Scott Bakker
April 12th, 2005, 06:16 PM
First, a question, Tex. Why do you so assiduously avoid my questions?They’re pretty straightforward, aren’t they?
I should note, before fully responding, the difference between rationalization, where the conclusion is taken as given, and one then selectively searches for justifications afterward, and reasoning, where the conclusion is either unknown or suspended, and one is forced to go through the labourious process of sifting through all the possible justifications to see where they lead without any help from things like confirmation bias, socialization, and so on. The one uses a ‘certainty first’ method, whereas the other uses a ‘doubt first’ method. Since it’s impossible to do all this work on one’s own, we’re forced to rely on our claim-making institutions - to trust in effect. Now I think it’s plain that the former method has a horrible track record, even though it is the hardwired default method of all us humans - something to be overcome, I would say. But what can’t be debated is the stunning success of the latter method, as difficult as we humans find it.
It’s an accomplishment. Which is why it took us so long to find our way to science.
You do admit, Tex, that you’re relying on the first method, that you start with your conclusion, which I gather is something like ‘Jesus is the only way to heaven,’ and then cast about after the fact for your justifications?
Metaphysical Evidence
People have been resuscitated after several minutes of flatline and told us things that occurred while they were clinically dead: words spoken, physical descriptions of people that came and went, even people, words, and events, from elsewhere as they claimed to "float" around, that were later verified accurate. They have given us this picture of the first events after death-
Keep in mind that more books have been written on death and dying than any other single subject - from an evolutionary perspective, individual death is enemy # 1, so it should come as no surprise that we have a hardwired propensity to be somewhat concerned with it. This is only to point that we humans, who are undoubtedly rationalizing creatures, have a tremendous incentive to rationalize when it comes to death. It generally terrifies us.
So the question here is simply one of what the most rational explanation of NDE’s might be.
1) that we have no real idea as of yet.
2) that they are evidence of an (not necessarily Christian) afterlife utterly at odds with our present understanding of nature, wherein consciousness is a product of brain function (which is why Aspirins work when you take them).
3) that it’s a common experiential response to the neurophysiological trauma of near death.
The OBE’s that some report to experience as a component of their NDE’s I’m inclined to dismiss altogether, given that they can now be reliably induced using transcranial magnetic stimulation - they’re a kind of hallucination. But to avoid getting drawn into a fruitless debate over anecdotal evidence (which is typically excluded from science because of its notorious unreliability) I’m willing to take a draw on this one.
You tell me what the most rational conclusion to draw is?
Prophetic Evidence
2,000 and counting. Nostradamus gets a third of his (vaguely) right and people still can't stop scouring over his words. The Bible isn't one out of three, it's a perfect 2,000 for 2,000, and that with specific events that were verifiably written down long before they ever took place.
The Principle of Interpretative Underdetermination. Think about, ‘legalese’ is a form of English purported designed to shut down ambiguity, and the lawyers are still able to split hairs! The fact of the matter is, the more ancient the text, the allusive the text, the more translated and transliterated, the more interpretative permutations one can rationalize. To say that the Bible is batting 1000 in the prophecy department is literally like claiming one has stumbled across the one and only interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet!This is one of the areas where the psychology of human cognition really generates a lot of mischief. On the one hand, confirmation bias leads us to see what we want to see, and on the other hand, the ‘invisibility of ignorance’ leads us to think no other possible interpretations could exist, when in fact, the number is actually inexhaustible - which is precisely why some argue that Nostradamus is 100% correct.
The fact is, our inability to ever convincingly nail down such cryptic texts makes it impossible to say any of their prophecies are correct. And given the miserable track record of psychics and astrologers at the horse races, never mind the Stock Market, it seems safe to assume that anyone claiming to have definite knowledge of an otherwise inaccessible future is either a charlatan or a victim of wishful thinking.
Once again, we don’t know.
The Archaeological Evidence
Everytime the Bible gives us enough that we can find a spot and dig there, we find exactly what the Bible told us we were going to find, no matter how preposterous it looks (people covered under volcanic ash where there is no volcano).
There’s plenty of reliable ancient texts out there. The Bible is most assuredly not 100% correct - it simply can’t be, given that it seems to be internally inconsistent on several points. For instance, what were Christ’s last words on the Cross? But if you conveniently forget the principle of interpretive underdetermination, I suppose you can make the Bible match the facts if you have to, much as many tout the mistranslation of ‘seven days’ from indeterminate ‘ages’ when faced by the overwhelming evidence of evolution, geology, archaology, genetics, and so on.
What I find here is the curious assumption that underwrites the argument, a kind of optimistic induction, where the historical accuracy of the Bible is taken to translate into the metaphysical accuracy of the Bible with regards to a all powerful, infinite being who pouts like a finite human, murders like a finite human, takes sides like a finite human, hates like a finite human, makes threats like a finite human, and yes, loves like a finite human. Given the extraordinary transcendental claims made by the Bible, I think the sober thing to do would be to look at it the way we look at all ancient documents that make such extraordinary claims (since it seems our ancestors found such claim-making irresistable), as a product of its times, expressing the hopes and hatreds of its authors.
The Historical Evidence
Back in college I did a research paper on the Jesuses. That's right. Plural. From a period of around 50 BC to 70 AD a total of 27 different people claimed to be the long awaited messiah with enough clamor to at least merit a footnote in history. 26 were practically carbon copies of one another "Here I am, I'm the warrior messiah that's going to lead you in conquest over the Romans". 26 dead. 26 forgotten. Somewhere in the middle of the pack chronologically, Jesus of Nazerith made the claim as well. But his message was 180 degrees different from the rest. He said that the eternal kingdom prophecied back in Isaiah was a kingdom of the spirit, not anything as petty as a revolt against Rome. He said he was God Himself come down to die physically, so that they would never have to die spiritually. Then, after he died, rather than scattering like the rest of the followers of so-called messiahs, Jesus' followers said that he was back from the dead, that they'd seen him, that he had proved he was God, and that they were willing to die themselves to spread that message to others.
The Jesus Sweepstakes argument. How’s this for a more conservative explanation: in an age filled with messianic delusion (by Tex’s own account 25 of them were plainly delusional), the one with the most original marketing pitch took. You know what they say, throw enough crap at a wall...
Actually the 25 also give grounds for what’s called a pessimistic induction: either we can assume that Jesus was simply one more delusional enthusiast, or we can assume that he was the son of the all-powerful transcendent creator of the universe. You tell me which claim is the most outlandish.
The Experiential Evidence
My father, my sister, me. And for me, that's the big one.
This might sound harsh but there’s people blowing themselves up, whipping themselves with scourges, and so on and so on, all on the basis of their personal experience. Like I said before, the feeling of rightness can just as easily indicate deception (where you feel you’re right when you’re not) as anything else. In other words, it’s not evidence at all.
I should note, before fully responding, the difference between rationalization, where the conclusion is taken as given, and one then selectively searches for justifications afterward, and reasoning, where the conclusion is either unknown or suspended, and one is forced to go through the labourious process of sifting through all the possible justifications to see where they lead without any help from things like confirmation bias, socialization, and so on. The one uses a ‘certainty first’ method, whereas the other uses a ‘doubt first’ method. Since it’s impossible to do all this work on one’s own, we’re forced to rely on our claim-making institutions - to trust in effect. Now I think it’s plain that the former method has a horrible track record, even though it is the hardwired default method of all us humans - something to be overcome, I would say. But what can’t be debated is the stunning success of the latter method, as difficult as we humans find it.
It’s an accomplishment. Which is why it took us so long to find our way to science.
You do admit, Tex, that you’re relying on the first method, that you start with your conclusion, which I gather is something like ‘Jesus is the only way to heaven,’ and then cast about after the fact for your justifications?
Metaphysical Evidence
People have been resuscitated after several minutes of flatline and told us things that occurred while they were clinically dead: words spoken, physical descriptions of people that came and went, even people, words, and events, from elsewhere as they claimed to "float" around, that were later verified accurate. They have given us this picture of the first events after death-
Keep in mind that more books have been written on death and dying than any other single subject - from an evolutionary perspective, individual death is enemy # 1, so it should come as no surprise that we have a hardwired propensity to be somewhat concerned with it. This is only to point that we humans, who are undoubtedly rationalizing creatures, have a tremendous incentive to rationalize when it comes to death. It generally terrifies us.
So the question here is simply one of what the most rational explanation of NDE’s might be.
1) that we have no real idea as of yet.
2) that they are evidence of an (not necessarily Christian) afterlife utterly at odds with our present understanding of nature, wherein consciousness is a product of brain function (which is why Aspirins work when you take them).
3) that it’s a common experiential response to the neurophysiological trauma of near death.
The OBE’s that some report to experience as a component of their NDE’s I’m inclined to dismiss altogether, given that they can now be reliably induced using transcranial magnetic stimulation - they’re a kind of hallucination. But to avoid getting drawn into a fruitless debate over anecdotal evidence (which is typically excluded from science because of its notorious unreliability) I’m willing to take a draw on this one.
You tell me what the most rational conclusion to draw is?
Prophetic Evidence
2,000 and counting. Nostradamus gets a third of his (vaguely) right and people still can't stop scouring over his words. The Bible isn't one out of three, it's a perfect 2,000 for 2,000, and that with specific events that were verifiably written down long before they ever took place.
The Principle of Interpretative Underdetermination. Think about, ‘legalese’ is a form of English purported designed to shut down ambiguity, and the lawyers are still able to split hairs! The fact of the matter is, the more ancient the text, the allusive the text, the more translated and transliterated, the more interpretative permutations one can rationalize. To say that the Bible is batting 1000 in the prophecy department is literally like claiming one has stumbled across the one and only interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet!This is one of the areas where the psychology of human cognition really generates a lot of mischief. On the one hand, confirmation bias leads us to see what we want to see, and on the other hand, the ‘invisibility of ignorance’ leads us to think no other possible interpretations could exist, when in fact, the number is actually inexhaustible - which is precisely why some argue that Nostradamus is 100% correct.
The fact is, our inability to ever convincingly nail down such cryptic texts makes it impossible to say any of their prophecies are correct. And given the miserable track record of psychics and astrologers at the horse races, never mind the Stock Market, it seems safe to assume that anyone claiming to have definite knowledge of an otherwise inaccessible future is either a charlatan or a victim of wishful thinking.
Once again, we don’t know.
The Archaeological Evidence
Everytime the Bible gives us enough that we can find a spot and dig there, we find exactly what the Bible told us we were going to find, no matter how preposterous it looks (people covered under volcanic ash where there is no volcano).
There’s plenty of reliable ancient texts out there. The Bible is most assuredly not 100% correct - it simply can’t be, given that it seems to be internally inconsistent on several points. For instance, what were Christ’s last words on the Cross? But if you conveniently forget the principle of interpretive underdetermination, I suppose you can make the Bible match the facts if you have to, much as many tout the mistranslation of ‘seven days’ from indeterminate ‘ages’ when faced by the overwhelming evidence of evolution, geology, archaology, genetics, and so on.
What I find here is the curious assumption that underwrites the argument, a kind of optimistic induction, where the historical accuracy of the Bible is taken to translate into the metaphysical accuracy of the Bible with regards to a all powerful, infinite being who pouts like a finite human, murders like a finite human, takes sides like a finite human, hates like a finite human, makes threats like a finite human, and yes, loves like a finite human. Given the extraordinary transcendental claims made by the Bible, I think the sober thing to do would be to look at it the way we look at all ancient documents that make such extraordinary claims (since it seems our ancestors found such claim-making irresistable), as a product of its times, expressing the hopes and hatreds of its authors.
The Historical Evidence
Back in college I did a research paper on the Jesuses. That's right. Plural. From a period of around 50 BC to 70 AD a total of 27 different people claimed to be the long awaited messiah with enough clamor to at least merit a footnote in history. 26 were practically carbon copies of one another "Here I am, I'm the warrior messiah that's going to lead you in conquest over the Romans". 26 dead. 26 forgotten. Somewhere in the middle of the pack chronologically, Jesus of Nazerith made the claim as well. But his message was 180 degrees different from the rest. He said that the eternal kingdom prophecied back in Isaiah was a kingdom of the spirit, not anything as petty as a revolt against Rome. He said he was God Himself come down to die physically, so that they would never have to die spiritually. Then, after he died, rather than scattering like the rest of the followers of so-called messiahs, Jesus' followers said that he was back from the dead, that they'd seen him, that he had proved he was God, and that they were willing to die themselves to spread that message to others.
The Jesus Sweepstakes argument. How’s this for a more conservative explanation: in an age filled with messianic delusion (by Tex’s own account 25 of them were plainly delusional), the one with the most original marketing pitch took. You know what they say, throw enough crap at a wall...
Actually the 25 also give grounds for what’s called a pessimistic induction: either we can assume that Jesus was simply one more delusional enthusiast, or we can assume that he was the son of the all-powerful transcendent creator of the universe. You tell me which claim is the most outlandish.
The Experiential Evidence
My father, my sister, me. And for me, that's the big one.
This might sound harsh but there’s people blowing themselves up, whipping themselves with scourges, and so on and so on, all on the basis of their personal experience. Like I said before, the feeling of rightness can just as easily indicate deception (where you feel you’re right when you’re not) as anything else. In other words, it’s not evidence at all.