JohnH comments on Theism, Wednesday, and Not Being Adopted - Less Wrong

56 Post author: Alicorn 27 April 2009 04:49PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (320)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: JohnH 17 May 2011 03:55:34PM 0 points [-]

Put it this way, if you think that there is a 1% probability (e.g. you are convinced it is bogus) that I am right in stating that if taken seriously God will answer prayers as from the scriptures I provided and this is enough to get you to try out what they say then that was sufficient faith in that instance. Clearly at 1% probability you shouldn't be doing anything else that comes with believing in the Book of Mormon or being LDS (at least that doesn't already coincide with what you think of as being right).

If you follow through and get evidence to boost the Book of Mormon to say 70 or 80% level then that should likewise boost the level confidence of what the book says to do to high enough to test them out. Following what the book says and finding it to be right should then boost the level, eventually at least, to whatever you have preset as your critical value to say you know it to be true.

If however one waits until they have evidence to suggest something is true with ones preset critical value then one is not acting in faith. If one has evidence at that level and then doesn't follow the commands of God then one is worse off then someone that thinks it is bogus but has had someone tell them it isn't or someone that due to everything else thinks it has 51% chance to be right.

Does this make more sense to you?

Comment author: Estarlio 18 May 2011 02:27:07AM -1 points [-]

That doesn't seem consistent with part of the earlier verse you posted.

'[I]f a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.'

Under the account you're offering faith and knowledge are just different degrees of belief – indeed under that account knowledge is the type of belief with the most cause behind it. Whereas under the account in the verse knowledge and belief seem to be completely different kinds of thing.

If you want to call different degrees of confidence faith and knowledge, I don't really mind – the probabilities are what they are regardless of the labels you hang off them - but it doesn't seem to be doing any work that gets you closer to the conclusion you've decided on. You haven't illustrated any difference beyond the claim that at some point of arbitrarily selected confidence it's going to become worse for us if we don't follow the relevant commandments.

Which is fine as far as it goes I suppose – why doesn't god provide whatever portion of the evidence doesn't quite tip me over that vital point yet preserves enough meaning to actually be evidence?

It strikes me the answer is going to have to be along the lines of 'The more sure you are the more liable you are.' But then the degree of confidence is a measure of degrees of knowledge and you've lost that sharp divide that seems to be required for you to make meaning and faith coexist (i.e. being more sure of the religion's groundings than of a fair coin flip). The objection that I couldn't know because then I wouldn't believe would become rather meaningless – all meaningful faith would be based primarily on some form of knowledge.

Comment author: JohnH 18 May 2011 05:38:16AM -1 points [-]

why doesn't god provide whatever portion of the evidence doesn't quite tip me over that vital point yet preserves enough meaning to actually be evidence?

It is my understanding that He does.

'The more sure you are the more liable you are

yep.

all meaningful faith would be based primarily on some form of knowledge.

Which it is. An experience once provided does give knowledge of the thing, however it is possible to doubt your experiences. Also, the experiences only provide knowledge of one thing and there will remain many things that are not known with the same surety, some of which may be difficult to understand, and these things must be taken on faith until they too become known.

arbitrarily selected confidence it's going to become worse for us if we don't follow the relevant commandments.

I would think that it is a continuum such that someone totally unaware of anything about the subject is not liable for anything while those that have received knowledge of everything are liable for all of it.

Confidence in something not tested is faith. Anything not known with whatever level of confidence constitutes near enough to certainty to not matter for you is taken on faith. Knowledge is anything that is known with that level of confidence to constitute certainty. I am pretty sure that is a consistent translation of the terms into something understandable in this setting, I could be wrong.

Comment author: Estarlio 18 May 2011 04:36:29PM *  -1 points [-]

It is my understanding that He does.

If you're right in respect to the prophesies of Thomas S. Monson, I don't see how this could hold. They would be strong evidence.

In any case I think, we've got the chunks to start doing some building.

All meaningful faith would be based primarily on some form of knowledge.

Which it is.

But.

Knowledge is anything that is known with that level of confidence to constitute certainty.

Also known things are knowledge. You seem to be invoking, admittedly with some degree of displacement, the term in its own description.

Confidence in something not tested is faith.

To a degree – if you're going to build knowledge into the meaningfulness of faith then faith would be something like believing with a greater certainty than the evidence justifies. Since all faith would be tested to some extent, even if very weakly, in order to contain meaning.

The problem with that approach is that it never seems necessary for me to believe beyond the evidence. If I put, say, one percent confidence on the idea of god based upon things I see then that's not faith – and if I get more evidence from investigating based on that one percent and believe it to be slightly more likely – do some more investigation and get more... it never becomes faith; it's testing / knowledge all the way up.