I’ve read a bit on Bayesian reasoning, and while searching for some topics people write on, I did the natural thing and Googled some key words, such as ‘Bayesian + hat‘, ‘Bayesian + supernatural‘, and finally, ‘Bayesian + god‘ hoping to find some interesting topics. Don’t ask me why I chose ‘hat’.

Stephen Unwin’s homepage came up as the first link under ‘Bayesian + god’. Looking at his webpage, I recalled that I had read a bit on his book a few months ago. He argues in his book The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation that Proves the Ultimate Truth, that we can compute the probability of God’s existence with the use of Bayesian reasoning. If we assume that with a ‘maximum ignorance’, the existence or nonexistence of God is that of 50/50, then we can attempt to assign probabilities to God’s existence. He throws some numbers in the mixing bowl (we’ll get to them later under the fold), and comes up with the probability of God’s existence. Unwin says, ‘The probability that God exists is…

Continue reading The Probability of God

The history of the world does not begin until the Shoah. It is the culmination of two thousand years of hatred and violence towards Jews, but the beginning of how Jews choose to survive in a world that thinks of them as a cancer. Everything today is understood in this light. As the engraving at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the first Holocaust memorial, reads, ‘Forgetfulness is the way to exile. Remembrance is the way to redemption.’ No one has ever given the Jews anything but sorrow.

I’ll be giving a brief overview on my thoughts on the subject, along with my impression of the general Jewish attitude the world at large. I could have talked about the religious implications for so many Jews and how some have rejected or refined their religion; I could have talked about the Shoah itself, but I will do neither of these things. This isn’t the time or the place. So sit tight for a bit and listen.

Continue reading We Don’t Turn the Other Cheek

From The Real Perspective on the Solar System - With Music

While soulster detailed in Cooperative Problem Solving: Church Sex Scandals a Christian’s view of sex scandals within the church, I’d like to push the boundaries a bit and focus on something a bit more probing: homosexuality.

Continue reading Under Pressure

In the post Do Atheists Have Faith?, I agrue that they do not according to my defintion of faith. (Readers, please note that I do define faith as relational trust using Abraham in that post, and as such many of your comments may be missing my point.) I freely admit that my arguement is dependent on my particular defintion, and does not hold if you define faith differently. According to the comments on that post and drunkentune’s RESPONSE: Do Athiests Have Faith, it is clear that I use ‘faith’ differently than many of the readers here, so I will explain my sources of my definition in hopes of clarifying what I think ‘faith’ should refer to. While people are free to disagree, of course, I hope that this will be informative and will limit the criticism of my post at least to my working definition.

Continue reading My Definition of Faith

The late U.S. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan once said that if you began using terminology created by your political adversary, the battle was over. I care how words are used, and their implicit messages that shape the debate. Thus, I begin a short story: Some time ago, a young man spoke privately with a philosopher. He asked the philosopher the first action he would take if he became the king. The man scratched his beard for a minute in thought, then spoke clearly: Rectify the names.

The young man was startled, but regained composure to scoff: This is your first action? Absurd!

The philosopher answered, correcting the young man: When the names are faulty, speech is not reasonable; when speech is not reasonable, actions are not conducted properly; when actions are not conducted properly, society begins to falter; when society begins to falter, the punishment does not fit the crime; when the punishment does not fit the crime, the people are at a loss. ‘The thing about the gentleman is that he is anything but casual when speech is concerned.’ (Confucious, Analects, Book XIII)

Continue reading RESPONSE: Do Atheists Have Faith?

UPDATE: My view here is conditional on my definition of faith. Due to comments on this and other posts, I have added My Definition of Faith as a separate post to clarify the definition given here.

I would like to give my opinion on this idea which has appeared on this blog, primarily in back-and-forth comments on Me Arguing with No One in Particular, especially between Dave Armstrong (who recently departed this blog) and beepbeepitsme (the charming lady from Down Under) (numbers 42-44). Drunkentune already responded to this assertion and several others in his post Red Dust, which is worth your reading.

Some people, believers especially, would like to think or to be able to say that all humans have faith, but differ in what they have faith in or upon. This is applied especially to atheists, and in particular in those conversations when atheists assert that they do not need or wish to resort to living by faith, as believers do (sometimes, blindly some atheists might also add). I disagree with this idea that atheists have faith and here’s why:

Continue reading Do Atheists Have Faith?

Drunkentune and I (soulster) thought we’d like to send each other some questions via email and share the answers with the readers of this blog. Here are three questions by drunkentune concerning my understanding of Christianity:

Drunkentune: Dominionism [wiki] is in part control of all parts of being: the control of the mind within congregation, the control of the dominionist’s body and the bodies of those that violate the dominionist’s rules of conduct, be them homosexual or abortionist, and ultimately, control over the environment. Calvinism [wiki] is the requisition of control to a higher power and absolving all responsibility. I see that all classes of Christianity have different interpretations of scripture that seem to pull from different worldviews existing independently of the Bible or their belief. A Christian may find any message he chooses in the Bible to fit his worldview, or a verse may reinforce such a worldview that had only begun to grow. Is it possible to learn what Jesus meant, or is it that, since Jesus’ words have been used historically for any purpose, is it worth it to even attempt such an endeavor?

Continue reading Drunkentune’s Christianty Questions

Paper Napkin points out it’s National De-lurking Week! There’s only a few days left! Act now!

As Chairman Mao said before he killed every last dissenting voice, ‘Let the hundred flowers bloom!’

We know you’re out there… tell us about yourself.

I stumbled upon a Nova program entitled “What About God?” on Google Video which details students from conservative Christian backgrounds encountering evolutionary theory at Wheaton College, a conservative Christian university in the Midwest: watch it here [PBS/Nova | 54 min]. If you watch this program with very human eyes, it will give some keen insight into the issues at stake for Christians concerning evolutionary theory.

Continue reading Faith Struggling with Evolution