Xaway

Karma: 4

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 5:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
Well that is just your biases...

Because a God is supernatural any probability assigned to it existing is as arbitrary as any other.

Obviously, if the P=1/3^^^^^3 then it would be absurd to see biogenesis or biological complexity as evidence for God. But if the P =0.01 then I, for one, see it as very strong evidence.

I see no reason to prefer theism vs. atheism and I consider an extraordinarily low P to be biased towards atheism, but if that rocks your boat, have fun.

That I am irriational and delusional is highly probable, in fact I am sure of it. But I have no choice but to trust my own faulty brain.

I would certainly not consider you rational if you were to convert to Christianity solely based on reading my story on the internetz.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 4:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Costanza’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
Although I appreciate some of the articles on this site, I don’t think I’ll participate much in the discussion.

Although I speak Bayes and know more logic than a human should know, I do not consider myself a rationalist, because I doubt my own rationality. It wouldn’t make sense for an inherently irrational person to spend his time trying to talk rationally when he could be dancing or programming.

Also, I firmly believe that Christianity can not be proven by argument, only by evidence (miracles). And only God himself, not the Christian, can provide the evidence, which he does on his own terms.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 4:11 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ata’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
Obviously, if the evidence of Christianity’s truth was available to all then all would be Christians. Assuming the Christian god does not want all to be Christians the evidence should not be available to all.

Anyway, when I received my experience I certainly did not want to believe in it. And even now many years later, I would prefer to abandon Christianity and its morality but find myself unable because of my experiences.

I also know of a few other stories similar to mine, enough to convince myself I’m not delusional.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 4:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
A basic doctrine of Christianity is that poor, humble and righteous people are wicked and prideful too.

Only Jesus is perfect.

Some strains believe God choses for reasons we can’t grasp and then those people become more humble and less prideful, etc.

Others believe that if you do your best to be humble and righteous eventually God will reveal himself (though no guarantee that it will happen before your last minute on earth).

I don’t know which of the two it is, or perhaps it is something else entirely.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:59 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Costanza’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
If you spot a logical error, bring it on.

Obviously I don’t want to believe untrue things.

But if there is two things I am sure about, it’s (1) that humans are not rational, especially not me and (2) there are things that are true which can not be proven to be true (the real world analogue to Godels theorems).

I frequent this site, but I generally do not participate in internet discussions. I only registered this account and gave my two cents because Eliezer asked for a Christian who speaks Bayes to chime in.

I’m afraid that once I log off, I will probably forget the password to this account.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:49 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ata’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
So because it makes sense it’s suspiciously convenient?

Obviously if there was a God (e.g. the Christian one) and he wanted the whole world to be nominal Christians he would do another Elijah like demonstration of his power, recorded on camera.

This is obviously not the case. So either the Christian god does not exist (suspiciously convenient for the non-Christian?) or he does not actually want all those non-Christians to self-identify as Christians (suspiciously convenient for the Christian god?)

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:39 UTC
0 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
If you are familiar with Christianity, all humans fall into the wicked and prideful categories.

The fact that you are on the internet suggests you additionally fall into the rich one too.

Now whether God sovereignly chooses his people (calvinism), or humans can also choose e.g. by humbling themselves (arianism) is an open question.

Edit to add: Just because God hasn’t revealed the truth to someone today, doesn’t mean he won’t do it tomorrow or even (though this is heresy) after death.

So I certainly don’t consider all non-Christians to be hopeless, after all I was a non-Christian too, once. And I also don’t consider all who call themselves Chrstian to be chosen.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
I’ve considered those kind of explanations, but the nature of the particular experiences which caused me to convert does not lend itself to that kind of explanation.

My policy is to never discuss the details with someone I do not personally know and trust, but I will say this much: the evidence was external and observed and confirmed by trusted others.

In fact if you are familiar with Zero Knowledge Proofs (I’m a crypto geek) the evidence was a type of ZKP that allows me to know with certainty (to the extent that I can trust my own rationality and senses) without enabling me to duplicate the proof.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:26 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Costanza’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
My parents don’t consider me a real Christian, somehow I cope. ;-)

Not only do I believe the Elijah experiment can be replicated, I believe it is being replicated today along with many other miracles. Just hidden for most people, because in Christianity, God reveals the truth to those who he chooses (poor/humble/righteous people) and keeps other people (rich/wicked/prideful) blind. So God might raise someone from the dead but in a way that could not be publicly verified, lest the rich proud people who think they’re so smart find out the truth.

I fail to see how a supernatural revelation could prove no (organized) religion is correct, short of God saying “no religion is correct”, which would then cause me to create my own organized religion...

But Christianity could surely be disproved in many different ways. For one, aliens or real sentient AI would disprove Christianity AFA I’m concerned. I’m not yet 30, so maybe I’ll discover it in my lifetime.

If Christianity were disproved, that would leave Buddhism and Deism as the only viable religions left IMH(current)O. And Deism is only necessary in so far as I find the evidence for abiogenesis and humans-created-by-evolution lacking.

So except miracles and creation, I could be an atheist.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 3:06 UTC
3 points
in reply to: simplicio’s comment on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
To the extent that their experiences do not contradict mine, I see no reason to doubt. There is nothing in Christianity that prevents non-Christians from having religious experiences.

But when the experiences of others do contradict mine, such as the revelations Joseph Smith or Mohammed received, I have to doubt their sincerity or their sanity (I don’t know which) for the same reason you doubt mine: Because I can’t see in their mind and I wasn’t in their body when it happened. And if I have to choose between my own experiences and another persons experiences, I choose my own.

But I should mention that of all the people I trust and who have told me their religious experiences (mostly hindu family members) to date none of them has proven a challenge to my Christianity.

Xaway 17 Dec 2010 2:31 UTC
0 points
on: How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3
OK, I’m a Christian. Bit of history: -raised christian -As a teen became agnostic/deist, atheist at 17 -Converted to Christianity at 18

Based on rational thinking I drift towards deism/agnosticism. I’m skeptical of microbes-to-man evolution and abiogenesis. But if abiogenesis could be demonstrated, or if evolutionary processes could be demonstrated to be capable of producing the kind of complexity we see in biology (e.g. evolutionary algorithms run on supercomputer clusters producing real AI) then I’d probably drift towards atheism.

Anyway, at 18 I became a Christian because of direct revelation by God himself, and I was not high.

A similar or better revelation could convince me of a different religion, though Islam would require a much bigger revelation. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I consider the claim that Islam is true much less likely than the claim that Judaism, Christianity or Buddhism is true, which in turn I consider less likely than the claim that Deism is true.)

Edit: Thanks all for the lovely discussion, I think I’ve presented my theory of Life, the Universe and Everything in enough detail to get a fair understanding of it.

I hope you like the data point and a lotta luck synthesizing your own theory of L,U and E.