Finally, the statistic video seemed self-explanatory, but can you tell me which part confused you? — Walter Pound

Since math isn't my strong suit, I'm confused by most of it lol. Maybe it's best to forget about the video for now

Nope, I said that there is a claim that miracle x occurred while many eye-witnesses were present. Never did I say that miracle x occurred and many eye-witnesses saw the miracle. — Walter Pound

Okay so I was thinking the claim was being made by the eye-witnesses that the miracle occurred, not that the claim was that many eye-witnesses saw a miracle. I was reading too fast, but I see that you said "there are claims that many eye-witnesses saw the miracle." Isn't the claim that matters the claim by the eye-witnesses? Isn't that eye-witness testimony the evidence that updates the prior probability?

Eye-witness testimony is not as good as physical evidence — Walter Pound

Right, I never said it's better than physical evidence, I was just saying it's a decent source of knowledge. And if we accept it as a source of knowledge in lots of other areas, why not for miracles?

The statistics argument for the belief in miracles is refuted by this mathematician here. — Walter Pound

I watched the video but honestly wasn't able to understand all of it. Could you explain to me how it contradicts or changes the situation about miracles I wrote in my first comment?

The burden of proof is always on the person making claim x. Since christians and muslims try to convert skeptics, they carry the burden of proof of proving their respective beliefs. — Walter Pound

That might be true in the situation you describe, but it seemed to me like you made the initial claim here. You seemed to be saying we aren't justified in believing in miracles based on eye-witness testimony, which is a claim, right? When you asked:

even if we grant that Hume's arguments are not convincing why should we believe that supernatural events ever occurred if the only reason for doing so is that there are claims that many eye-witnesses saw the event occur? — Walter Pound

,
isn't there an implicit claim that we shouldn't believe miracle testimonies because we shouldn't believe anything based solely on eye-witness accounts?

Finally, you syllogism assumes that there are indeed witnesses for a miracle, but why even take for granted the claim that there were witnesses to a miracle? — Walter Pound

I didn't assume there were eye-witnesses, you said there were eye-witnesses. You were wondering about eye-witness miracle testimonies, so I wrote about eye-witness miracle testimonies. I guess if you told me about a miracle you performed that had no witnesses, I wouldn't believe you since there weren't reliable, independent witness accounts to update/increase the probability of it having happened.

Do you have anything to say in defense of your argument I laid out against eye-witness testimony? Or are we agreed that eye-witness testimony can be a decent source of knowledge, like in the examples I listed. And if so, it seems like the miracle situation I described above could be right. Of course, you said the video you posted makes a solid argument against believing in miracles, so maybe if you can help me understand it I'll think otherwise.

One note I thought of afterward:
It seems like most of our beliefs are based on testimony. I know the United States gained independence from England in 1776, but I wasn’t there. I know Zambia is in Africa but I’ve never been there. I know my friend is a psychology major even though I’ve never been to class with her. I know drinking arsenic is a bad idea, but I’ve never tried that. I know all these things through testimony.Iit seems like testimony is a pretty decent source of knowledge. It’s fallible, of course, but it seems like we rely on it constantly and are justified in doing so.

Hi Walter Pound,
It seems like you’re doing something like this in your post:

You’re shifting the burden of proof to the miracle-believer. Instead of it being Hume’s responsibility to argue against believing in miracles, the miracle-believer should argue for believing in miracles. The question this begs is why? Why should the miracle-believer bear the burden of proof? I’d be interested to hear your reason.

After that, I think you have an argument going something like this:

1) The occurrences of miracles are established only through eye-witness testimonies. (In other words, people believe in miracles because eye-witnesses tell them about it)
2) But eye-witness testimonies are unreliable and shouldn’t be believed.
3) Therefore, we shouldn’t believe in miracles (1,2 HS)

I’d be interested to hear your defense of premise 2. It seems to me that eye-witness testimonies tend to be pretty reliable-- I deliver true eye-witness testimonies all the time. For example: that barn is red, the sun is rising, I saw Jim at the store, etc… Plus, eye-witness testimonies count as evidence in a court, so why not accept them as evidence for other beliefs?

Not sure if you’re familiar with Bayesian updating, but I think I can show this with some probability work. Let’s say you think the probability of miracle X happening is quite low- let’s just say there’s a 5% chance it happened. Well, if a witness tells you they saw miracle X happen, and you believe that person to be 80% reliable (even though they’re honest, their senses might have deceived them) then the updated probability of miracle X happening is about 17%. If another witness of the same reliability reports it to you, the new probability of X having happened is close to 46%, and so on. If miracle testimonies happen in that way, then it seems like enough reliable witnesses ought to increase the probability of the miracle happening enough to where you would be justified in believing it.

I see what you mean. I think you’re right that Pascal’s wager only works when you’ve done the work to limit live options to only a few, and that does line up with what Pascal was saying. I guess the difference here is that Pascal needs to do the work of limiting the number of religions one considers valid options, whereas I would need to limit what? The number of high stakes subjects to study? Does my wager- which concludes only that one should study philosophy of religion, not believe in God- really have infinite live options? And if not, does my argument work then?

I think I understand what you're saying. I wonder if I should change my argument to be something like this:

1. The higher the stakes of something happening are, the lower our initial probability of it happening needs to be to warrant looking into the matter. (For example, if there's a 10% chance there's a bee in my room, I won't go looking for a bee, but if there's an 80% chance there's a bee in my room I'll probably go hunting for it. Alternatively, if there's a bomb threat that the police think is 5% likely to be true, they should definitely look into it, and if I think there's a 1% chance of me getting dysentary from drinking from a puddle, I won't drink from it. Even though the probabilites of the bomb really being there or of me getting dysentary are low, we should take the threats seriously since the stakes are so high).
2. The existence of God is a matter of the highest stakes, because it could mean you live in heaven or hell for eternity.
3. Therefore, your initial perceived probability of God existing can be very low and still warrant researching and appraising arguments for and against the existence of God.

In other words, only if you think the possibilty of God existing is a vanishingly small probability (.00000000001%) should you not bother researching and appraising arguments for and against the existence of God.

I'm not sure if that makes as much sense written out as it does in my head, let me know if I should clarify any of it. I'm basically still seeking to show that the stakes of believing God does or does not exist are high, and that's why we should do philosophy of religion, unless the probability of God existing is very very low.

What do you think of that? And, if you agree with me, don't you think many more people should be doing philosophy of religion? Because it seems to me that very few people believe the probability that God exists is vanishingly small, but very few people do philosophy of religion.

Khalid already gave a defense of why the capacity to recognize (subjective) beauty is not improbable under atheism. Check out the video they posted if you want to learn more.

Otherwise, I’d love to hear your argument on why beauty is 100% subjective. It seems like that claim leads to a bad result: of beauty is 100% subjective, then when I describe something as beautiful, either my sentence is meaningless, or at most I’m expressing something like “when I see that thing, I feel pleasure”. But really, when I see a striking sunset and describe it as beautiful, I mean it really is beautiful, regardless of the pleasure/ aesthetic experience I have when looking at it. If I meant I get a certain kind of pleasure from viewing the sunset when I describe it as beautiful, I should just say that I get a certain kind of pleasure from viewing it. To regiment this into an argument, I guess I’m saying this:

1) if beauty 100% subjective, then everyone who calls something beautiful is wrong.
2) it seems pretty unlikely to me that everyone who describes a sunset as beautiful is wrong.
3) therefore, beauty is not 100% subjective

Of course, I’m still appealing to common opinion, so I might be a little guilty again of the argument from popularity fallacy. But to be honest, it does seem like a pretty bold statement to say every claim that something is beautiful is wrong or misguided, since almost everyone has made these claims going back millennia. Maybe I should keep looking for a stronger argument for beauty being at least partly objective...

That is an argument from popularity which is a logical fallacy — khaled

Yep I think you got me there. I'll have to look for more solid arguments that argue beauty is at least in part objective. What if I change it to:
1- It's unlikely that beauty is entirely subjective if almost everyone agrees that something is beautiful.
2- Almost everyone agrees that sunsets are beautiful.
3- Therefore, it's unlikely that beauty is entirely subjective (1,2 MP)

I didn't actually expect that claim to be as contentious as it was. I'm more interested in the next step of the argument, which is that objective beauty is unlikely under atheism. I know you disagree, but if we assume that there is some objective beauty, then what do you think about this next step? It does seem unlikely to me that this would come about under atheism, but that's more of an intuition than a well supported belief. I provided a couple reasons in my first response to objection 2. What do you think about those? Doesn't it seem more likely that the beauty of the universe came from a designer than from chance, if we assume there is objective beauty in the universe?

Let me reiterate your objections to make sure I'm understanding them correctly. I'm taking your first objection to be against my premise 1 (the beauty of the universe is improbable under atheism), and it looks like you're arguing this way:

Beauty is not improbable under atheism since it provides a hit of dopamine, which improves mental health, which helps us survive.

It seems like here you're talking about the experience/appreciation of beauty in the world, rather than the beauty itself of the world, which of course makes sense since you argue later that there is no objective quality of "beauty". So I think you're arguing that it isn't improbable under atheism that people would experience beauty. My response then is that you've changed my premise and argued against something I didn’t claim (which means I probably ought to have been more clear when I wrote it).

Maybe if I can argue better that beauty is at least partly objective, then I can respond to both your objections. Your second objection is that beauty is entirely subjective. I'll regiment your argument like this:

1- If tastes in art vary widely, then beauty is entirely subjective.
2- Tastes in art do vary widely.
3- Therefore, beauty is entirely subjective (1,2 MP)

I have a couple objections to premise 1. First of all, I think it's clear that opinions can vary without changing the fact of the matter. For example, jurors might disagree on whether a defendant is guilty or innocent, but this doesn’t change whether or not the defendant actually committed the act. Similarly, maybe people can disagree on whether or not a piece of art is beautiful and that disagreement would have no bearing on whether it’s truly beautiful or not. My other objection is that it seems like most postmodern art isn’t art because it’s beautiful. Beauty doesn’t seem to me to be a necessary condition for something to be art (lots of metal songs can hardly be described as beautiful and yet qualify as art, also Munch’s The Scream and Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene are art but aren’t beautiful). So I don’t think that differing tastes in art prove beauty is subjective.
As far as arguing that beauty is at least partly objective, I’ll stick with my sunset example. It does seems like most people are in agreement that a striking sunset is beautiful. If someone denied its beauty, it seems like I could confidently tell them they’re wrong and have faulty aesthetic senses, so to speak. So it seems to me like there is something about the beauty of the sunset that is objective. My argument looks something like this:

1- If almost all people agree that something is beautiful, then it is at least very probable that there is at least some objective beauty.
2- Almost all people agree striking sunsets are beautiful.
3-Therefore, it is at least very probable that there is at least some objective beauty. (1,2 MP)


But I don’t want to distract from your point that our appreciating beauty could have evolved in an atheistic universe, though, because I think there’s something important there. I’ll list a couple of quick objections to the idea that we evolved our aesthetic sense and see what you think of them:
1- Other animals don’t seem to appreciate beauty. Why is it that only humans do? If appreciating beauty is an advantage for survival, why don’t we see it in other animals?
2- Oftentimes dangerous things in nature are beautiful, like the markings on big cats, lightning, the colors on poisonous tree frogs and blue ringed octopuses, the ocean, fire, etc… So it doesn’t seem like appreciation of beauty is so great for survival after all.

Let me know what you think of all that!

Yes, making the threat credible would help, but that means that the claim no longer justifies itself — SophistiCat

Could clarify what you mean here? I don't think I'm following

I think you're right. Maybe if I qualified premise 1 to say something like, "If the stakes of a belief are high and credible, then you should take arguments regarding that belief seriously" then it might work? I think it's pretty intuitive that stakes play an important role in how highly we prioritize something (e.g. I am more nervous for a piano recital than a practice session, I run faster if I'm being chased by a bear, I work harder when my boss is around, etc...), so I'm hesitant to throw that idea out.

Your claim seems to be something like this:
"Even if the stakes are high, we have no way of knowing what will happen/what the consequences will be"
And I'm taking that to be an objection to my premise 1. I guess what I would say to that is it seems premature to conclude we have no way of knowing the consequences. It still seems to me that the stakes are high enough to warrant really exploring arguments for and against God's existence, and even if we've done our best and haven't discovered the answer, it seems we can't just conclude we're incapable of knowing it (we just haven't discovered it yet). When you say we have no idea what would lead to our ending up in heaven or hell, i can't really agree until I've explored all the ways I think I might be able to know what God values. Does that make sense?

God did not create hell because it does not actually exist at all. — Francesco di Piertro

I'm not sure your conception of hell falls into the mainstream/orthodox tradition I was looking for. It seems like most Christians believe hell exists, and I tend to think they have good reason to think that. After all, Jesus' analogy about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25 contains a pretty distinct claim that hell exists: Verse 46 says "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life".
And what of Revelation 21:8, which says, "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”?
Or 2 Thess 1:8, which says, "He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might"?
It doesn't seem right to me to take these and other verse and still claim that the Bible doesn't teach the existence of hell...

I think you made a good case for free will necessitating an option for people to go somewhere other than heaven when they die. However, I have a bone to pick with your definition of hell. How can there be any place God is absent from if He's omnipresent? And what of psalm 139:8 "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there."? It seems like God has to be in hell, and your definition of hell, although nicer sounding and easier to swallow, might not be right

First of all, premise 1a assumes that “God created people in such a way that they would sin.” This is indicating that God has created human beings who are prone to sin rather than not to sin. It is assuming that sinning is a behavior that God has programmed into every human at the time of creation; since it is forced onto human beings, sinning is not a choice but an inevitable consequence of God’s creation of the humankind. If someone were to ask: why do human beings sin, the answer in such context would be: because God made them to. This seems wrong to the mainstream Christian beliefs. God created human beings with free will, so that they are free to make choices of their own behaviors. To sin or not to sin are two choices with an equal chance of being selected by each individual before temptations. Either sinning is a choice by each human being, or God did not create human with free will. In the Christian belief, God has created human beings with free will, thus sinning is a choice out of free will rather than a behavior God has programmed into every human.

Here's my response to your objection toward my premise 1a-
I might be missing something, but it does seem to me that, although God didn't force us to sin, he made us inevitably prone to sin. I understand that He created us with free will, so maybe what I'm arguing is that He doesn't force our hand to sin directly, but the system He set up when He created the universe leads us inevitably to sin. Were sin reasonably avoidable, lots of people would go through their lives never sinning, right? But since we encounter temptation countless times in our lives, the probability of us never sinning is infinitesimal, right? Because of this, I still see God as being responsible for our sinning and subsequent damnation.

Agreed, that's what I tried to capture with the last sentence of my introduction. I think I'm most interested not in people's individual and unique conceptions of God and salvation that can avoid this problem, but in mainstream christians defending their position as I've tried to lay it out

I think that works too, but to my knowledge the problem isn't one's propensity to sin since everyone sins? And it's more about whether you believe in Jesus and repent

I was going with what I take to be the commonly held Christian idea of salvation from eternal torment in hell

I guess I disagree, it doesn't seem just to me since, like I said, most beliefs of most people are beyond their control (they inherited them, never questioned them, etc...). And it seems odd to me that people would repent if they don't believe in a god

I think you're right that the cause of damnation is sin, not unbelief. But if, like you imply, no one asks for mercy if they don't believe, it seems like belief is a prerequisite to repentance, so the problem is still one's beliefs. But maybe I'm not understanding correctly?

I mean all those terms in the way we usually mean them. Of course God has more qualities than being loving. If you're interested in learning more about what love is, perhaps read through this entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/love/ . And for hell, I mean a place of eternal torment where people's souls go if they never became Christians.

I'm not sure that God is a being of infinite ability. Is he able to sin? Can he make a stone so big He can't lift it? And isn't He limited by His promises (to never wipe out mankind again, to send His son to die as a sacrifice for mankind, etc...)? Can he make squared-circles, or both exist and not exist? All this seems to me to limit God and leave Him still vulnerable to paradoxes/conflicts.

That's interesting. So would humans just become loved by God once they become Christians? What about when John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world"? That's just one other verse, but it seems to me to point to God loving all people, before they could be Christians.

Couldn't God have the true knowledge in conditional form, "if I create x, they will go to hell", and in that way he could choose not to create x and not "violate his prior knowledge"?

I agree, God's omniscience is another trouble spot for me. I'll probably post more on that soon

That's definitely an option to solve the conflict I'm seeing. I was hoping to see what a more "literalist"/mainstream response might be instead of redefining religion, heaven, hell, etc...but you take is definitely interesting!