Free will vs Omniscience

"sugar-tit myth"Because there's nothing childish in ranting about how your enemies presume knowledge of God's will when you presume knowledge of the "brute facts of the world," now is there?

Always happy to amuse, MrHambre--but at least my "rant" stood on a scaffold of reasons, while your "snort of amusement" is merely snotty.Go collect fundie evidence for the "will of God" in one hand, and secular evidence for the "brute facts" of the world in the other.See which one fills up first.

Funny you should mention that. I've long thought that "evidence" is the secular equivalent of "God's will," in that what we already believe defines what we accept as evidence. And if your only defense of your, ahem, reasons is that they're better than fundie hogwash, well, that's not saying much.

Still more nonsense. Where is all this tripe coming from? It seems that you like to believe anything that sounds contrary without providing any support for it.

Only for the dishonest.
And if you're dealing with dishonest people, it's hardly worth noting that you might not accept what they call evidence.If you're trying to say that honest evidence and honest will of God are similar.. then I pity you for the environment of distrust that formed such an idea.There is always only 1 honest interpretation of evidence. That interpretation may or may not be specific, depending on the kind of information available. But when the information is available and can be specific.. the only way to disagree is to be dishonest about what the information shows.
This interpretation is independent of any and all people who review the available information.
There is almost always a way to get more information or to validate it - go look at reality and test.This is also true for the will of God (there is only 1 honest interpretation). The difficult thing with the will of God, though, is that God Himself is seldom (never?) around to clarify what His will actually is when 2 or more people disagree. This leaves the single interpretation so vague that it becomes useless and unknowable. Therefore, all specific interpretations rely on heresy and are entirely dependent on each individual who reviews the available information.
Because God is so... shy... there is almost never a way to get more information or validate it.Edited by Stile, : I once made a post with an edit.
But I forgot to give myself credit.
Clarified the view.
But forgot to imbue...
...the message with my citation from reddit.

Okay. Did you want a defense of my ahem? I thought you just wanted to troll your epistemological superiority with a bit of eye-rolling mockery. My bad.Other than that, let's see: you suggest I have no more evidence for my assertions about the brute facts of the world than fundies have for the will of God. I say, go collect/review the evidence for each side, and see for yourself.Alas, that was not to be: "I've long thought that "evidence" is the secular equivalent of "God's will," in that what we already believe defines what we accept as evidence."Shapes, informs, mediates: all good words. Claiming that our prior beliefs define what we accept as evidence is twaddle. But your experience may vary. If so, I regret that your established beliefs preclude the gathering and evaluation of evidence.Perhaps your exquisitely-tuned sensitivity to the presumptions of others comes at a price.

Oh come now. Data have to be arranged and interpreted in some sort of context before they can be meaningful. The way we approach information depends on what we already believe.I'm nonreligious, and I spent plenty of time excoriating the religious for what I considered the flaws in their worldview (check my posting history if you want "evidence"). But a lot of the time, we approach discussion with believers as a game we rig to our advantage: we demand that they reorganize their beliefs as an evidentiary construct, then we criticize the construct for its shortcomings as something it was never meant to be in the first place. Note that I'm not talking about creationism here, which is just a garbled pseudoscientific conspiracy theory; I'm talking about a religious perspective, the kind of thing Omnivorous was so rabidly attacking.The point is that we demand "evidence" from believers because we've already defined "evidence" as data from the natural sciences, i.e. something that we know won't support claims about the existence of the big-magic-guy the way it can the existence of gingko trees and glaciers.Is that, strictly speaking, "honest"?

Can you give an example?Here's my example proving you wrong:There are 2 apples sitting on a table.
Felix wants to know how many apples are on the table.
I count them. I tell him there are 2.
He doesn't believe me.
He counts them himself.
He counts them in base-10, base-2, French, Arabic and English.
He still gets 2.
He believes me.Now, you may be getting into somethings that are more complex.
Like tree-rings meaning how long a tree has been alive, say.But still, you can always validate the evidence. Go look at reality. Plant a tree, know how long it's been alive for. Cut it down. Count the rings. Do they add up? Yes, no? Are there any other ways to validate such things? Try them out... see for yourself.You can always go back to validate and test reality and add to the available information if you think something's not right.But no matter how complex the results are... you can always break it down to how many apples are on the table if you go and look at it yourself for long enough and get into all the information.So, go ahead... give me an example that has more than 1 honest interpretation. Sure. And when that happens, you can always show the evidence that what the person is doing is dishonest... which is exactly what I said.Many times people take the honest interpretation from the evidence... which is vague because there's not much information... and extrapolate that without evidence into a specific idea... this is dishonest if you claim that the evidence backs you up.I never said being dishonest was impossible.I only said that there's always only 1 honest interpretation of the evidence.
I even stated that sometimes the information isn't abundant and the interpretation may be forced to be vague.None of this changes the difference that honest investigations based on evidence can be advanced by looking at reality and validating the information until only 1 interpretation remains.Such a thing cannot be done with "the Will of God" unless you have God right there telling you His Will.
One question of "is the Bible really the Will of God?" leaves you with no where to go.One question of "is this evidence really indicative of reality" does not leave you with no where to go... it leads you back to validate the information against reality again... which can be done. And can always be done so that all (honest) people will agree. Like having 2 apples on the table.That's the difference.

Okay. How about the way we process information about social and cultural matters? We always emphasize the importance of information that reinforces what we already believe, and dismiss information that challenges what we believe. The numerous statistics, factoids, and opinion pieces floating around on subjects like abortion or gun control are impossible to approach one by one; we usually just judge them by their sources and whether they tell us what we want to hear. If ever matter were as simple as the number of apples on the table, sure. But in most other issues in our personal and social spheres, things are much more complex and there's a lot less hard data available.

Okay, what about it? What is the evidence? What are the multiple, honest interpretations that are based on the evidence?I think you're confusing my question.I'm not asking you to show me something that has more that one interpretation.
I'm asking you to show me something that has more than one interpretation based on the evidence. As soon as you're dismissing information... you're being dishonest.
And "we" don't always do that. Then you're not basing your interpretation on the evidence.
If it's too overwhelming to go through... then be honest and say that. This will then reduce your honest interpretation to something that is vague and possibly unusable. This will either force you to start going through some more information... or you can be content with the vague interpretation.Still... only 1, though. That's right.
And if you're going beyond the hard data... then you're not basing your interpretation on the evidence which is what we're talking about.So, try again...Do you have any example where there is more than 1 honest interpretation that is based on the evidence?Not based-on-but-then-extrapolated...
Entirely "based-on" the evidence.There's always only 1. As long as you're honest, and you base it on the available evidence.Your examples always seem to include extrapolating off the available evidence... I've specifically said from the very beginning that I'm talking about interpretations that are strictly based on the evidence.Of course if you're not based entirely on the evidence then you can have multiple interpretations (more like "possibilities" at this point...).
That's why I specifically said this is not included in an honest interpretation of the available evidence.For the third time, now... can you give an example where you can have multiple interpretations based on the same evidence?
What is the example?
What is the available evidence?
What are the multiple interpretations?You seem to think this is an easy task.. but you've failed twice and haven't been specific at all.Please, if it's so easy, just pick one... let us know... and be specific about what your example is, what the available evidence is, and how the multiple interpretations are both (all?) entirely based on the available evidence without making extrapolations.

So is it true or false to say that God changed his mind?Did he first intend to destroy the Israelites, and then after he talked to Moses abandon that intention, as the Bible says; or is he changeless and did he never have any intention of destroying the Israelites? That's not knowledge, Faith.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You pick a funny time to rely on evidence. And again, the "bizarre" things I say are backed up by scripture. The "orthodox" things that you say are not.

You're stepping on your own tail there. "We" don't all have the same beliefs, so there is no such thing as "our" beliefs to colour our collective conclusions.

Sure we do. Do you really think only other people are prone to cognitive biases and self-validating modes of thinking?I mentioned the abortion debate, in which two facts are always brought up: the fetal heartbeat and that the fetus gestates inside a woman's body. It's not that either pro-lifers or pro-choicers dispute these points. But pro-lifers emphasize the fetal heartbeat and make it seem all-important in the matter; deliberately stopping a heart, even a fetus's heart, is murder. Pro-choicers emphasize the second fact, and stress that the personhood and responsibility of the woman are of utmost importance; if she doesn't want to undergo pregnancy and childbirth, she shouldn't be forced to do so against her will.Two facts, at least two interpretations.

I didn't mean to imply only nonbelievers do this. Every person individually has beliefs and assumptions through which he or she defines what constitutes "evidence," and what the "evidence" means.