our use because he did not need to create us. He chose to create he did not need to.”

You are objecting to something that has nothing at all to do with the argument I’ve presented. Nowhere, not in the passage you’ve responded to, nor anywhere else, have I said there was any necessity involved. There wasn’t, there couldn’t be, any necessity in God creating the world as that would be immediately absurd. You are confusing necessity with desire. Craig maintains that God freely chose to create the world with a purpose in mind. Now remember that I said God created the world either for his own benefit or for the benefit of others. Craig says elsewhere that this purpose is for us to “know and glorify God”. Well, there’s a contradiction twice over, straight out of Craig’s own mouth. So creatures that didn’t formerly exist were brought into being to worship God! It was for God’s benefit, then! I’m sure you don’t need me to explain the absurdities in that conclusion.
But with or without Craig’s input the contradiction(s) remain unassailed if God is said to be the omnipotent, all-sufficient, necessary being.

In order to help you keep your eye on the ball here is that (compressed) argument of mine again:

“I said God created something for himself or for others. But if God is omnipotent and all sufficient then he has no needs for he is, and has, everything by definition. So that is contradiction number 1. But a further absurdity is evident if it is said that he created the world for others (contradiction number 2), because there were no others, and so things that do not exist cannot benefit from being brought into existence. There are two further possibilities, equally absurd, one is that God created the world by accident and the other is that he wasn’t aware that he’d created it.”

 

[1robin]

But you’re not really using it in the manner described here. You’re using it to say, “Look at all these brilliant men in history that did brilliant things in their field of interest. They believed in god, and they’re brilliant men, therefore, that is evidence for the existence of the god I believe in.” It’s really not though, because a person can be quite brilliant in one area and not so brilliant in all other areas (as pointed out by myself and others).

I used authority exactly as it is supposed to be used and is used every single day in almost every imaginable arena. The commonality of a conclusion among many people who are best trained to know is a very suggestive data set of the quality of the evidence. It makes the infantile argument against faith and infantile argument it's self. Have you noticed that in about a weak and dozens of posts not one person has even attempted to back up that ridiculous infantile claim. You have done as your side always does. Try and technicality your way out of a failed argument by picking on terminology and concept usage. I do not think it was your claim but if your going to defend it then quit yelling fallacy every other sentence and prove faith is infantile.

Belief in something without evidence is the best explanation for the facts? How does that work?

Actually that woks like the vast majority of theoretical science but it has nothing to do with Christian faith. We have an seemingly inexhaustible supply of evidence. I would never get to the end of a list for them.

I would strongly disagree that belief in something without evidence is the only path to morality, meaning, human worth and hope for the future. Far from it. Wishful thinking is not, in my opinion, the only eternal hope for humanity and for you to say that it’s the choice (out of the 2 choices you’ve listed) not associated with contradictorily preferential reasons is strange to me. Facing reality for all it is, and dealing with it and making the best of it, is not infantile.

Since faith is evidence based. In fact Christian faith is more evidence based than most of our general beliefs over all. So you attempt to classify my faith as something it is not in the form of a false premise requires no response.

I don’t know where this 50/50 polio thing comes into play, unless you’re playing the Pascal’s Wager angle here.

That was what I was suggesting. I hate Pascal's wager as it exists but modified slightly as I have and it becomes as justifiable as anything can be. I used 50/50 to make a point. Many times the probability concerning the truth of faith would be higher than that (even using probabilistic calculus concerning historical events) and sometimes lower. I just chose 50/50 to make a point.

 

[1robin]

I've stated it before and I shall again. The idea must stand on its own merit without the need for appeal of any kind. It doesn't matter if the followers are adept or not or if its the majority or not. If the idea can't stand on its own then it doesn't in debate.

Is that why data sets are the primary tools used by people like insurance companies and disease control units who must be able to accurately predict things. When life, death, billions of dollars, and even every form of academic credibility is on the line out come data sets, numbers, and appeals to authority. On what basis can anyone claim that what is used so often in so crucial of arenas is invalid in an informal debate? I think you are making this very common mistake. You assume my mentioning billions who claim experience of something (which is light years more significant than billion who believe something to begin with) is an attempt by me to equate that with proof. That is not what I am doing. I am doing exactly what the entire world has done for thousands of years. Associate the prominence of a claim to experience with the probability it is true.


1. A million people look through telescopes every night.
2. 1 of them says he sees an alien space ship on the moon.
3. 999,999 of them say they see no ship.

Are you suggesting the disparity in numbers is meaningless? I guarantee if you were forced to wager a lot of money of it numbers would be one of the first sources your would access.

 

[1robin]

In possible experience we don’t have to mine our way into the earth’s core to know there is a core to the earth. We may not know exactly what might be discovered in the earth’s core but we know the earth and its core actually exist. The supernatural by comparison cannot be accessed in possible or general experience. And “Billions of Christians” is a fallacious argument (bandwaggoning) that at best can only mean that a number of people have some unspecified element of belief in Christian theology, and from a belief in X it does not follow that X is true. And in any case an argument from a doctrinal belief-as-faith is not an argument from general experience, which means that every person that does not hold to belief in X counts against those that do, and every believer that hasn’t actually experienced God also counts against your argumentum ad numerum.

What does in possible experience mean or have to do with the core of the earth? I did not say we claim to know there is a center to a globe. I said we claim to know the specific nature of it and can't directly access it. The supernatural can be accessed by general experience (or common experience. There are millions of times more claims to supernatural experience than to claims of experience of billions of things we take as fact. Billions claim to have supernatural experience, almost no one claims to have experienced alien life yet alien life is posited as a virtually certainty by many of the scientific community. That last statement is a complex one. The Bible differentiates between intellectual consent to a proposition and saving faith. You would have to prove that both a person had that mysterious level of saving faith yet did not experience God. There are actually several types or level of faith in Christianity. Only one is said to produce an experience with God.

That is a declarative sentence confidently spoken as if it were informing us of some truth.
But as a matter of literal fact the supernatural, as a notion or idea, for that is all it is, happens to be logically dependent upon the natural world. There is no argument that I’m aware of that demonstrates that supernatural entities or experiences can exist independent of the empirical world. It is undeniable that every argument or experience begins from and remains in the actual world.

No, it was an accurate description of what is true of a concept. Evolution supposes as fact all types of dynamics, relationships, events, and boundaries based on speculation. The supernatural as a concept by definition is not bound by the natural. You making the same two mistakes I always mention. Your amplifying any level of uncertainty into a quantity that enables dismissal and using a double standard. The claim supernatural entities exist is completely independent of what is true of the concept of the supernatural. Do arguments about multiverses or about things never seen remain only in the known world?

But only if an angel actually existed! In the case of Big Foot (or Leprechauns etc) there is evident cogency in the principles of both general and possible experience. If someone claims to have seen Big Foot we simply ask “Where?” and then proceed to go into the woods, mountains or whatever, to look for it. And if, after a number of diligent searches, we do not find Big Foot, nor even any evidence that suggests such a creature abounds, we may conclude from probability that there is no such creature. But now someone claims that “God exists”. How in general or possible experience are we to go about corroborating that claim?

However angels have no geographic predictability. This is another claim to a lack of evidence without a criteria for establishing that there should be additional evidence if true. God is not something that can be found by searching the bushes, he does not leave footprints, and does not raid camp grounds. He raises people from the dead, he saves people, he turns water into wine, etc.... We have exactly the type and quantity of evidence we should have if true. We have people with radically changed lives, we have ancient histories most credible testimony about miracles, we have billions of experiential claims. We have exactly what we should have.

Quick point first: I’m not swayed by speculative scientific theories; I don’t make a case for them so please attribute them to me or include them in your arguments to me. And may I remind you that you’re not arguing to a vague, supernatural or deist first cause. Your argument is essentially Classical Theism. So, you are arguing to a necessary, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, personal being that freely chose to bring the world into being. Now “God is the necessary being and creator” and if God created the world then causation is necessary for creation, for otherwise “God didn’t create the world” might be true, which is impossible if “God is the necessary being” and creator. But causation isn’t necessary and therefore “God didn’t cause the world” implies no contradiction, and from which it follows that “God is the necessary being and creator” is false. And if God isn’t the creator then it must follow that there is no necessary being since God can only be known through his creation. Therefore it is impossible to demonstrate a causal God - which makes God impossible.

I am arguing for the Biblical God. I do not bind him by human terminology and think tank labels. I bind him by what he has revealed and what that should produce. You for some reason subject God to the bounds and aspects of human terms. If you label him necessary then he must obey whatever a philosopher says is true of necessary beings. Why? God is God, bears are bears, whales are whales. They are not bound by any human term ever uttered. God does not obey any label any man has ever applied to him, bears remain bears even if they are called birds, whales remain whales no matter what category a guy behind a desk places them in, in a text book. Descriptions are non causal and non-binding. For some reason you are reducing God to a label and then demanding he obey that label. The terminology is derivative, causal, or primary. I agree that both necessary beings and God both exist without external explanations but that does not mean anything true of the argumentation about necessity applies to God. I think I can agree that God operates by cause and effect but no reason exists to suggest the causal operations function exactly like they do in the natural. You cannot label God into a casket. People have been pronouncing his death for eons yet the body will simply not remain where they put it.

You argued that a thing which doesn’t contain its own explanation must therefore be supernatural in order to state that causality is a supernatural phenomenon. The human brain, or mind, is still a complete mystery. Consciousness for example doesn’t contain its own explanation and therefore consciousness must, according to your reasoning, be supernatural.

Being a mystery does not make anything non-natural. The quantum was a mystery yet it has (arbitrarily) been nailed to a natural category. It is by no means a completely mystery anyway. I would think that the ultimate explanation for everything (especially consciousness) is supernatural. We are going to have to set specific contexts to evaluate this issue. Things have a sort of natural immediate explanation in some contexts but I know of nothing that has a natural explanation in an ultimate context.

But that’s just begging the question! Your argument is that a thing which doesn’t contain its own explanation must therefore be supernatural. I’ve said the functions of the brain (i.e. the mind) are unknown to us and that, according to your reasoning, makes it supernatural. You now say those functions have an “immediate cause”, which means you’ve rejected your own criterion in this particular case!

[/QUOTE] I said that about the entire universe. In that case no other explanation exists. Your extrapolating what I said about all of reality to every aspect of it. Like I said in an ultimate sense that would still be true but in an immediate aspect it might not be. IOW if I see a tree sway I can say the wind is the cause, but the wind has a cause, it's cause has a cause, eventually I have run out of nature but still require a cause. You must be able to grasp this. It has been stated in a thousand debates for a thousand years. There are immediate causes or explanations and ultimate explanations.

 

[1robin]

“They did not know animals existed on continents unknown to them. We do not know cause and effect apply to the supernatural.”
The two things are not in the least similar! The people in your analogy, individually and collectively, had the benefit of empirical knowledge. They stood on terra firma, felt warmth and the cold, saw sunsets, and could hear the wind, they smelled burning wood and could taste their food. Their limited world was familiar, it sustained them, and they learned by cause and effect – that is to say from general experience. The supernatural by comparison has no intelligible meaning other than as mystical beliefs, an inclination towards superstition, or a substitute for what is not known or cannot yet be explained.

Those two statement are almost identical except for a single word. How is that not similar? Animals could and should exist on other land masses. Cause and effect could and should exist in other reality categories. In fact cause and effect is almost a necessity beyond nature. Animals are very probable but not necessary. We have the exact same benefit of empirical knowledge. We know cause exists and we know it is not dependent on anything natural, we also know a state change of information is necessary for any change in reality, a state change always requires a cause. Land masses do not require animals. I can agree somewhat with your saying the supernatural is a term for what is known but not understood, because the label is arbitrary. It is no less likely or real however. A miracle is a suspension of all known natural law even if you called it luck charms physics. I do not care about the terminology, I care about evidence, truth, nature, and essence. Having a set of equations that described how God acts would not make God any less than God. That is absurdly improbable but still true.

Well, I'm sorry, but the above is highly misleading, or a complete misrepresentation! I suggest you look at sites that are better informed or explain the subject matter more fully.
A necessary statement is one that must be true. A contingent statement is one that may be true and may be false. If a statement is contingent then neither it nor its negation is necessary. Now whereas all necessary propositions are true in all possible worlds, contingent propositions may be true in some possible worlds but false in others. “The North Sea is everywhere 100 feet deep” is contingently false – but contingency also implies possibility – so it could be true! But neither of those contingent statements is necessary.

Well I give up. I have supplied three definitions from sources that specialize in the context we are in among dozens I could have, that all say the same thing. If you cannot go along with it then we have an impasse here. To resolve something that is meaningless anyway let me change the nature of the subject. I do not care what necessity means because whatever it would mean can't possibly define God. From now on show contradictions in revelation showing God is incompatible with whatever you claim he is. Scripture is theoretically binding on God. What some boob behind a podium somewhere soughs up is not. That should have been how this was resolved from the start. I read a paper by Krauss the other day. He said some of the stupidest crap I have ever heard. One was that 2 + 2 does not = 4, and that adding up all real numbers 1 to infinity = 1/12. I have really grown to disdain most of academics. They have reached a point where they will literally say anything. Try building a house using 2 + 2 = 5 or actually adding an infinite series of anything at all. Please state what is contradictory about God's description of himself not a think tanks description of a theoretical entity which you will not even except the definition of.

It does not follow from the definition of anything contingent that it must answer to some other thing, and any statement to that effect is simply begging the question.
Therefore to assert that contingency means that “Something that does not exist in and of itself but depends for its existence upon some other being” is itself a contingent statement!

The entire two preceding paragraphs and most of your posts have been what is true of man made concepts about things mostly unknowable. Do they have a necessary being they have studied somewhere. I have really become completely burned out on these terminology discussions. We have been around this same barn about a dozen times. What is contradictory in actuality (not a semantic exercise) with an eternal uncaused God who chose to create a universe? That is about the most simplistic and reasonable idea possible and a virtual necessity.

Theist philosopher Gottfried Leibniz formulated his cosmological argument known as the Argument from Contingency. To paraphrase the argument very roughly, every contingent thing has potential and as such may exist or not exist – or in other words, the contingent world and mankind are not logically necessary. The next step is to say there is some uncaused cause, a Necessary Being that has no potential to exist but rather cannot fail to exist, and upon which contingent things depend. We can see immediately that there is something wrong here. The argument wants to demonstrate its truth in logic alone, but then exigently calls upon the material world for support! That a necessary being cannot have the potential to not exist must be logically true. And it is also true that the contingent world is not logically necessary; it simply doesn’t have to be. But if we agree that the material world isn’t logically necessary then where does the legend: ‘Everything must have a cause’ have its logical foundation? It is the case that every effect must logically have a cause only in the sense that the term ‘effect’ implies the term ‘cause’; but there is no logical necessity outside this meaning, just as we might say that mermaids are part fish, part human, but which is not to say that mermaids must exist.

That form of the necessary argument is held by most of the greatest philosophers in history. It is still a current and predominant model. I can't begin to believe that it has flaws so glaring that any layman can consider it completely self condemning. I can see flaws in your examination however. It is not true that everything has a cause. It is only true that things that begin to exist have a cause. It is true that all things have an explanation of their existence. They exist externally (and make things contingent) or internal to the nature of the entity (and make them necessary). I see no problem with the above apart from your analogy of it. It does not call upon only the natural to support it. It uses the natural as obvious evidence of it. It is one of those abstract concepts that seem to exist independently of nature but are evident in nature. There are a wealth of them.

Contingent being does not logically imply necessary being, nor any other thing, as its cause.

Of course it doesn't. They are mutually exclusive. There are no contingent necessary beings.

Your assertion that the universe is dependent is a claim that you’ve yet to establish. The universe doesn’t have to have a reason to explain itself, but an intelligent, personal being does have to have a reason or purpose for creating the universe.

Everything must have an explanation of it's existence. Give me one thing that does not have one. I did not deny God had a reason. I said he had no need. I have a reason to deny your claims. I have no necessity to do so.

Thank you. But my problems are entirely the result of foolishness - a motorcycle racing accident. Reap as ye shall sow, as they say. :thud:

I have that beat. I was 25ft feet up a tree a sawed off the limb I needed to stay in it. I woke up on the ground and to this day can't remember falling or sawing. I had no idea where I was, how I got there, and could not remember recent events for hours after words. I periodically wind up on the floor (including one time on an airport tarmac in from of a running Lear jet). I refuse surgery and so will probably do so every 3 months until I can't get up from the last one.

I am burned out. Lets change subjects.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I used authority exactly as it is supposed to be used and is used every single day in almost every imaginable arena. The commonality of a conclusion among many people who are best trained to know is a very suggestive data set of the quality of the evidence. It makes the infantile argument against faith and infantile argument it's self. Have you noticed that in about a weak and dozens of posts not one person has even attempted to back up that ridiculous infantile claim. You have done as your side always does. Try and technicality your way out of a failed argument by picking on terminology and concept usage. I do not think it was your claim but if your going to defend it then quit yelling fallacy every other sentence and prove faith is infantile.

If you think that’s what you’re doing, then by all means, continue. I’ve said my piece.

Two billion people in the world agree with me, so you must be wrong.

Actually that woks like the vast majority of theoretical science but it has nothing to do with Christian faith. We have an seemingly inexhaustible supply of evidence. I would never get to the end of a list for them.

I’m not a theoretical scientist, are you?

You have a ton of evidence, but none of it is empirical or demonstrable in any way. Correct?

Since faith is evidence based. In fact Christian faith is more evidence based than most of our general beliefs over all. So you attempt to classify my faith as something it is not in the form of a false premise requires no response.

Religious faith is evidenced based? Since when?

I’d love to see an example of this Christian faith you speak of that has more evidence than most general beliefs overall. I’d also like to know what you mean by “general beliefs.”

That was what I was suggesting. I hate Pascal's wager as it exists but modified slightly as I have and it becomes as justifiable as anything can be. I used 50/50 to make a point. Many times the probability concerning the truth of faith would be higher than that (even using probabilistic calculus concerning historical events) and sometimes lower. I just chose 50/50 to make a point.

Pascal’s Wager isn’t a 50/50 argument though. It’s not, either the specific god you believe in exists, or no god exists. Maybe Zeus is the one true god. Maybe Shiva rules the universe.

There’s nothing infantile about facing reality. There is something infantile about avoiding it via wishful thinking.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Is that why data sets are the primary tools used by people like insurance companies and disease control units who must be able to accurately predict things. When life, death, billions of dollars, and even every form of academic credibility is on the line out come data sets, numbers, and appeals to authority. On what basis can anyone claim that what is used so often in so crucial of arenas is invalid in an informal debate? I think you are making this very common mistake. You assume my mentioning billions who claim experience of something (which is light years more significant than billion who believe something to begin with) is an attempt by me to equate that with proof. That is not what I am doing. I am doing exactly what the entire world has done for thousands of years. Associate the prominence of a claim to experience with the probability it is true.


1. A million people look through telescopes every night.
2. 1 of them says he sees an alien space ship on the moon.
3. 999,999 of them say they see no ship.

Are you suggesting the disparity in numbers is meaningless? I guarantee if you were forced to wager a lot of money of it numbers would be one of the first sources your would access.

What happens when:

1. A million people look through telescopes every night.
2. 250,000 Of them see an alien spaceship on the moon.
3. 250,000 Of them see a pile of rocks on the moon.
4. 250,000 Of them see a man made spacecraft on the moon.
5. 250,000 Of them see nothing at all.

What do we conclude?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Is that why data sets are the primary tools used by people like insurance companies and disease control units who must be able to accurately predict things. When life, death, billions of dollars, and even every form of academic credibility is on the line out come data sets, numbers, and appeals to authority. On what basis can anyone claim that what is used so often in so crucial of arenas is invalid in an informal debate? I think you are making this very common mistake. You assume my mentioning billions who claim experience of something (which is light years more significant than billion who believe something to begin with) is an attempt by me to equate that with proof. That is not what I am doing. I am doing exactly what the entire world has done for thousands of years. Associate the prominence of a claim to experience with the probability it is true.


1. A million people look through telescopes every night.
2. 1 of them says he sees an alien space ship on the moon.
3. 999,999 of them say they see no ship.

Are you suggesting the disparity in numbers is meaningless? I guarantee if you were forced to wager a lot of money of it numbers would be one of the first sources your would access.

Your confusing two different things.
1) Data
2) Popular Opinion.

Those two are not the same thing and never will be.

Data is where we gather information and then make predictions after we set up the information in an organized fashion alligned with what we already know to be true. We also have to research the causes of it ect ect ect.

However popular opinion or rather appeal to popular opinion is simply nonsense. For example I can show you massive surveys of people who believe evolution to be false. This does not make it so and even if 99% of the world believed evolution was false it wouldn't matter one bit if the evidence didn't stand for itself.

What you have offered as examples are bits of data that are collected of things we already know that exist. Its not really up for debate how many people died Or more specifically that death really exists. Perhaps they are actually alive but the numbers are wrong? No.

And even data of the kind your talking about (of opnion) are not facts about the universe but trends within populations that can be used to predict certain things. If we took a poll to see what everyone's favorite color is and the majority said Red then we could predict that we can change our product to "red" and get better sales.

It provides no more information about the color red. It is only the opinion of the people not the accuracy of their claims.

And the second example about the telescope.
It matters not if only one person saw. If the evidence stands for itself then it stands for itself. Did he get a photograph at NASA on record of it? Then thats pretty rock solid. Is it a big fish story of 3 drunk guys looking through a stolen telescope that they don't know how to use? Probably not.