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Thanks for replying!
Why do I care about Historical Jesus? I actually wouldn't, I guess, except that I absolutely need to have a really well thought out answer to this question in order to maintain the respect of friends and family, some of whom credit Historical Jesus as one of the top reasons for their faith.
Good point about the authors being biased, thanks, no offense taken! I still don't like when people say miracles/magic definitively prove the Bible wrong though, since if a God higher than our understanding were to exist, of course he could do magic when he felt like it. Still, based on our understanding of the world, there is no good reason/evidence at all to believe in such a God.
I got the Rationality ebook, and it is great! Sooo well-written, well-organized, and well thought out! I just started today and am already on the section "Belief in Belief." I love it so much so far that it's a page-turner for me as much as my favorite suspense/fantasy novels. Definitely worth sharing and going back to read and re-read :)
Be careful about distinguishing two very different propositions:
(1) There was a preacher named Jesus of Nazareth who lived in a certain time in a certain place.
(2) Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead and was the Son of God.
Specifically, evidence in favor of (1) usually has nothing to do (2).
That doesn't sound quite right to me, at least if you mean "nothing" literally", given that not-(1) logically implies not-(2).
I think the much smaller posterior probability of (2) than (1) has more to do with the much smaller prior than with the evidence.
A fair point, though "normal" people have a strong tendency to jump from "not-(1) logically implies not-(2)" to "therefore (1) implies (2)".
No worries, I knew what you meant. I am pretty good at logic though, so no need to worry about illogical jumps here. I may not have very much background knowledge about terminology or history or science or anything (yet), and I may not be a very articulate writer (yet), but the one thing I can usually do very well is think clearly. I am even feeling a bit smug after finding the mammography Bayesian reasoning problem that apparently only 15% of doctors get correct to be easy and obvious. :)
Ah, yes, the ever-popular fallacy of the inverse.
Yep. On the social level I get it, but on another level, it's a trap.
The trap works approximately like this: "I will allow you not to believe in my bullshit, but only if you give me a free check to bother you with as many questions as I want about my bullshit, and you have to explore all of these questions seriously, give me a satisfactory answer, and of course I am allowed to respond by giving you even more questions".
If you agree on this, you have de facto agreed that the other side is allowed to waste unlimited amounts of your time and attention, as a de facto punishment for not believing their bullshit. -- Today you are asked to make to make a well-researched opinion about Historical Jesus, which of course would take a few weeks or months to do a really serious historical research; and tomorrow it will be either something new, e.g. a well-researched opinion about the history of the Church, or about the history of Crusades, or about the history of Inquisition, or whatever. Alternatively, they may point at some parts of your answer about the Historical Jesus and say: okay, this part is rather weak, you have to bring me a well-researched opinion about this part. For example, you were quoting Josephus and Tacitus, so now give me a full research about both of them, how credible they are, what other claims they made, etc.
Unless the other side gives up (which they have no reason to; this games costs them almost nothing), there are only two ways this can end. First, you might give up, and start pretending to be religious again. Second, after playing a few rounds of this game, you refuse to play yet another round... in which case the other side will declare their victory, because it "proves" your atheism is completely irrational.
Well, you might play a round or two of this game just to show some good will... but it is a game constructed so that you cannot win. The real goal is to manipulate you into punishing yourself and feeling guilty. -- Note: The other side may not realize they are actually doing this. They may believe they are playing a fair game.
Good point, thanks!! I can't get too caught up in this; there are things I'd rather be learning about, so I need a limit. I'd like to think I can win, though, but this is probably just self-anchoring fallacy (I'm learning!)
Just because I would have been swayed by an absence of positive evidence doesn't mean everyone will be, even people who seem decently smart and open-minded with a high view of reason, like my old track coach and religion teacher. I just made a deal though, that I would read any book of his choice about the Historical Jesus (something I probably would have done anyway!) if he reads Rationality: AI to Zombies :)