Free Will vs Determinism

[davidm]

Actually it's an atheist paraphrasing an argument that theists have been dancing upon pin heads with since it dawned upon them that their 'God's' will appears incompatible with their 'freewill'. Or at least if it isn't then one or more of the big 3 O's are in doubt.

Rereading your quote here: Yes -- as I explained in my latest post just above -- if the question is God's willing John to do x, then obviously John must do x and has no free will. But, as I explained, I was not talking about God's omnipotence, but only his omniscience. I was responding to your claim on page 38 that God's foreknowledge only of what you will do rules out your free will. I have been trying to explain why that is incorrect.

[Arising_uk]

I'm aware of this. The theists' worries were misplaced. They had nothing to worry about. ...

We'll have to agree to disagree then as I think they do if they wish their 'God' to have the attributes they claim for 'it'.

No, not at all. Let me reiterate: a God that infallibly foreknows the outcome of all future contingent events, and how and why they will happen, including everything that you and I and anyone else will ever do, is perfectly compatible with human free will. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of logic.

Centuries ago, Maimonides wrote:

…"Does God know or does He not know that a certain individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily follows that [that] man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect.…”

This, I think, succinctly captures your own position. But Maimonides was wrong. He did not have access to modal logic.

Maimonides gets the flow of truth-making exactly backward. He thinks God’s foreknowledge compels John to do x, even before John does x. The truth is the precisely the opposite. John, freely doing x, compels, or more accurately, provides the truth grounds for, God foreknowing what John will do.

Now, let me be clear on one point. We are talking about God’s omniscience here, and not his omnipotence. If God, in his omnipotence, wills John to do x, then of course John must do x and has no free will. But we are not talking about omnipotence. If you prefer, you can drop talk of God, and just invoke some abstract Omniscient Agent with infallibly true beliefs about all future contingent events. This is at the heart of Newcomb’s Paradox, and also provides the solution to that paradox.

This issue I am describing is sometimes known as Epistemic Determinism — the (false) notion that knowing ahead of time what someone does, determines that someone do that thing. ...

Thank you for your explanation and I think I understand your argument. However I'm not arguing that 'God' is the determiner here, as I said, 'it' may well not be but I don't think you can escape the logical inference that if there is an "Omniscient Agent(OA) with infallibly true beliefs about all future contingent events" then it is inescapable that, for whatever reason, those agents are being determined to do them. If this was not the case then this OA could be wrong, as the agent could choose to do differently than what the OA currently knows and hence it is not infallible with the corollary that for there to be free-will such an agent must in fact not exist.

But Epistemic Determinism is really just a special case of a broader, more inclusive thesis — the alleged problem of Logical Determinism. This is also known as the problem of future contingents, and goes back to the ancient Greeks. If it is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, does this mean the sea battle must occur? This concerned Aristotle, who concluded that there are no truth-apt statements about the future; truth-apt statements only become true or false at the time that the event they describe occurs. Otherwise, he fretted, the future is predetermined. ...

And I think I agree with him, there is no possible OA if we wish to have freewill.

Again, a modal logical treatment of the Sea Battle shows that Aristotle’s concerns were misplaced. Truth-apt statements are indeed timelessly true. If someone uttered thousands of years ago that “Donald Trump will be elected in 2016,” he spoke truly. However, his statement would have had no ontological clout. On reflection, we can see that it is ridiculous to suppose that a statement of this kind uttered thousands of years ago — even though true — compelled the election of Donald Trump in 2016. It might be easier to see this if one removes tensed talk and just sticks with the present. Just ask yourself this question: If someone says, “I see the sun coming up now,” would you imagine that his statement makes the sun come up? That’s ridiculous, obviously. Rather, the sun coming up, makes his statement true.

And Trump being elected makes true a statement describing his election, even if uttered thousands of years ago.

But it wasn't true when it was uttered in the past? It wasn't false either I guess so it was pretty much meaningless or at least cannot be considered knowledge at all.

And John doing x makes true God’s foreknowledge; John could have done y instead (John has free will) but if John had done y than God would have foreknown y instead of x. ...

This "foreknowledge" is a slippery term I think as all you are saying is that this 'God' can make lots of statements and some of them might become true or not and I don't think this is what is meant by 'God's' omniscience as what is clearly implied by this attribute is that all of his knowledge about the future is infallibly true and will invariably become true and, as I say, if this is true then given these statements are uttered in the past the future must be determined in some way.

For a fuller in-depth treatment of the alleged problems of epistemic and logical determinism, I recommend the following article at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Foreknowledge and Free Will,, by Prof. Norman Swartz.
From the article:

Ultimately the alleged incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will is shown to rest on a subtle logical error. When the error, a modal fallacy, is recognized and remedied, the problem evaporates.

Finally, if we extend propositional truth — Correspondence Theory — to the alleged threat of causal determinism to human free will, and couple it with a neo-Humean view of the “laws” of nature, then all the alleged deterministic threats to human free will, will simply evaporate like a water mirage on a highway.

You'll have to remind me of this neo-Humean view, you mean constant conjunction and no causality?

Nor is this even compatibilism. Sure, free will is compatible with determinism, but not in the way that compatibilists argue. That kind of compatibilism is superfluous. As Swartz writes in one of his book, the idea that free will is compatible with determinism (any form of determinism) is as odd as saying that noses are compatible with itches.

For why in the world would noses and itches be incompatible?

Thanks, I'll take a read but it's been many a year since I've tackled such stuff and I've forgotten what most of the terms strictly apply to.

[ken]

We're going nowhere. So I am happy to part company with you, and to let you go there alone.

You mentioned that last time. But you continued on.

As for who has been rude and lying, that proof already exists for anyone to see. And, as I have said from your very first response to mine, and which you are still trying to do, your attempts at trying to avoid the issues are obvious. The issues being you making judgment calls about others as though they are less or inferior than you are, and your view that when you let children do as they please then that makes you a "horrible parent".

If you want to support and show just how calling others "horrible" is not making an inferior judgement call and support and show how letting children do as they please makes you a "horrible parent", then great, proceed. However, if you want to continue to try and avoid these issues, then just continue on as you are.

[davidm]

Thank you for your explanation and I think I understand your argument. However I'm not arguing that 'God' is the determiner here, as I said, 'it' may well not be but I don't think you can escape the logical inference that if there is an "Omniscient Agent(OA) with infallibly true beliefs about all future contingent events" then it is inescapable that, for whatever reason, those agents are being determined to do them. If this was not the case then this OA could be wrong, as the agent could choose to do differently than what the OA currently knows and hence it is not infallible with the corollary that for there to be free-will such an agent must in fact not exist.

This simply is not correct. I'll try again.

A free agent cannot do differently from what an omniscient agent foreknows. No one disputes this. To do differently from what the omniscient agent foreknows would be to create a logical contradiction.

But a free agent can choose among options, even though the omniscient agent knows in advance which option the free agent will choose.

Again, look at the possible worlds.

There is a possible world at which free agent does x.

There is a possible world at which free agent does y.

There is a possible world at which free agent does x and omniscient agent foreknows he does x.

There is a possible world at which free agent does y and omniscient agent foreknows he does y.

But:

There is no possible world at which free agent does x and omniscient agent foreknows he does y.

There is no possible world at which free agent does y and omniscient agent foreknows he does x.

Free agent is free to choose x or y. He is just not free to fool the omniscient agent.

I suspect the hangup here is the OA having knowledge in advance of what the free agent does. But as a matter of logic, this makes no difference. Suppose we stipulate that the OA remembers the FA doing something in the past. Does this mean that the free agent had to do that thing, that the OA recalls? Surely not.

I, who am not even omniscient, recall that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK on Nov. 22, 1963. Does that mean Oswald had to have killed Kennedy? That his act was necessary and not contingent? Surely not. If Oswald had not killed JFK, then I -- or the omniscient agent -- would have a different memory about that day in Dallas -- a memory in which JFK did not die.

The exact same logic holds in advance of an event, as after the fact of the event.

[davidm]

Here is the key passage from the paper to which I linked:

b. The Modal Fallacy in Epistemic Determinism

Let's recall Maimonides's argument:
… "Does God know or does He not know that a certain individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily follows that [that] man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect."

We can symbolize the core of this argument, using "∴" for "it necessarily follows"; and "☐" for "compelled"; and "D" for the proposition describing what some particular person does tomorrow.
gKD
———
∴ ☐D
There seems to be (at least) one missing premise. [In the terminology of logicians, the argument is enthymematic.] One tacit assumption of this argument is the necessary truth, "it is not possible both for God to know that D and for D to be false", or, in symbols, "~◊(gKD & ~D)". So the argument becomes:

gKD
~◊(gKD& ~D)
————————
∴ ☐D
But even with this repair, the argument remains invalid. The conclusion does not follow from the two premises. To derive the conclusion, a third premise is needed, and it is easy to see what it is. Most persons, with hardly a moment's thought, virtually as a reflex action, will tacitly assume that the second premise is logically equivalent to:

gKD ⊃ ☐D
and will tacitly (/unconsciously) add this further premise, so as to yield, finally:
gKD
~◊(gKD& ~D)
gKD⊃☐D
————————
∴ ☐D
But this third premise, we have seen above, is false; it commits the modal fallacy. Without this premise, Maimonides' argument is invalid; with it, the argument becomes valid but unsound (that is, has a false and essential premise [namely the third one]). Either way, the argument is a logical botch.

Once the logical error is detected, and removed, the argument for epistemic determinism simply collapses. If some future action/choice is known prior to its occurrence, that event does not thereby become "necessary", "compelled", "forced", or what have you. Inasmuch as its description was, is, and will remain forever contingent, both it and its negation remain possible. Of course only one of the two was, is, and will remain true; while the other was, is, and will remain false. But truth and falsity, per se, do not determine a proposition's modality. Whether true or false, each of these propositions was, is, and will remain possible. Knowing – whether by God or a human being – some future event no more forces that event to occur than our learning that dinosaurs lived in (what is now) South Dakota forced those reptiles to take up residence there.

The above shows why the argument that infallible foreknowledge makes future human actions inevitable (and hence deprives humans of free will) is either invalid or unsound.

[Arising_uk]

...

I suspect the hangup here is the OA having knowledge in advance of what the free agent does. But as a matter of logic, this makes no difference. ...

Well, as a matter for modal logic it might well not but given we are talking about knowledge of future events than I think temporal or event logic may well play part.

Suppose we stipulate that the OA remembers the FA doing something in the past. Does this mean that the free agent had to do that thing, that the OA recalls? Surely not. ...

I would think it means the agent has had to have done it.

I, who am not even omniscient, recall that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK on Nov. 22, 1963. Does that mean Oswald had to have killed Kennedy? That his act was necessary and not contingent? Surely not. If Oswald had not killed JFK, then I -- or the omniscient agent -- would have a different memory about that day in Dallas -- a memory in which JFK did not die. ...

And contrariwise if you claimed on Nov 22 1962 that you infallibly know that Oswald will kill Kennedy on Nov 22 1963(no idea if this is the true date) then even though Oswald has not yet made his mind up to do so he has no choice about not doing so, as if he does decide not to then you are not infallible and if he cannot not choose otherwise something must be determining that this event is going to happen and in fact a whole host of other factors are going to have to be determined to make it happen, so no accidents allowed either, if your infallibility is to hold that is.

I can think of one way this could work and that is in fact there is no causality at all, that reality is a static 'picture' and no event is causing any other and as such this OA can know everything but in this case I think the idea of 'choice' goes out of the window along with free-will. Is this what you meant by neo-Humean?

The exact same logic holds in advance of an event, as after the fact of the event.

Like I say, modal-wise this may well be the case but I'm unsure temporally this can be the case.

[davidm]

I would think it means the agent has had to have done it.

Really? So yesterday, let's say, you had eggs for breakfast, and it so happens I remember this fact. This means you had to have had eggs? You couldn't have had pancakes instead? But if you had eaten pancakes instead, then I would today remember that you had pancakes.

And contrariwise if you claimed on Nov 22 1962 that you infallibly know that Oswald will kill Kennedy on Nov 22 1963(no idea if this is the true date) then even though Oswald has not yet made his mind up to do so he has no choice about not doing so, as if he does decide not to then you are not infallible and if he cannot not choose otherwise something must be determining that this event is going to happen and in fact a whole host of other factors are going to have to be determined to make it happen, so no accidents allowed either, if your infallibility is to hold that is.

As I have tried to show, this is not correct as a matter of logic.

Your argument is a classic modal fallacy. In the case of an omniscient foreknowing agent and Oswald killing Kennedy, you are imparting necessity to Oswald killing JFK, in virtue of the fact that the omniscient agent infallibly knows what he will do, in advance of Oswald doing it.

That just IS the modal fallacy. It is NOT necessary that Oswald kill JFK. He is free to kill him or not. What IS necessary is that whatever Oswald does, the omniscient agent will know, in advance, what he does..

Wrong:

If OA knows in advance Oswald will kill JFK, then Oswald MUST kill JFK.

Right:

Necessarily (If OA knows in advance that Oswald will kill JFK, then Oswald will [not MUST!] kill JFK.)

If Oswald does not kill JFK, then the OA will know, in advancer, THAT fact instead. Oswald can kill or not kill JFK as he pleases, but whatever he does, he cannot deceive the OA.

[Dubious]

Resurrections were common all...doesn't transcend beyond a footnote in Jewish history.

You've not dealt with any of the historical evidence I listed earlier, but I'm not surprised. You're just recycling the old canards.

Please have the integrity to quote what I wrote without splicing it into something I can’t even understand!

Mystery religions were rampant. What you claim as a “cannard” was ubiquitous throughout the Hellenistic period. Only a Fundamentalist or someone not acquainted with the period would claim otherwise.

Nietzsche never did anything with "history." He just manufactured "alternate versions" of how he thought things might have been. But even he did not think he'd actually proved anything, it would seem.

No one can prove history in advance though N was quite successful in his speculations based on what was already happening during his lifetime. That god was a fading entity within western consciousness was already a slow torque process not only obvious to Nietzsche!

Well, I already listed some of the historical evidence earlier. It's pretty good. Did you read that bit?

Here it is...

"...Yet the records show He did appear to His disciples, on several occasions and over a substantial period. During that time, he also appeared to five hundred others as well. (1 Col. 15:6) That's an extremely bold factual claim for the Apostle Paul to make at a time when the involved parties on both sides were still almost all around. He could have been instantly proved wrong. In fact, all of these 500 supportive witnesses were themselves alive and capable of contradicting the disciples' stories, if that's what they were.


...You act as if you were one of those Paul spoke to or wrote to in order to convince upon an event he was never witness to. The only evidence here, by all the rules of evidence, proclaim that Paul had a very clear agenda, a message to both converted and unconverted, which ultimately triumphed as Christianity, creating in its wake, universal significance out of a local rabbi. The Jews themselves were never fooled by that distortion! Being a Jewish story to begin with, you’d think they would know!

So let’s get real! Who could plausibly be certain, including Paul, that “500 supportive witnesses were themselves alive” as observers to Christ’s resurrection? That conclusion would now be pronounced as ludicrous, though in Paul’s time perfectly acceptable, in line with other mythic stories of the same manufacture, which by any criteria, conforms neither to logic or evidence. I can just imagine what a modern barrister would make of that story! But people didn’t see it that way then. What they chose to believe and during the Middle Ages is considered completely out of bounds now. All of history is up for reexamination based on modern forensics and technologies including every story in the Bible.

The FACT is that what you are required to accept as evidence to justify your faith would be thoroughly inadmissible in any court of law in the land. The Ancients, as we know, were extremely lax in what qualified as evidence. Hearsay just as often conformed to fact especially through the talents of a great speaker which Paul must have been.


Moreover, many of Christ's disciples, as we know from independent accounts…

...What “independent accounts”? This subsumes they had the same sense of evidence as we have in a modern court of law when nothing could be further from the truth! Also, would it not have been obvious to the Romans that the guy they just crucified was still out there preaching? If that were really the case, would they have waited until Constantine to make the conversion knowing that what was truly dead still walks among them! You'd think there would be at least some feedback from the Romans witnessing such a comeback.

Whatever else we can safely say, we can say that the early disciples fully believed in -- and in fact, died for -- the Resurrection of Christ. And nobody did the obvious, and simply disproved them.

...What was there to disprove! The testimony of “500 supportive witnesses who were themselves alive”? The number itself is weird! Why only 500 a nice even number. Why not 5000? Who were these early disciples? Why is there no written testimony of theirs after beholding such a godlike miracle? But all that’s claimed is that there were 500 supportive witnesses. How many names of those do we know? How was all this evidence collected and by whom compared to who merely proclaimed it? With “evidence” like that you’d be laughed out of court!

The only evidence you have is proof of faith without evidence of proof! Tertullian is seemingly beyond your ability to comprehend when he stated, I believe because it is absurd and only in that respect can belief be fully justified and only vaguely adjusted to counter arguments... even by atheists who remain defenseless to faith but never to the evidence presupposed by the faithful! Evidence is not on your side but faith is!

Every single thought whether of gods or quantum theory has emanated from humans and nowhere else. Both the bible and Koran are perfect examples of their human origin...not least because of the vast imperfections incorporated by an ancient mindset so foreign to us now.

[Arising_uk]

...

The above shows why the argument that infallible foreknowledge makes future human actions inevitable (and hence deprives humans of free will) is either invalid or unsound.

I'll need some more time to understand this and it'll have to involve brushing up on logical inference per se. But as an aside I'm a touch confused about the symbol definitions and their use as "☐" is normally used for "Necessary" in modal logic and "∴" is just "therefore" - no need for the "necessary"?

Having said that, why is the first axiom not then ☐K(g,d) as K(g,d) doesn't seem strong enough to express this idea of infallible 'foreknowledge'? And if it is then no need for the missing premise.

[Immanuel Can]

Please have the integrity to quote what I wrote without splicing it into something I can’t even understand!

It's not an "integrity" issue. The full quotation is always just above.

No one can prove history in advance though N was quite successful in his speculations based on what was already happening during his lifetime. That god was a fading entity within western consciousness was already a slow torque process not only obvious to Nietzsche!

It didn't turn out to be true, though.

In 2010, on a world scale, about 16% of the people are classified as "unaffiliated," meaning they are not self-declared members of a religious organization, but half of them are still, in a general sense, religious. That leaves 4% of the population, by generous reckoning, as true Atheists, since there's about another 4% agnostics, apparently. That means that reports of the "death of God" are greatly exaggerated, by any standard. In fact, people are now talking about the "resacralization" of the world, as numbers of religious people are actually rising.

So where's Nietzsche now?

The FACT is that what you are required to accept as evidence to justify your faith would be thoroughly inadmissible in any court of law in the land.

History is not a "court" matter, so your analogy is inapt. Courts are for crimes, disputes and laws...they don't settle historical facts. There is more historical data supportive of the resurrection than there is for many facts already generally accepted. The only reason the issue really remains in dispute is how overwhelmingly important it is to get this one right.

...What “independent accounts”?

We could start with the Jewish historian Josephus. But then there's Origen, Eusebius, Polycrates, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, and the very Tertullian you mention later, just to throw in a few. The martyrdom of Stephen, of James, of John the Baptist are all documented in the Bible itself.

Why these witnesses would die for (what you say is) a deception they were perpetrating would take some explaining.

The testimony of “500 supportive witnesses who were themselves alive”? The number itself is weird!

The passage actually reads "by more than 500 witnesses," and adds that "most are still alive" at the time of his writing. So refutations would have been available and easy, if refutations could have been made. More importantly, "more than 500" could have been any exact number in excess of 500 and perhaps not approaching 600, say, without any hint of dishonesty in the record.

Now, something you forgot to address: why were these testimonies not simply refuted at the time? They could have been. Additionally, given that both the Jewish and Roman authorities were perturbed by rumours of the Resurrection, if the Roman authorities had the body of Jesus, why didn't they instantly produce it? That would have solved the whole "problem" for them, and would have been an instant and final refutation to any burgeoning "cult" based on the Resurrection.

But that's not what happened. Why?

Tertullian is seemingly beyond your ability to comprehend when he stated, I believe because it is absurd and only in that respect can belief be fully justified and only vaguely adjusted to counter arguments... even by atheists who remain defenseless to faith but never to the evidence presupposed by the faithful! Evidence is not on your side but faith is!

The misunderstanding about faith that you articulate above is old and shopworn. Some Christians and Atheists have believed it. But more of us have not. I do not, personally; not because it's " beyond my ability," as you so graciously put it, but because it's not true or right, and fails to reflect what is said about faith in the much more important source, the Bible itself.

[Arising_uk]

Really? So yesterday, let's say, you had eggs for breakfast, and it so happens I remember this fact. This means you had to have had eggs? You couldn't have had pancakes instead? But if you had eaten pancakes instead, then I would today remember that you had pancakes. ...

My apologies my English appears unclear. What I think is that all you can infer from you remembering that I have had eggs or pancakes is that I have to have had eggs or pancakes.

As I have tried to show, this is not correct as a matter of logic.

Your argument is a classic modal fallacy. In the case of an omniscient foreknowing agent and Oswald killing Kennedy, you are imparting necessity to Oswald killing JFK, in virtue of the fact that the omniscient agent infallibly knows what he will do, in advance of Oswald doing it.

That just IS the modal fallacy. It is NOT necessary that Oswald kill JFK. He is free to kill him or not. What IS necessary is that whatever Oswald does, the omniscient agent will know, in advance, what he does..

Wrong:

If OA knows in advance Oswald will kill JFK, then Oswald MUST kill JFK.

Right:

Necessarily (If OA knows in advance that Oswald will kill JFK, then Oswald will [not MUST!] kill JFK.)

I think you're playing with semantics here as in the case of an OA saying in advance that O will kill JFK 'must' and 'will' amount to the same thing or the OA is not infallible. As how do you deal with the case that the OA makes an infallible prediction that O will kill JFK and then he doesn't?

If Oswald does not kill JFK, then the OA will know, in advancer, THAT fact instead. Oswald can kill or not kill JFK as he pleases, but whatever he does, he cannot deceive the OA.

Okay but when in advance? As as far as I can see what you are saying is that this OA has to wait until the event and then just says "I knew he'd do that."?

If you are saying that this OA can make all the predictions beforehand and they will be infallibly true I'm at a loss as to how this does not imply that no other choice was possible and hence every possible event that could have led to a different outcome will not occur, i.e. the event must have been determined in some way, whether by this OA or some other agency? Now of course O can keep changing his mind and the OA can keep changing his prediction but sooner or later the OA is going to have to commit to a time and if O has freewill he can do the other right after which makes the OA not an OA but if this is not possible and O will do as the OA infallibly predicts O does not have freewill and by default has to have been determined in some way?

[thedoc]

Okay but when in advance? As as far as I can see what you are saying is that this OA has to wait until the event and then just says "I knew he'd do that."?

If you are saying that this OA can make all the predictions beforehand and they will be infallibly true I'm at a loss as to how this does not imply that no other choice was possible and hence every possible event that could have led to a different outcome will not occur, i.e. the event must have been determined in some way, whether by this OA or some other agency? Now of course O can keep changing his mind and the OA can keep changing his prediction but sooner or later the OA is going to have to commit to a time and if O has freewill he can do the other right after which makes the OA not an OA but if this is not possible and O will do as the OA infallibly predicts O does not have freewill and by default has to have been determined in some way?

How far in advance doesn't matter and the O doesn't even need to know that there will be a choice or what the choices are. There is a subtle difference between "must do" and "will do" that seems to be lost on you.

[Dubious]

The misunderstanding about faith that you articulate above is old and shopworn. Some Christians and Atheists have believed it. But more of us have not. I do not, personally; not because it's " beyond my ability," as you so graciously put it, but because it's not true or right, and fails to reflect what is said about faith in the much more important source, the Bible itself.

The point is the bible is not in the least reliable in producing it's own evidence. Based on the nature of "Sacred Texts", its purposes and when they were written, that would be too much to ask and beyond any "reasonable" expectations. That's one reason why there's so much research on the subject, archeologically, historically, forensically. All are in the process of creating a true historicity of events which obviously doesn't include all the magic.

At root there are two versions of Christ; the Jewish one and the Christian. You chose the latter.

So it goes without saying, believe what you like, whatever makes you comfortable, but don't presume you have evidence for any for it! There is no such thing as "for the record" when it comes to the bible.

As to the claim...

In fact, people are now talking about the "resacralization" of the world, as numbers of religious people are actually rising.

...if that is true then these statistics must also be counterfactual:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuck ... 89398.html

To repeat, there's nothing wrong in believing that Christ is your savior if you choose to believe in the veracity of a two thousand year old story when separating fact from fiction was a dubious affair! No one is arguing against it. It's what you accept as "proof" for your beliefs which is rendered mute by any definition of the word. Faith can stand firm without evidence but pollutes itself when it seeks to establish its beliefs based on evidence.

The many "arguments" against you do not relate to your beliefs but only in how you defend them...most degrading of all, your flaming crusader's sword against atheists.

What is atheism really based on if not the knowledge which succeeded that which preceded?

It takes a person of this time to successfully defend belief...and you're not one of them!

[Immanuel Can]

So it goes without saying, believe what you like, whatever makes you comfortable, but don't presume you have evidence for any for it! There is no such thing as "for the record" when it comes to the bible.

If it goes without saying, I marvel that you think you need to say it...especially with such emphasis.

But it won't make it true.

...if that is true then these statistics must also be counterfactual:

Huffington post...Leftie central, versus the CIA Fact Book. Yes, I know which we have reason to take seriously.

... It's what you accept as "proof" for your beliefs which is rendered mute by any definition of the word. Faith can stand firm without evidence but pollutes itself when it seeks to establish its beliefs based on evidence.

Did I use the word "proof"? Show me where. I said "evidence." Check and see.

Evidence is what science uses. Proofs are what maths use. You've got your epistemological terms backwards. Not even science has proofs.

Furthermore, the suggestion that evidence "pollutes" faith is just untrue. Faith always has to be IN something in particular. Absent evidence, what you've got there is fantasy only. And no Christian is enjoined to believe in fantasy. Rather, they are invited to have faith IN Christ, a historical person, and in the teaching which he gave.

Now, you can argue that he didn't give it. But if you do, then two problems follow for you. One is how to prove that, so as to warrant your skepticism. The second is that the propositions represented as his still need to be examined for veracity, regardless of how we have derived them. How are you in a position to do either?

...your flaming crusader's sword against atheists.

Speaking of fantasy...

Heh. I set out in no "crusade" against Atheists. It was they who came looking for me. How many strands on this site are started by some ill-informed cynic, who just wants to wave the red flag at any Theist in the vicinity? And then they get all self-satisfied if nobody steps up and calls them on their rubbish. No, I don't have to "crusade": the Atheists give me plenty of opportunity without my seeking it.

What is atheism really based on if not the knowledge which succeeded that which preceded?

The truth? On ignorance and bigotry, actually. On a mean-spirited and uninformed rejection of God, without sufficient evidence. I have invariably found that that is all it has.

Agnostics are much more thoughtful and reasonable people; but Atheists, on the whole are either a) irrationally agnostic folks who don't know that uncertainty isn't grounds for rejection and so just call themselves "Atheists," though they are not really that, or b) evangelizing, hard-core Atheists, who have never really thought, and so think they have never faced a serious challenge, and so imagine their position unworthy of debate by anyone. It is these latter, though, who cannot stop picking fights; because unbelief needs continual reinforcement in order to be sustained against reality.

These latter, the evangelical Atheists, seem determined that all the world shall hear the bad news of their non-gospel and give up hope of being saved from anything. And they are annoyed if anybody calls their bluff, and acrimonious when it is pointed out that their worldview is vacuous, their claim to any legitimation of morality is non-existent, and their ability to justify their bigotry rationally is zero. But that is the truth, whether they like it or not.

If the Bible is right, such are simply Hell-bound and happy to go there, taking as many with them as they can. And that's what they really want, and if God gives them their wish, who can blame Him for that?

I would wish for their sake, they would make a better choice. But I can only persuade...I can't change hearts. If the heart is badly set, then as Christ Himself so clearly said, they are just "blind guides to the blind," who lead others into a pit. (see Matthew 15:14)

It takes a person of this time to successfully defend belief...and you're not one of them!

I wonder what a "person of this time" actually is, and I wonder why you think it's good to be that. I think I'd rather be a person of all times, someone who was dedicated to the truth, wherever and whenever it appears.

Wouldn't you?

[jayjacobus]

If the brain presents one object at a time, then we must be robotic