That Templeton Foundation funding, though.
Please don't post drive-by dismissals here. If you have a criticism, make it substantively.
The implicit criticism here is pretty tenuous, given how many Nautilus articles have done well on HN.
A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
51–60 of 72 posts
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#52Clickbait title. A great deal of science is rooted in the works of individuals who held a variety of religious beliefs, and in many of those cases, their works were directly motivated by those beliefs. So the fact that Bayes came up with his theorem because of a desire to justify a belief in the resurrection of Christ is, I suppose, somewhat interesting, but not so much so that it needed to be the headline of the sto…
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
This entire discussion reminds me of Richard Carrier's book Proving History, where he uses Bayes Theorem to "prove" Jesus didn't exist. On the other hand, there's also William Lane Craig, who uses it to "prove" that Jesus was resurrected! I agree that Bayes Theorem is relevant to the study of history, but it is slightly funny to see atheists and apologists alike take it far beyond its original scope.
I think Sheen's trilemma - Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or God - doesn't take into account the complexity of early Christian beliefs. "God" is a pretty slippery concept. Was Jesus just an ordinary human, who God adopted as his son because of his righteousness - either at his birth, baptism, or resurrection? Was he some sort of angel who God sent to prepare for the apocalypse? Maybe he was God himself, who came down in human form. Perhaps he was so divine that he wasn't human at all. Or, maybe he had nothing to do with the God of Judaism, and was something completely different. There were many, many different interpretations of Jesus, which were reflected in early Christian churches and the New Testament. Which of these interpretations is "right" would I suppose depend on your personal theology and beliefs.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not God stretches the limit of rationality. You can be a liar (or a lunatic) and still be a great teacher.
You're logic is correct, but it's not the great teacher part that is in question. The part that is always in question is about whether or not he is really God.
Take that same analogy and replace "great teacher" with "great person". If Jesus told people that he is God, and convinced them to put their trust in him, but he happens to be wrong about being God (regardless of whether that's an intentional lie or an honest delusion), then it really isn't fair to say that he's a "great person". It would be more accurate to characterize his morality in leading people astray similar to the likes of Hitler and L. Ron Hubbard.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#54"Hume, the probability of people inaccurately claiming that they’d seen Jesus’ resurrection far outweighed the probability that the event had occurred in the first place." Is there any evidence that anyone mentioned in the bible actually ever existed? What is the point of examining the claims of fictional characters about a fictional event?
I can't really accept the reference of already famous names as strong evidence they were part of any event or that the event described actually took place. On a daily basis I see completely made up stories about kings, queens, politicians, actors, actresses, socialites, etc.; and people believing those stories without any evidence; and people retelling those stories, adding their own flair. Often the subject of those…
The same argument can be made regarding any person and any event in reasonably distant history. Still, mainstream historians believe that we know a lot about Caesar, for example.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
> a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not God stretches the limit of rationality. I don't really get this. Someone who thinks they are God and isn't (the "lunatic" part) can still have important insights and a knack for showing them to others. Someone who knows they are not God but claims to be (the "liar" part) can be using their lies to spread v…
People rarely apply the trilemma to other religious figures, like the Budda.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
Jesus Christ never claimed to be God but the Son of God, one single verse was taken completely out of context, but if you're familiar with his teaching it clearly emphasised his subordination to God. Bible book of John chapter 14 verse 28 latter part: the father is greater than I am The vast majority of mainstream Christian is corrupt. This is important to note cause much debate about the merits of Christianity are b…
In case anyone's wondering, I suspect that the "one single verse [...] taken completely out of context" is John 10:30, "I and the Father are one". To the best of my knowledge, this is the only place in the Bible where Jesus seems to directly claim to actually be God rather than doing his work, representing/channeling his authority, making allusions to prophecy, etc.. The context can be read as suggesting that he was saying they are intimately linked and united in purpose rather than literally being the same entity; of course, the vast majority of Christians are Trinitarians and thus reject that interpretation.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not God stretches the limit of rationality. You can be a liar (or a lunatic) and still be a great teacher.
You're logic is correct, but it's not the great teacher part that is in question. The part that is always in question is about whether or not he is really God. Take that same analogy and replace "great teacher" with "great person". If Jesus told people that he is God, and convinced them to put their trust in him, but he happens to be wrong about being God (regardless of whether that's an intentional lie or an honest…
I'm saying that whether or not he was a great teacher is independent of whether or he was god. He can be a great teacher and still not be god.
Are people saying he's a great person because he's god; god because he's a great person; or independently both god and a great person? I'm arguing that they don't necessarily have to have a causal relationship and neither implies the other. (Ok ok maybe being god implies you are also a great person... but the other around way is not true)
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#58It took me some looking to find Price's writing mentioned in the article. Warning - it's long - will probably take a half hour to read. Good stuff though. https://books.google.com/books?id=g2M3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA361&lpg=...
Thanks for finding this. Very enjoyable read, even in spite of its flaws of reasoning.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#59Clickbait title. A great deal of science is rooted in the works of individuals who held a variety of religious beliefs, and in many of those cases, their works were directly motivated by those beliefs. So the fact that Bayes came up with his theorem because of a desire to justify a belief in the resurrection of Christ is, I suppose, somewhat interesting, but not so much so that it needed to be the headline of the sto…
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not God stretches the limit of rationality.
Ridiculous.
The latter is certainly not implied by the former. It presupposes that a person can't be both a liar (either deliberate or unintentional) or lunatic and a great teacher, a conclusion that has no basis whatsoever. It's a emotional statement, not a logical one.
Frankly, I'm astounded anyone would put that forward as a defensible claim... though I'm sure it's a very compelling "argument" to someone predisposed to the conclusion.
Re: A defense of Christianity helped unlock the secrets of the brain
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Bayes' work, which is more popular and possibly relevant than ever, answers a serious philosophical challenges to claims about the nature of reality (a consequence of any claims of divinity) is a mere historical accident worthy of overlooking? I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not…
The value of Bayes' work is somewhat orthogonal to his use of it to prove the truth of the Resurrection. It was valuable to show that Hume's approach was flawed but limited value to prove the truth per se. To apply probabilities to the events you'd have to make an awful lot of assumptions about the accuracy of the, non-eye witness, reporting. However, it was an excellent approach for such an evaluation. As to the Ful…
Lying requires the intent to deceive. "Diminished faculty" or a disorder of mental faculties would fall under the normal definition of insanity, whatever the cause of that insanity. The claims Jesus made are too radical and too consistent to be described as mere mistakes.