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> These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity I'm not convinced this is true. Certainly the story of Jesus is evidence, but it's not clear which di

> These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity I'm not convinced this is true. Certainly the story of Jesus is evidence, but it's not clear which direction the evidence should push us. Someone making a claim does not always mean our posterior estimate on the claim should increase. Here's a simple example: I hand you a small bottle filled with medical-looking pills and a nice label. I ask you, "What's the chance these pills cure malignant melanoma cancer?" You think for a moment, then answer, "Very small. There may be a cure eventually, but I've never seen evidence. I'm not on the cutting edge of research though, so perhaps this is a new breakthrough I haven't heard of. Plausible, but unlikely." I then say, "Well, let me reassure you by showing you the website I ordered the pills from." I bring up the website, which shows testimonial after testimonial of people claiming the pills cure malignant melanoma cancer. You then respond (correctly), "I've decreased my estimate. There is still a chance, of course, that the pills work, but I now know these pills are not from a legitimate medical breakthrough I hadn't heard of yet. In fact, this website pattern matches as a scam, so I'm decreasing my posterior to an estimate even lower than my completely uninformed prior." P(Pills work | testimonials) < P(Pills are a scam | testimonials) Of course, the testimonials would be positive evidence if the pills had passed clinical trials. Now, which is bigger: P(Jesus is the son of God | Jesus said he is the son of God) or P(Jesus is was just a guy | Jesus said he is the son of God) ? Honestly, this is not clear to me at all. But I think once we start taking in all the other evidence related to (but not necessarily in favor of) Christianity things become more clear. Just like the pill's website pattern matched for a scammy website, it seems to me that the evidence related to Christianity pattern matches to the evidence related to other man made religions. So I conclude: P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is correct | evidence) Hence P(Christianity is correct | evidence) may very well be less than the uniform prior that a particular god exists. Edit: The above symbols aren't right, as yummy points out below, but the argument and analogy is sound. What we care about is the change in probability of each possibility. If P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is man-made) then we can conclude that Christianity is less likely due to the evidence.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
The right question: is P(prophet|says prophet) > P(prophet|says ordinary guy)? My argument is only that any semi-mainstream religion is more likely to be true than some random arbitrary belief system. I.e., Christianity and Islam are both more likely than Anti-Christianity. I just don't buy your argument that the evidence for all possible religions (including ones you made up for this argument only) cancel out. That's a massive coincidence. And if the evidence only cancels out 99.9999999% rather than 100%, you find yourself back in a Pascal's Wager situation.
- SamReidHughes 13y ago
  Your argument's invalid, because P(prophet) has nothing to do with whether $diety is telling the truth through said prophet or lying. The only way to predict whether $diety is an earnest hypocrite or a master of deception is by pulling a prior out of your posterior.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Computing a posterior, whether about god or controlling climate via human actions, requires a prior. All decisionmaking requires a prior. What's your point?
    - SamReidHughes 13y ago
      My point is that your question about who's a prophet is irrelevant. You claim that stories of Jesus is evidence of Christianity -- or that Christians go to heaven -- but it's really evidence of anti-Christianity if you think God would set up honeypot ideologies. You're not doing anything but looping back around to the original question, that if Christianity is real, is it actually a honeypot? The religion's paraphernalia doesn't matter, and the "evidence" you've suggested doesn't affect the chance of it being a honeypot. That it's a question of picking priors is not news to the anti-Christianity anti-Pascal's wager people, that's what they're saying. For example, your act of saying that Jesus is evidence for Christianity and not anti-Christianity is just a roundabout way of saying your priors are anti-honeypot.
    - 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

The right question: is P(prophet|says prophet) > P(prophet|says ordinary guy)? My argument is only that any semi-mainstream religion is more likely to be true than some random arbitrary belief system. I.e., Christianity and Islam are both more likely than Anti-Christianity. I just don't buy your argument that the evidence for all possible religions (including ones you made up for this argument only) cancel out. That's a massive coincidence. And if the evidence only cancels out 99.9999999% rather than 100%, you find yourself back in a Pascal's Wager situation.

SamReidHughes 13y ago
Your argument's invalid, because P(prophet) has nothing to do with whether $diety is telling the truth through said prophet or lying. The only way to predict whether $diety is an earnest hypocrite or a master of deception is by pulling a prior out of your posterior.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Computing a posterior, whether about god or controlling climate via human actions, requires a prior. All decisionmaking requires a prior. What's your point?
  - SamReidHughes 13y ago
    My point is that your question about who's a prophet is irrelevant. You claim that stories of Jesus is evidence of Christianity -- or that Christians go to heaven -- but it's really evidence of anti-Christianity if you think God would set up honeypot ideologies. You're not doing anything but looping back around to the original question, that if Christianity is real, is it actually a honeypot? The religion's paraphernalia doesn't matter, and the "evidence" you've suggested doesn't affect the chance of it being a honeypot. That it's a question of picking priors is not news to the anti-Christianity anti-Pascal's wager people, that's what they're saying. For example, your act of saying that Jesus is evidence for Christianity and not anti-Christianity is just a roundabout way of saying your priors are anti-honeypot.
  - 13y ago