What Is The Difference Between A Perception And Knowledge?

Or, "What is the difference between private personal experience and knowledge?". I know this may sound like a stupid question to some, but it seems that it is pivotal in the "Disregarding Established Knowledge..." discussion. In my view, considering inaccessible personal experience to be of the same value as established knowledge is untenable.

Disregarding Established Knowledge Is Bad, UnKay?

Its simple,
If your beliefs are not consitent with established human knowledge, then they probably are not justified. In that case, other people are not justified in believing what you say about them, and furthermore you have no reason to expect anyone to believe you.

Direct Evidence Of Moral Behavior From Evolution

My working hypothesis is that Game Theory and simple rules derived from self-interest are sufficient to generate self-organized behavior that is labeled as "Morality". Here's more evidence to back that up.

Social Impact Of Poor Biblical IDQ

[20090617. Added References] This article explores the Social Impact of Poor Biblical Information and Data Quality focusing on two of the sixteen IDQ dimensions, Understandability and Interpretability and provides a method for scoring them relative to other fields.

What is the Scope and Definition of Evil?

Over in the "In a world without God...why does evil exist?" article, Brad Haggard said  make that post into an article so we can discuss it", so I did. Enjoy.

Information Professionals Caught Not Checking Sources

The Fallacy Files, Wikipedia Watch has revealed ANOTHER case of Journalists using Wikipedia as an original source. This is a real life example of how people that should know better will reproduce poor quality information. I'm sure there was no malice involved, just people trying to get a message accross that they believed likely to be true, similar to the authors of scripture.

One Step Closer To Making Life In The Lab

From Nature.com (requires login), "RNA world easier to make": Ingenious chemistry shows how nucleotides may have formed in the primordial soup. Here's a link from "Wired" that is freely accessible "Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory"

Where is Jesus's Diary? Information As A Product, Not A Byproduct

I'd like to propose an analogy to represent the relationship between God, Us, the Bible and the World. God would be in charge, and the source and producer of information, and the majority of us would be his potential customer, subscriber or consumer. We would have a value to him and lets assign the value the number 1. So if one of us 'subscribes' to Gods information, then he correspondingly gets to add that to his return on investment.

As You Celebrate The Horror of Easter

-=A Human Sacrifice=-

and flaunt your little dead men on a stick, check your facts, most things that Easter depends on don't cross-check. [edited 4/15/2009. added links]

Morality Is A Category Of Acts Of Mutual Self-Interest

In my view debates about Morality derive from the tendency of people to attribute and misinterpret intent and intelligence in self-organizing phenomena. To me it is obvious that Morality fits in a category of phenomena that derive from self-organization. Self-organization is commonly spoken about, even by scientists whether they mean to or not, as having some kind of intent or intelligence behind it.

More Christian Heuristic Analysis

I'm a big fan of argument analysis, and in William Lobdells post he listed several common Christian heuristics for dealing with the problem of apostasy. In the comments section of his article you can see one of our christian guests using some other common heuristics which I've taken a moment to analyze. I welcome William, and I hope he'll consider joining DC as an author.

Dealing With More Christian Heuristics

In a recent comment a Christian Guest said the following.

I do know why some of my friends can't see God;
- generally it comes down to either not wanting to,
- or insisting that if God doesn't follow their rules, he doesn't exist.
- All I can do is testify that for me, it's obvious...

Please Do Not Feed The "Trolls"

"Feeding the Trolls" is a type of Social Engineering, aka manipulation of well meaning guests. Every now and then a "troll" comes along and makes comments that are in poor taste and meant to generate responses from other commenters. We will clean up the blog after one of these events, but I request that when a troll makes a comment that it be ignored because If a troll makes one comment and it gets 2 responses, then 66% percent of the mess is caused by well meaning guests. It takes less time to only have to clean up after the troll. This is simply something we'll have to live with as long as we permit real time free and open discussions.

"Seek And Ye Shall Find: The Atheist Doesn't Do It Right"

This is yet another Christian Heuristic that "blames the victim" in the same way as "if you don't understand it, its your fault". Some qualifiers are missing in that statement, mainly SCOPE and DEFINITION but also the ACTIONS of the AGENTS DOING THE SEARCH and AGENTS BEING SEARCHED FOR. What are the responsibilities of the Agents? What is the definition of "a comprehensive" search? And how will you know when you find it? There must be a description to go by or how will one know when they've found it?

A Christian That Gets That Christians Don't Get God

RichD is one of our Christian commenters. No matter how much we disagree, we can always find a way to inject a little good humor into the dialog. He's smart, he expresses himself clearly, he doesn't seem to take it personally, he keeps his goal in view and he keeps a positive and humorous outlook which, in my view, exemplifies a "good Christian", adds tremendous value to the dialog, and to this blog in general. In my view RichD is one of the commenters that sets the standard.

Special Pleading For God

Compromising Ones Values And Principles To Support Christianity

Heuristics and When Ones Values Are Out Of Sync With Ones Thinking

In response to the my Article "Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me?" One of our christian guests commented....

"He will come down and visit with you, except you live your life as though you don't want Him to."

I must be committing Spiritual Suicide!

"If you were a god, how would you treat the children you created?"

In the comments section of my article Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me? Darrin started by asking me "What would YOU do as God?". Goprairie mentioned what she would do if she were God. Then Russ contributed what he would do as God. I thought the interaction was brilliant so I'd like to feature it and request responses from everyone meaning all categories from Believers to Non-Believers, Buddhists to Zoroastrians.

Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me?

God has appeared or unambiguously interacted with a wide range of types of persons in The Bible. But every time I mention that I think Jesus should just come down and visit with me, I get the old Christian rebuttals, such as

Nonpartisan Media Discussing Failed Arguments For God

Over at The Fallacy Files, the article The Arguments That Failed discusses the Boston Review Article God; Philosophers Weigh In by Alex Byrne. Both demonstrate the problems with Anselm's "Ontological" Argument, The Design Argument and The "Fine-Tuning" Argument.

Christians Must Be Agnostic

The Use Or Intent Of Information Does Not Determine Its Quality
Over at Sophies Ladder, Jeff says

"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."

Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"

Over at Sophies Ladder Jeff agrees that accuracy and reliability are important but his view of accuracy and reliability all stem from some "inner knowing". This contradicts commonly held principles about accuracy and reliability which generally holds that the source of the information is known, can be verified, represents real world states and can be depended on to accurately reflect real world states when verification is not a viable option and when planning needs to be done. But for the moment, I'll stipulate the Spiritual Realm exists.

Thank Sully!

By now everyone has heard about the plane crash in the Hudson River. The "miraculous" landing was facilitated by a human being prepared for the split second decisions he had to make by a lifetime of EXPERIENCE, DATA GATHERING, DATA ANALYSIS and SOLUTION PROVIDING. PRAISE SULLY! HALLELUJAH FOR IDQ! Can I get A "HUMAN"?

Cooking The Books To Avoid IDQ Principles

A straw man (aka misrepresentation) and a moving goal post (aka sliding window).
Over at Sophies LadderJeff has misunderstood my position.

IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit

Jeff Carter over at the Blog Sophies Ladder takes issue with applying IDQ principles to the bible and sums up his own blog inserted below.

Trends

IDQ Flaw of Meaninglessness Representation In The Bible

Very little in the Bible can be understood as it is written. To be understood as relevant and applicable to today necessitates speculation, interpretation and pre-processing for general consumption. The Bible, as it is written, has become meaningless even though Church leaders try to speculate, interpret and derive meaning from it. Since Christian leaders don't agree, large portions of the data in the Bible is demonstrably meaningless which is a result of the Information and Data Quality flaw of "Meaningless Representation".

"Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies

While acknowledging that Jesus' usage of the term "son of man" has no consensus, this article shows how the term "son of man" was historically used to refer to mankind or Humans as a category, was never generally considered by the Jewish community to be a descriptive phrase for the Messiah, and therefore seems to be used incorrectly either by Jesus, by the authors and/or translators of the gospels as something like a personal pronoun for Jesus. In any case, presuming the Bible is the Word of God, the term still maps to two real world states fulfilling the criteria for Ambiguous Representation which is an Information and Data Quality (IDQ) design flaw.

Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficiencies

This article will show how the concept of the Trinity was derived from the Design Deficiency of incomplete representation in scripture leading to "Garbling" causing Scripture to map to a meaningless state. The Bible has many instances of incomplete representation but for the sake of brevity, this article will focus on "Jesus as God". It highlights some disconfirming evidence which refutes the proposition that "Jesus was God" can be rationally determined from the text.

Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture

The originators of scripture had a remarkable lack of insight when creating scripture considering it was revealed to them by God. Apparently God didn't reveal to them some fundamental principles in ensuring they were creating quality information and data that would stand the test of time and generations.

Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible

By applying principles of Information and Data Quality (IDQ) in research to the Bible, it can be shown that a high level of confidence in the accuracy and reliability of the information in the Bible is irrational, therefore arguments or claims using the bible as a premise are inherently weak.

Applying Data and Information Quality Concepts to the Bible

In the coming weeks, I intend to show that if we posit a null hypothesis about the Bible and we evaluate the quality of data and information in the Bible, the hypothesis that humans alone were sufficient to create the Bible is supported very well by the Data which effectively refutes the hypothesis posited in 2 Timothy 3:16.

A Plausibility Heuristic

I think I've come up with a weighted ranking scale heuristic for scoring the plausibility of claims derived from government, business and theoretical criteria and I'd like to put it out here for critique. This weighted ranking scale could be used for the bible, literature, science, history, news articles etc... and we could compare them. Worksheet

How Accurate Is The Bible?

Accuracy is verifiable, quantifiable and measurable.

Religion As A Logic Puzzle

Here is a logic puzzle. You are walking down a road to a town. You come to a fork in the road. Standing there are two men. You already know that one of them always lies and one of them always tells the truth. What one question can you ask one of them that will give you the information you need to choose the right road?

Gen. 2-3, Normal-form Game Matrix Shows That God Chose The Worst Outcome

When presented with a choice of outcomes the rational decision maker will choose the outcome with a positive payoff, but not God.

Adams Sin Was An Emergent Behavior

The best way to understand something is to build it.

In my recent articles I have been facilitating discussion on Adam and Eve and I have been collecting explanations about how Adam came to disobey god. This article identifies the parts of those arguments and diagrams one of them, and tries to tease out whether Adam could in any reasonable way be held accountable by his maker for his transgression and the resultant overall negative result that emerges from Gods Creation. However if we take Adam and God out of the equation, then the properties that emerge from nature are what we should expect once we understand them, and labeling them "good" or "bad" outside of any context becomes meaningless.

Violating The First Rule Of Critical Discussion

Recurrent claim from Christians in comments:

"you seem to be questioning God. Why didn't God do this? why did God do that? The short answer is, because God does what he pleases and since he is infinite in knowledge, then God knows best, not us."
10:41 PM, August 23, 2008

Gen. 2:6-9, God Ignored Adams Admonishment Option

Breaking the law is risky behavior.

Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey.

God was omnipotent, and God must have known the properties and tolerances of everything he created, just like a baker and just like an engineer.

Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent

This an article to show that Adam and eve did not know the difference between good and evil before they ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil therefore could not understand the consequences of what they were doing. It uses a timeline and a matrix for analysis.

Not Creating Is The Greater Good

If we accept the Theist's position, then god chose to create. Choosing instead to not-create would have been a greater good, as it would have necessarily avoided any suffering or evil whatsoever.

If God Has A Plan, Free Will Is An Illusion

This is a short mathematical proof that if God has a plan, then free will necessarily is an illusion. 2 + n = 4, if n = 2 then free will is an illusion.

My Anti-Climactic Milestone

Last weekend at the pool, in response to some of my critical questions about pagan cannibalism and communion, one of my family asked me if I was an Atheist. Yikes!

50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God

DJ Grothe interviews author of "50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God." The author is very respectful to believers and lets them have their say without judging. Its a type of Comparative Religion study. Its good for both for believers and non-believers.

Jesus Was a Human Sacrifice

In all "civilized" countries in the world, Human Sacrifice is unlawful. The reason it is unlawful is that it is murder. I have seen it argued that a law against murder is one of the Ten Commandments because it is an aspect of a universal moral that proves Gods existence. I think we can all see the irony and logical inconsistency in that.

Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths

This Article shows that in the second creation story in genesis the concept of woman made from bone, earth and antler pre-existed the writing of Genesis, spanned cultures and geographical boundaries and that Eve shares aspects of Goddesses in Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.

Mechanism Behind Mind-body Connection Discovered

"The study reveals how stress makes people more susceptible to illness." Science Daily Article.
This is a datum to support my assertion that the hypothesis that the "Problem of Evil/Suffering is a Test" is demonstrably false.

Isis Heals The Sick Boy

Ancient Egypt had a lot of firsts. Resurrection and healing were two of them. In a story that you can read here Isis the Mother of Horus and the Wife of the resurrected Osiris, sets the standard for Jesus to follow by healing a sick boy.

Stories of Isis and Osiris precede the development of writing. That means before 3100 BC. I highly recommend that Christians take a college course in Egyptology. Keep in mind the principle that the greater civilization influences the lesser. Some of the things Christians should focus on are Egyptian Mythololgy, the pounding the egyptians gave the Syrians every year for about twenty years (around 1479 - 1425 BC) and the "foreign kings" (1648–1540 BC) that ruled the egyptian Delta.

One Mechanism for Biological Bases for Behavior

This is a datum to support my assertion that Biological Bases for Behaviors are incorrectly interpreted as "Sin" and that we don't have as much free will as we think we do. The new field of Epigenetics is documenting that regulating gene expression in the brain affects how susceptible we are to maladies such as depression, anxiety and drug addiction.