Method of Madness: post-hoc reasoning and confirmation bias.

As I said before, bias is necessary. We objectively evaluate the physical realm and find physical truth. We assimilate these truths and store them in our minds and they become our bias outlook. When we see a thunderstorm rising we pull out our scientific bias and think of the principles involved in it. This is not subjective because we are relying on truth that exists outside ourselves. Our understanding of how thunderstorms work is not self-made, but self-discovered.If the Bible is truth regardless of what anyone thinks of it, and I accept it as truth and store it in my mind, I can then objectively evaluate reality by it because it is not self-made. If my opinions are not motivated by selfishness and are not self-made or adopted from others who self-made them, but come from God who is the author of truth, then they are not MY subjective opinions, but objective truth.Haha.. I KNOW you will not see this my way because your bias is that the Bible is probably not truth since you have no verifable proof the Bible is truth. But you cannot falsify it either. So technically, my pending subjectivity is unfalsifiable. The 4th dimension Oh, and the Bible of course. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Well, it is the atheists and Jar on here that are always requiring verifiable proof in order to know something. Didn't someone just start up a post asking for proof of Jesus or that He is God?Patiently awaiting to discover the flaws in my logic.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-29-2004 01:01 AM

Ever talk to a missionary?

There are over 300 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus alone. Come on, do your homework.I gave one example of a pointer in a previous thread:Genesis 5 geneology:Adam -------- man
Seth -------- appointed
Enosh ------- mortal
Kenan ------- sorrow;
Mahalalel --- the blessed God
Jared ------- Shall come down
Enoch ------- Teaching
Methuselah -- His death shall bring
Lamech ------ The despairing
Noah -------- rest or comfortMan [is] appointed mortal sorrow; [but] the blessed God shall come down teaching [that] His death shall bring [the] despairing rest.What are the odds that the very first geneology recorded in the Bible by Moses would contain the names whose meanings form one sentence containing the gospel of Christ?This topic is not about why I believe.We were talking about my supposed post-hoc or confirmation bias or other logic flaws in my explanations of suffering and God's character. Please address my arguments in the previous posts about God's character before we get sidetracked.

STILL no comment on my 3 very good arguments about God's character? Sigh... I guess you concede that I am right then... haha The Hebrew is a very precise language. They say in 5 words what we say in 10 and have more meaning in it than we do.It still makes sense even without the added words although saying it in english without the added words is a bit awkward. English translations are filled with added words to try to convey the full meaning of it in Hebrew. Sure look up their roots and you will get the same thing. Several of the names are already explained in the context.Adam obviously translates man.
Eve gave birth to Seth saying: God has appointed me a son. Noah's name was explained by Lamech who said: He will give us rest in labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed (also a prophecy of Christ). Some of the others are explained elsewhere like Methuselah: "His death shall bring" the flood.So in the geneology you have Christ's first coming:Man is appointed mortal sorrow; but the blessed God shall come down teaching that His death shall bring the despairing rest.In the last sentence of the geneology you have Christ's second coming when he will bring perfect environment when the curse or bondage of decay as its called is removed.He will give us rest in labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed. So you think Moses made the names lifespans and whole story up to fool us into believing in the Messiah that had not yet come? Actually Moses only set in writting the oral history. If people's retelling of these stories were just "myths" as you say they were then why do they perfectly describe by chance the purpose of Christs 1st and 2nd coming? Well I haven't taken statistics yet (get that next semester) could you please tell me the odds? Because the geneology is interrupted by the flood. Yep. Correct. But you can use the Bible to prove it's divinely inspired by prophecy that shows it is an "integrated message system from outside our time domain". This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 07-01-2004 01:10 PM

Thank you for your reply. My description of a limit was not apologetics, in fact I came up with that one off the top of my head, yet you never have mentioned it. I take this as evidence that what 1 Cor. says is true that spiritual truth, or apologetics as you say, is foolishness to you because you do not have the Spirit's power. No, this is your atheist spin on the fact that Hebrew is much more context oriented than english. Acutually I believe this word order indicates that appointed is passive. If it said appointed man mortal sorrow, then, in english this would mean man appointed mortal sorrow. Look at the word order in the original of Gen. 1:1 Judging by context and word order, our sentence is best translated man is appointed... Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Jesus was God and Jesus did preach about his own death and that his death would bring power and rest. I've discovered the root to Lamech means power, not lamentation. Jesus did also teach that his disciples would receive the power of the H.S. These are the name's meanings, but not their root meanings. Some have the same meaning as their root's meanings, and some do not.Nice in the english language comes from the Latin "nescius" which means ignorant. Nice has a totally different meaning than it's root which means ignorant. Look nice up in your dictionary and I don't believe it will give you the root and it's meaning. Similarly some of the names' meanings changed from their roots as well. Look up Methuselah in a lexicon and you get man of the dart. It is easy to see how this came to be from the roots: Muth = death and shalach = shall bring. Some english words do carry their original root's meanings, like amiable which carrys the root meaning to love. Actually, I did read this and several other sites. However, I think there are too many coincidences here to continue being a skeptic. Sure you can do this with most any sentence in the english today. Just look up each word and pick the last word in the definition and re-write it with that word. So how do we know what meaning is meant? Context. Also, I claimed that the meanings of the roots are what must be used, not the evolved meaning of the name.When you consider the roots' meanings:Adam is synonymous with man, so that's obvious. From this ruddy or blood man or red man or red is derived, but man was the original meaning.Seth means appointed as stated by Eve, so we know this is it's set meaning, but it also means set or fixed or placed.Enos comes from roots meaning sickness and man, or mortal man, or mortality.Kenan means dwelling, but it is unclear whether it is incorrectly assumed to be taken from the aramaic root Cainan. Apparently the original Hebrew root meant sorrow. Either definition makes perfect sense, but I think the Hebrew root is what we are after.Mahalalel undisputedly means praised God or Blessed God.Jared comes from roots meaning to descend or come down.Enoch comes from roots meaning to commence instruction. He was a teacher or prophet (see Jude 1:18).Methuselah comes from roots Muth and shalach which mean death and bring forth or send forth. It is easy to see how "man of the dart" came out of these roots. It was customary that all the names had significance at the time. Since Methuselah's father was a prophet and Methuselah's death did bring the flood, it is probable that Enoch named him as a prophecy of the coming judgement.Lamech's name presents the only real problem, which I do not have any more time to investigate. Some have stated that the original root's meaning is sorrow, but others say the root's meaning is uncertain. If the original meaning was power, then this would make sense as this is what Jesus taught.Noah as explained means to give rest or to comfort.So with the original root's meanings (not general meanings from a lexicon or concordance) and english grammer added by context, we have:Man is appointed mortal (sorrow or habitation?); the blessed God shall descend (or come down) commencing instruction (or teaching or prophecying) that his death shall bring (or death sends forth) power (or the despairing) and rest (or comfort).It all still checks out.After Noah we have a sentence describing the solution Christ will bring through Noah at his 2nd coming ending the toil that began with the curse. This completes the sentence and the geneology.Shem Ham and Japheth are mentioned as a part of Noah's entry in the geneology as his sons, but themselves are not addressed until the next geneology after the flood.I would be most surprised if you are at all provoked to thought by this, but I thought I would lay it all out anyway. Since this is WAY off topic, I will say no more and let you have the last word.

Hello SD, Well, Schraf and I got into a big debate when Schraf said that a six year old girl being raped and murdered was incompatible with the existence of a just all-powerful god. Check out the posts if you want.The debate was as usual quite pointless as far as coming to agreement on anything, but it did allow me to examine God's character to a greater depth. I'll take a look at it.

Well, what is your definition of truth? Could it not be considered truth that when water is cooled below zero degrees celcius at 1 atm that it freezes? ...yes of course this is defined by all kinds of different forces, which we do not fully understand. I forgot exactly what we were talking about here. I agree. Haha, when I was about three or four I told my mom I did not believe in Santa Claus because for him to go visit every house on earth he would have to practically be everywhere at once, and I learned in Sunday school that only God is everywhere at once. Since Santa Clause is not God, he can't be real and do what people claim he does.Anyways... you cannot falisfy the Bible as truth, and I have my own reasons to believe it is true. I agree. That is one reason why God put prophecy in the Bible. However, as time passes and languages change and historical records disappear it becomes harder to verify this. This is one reason why so much prophecy concerns the "end-times". But let's ignore this for now as I am not prepared to debate prophecy right now. Hmm... I was defining the physical realm as the three or four dimensions we can observe. Angels have certain specific qualities and are bound by this universe in ways we cannot observe usually observe. God as the creator, however, is not bound by the universe but only his own character. Our spirit and soul are truly metaphysical I guess. I do not think there is physical evidence right now (I could be wrong), but only historical (which I am not yet prepared to debate).

Thank you for your reply. Truth as defined by dictionary.com
1. Conformity to fact or actuality.
2. A statement proven to be or accepted as true.
3. Sincerity; integrity.
4. Fidelity to an original or standard.5. Reality; actuality.
a. often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality
b. and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.So, if the scientific method is the only trustworthy method of establishing fact, but science can't find truth... How the hell do we find truth? Is life just an illusion? Are we figments in the imagination of another being in another universe? Are we all simulations in a computer matrix? What the hell is life all about??? Oh yes. If you took a walk in a bad neighborhood without any bias, you might get shot. You learn that certain kinds of characters and certain places are dangerous to go to. If you did not assimilate these facts or truths to form your bias outlook of the neighborhood, you would quickly get yourself into trouble. Haha... "believe it is true till kingdom comes" I will. Do you know who's kingdom you're referring to? Ah the irony..."Believe" me I understand. But proof exists for whatever purposes those who posses it have in mind. There is such a vast sea of opinions and ideas and facts and whatnot that there is no way you can believe while relying solely on yourself to swim through this sea and determine truth. That's the way God intended it to be."I am truth," says Jesus, "What is truth?" says Pilate.Furthermore, you told me science cannot truly find truth, so what does it matter whether I have physical proof or not? How do you know every word out of your mouth is not a lie? What defines a lie? No, I do think proof is important, and God does prove himself to those who choose to know him.I'm not in the business of proving anything (though due to my discussions on here I am finally motivated to acquire more knowledge of prophecy), although I have sufficient reasons to believe what I believe is true and nothing contradicts my beliefs.Of course me believing it is true does not make it true! I believe it is true because it IS true! Muhahaha... This must be infuriating. Of course it would be easy to fulfill this prophecy! there is no context. What brother? What kingdom? What glory? What judgment? What ape? What courts? What beast? What plane? Who wrote it? When did they write it? Why did they write it? Where did they write it? Who did they write it to? Have you seen "Donny Darko"? There's a mighty disturbing easter bunny there... anyways... I think what separates us from angels and demons is a dimensionality. It seems as though angels and demons are very much bound by time and space (you could say physical), but not bound by atomic matter. God of course is not bound by anything except his character. Our soul and spirit and the spirits of angels and demons are truly metaphysical I guess because they have no physical qualities whatsoever. The nature of the universe with it's fine-tuned physical laws and the good/evil nature of humans with their moral laws begs the question: Why are things the way they are? Why in a universe ruled by randomness are things almost infinitely complex? And how did all this come from nothing? What is nothing? Is nothing a figment of our imagination? No, we can't even imagine nothingness. Even empty space has a sea of planck particle pairs and is seething with energy. We are not truly creative. We can only analyze and synthesize information already present in new ways.... anyways...If you choose, all of this is VERY convincing proof that God exists.
If you choose, none of this is proof that God exists. Everything comes down to a choice. Kinda reminds me of Adam and Eve in the garden with the fruit. I chose the former and you chose the latter. I said, "God if you're there I want to know you," and he made himself known to me, while you cannot get past the "God if..." so you will never know him. Please analyze my first and most straightforward argument:Shraf says a just God is incompatible with injustice in the world.Human/time bound perspective: If you take the limit as n -> infinite for x/n where x is a constant, you get 0. So if x is time spent in injustice and n is time spent in eternal bliss, injustice vanishes.God/no time perspective: While it may seem to us like God is holding off his justice, and thereby unjust for a time, he will bring everything to account at the end of human history. Since God is not bound by time and all of human history may as well happen at an infintesimally small period of time, it matters not whether God brings justice at the beginning, middle, or end of history, God's justice simply IS.

Wow. I learned something. Well, does it? The feeling deep in the pit of my gut tells me it does. I must have a purpose there must be a reason for everything. If I ignored that, I would die of depression. Life contains more sorrow than happiness. But the indescribable fulfillment I have with a relaionship with God and the incomprehensible happiness that I have as a result confirm to me that that void I feel is designed for God to fill.

I spose. Well, you evidently entertain that notion: Just because they are not bound by atomic matter does not mean they are not able to control it. Only if whatever the hell you damn well please is righteous.

I'm back. Because they can travel through other atomic matter and accelerate faster than anything made of atomic matter could withstand. God didn't create the injustice... But don't reply to this because this will spin off into another debate about sovereign God vs. free-will. God owes us nothing. As sinners we all deserve his wrath right now, but he holds it off because he is willing to give us a chance to be justified and have eternal life. This is grace. The fact that he ALLOWS the world in it's present form to continue is pure grace.

No, my point was that no matter what it seems like to us from our time perspective, God's justice IS. If you could see all of time at once like God, his justice would be undeniable.God did not create the injustice. We did through sin. He allows this to continue for a time to prove a point. At the end of human history he will bring all things to account. Your reasoning is hindered by your human perspective. An ant does not deserve your wrath unless it stings you. After it stings you it deserves your wrath (in my opinion). If you decide to pluck it off and send it on it's merry way despite it's sin against you and give it another opportunity to worship you, THIS is grace.