Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.
Hello Matt from Robert Bumbalough in Mesquite Texas. I'm an atheist who favors Rand's objectivist metaphysic and epistemology although I would not describe myself as a hard core Randian. I recently purchased a copy of your book AATCAC, and have enjoyed reading it. I'll do a 2nd read starting this week. I've used simplified versions of your argument against Christ belief from the absurdity with better evidence of the Salem Witch Trials in discussion on John Loftus' Debunking Christianity Blog and have briefly cited and linked to your book's Amazon page. I found chapters 9 and 11 useful for that particular conversation. Thanks for writing the book.
Littlewood's argument is mathematically correct but silly. The correct conclusion is that since we don't experience apparent miracles once a month, one or more of his assumptions must be wrong. Personally I would not regard anything as miraculous unless it appeared to violate the laws of physics. The probability of that happening on any one occasion is much lower than one in a million.
Hello Mr. Evans from Robert Bumbalough in Mesquite Texas.
Mr. Evans wrote: Personally I would not regard anything as miraculous unless it appeared to violate the laws of physics.
Apologists for mysticism would have problems in that if an alleged event only appeared to violate the way reality works, then it could not genuinely be said to violate the law of identity, for any alleged event would then not have been validated as actually violating A=A or A≠⌐A. Further problems for apologists for mysticism arise in attempting to validate that misunderstood or seemingly unexplained events actually did violate the way reality operates because non-caused events cannot be validly declared to have been caused by any specific alleged entity. Nor can allegations of supraentities wielding magical influence from outside of existence have argumentative weight or gravitas because such stories lack intrinsic explanatory power.
From within the Christian, Muslim, Religious Jewish worldviews stories of magical beings performing supranatual feats presuppose existence of the Abrahamic deity and so beg the question of it's existence. From within rational, objective, naturalism worldviews, non-quantum scale violations of how reality operates can't happen because reality is gauge invariant, so it is always the case that A=A and A≠⌐A.
I just started a blog where I will be posting a variety of content related to atheism; I'm looking to gain an active community of atheist commenters, feel free to check it out: 'Murican Atheist
As usual, it appears the journamalist who wrote the article did not do thorough research. I have not read Littlewood's book, but Freeman Dyson (in "The Scientist as Rebel") attributes the following definition (which I suspect is also incomplete) to Littlewood:
Miracle: an event which has a one in a million chance of happening and has a special significance when it occurs.
Based on that additional factor of special significance, the journamalist's (my current favorite word, sorry) calculation seems bogus to me also as it does not include any provision for such. I think we would have to read Littlewood's own words to understand what he had in mind.
"He defined a miracle as an event that has a one in a million chance of happening."
Wrong meaning of the word miracle.
Of course if that is the meaning of the word miracle and his math is right then sure we have seen miracles. Perhaps nothing supernatural but "miracles" nonetheless - by his definition.
Hello Matt from Robert Bumbalough in Mesquite Texas. I'm an atheist who favors Rand's objectivist metaphysic and epistemology although I would not describe myself as a hard core Randian. I recently purchased a copy of your book AATCAC, and have enjoyed reading it. I'll do a 2nd read starting this week. I've used simplified versions of your argument against Christ belief from the absurdity with better evidence of the Salem Witch Trials in discussion on John Loftus' Debunking Christianity Blog and have briefly cited and linked to your book's Amazon page. I found chapters 9 and 11 useful for that particular conversation. Thanks for writing the book.
ReplyDeleteBest Wishes and Good Luck too
MAY DAY!
ReplyDeletereddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1deo0i
the culture industry - the ideology of death
sylvia is a saint compared to you lying vultures....
ReplyDeleteTHE CULTURE INDUSTRY - THE IDEOLOGY OF DEATH
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X0Hez25fFrg
HOW WE WON THE JAMES RANDI MILLION DOLLAR PARANORMAL CHALLENGE
deltamachine.atspace.cc/
my.alliant.edu/ICS/icsfs/skeptical-inquirer-cover-jan-feb-2013.png?target=4a3b9ed0-f5df-4fd6-a99e-bd803800e02f
WORKS BOTH WAYS!
Littlewood's argument is mathematically correct but silly. The correct conclusion is that since we don't experience apparent miracles once a month, one or more of his assumptions must be wrong. Personally I would not regard anything as miraculous unless it appeared to violate the laws of physics. The probability of that happening on any one occasion is much lower than one in a million.
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Evans from Robert Bumbalough in Mesquite Texas.
ReplyDeleteMr. Evans wrote: Personally I would not regard anything as miraculous unless it appeared to violate the laws of physics.
Apologists for mysticism would have problems in that if an alleged event only appeared to violate the way reality works, then it could not genuinely be said to violate the law of identity, for any alleged event would then not have been validated as actually violating A=A or A≠⌐A. Further problems for apologists for mysticism arise in attempting to validate that misunderstood or seemingly unexplained events actually did violate the way reality operates because non-caused events cannot be validly declared to have been caused by any specific alleged entity. Nor can allegations of supraentities wielding magical influence from outside of existence have argumentative weight or gravitas because such stories lack intrinsic explanatory power.
From within the Christian, Muslim, Religious Jewish worldviews stories of magical beings performing supranatual feats presuppose existence of the Abrahamic deity and so beg the question of it's existence. From within rational, objective, naturalism worldviews, non-quantum scale violations of how reality operates can't happen because reality is gauge invariant, so it is always the case that A=A and A≠⌐A.
Many Thanks and Best Wishes Too
I just started a blog where I will be posting a variety of content related to atheism; I'm looking to gain an active community of atheist commenters, feel free to check it out: 'Murican Atheist
ReplyDeleteAs usual, it appears the journamalist who wrote the article did not do thorough research. I have not read Littlewood's book, but Freeman Dyson (in "The Scientist as Rebel") attributes the following definition (which I suspect is also incomplete) to Littlewood:
ReplyDeleteMiracle: an event which has a one in a million chance of happening and has a special significance when it occurs.
Based on that additional factor of special significance, the journamalist's (my current favorite word, sorry) calculation seems bogus to me also as it does not include any provision for such. I think we would have to read Littlewood's own words to understand what he had in mind.
how we won the James Randi Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
ReplyDeleteforum.skeptic.za.org/general-skepticism/how-we-won-the-james-randi-$1-000-000-paranormal-challenge/
Funny!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLNUTKHXuEM
"He defined a miracle as an event that has a one in a million chance of happening."
ReplyDeleteWrong meaning of the word miracle.
Of course if that is the meaning of the word miracle and his math is right then sure we have seen miracles. Perhaps nothing supernatural but "miracles" nonetheless - by his definition.