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One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when the priests of Baal are challenged to a religion showdown by Elijah. The idea is each side will pray for an alt

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when the priests of Baal are challenged to a religion showdown by Elijah. The idea is each side will pray for an altar to be lit on fire, whichever altar is lit on fire is the altar of the true religion. I won't spoil the ending - but I think the setup makes a lot of sense. If there is a guy who can ignite stuff by simply asking that it be lit then I would really like to know more about that guy's religion. I have the same opinion of academics - show me what you can light on fire. For example, I don't believe in physics because it makes intuitive sense to me, on the contrary, I find it confusing and counter-intuitive (sometimes). I believe in physics because the people who make magic boxes of light and sound that move fast and connect across vast distances tell me they did so via the knowledge they derived from physics. It's not how I would've guessed the universe would work, but who am I to argue with a blazing altar? Judging by this standard I find many academic disciplines are severely wanting - there is a lot of chanting and waving of hands, but very little smoke. If I hear on the news that there's going to be an eclipse, I'll go out and look. If I hear on the news that eggs are bad for you, I'm going to roll my eyes.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
You don’t “believe” in physics, you understand there is some truth to it based on direct evidence. Belief is accepting something to be true on the foundation of faith—not having direct evidence. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)
- MattPalmer1086 5y ago
  I disagree with this interpretation of the word belief. A belief may be founded in something, or it may not be. Unquestioning belief without evidence requires faith. Belief is not a synonym for faith.
  - andrewmcwatters 5y ago
    It literally is.
    - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
      They are often used interchangeably in religious contexts, but belief has a wider usage outside of that domain. Faith implies belief without requiring any evidence. But belief can be conditional on evidence.
    - philwelch 5y ago
      The standard definition of “knowledge” used to be “justified true belief”. In other words, knowledge is a type of belief. (That didn’t turn out to be a good definition, but not because of the “belief” part.)
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Belief is a real word with meaning in the secular context as well. Belief can be informed by evidence or not. It simply means acceptance or confidence that something is true. You can have faith in the available evidence, or faith in the absence of evidence.
- fluoridation 5y ago
  Belief is accepting something as being true, for one reason or another. Some beliefs are based on faith, others on evidence.
- thereisnospork 5y ago
  > Belief is accepting something to be true on the foundation of faith—not having direct evidence. Most people will never understand the direct evidence of even relatively mundane science, and almost everyone is incapable of understanding the direct evidence of the cutting edge.[0] and its implications, ergo in lieu of understanding they must substitute belief. Where science policy/communication fails here is in producing a 'believable' system, with adequate consistency and storytelling for persons who will only ever understand by analogy. [0]Regular people don't know what an integral is. The intelligent, educated, and motivated don't have the bandwidth to really understand more than a smattering topics deeply.
- curuinor 5y ago
  This interpretation of what faith is was created during the Reformation. Which was unfortunately a few millennia after this episode. Ancient religions were definitely based on getting the goods by magic - they really did sacrifice those oxen to get YHWH to win the war for them, they really did sacrifice those fatted calves to get Zeus to get the king to make good decisions, they really did sacrifice those pigeons to get Portunus the god of locks to keep the lock working. It's not fatted calves, but we do sacrifice some money to the quantum folks so they can break our enemies' encryption locks ... in like 25 years ...
- sockpuppet_12 5y ago
  The NWT renders Heb 11:1 as "Faith is the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration* of realities that are not seen." (*Or “convincing evidence.”) Those with faith have proof or evidence that can be used to demonstrate or to back up that faith. It's not blind.
rayiner 5y ago
This is a superb analogy, thank you.
oh_sigh 5y ago
> One of my favorite stories in the Bible...I won't spoil the ending - but I think the setup makes a lot of sense. > I have the same opinion of academics - show me what you can light on fire. I don't know if you're going to be welcome in a lot of liberal art colleges, since this is the ending(SPOILERS!): > And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.
- pbourke 5y ago
  > And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. I suppose that’s an early instance of p-hacking.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  If man would play games then let him play for stakes.
tengbretson 5y ago
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  >> Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Ah... Good, Old-Fashioned Organic Agriculture.
TameAntelope 5y ago
One small but critical addendum I'd add is that it's less about, "The people who make magic boxes of light say they used physics" and more about "EVERY person who makes magic boxes of light, all in unison, say they used the exact same physics." There's a huge power in knowledge consensus. It's got all kinds of flaws, but it meanders generally in a growth direction, and that's better than any other prediction system I'm familiar with.
- natpalmer1776 5y ago
  I would argue that if two people brought me magic boxes of light saying they used physics, and they each told me about two vastly different "physics" involved with creating those magic boxes, I would instead introduce them to each other in the hopes that they might reconcile their understanding of the fundamental concepts involved and make an even cooler magic box! What you instead want to look for is: "MANY people who are familiar with magic boxes tried to make this guy's magic box and couldn't replicate his method." You are looking for valid contradiction to stated facts to invalidate claims, not for a widespread consensus on the claims. This is important because, as a single example, two people can use different methods to achieve the same outcome based on their own respective theories that have minor flaws but present strong evidence that they are in their entirety true. It is only by reconciling & finding the contradictions between the two that you can come out with a single VALID theory. If I were a scientist I would probably have some examples of this occurring in the past, but off the top of my head I would suggest it is improbably that there has never been a situation where two competing theories that each had strong evidence were both eliminated in favor of a single unified theory that reconciled differences between them.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Nah, science happens where the disagreement grows. If there's consensus, that's not science, it's technology. That's why you guys keep talking about light boxes. Try asking 10 scientists about gravity, for example. You'll get 12 different answers. And that's not an off-by-one error.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
twoxproblematic 5y ago
throwawaygh 5y ago
As an atheist, this is a fascinating analogy, because my take-away is that Elijah made up a story to justify mass execution of political rivals. (Perhaps he played a magic trick, perhaps someone just made the story up whole cloth, but in any case a lie was told to justify a religiously/politically-motivated mass execution.) This also has a reasonable take-away: sometimes lighting an altar on fire can be faked even when it looks real. Or, "beware the flashy demo". Fusion and especially some of the more shameless corners of AI come to mind. My apologies if this stretches the analogy too far.
- tigen 5y ago
  Also: repeatability. Can others reliably invoke YHWH to combust beef? Can Elijah perform it under controlled laboratory conditions? Can the other priests of YHWH? If not, perhaps they too should be taken to the brook and slaughtered.
alexvoda 5y ago
> If there is a guy who can ignite stuff by simply asking that it be lit then I would really like to know more about that guy's religion. Alexa, set room temperature to 28°C!

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

You don’t “believe” in physics, you understand there is some truth to it based on direct evidence. Belief is accepting something to be true on the foundation of faith—not having direct evidence. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)

MattPalmer1086 5y ago
I disagree with this interpretation of the word belief. A belief may be founded in something, or it may not be. Unquestioning belief without evidence requires faith. Belief is not a synonym for faith.
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  It literally is.
  - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
    They are often used interchangeably in religious contexts, but belief has a wider usage outside of that domain. Faith implies belief without requiring any evidence. But belief can be conditional on evidence.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    The standard definition of “knowledge” used to be “justified true belief”. In other words, knowledge is a type of belief. (That didn’t turn out to be a good definition, but not because of the “belief” part.)
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Belief is a real word with meaning in the secular context as well. Belief can be informed by evidence or not. It simply means acceptance or confidence that something is true. You can have faith in the available evidence, or faith in the absence of evidence.
fluoridation 5y ago
Belief is accepting something as being true, for one reason or another. Some beliefs are based on faith, others on evidence.
thereisnospork 5y ago
> Belief is accepting something to be true on the foundation of faith—not having direct evidence. Most people will never understand the direct evidence of even relatively mundane science, and almost everyone is incapable of understanding the direct evidence of the cutting edge.[0] and its implications, ergo in lieu of understanding they must substitute belief. Where science policy/communication fails here is in producing a 'believable' system, with adequate consistency and storytelling for persons who will only ever understand by analogy. [0]Regular people don't know what an integral is. The intelligent, educated, and motivated don't have the bandwidth to really understand more than a smattering topics deeply.
curuinor 5y ago
This interpretation of what faith is was created during the Reformation. Which was unfortunately a few millennia after this episode. Ancient religions were definitely based on getting the goods by magic - they really did sacrifice those oxen to get YHWH to win the war for them, they really did sacrifice those fatted calves to get Zeus to get the king to make good decisions, they really did sacrifice those pigeons to get Portunus the god of locks to keep the lock working. It's not fatted calves, but we do sacrifice some money to the quantum folks so they can break our enemies' encryption locks ... in like 25 years ...
sockpuppet_12 5y ago
The NWT renders Heb 11:1 as "Faith is the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration* of realities that are not seen." (*Or “convincing evidence.”) Those with faith have proof or evidence that can be used to demonstrate or to back up that faith. It's not blind.

rayiner 5y ago

This is a superb analogy, thank you.

oh_sigh 5y ago

> One of my favorite stories in the Bible...I won't spoil the ending - but I think the setup makes a lot of sense. > I have the same opinion of academics - show me what you can light on fire. I don't know if you're going to be welcome in a lot of liberal art colleges, since this is the ending(SPOILERS!): > And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.

pbourke 5y ago
> And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. I suppose that’s an early instance of p-hacking.
ALittleLight 5y ago
If man would play games then let him play for stakes.

tengbretson 5y ago

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
>> Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Ah... Good, Old-Fashioned Organic Agriculture.

TameAntelope 5y ago

One small but critical addendum I'd add is that it's less about, "The people who make magic boxes of light say they used physics" and more about "EVERY person who makes magic boxes of light, all in unison, say they used the exact same physics." There's a huge power in knowledge consensus. It's got all kinds of flaws, but it meanders generally in a growth direction, and that's better than any other prediction system I'm familiar with.

natpalmer1776 5y ago
I would argue that if two people brought me magic boxes of light saying they used physics, and they each told me about two vastly different "physics" involved with creating those magic boxes, I would instead introduce them to each other in the hopes that they might reconcile their understanding of the fundamental concepts involved and make an even cooler magic box! What you instead want to look for is: "MANY people who are familiar with magic boxes tried to make this guy's magic box and couldn't replicate his method." You are looking for valid contradiction to stated facts to invalidate claims, not for a widespread consensus on the claims. This is important because, as a single example, two people can use different methods to achieve the same outcome based on their own respective theories that have minor flaws but present strong evidence that they are in their entirety true. It is only by reconciling & finding the contradictions between the two that you can come out with a single VALID theory. If I were a scientist I would probably have some examples of this occurring in the past, but off the top of my head I would suggest it is improbably that there has never been a situation where two competing theories that each had strong evidence were both eliminated in favor of a single unified theory that reconciled differences between them.
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Nah, science happens where the disagreement grows. If there's consensus, that's not science, it's technology. That's why you guys keep talking about light boxes. Try asking 10 scientists about gravity, for example. You'll get 12 different answers. And that's not an off-by-one error.
- TameAntelope 5y ago

twoxproblematic 5y ago

throwawaygh 5y ago

As an atheist, this is a fascinating analogy, because my take-away is that Elijah made up a story to justify mass execution of political rivals. (Perhaps he played a magic trick, perhaps someone just made the story up whole cloth, but in any case a lie was told to justify a religiously/politically-motivated mass execution.) This also has a reasonable take-away: sometimes lighting an altar on fire can be faked even when it looks real. Or, "beware the flashy demo". Fusion and especially some of the more shameless corners of AI come to mind. My apologies if this stretches the analogy too far.

tigen 5y ago
Also: repeatability. Can others reliably invoke YHWH to combust beef? Can Elijah perform it under controlled laboratory conditions? Can the other priests of YHWH? If not, perhaps they too should be taken to the brook and slaughtered.

alexvoda 5y ago

> If there is a guy who can ignite stuff by simply asking that it be lit then I would really like to know more about that guy's religion. Alexa, set room temperature to 28°C!