User talk:Roy Brumback/Archive 1

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Welcome

Hello, Roy Brumback/Archive 1, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Wikipedia Boot Camp, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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==Please Use Edit Summaries== Hello. Please remember to always provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy editing. ¡Dustimagic! (T/C) 05:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Merging dispute

Please make use of the talk page to try to come to a resolution over this dispute. Protection is the absolute last resort, not the first. · Katefan0 (scribble) 03:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Use of AD in front of years

As regards your Mark 6 and Luke 3 reverts, read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Years, decades, and centuries, and you will see that my edits were correct.

Restore the correct version.--Semioli 12:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Manual of Style on the use of "AD"s

If you read (and I mean follow the link and read) Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Years, decades, and centuries, you shall see that AD (or CE) is never used, even for low years with low numbers.

If you read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras (which is probably what you read first), you see that even if "both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable", "normally you should use plain numbers for years in the Anno Domini/Common Era, but when events span the start of the Anno Domini/Common Era, use AD or CE for the date at the end of the range".

If you reflect one moment, instead of reverting like a mad, you will realize that this means:

  1. both AD and CE are acceptable (when needed)
  2. never used AD in front of years
    except when you are writing an interval spanning over the change of era

Note also that "but when events span the start of the Anno Domini/Common Era" does not mean "when the article is about an event spanning over the change of era", but means "when the interval spans over the change of era".

Do you understand now?--Ahrarara 21:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras. Fine. Are you going to read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Years, decades, and centuries too, or everything that goes against your POV is filtered out by your eyes?--Ahrarara 21:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
You are wasting my time. You must apply all of the Manual of Style, not only the parts you like most. When I write "year 1" it is year 1, whatever part of the world I live in. Otherwise why are you omitting to write "year AD 2006"?
You claims are biased and unconsistent.--Ahrarara 22:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are you not applying all the manual of style, as you seem to tacitly admit my argument beats yours? And there are two years 1, so is it year AD1 or 1BC? And what is biased and inconsistent about arguing for the use of eras in article, which is easily in accord with the MOS? And if one did not know anything about Jesus, how would they know whether these events occured in the AD or BC era? Roy Brumback 22:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

  1. "Why are you not applying all the manual of style, as you seem to tacitly admit my argument beats yours?" This wrong twice, since I am applying all of the MoS, and I am not admitting your arguments beat mine, since I feel it is the opposite.
  2. "And what is biased and inconsistent about arguing for the use of eras in article, which is easily in accord with the MOS?" Because what I would like to make you understand (and it is very difficult, trust me) is that it is not a matter of Eras, but of years, so you should apply that section of MoS. To explain it better, I am not removing ADs because I support CEs or whatever, but because they are not needed in the context of those articles.
  3. "And if one did not know anything about Jesus, how would they know whether these events occured in the AD or BC era?" (1) because the year is linked, and if you follow the link (try with this: "year 1") it goes to AD 1 and not to 1 BC; (2) because even the most stupid reader understands that "year 2006" is not 2006 BC, even without AD in front, and thus even the most stupid reader is aware of the convention that a year missing AD/BC is infact an AD year.--Ahrarara 22:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

3RR

I reported you in WP:AN/3RR for your reverts to Mark 6 and Mark 13.--Semioli 11:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked you for 12 hours for 3RR violations. Sasquatch t|c 23:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanking

I did not understand if your mesage was ironic or not. In the latter case, I would like you to know that there are no problems on my behalf.

--Semioli 10:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Historicity of Jesus

I'm not trying to be difficult, but this statement you reverted does not meet Wikipedia standards (see both Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words). Please provide a detailed reason for your inclusion, rather than leaving a vapid edit summary; dispuited items like this should be discussed on the talk page, responding to previous discussion, as per Wikipedia guidelines. If you feel I'm wrong, I don't want an edit war, and I'd be happy to put this up for mediation. Also please note the statement you added should have been on the talk page, as it wasn't a referenced statement, and was instead inclusion of a personal rationale. Please see the added discussion on the talk page. Cheers! --Chuchunezumi 07:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, regarding comments

I don't think you did so intentionally, and I am unconcerned about it, but you should know that, even on your user page, you are not permitted to erase the signed comments of others. This is actually considered vandalism. You can always archive your old messages to keep the page clean, but there are people who will warn you for that (this is NOT such a warning, merely my trying to be friendly, and let you know). I would suggest that you revert the old comments and archive them. Cheers! --Chuchunezumi 20:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Actually, ESPECIALLY since I noticed that you have blanked comments, warnings, and even administrative blocks before, I would highly suggest you revert everything and archive it, or you are very likely to be blocked for that. --Chuchunezumi 20:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, you do...simply because they have to be easily accessed by anyone who views it, and the page history isn't an easy way to see what has happened before. This is true especially for warnings and administrative sanctions; everything has to be collected together, so you can see the history. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to do this for you (though I'll need your explicit consent). I need practice with such things anyway, heheh. :) Anyway, thanks for taking my comments in good faith, as they were intended! I look forward to working with you on Wikipedia in the future! Cheers! --Chuchunezumi 21:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Ryulong is a user I remembered who also archives all the entries from his talk page, if you'd like to see an example of how this can be done (and done well). This level of presentation is of course optional! Cheers!--Chuchunezumi 22:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Historicity of Jesus

There is a talk topic for discussing the most recent revision of the article. If you have specific points you would like to discuss, please bring them up there. There is no need to revert the entire article, especially since so many improvements would be lost in that process. Lostcaesar 07:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Luke 4

What bothered me most was the way it was written. Could it be re-written without the rhetorical questions, which are rather unencyclopedic in tone? Carl.bunderson 21:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Should we say "perhaps" their copies were in a different order? Roy Brumback 21:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that sounds good. How about "...correct; perhaps their copies of Q were in a different order? This difference in orders..." And thanks for your consideration of my concerns, Roy. Carl.bunderson 17:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ontological Argument

I'm sorry, but I'm upset about what happened here. There was no reason to delete every single addition I contributed on the 16th. Many of my arguments were not original (the predication argument underneath "Existence as a Property" was Kant, and the ninth argument of Miscellaneous, that of divine simplicity, was partially Aquinas, partially Plantinga, (ironically for both) and also various modern philosophers). As well, much of the page (the lengthy Miscellaneous section, for instance) neglects to cite anything, whatsoever, including the ontological argument responses to criticisms. I revised the page, again, editing my own comments to remain as neutral as possible, but I didn't cite sources. If it's absolutely mandatory I cite a source for every sentence (which is completely inconsistent with the overwhelming majority of the page), then I'll be doing this in the future. However, much of the rest of the page should also be removed then, such as, "Defenders of the ontological argument have replied to this objection that its conclusion does not follow from its premise," etc. Just deleting everything is not the appropriate way to handle such additions; first try modifying them. Second, remove only the unnecessary, frivolous, unfounded, and seemingly original comments (note: they can't all have been one of these). Finally, start a discussion (and if you have, please direct me; I missed it). I worked hard on those additions, and indiscriminately removing them ALL was careless and unjustified (at least to an extent, if nothing else). If you reply to me in the discussion, I will certainly consider/include any of your objections/comments in my contribution. Thank you.

Don't be upset. You're right, a lot of the page is unsourced, but I didn't have time to reedit it all, but I'll get to it in the future. You can't point to another error to justify yours. All content in Wikipedia must be verifiable, and you're edits were not. Plus, is seemed many were simply your own arguments, and that is not what this site is for. Wikipedia is not our personal debating club or a place to publish original research. Any argument for or against it you add must come from a verifiable source from reputable philosophers. Kant's argument about existence not being a property is already in there. It just needs a cite from that page of Critique of Pure Reason. You do not need to cite every sentence, but you do need to cite every point. I'll go over your new edits on that page. Roy Brumback 06:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ontological Argument Cont.

Thank you for your cordial and expedient response. If you would, I have continued the debate in the article's discussion page. I'd appreciate your input. :)

Ontological Pt III

Btw, I'm only writing in your discussion page because I want to be sure I've drawn your attention to my newest comments. If this is unnecessary (and I can be assured you'll notice/won't forget to check my responses), I'll stop posting here. But yes, I've updated the discussion page, again, with responses to your own. Thank you for your time and input.  :)

Mark 3

Well, 'twelve' might have some significance, but seemingly not enough to be considered worthy of a mention in the Twelve Apostles article, which is where any such possible significance should surely be mentioned and explored. It seems a very tenuous connection to me. Colonies Chris 15:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that there was 12 apostles is mentioned in the Twelve article. 12 might mean nothing, but also might have numerological significance. It's linked so the reader can think about it themselves. Roy Brumback 21:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Death and Resurrection of Jesus

You removed the sentence "It is important to note that no historical account of the resurrection exists outside of religious texts.". As far as I can establish this is a wholly accurate statement that is needed for balance and to maintain NPOV. Please explain you reasoning for removing it. BlueValour 00:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, why is it important? According to who? You. Cite needed for a conclusion about importance. Secondly, it's an argument from silence, you could reinsert it, and I could then label it as a logical fallacy, but that seems a little silly. And then you label all the books that do mention it as "religious" texts. They are certainly used religiously, but Luke for instance clearly says his work is a book about history, what really happened. So what you are really saying is in all the history books that don't talk about the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus' resurrection isn't mentioned. I suppose that you could say that Tacitus for instance talked about Jesus' death but didn't mention Jesus' resurrection, which might show he didn't know about it or didn't believe in it, but again we're now reaching conclusions about Tacitus, and those conclusions would need cites or agreement among most editors. Roy Brumback 01:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for this reply. You, and others, have made some excellent points that I have endeavoured to take on board in my latest edit. BlueValour 03:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics and God

I've added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Mathematics and God, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, or, if you disagree with the notice, discuss the issues at Talk:Mathematics and God. You may remove the deletion notice, and the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached, or if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria. Ioannes Pragensis 10:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

December 25

New message at the bottom of the talk page, primarily for you. — coelacan talk — 12:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

God & Science

Hi, you removed creation myths and prayer from the God article. Creation myths are relevant as they originate from the same source (i.e. some text) as the definitions of a specific god. The creation of the universe is tied to the existence of that deity. If the creation myths yeild a very different story from what the scientific findings are then the reliability of the source text should be questioned. If the text defining god is unreliable then the god hypothesis defined in the text can and should be questioned as well.

As for prayer, it is quite relevant as it is an example of how a specific god hypothesis can be tested. Prayer is supposed to be direct communication with god. The religion in question there was Christianity which clearly puts forward the claims that prayers are answered (Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24...etc). This can readily be tested and has been. The study that I referenced is to date the largest one and the only peer-reviewed study whose results were statistically significant. And sure it was specifically for heart patients and the prayers were Christian. Perhaps they would have given different results if the prayers were Muslim, Hindu, Sumerian or for STD patients, but that is really beside the point. That one study, assuming that it was properly done, is enough to falsify the specific Christian god hypothesis as defined in the bible. A more obvious example would be how prayer doesn't seem to help growing back legs on amputees, but I don't think anybody has even bothered to make a study on that.

The point is that the religious texts that define god contain a number of specific claims about the nature of god and what god does and does not do. When god is said to interact with the physical world, it can be tested making it a scientific hypothesis. --Denoir 12:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I had a feeling you would get steamed over this. But here is why I removed them. The main reason is that studies on prayer probably belong in the prayer article, not the God article. And as for the conclusions you reached regarding the studies, they seem to be flawed. For instance, God is defined in several ways, not just from religious texts, therefore creation stories really have no direct connections to God. They could all be false and God could still exist. And how do these studies test the God hypothesis? All we know is that percentage x got better and percentage x did not, or suffered complications, or whatever. Now, one stat was something like 52 percent suffered complications while 48 did not. Now, since 48 percent did not suffer complications, does that show God answered those prayers? As for the 52 percent, maybe God has other plans for them. Maybe their complications helped the doctors grow their skills for a future patient who they will then save, who will then go on to cure disease x and so on and so on. Maybe it was just their time to die, if that is what happened. Personally, proabaly the majority of prayers I have made have not come to pass, but some have. If a prayer comes true, does that prove God? If it doesn't, does that disprove God? I don't really think so, scientifically, in either case. As for your claim that this study has falsified Christianity, that's pretty silly. Saying one study showing a slight majority of prayers in a very small sample of all prayers made didn't come true proves there is no Christian God is like saying we have found no life on Mars, therefore the alien hypothesis has been falsified. See my point? And Jesus was very clear that you shouldn't ask God to stoke you up. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Plus, Jesus himself had a prayer go unanswered. He asked God to save him from crucifixion, but that prayer was not answered, and Jesus didn't lose faith in God over it. Feel free to add the results of this study to the prayer page, (if it isn't already there, which I seem to remember it being) but leave out your conclusions, as they are not justified. And I specifically remember that there was a peer reviewed study a few years before this one that showed a majority of patients in a similar study did get better with prayers being made for them, although it was of a smaller sample size. And consider this. Religious people tend to have more children, who also tend to be more religious. Plus children given up for adoption by religious parents tend to also be more religious, even if they are raised by non religious people, showing it might be genetic. Therefore you could argue that natural selection selects for religious people. Does that prove God exists, because nature produces more religiously disposed people than non religiously disposed people? Roy Brumback 09:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


Not steamed, just not agreeing ;) The basic issue is this, when god or something following the assumption of the existence of a god supposedly interacts with the physical world, it becomes a scientific hypothesis. While a general question like "does god exist" is not of an empirical, testable or falsifiable question, a question like "When prayed to, God helps sick people." is quite testable and quite falsifiable. Now the Bible that defines the Christian god makes it quite clear that prayers are answered. This claim can be and has been countered by empirical measurements. If you define your god in a way that he doesn't interact with the physical world, then sure, science can't say anything about it. That is however not the reality of the god concept as assumed by religious people. Actual religious concepts of god are far more specific and unavoidably make claims of interacting with the physical world as well as predicting it. It's all very testable.
Showing that prayer, rain dancing etc don't work is not a very difficult thing. And if it worked, it would be equally easy to show. One point you might want to consider is when people say that their prayers have been answered it is always a case when the prayed for event could have happened with a certain probability through natural causes. Why does praying not help amputees? How come the most religious countries (where presumably people pray more) in the world are worst off in terms of poverty, violence and human suffering? Why do the god fearing Nigerians (99% theists) suffer so much compared to the godless Swedes (85% atheist)?
At this point, you are probably raging at my presumption that I can understand the ways of god. I am absurdly assuming that we can reason about his actions, motives and influences. We as humans are not capable of judging god by science, logic or any other means available to us humans.
That's perfectly fine - there is no problem with a concept of a god that can't be predicted - as long as you are consistent about it. The problem is that believers are not and neither are the religious texts. When a child survives a car accident, believers are more than happy to claim that it it is because god's love for the child. Should the child die then suddenly god is all mysterious again. It is a very convenient cop-out and to demonstrate the flaws of this, statistics can be applied.
In a proper study of for instance prayer, the researchers make sure that they have a good demographic spread so the possible influence of other variables are eliminated. Given such a sampling it is really a stretch to assume that only bad people were in the prayed-for-and-knew-about-it group. Why did god decide to smite those patients? And really, why does god hate people that have lost limbs but not cancer patients?
Could you prove god with prayer? Of course, just demonstrate a repeatable example that beats the null hypothesis. If you could show empirically that prayer works, it would be the science of prayers, not faith in prayers.
As for your religious people and children, it is a lovely example of a cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Correlation does not imply causation. A more reasonable assumption is that most religions originate from a time where having as many childern as possible was common sense as most of them wouldn't survive. In great parts of the developing world that still stands. --Denoir 20:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Dude, I realize it's a logical fallacy, that's why I asked it as a rhetorical question. But your conclusion is also a logical fallacy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can't say two out of three studies showing prayer did not beat the "null set" has falsified the prayer hypothesis. The Bible does not say that all your prayers are answered, nor does it give some number like x/100 prayers come true, and there are several examples in the Bible of prayers not coming true, including as I pointed out Jesus' own prayers not always coming true. And you can't simply dismiss prayers coming true by saying there is a naturalistic cause for them. First of all, we don't know that unless we know all the workings and causes of nature. And even if you can show a naturalistic cause, how can you know God didn't set up the causes, or from a quantum perspective the probability amplitudes, from the beginning so that that prayer would be answered? The same would go for the majority of prayers coming true. That wouldn't prove the prayer hypothesis either, as there could be a naturalistic reason for all of them, but God could be the cause of all the causes in nature. Falsifying or proving the prayer hypothesis is a lot more difficult than you are making it out to be.

As for the Swedes, I dispute that 85 percent are atheistic, but that number might be agnostic. And plenty of them suffer too. Plus you are conviently overlooking the fact the Britian is largely majority theistic, as is America, as are several well off countries. Russia was also and is still to some degree largely atheistic and there was and is plenty of suffering there too. Plus saying suffering occurs has anything to say about the Christian God hypothesis is a little silly, as is saying God hates people who suffer. Jesus suffered and God loved him. The Christian God hypothesis doesn't say God will eliminate all suffering, not in this present world at least. Anyone who says so, religious or otherwise, is not taking the hypothesis seriously. Plus God kills us all in the end, so how does that show he hates us?

How about the fact the people who believe in God are always shown on average to be happier? That doesn't prove God exists, but then neither does suffering prove he doesn't exist, although it does tend to show you are more likely to be happy if you believe in God. And as for religious people having more children, not only is it true in the past, but it is also true today. Evolution is always occuring, and as more religious people are having more children today and their children are more likely to be religious and thus to have more children themselves, you can reasonably predict more religious people in the future. That of course doesn't prove religion true, but it does suggest it is evolutionarily advantageous, in the past as well as today. Haven't you heard Sweden is largely declining in population? Roy Brumback 05:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


Let's take care of the stats first:Demographics of atheism. As you can see, you are wrong about, well every stat. In the UK a minority professes a belief in god and in Russia the majority. That doesn't really matter though (I don't want to get stuck on the point of interpreting polls) because the argument is statistical and it is very simple: In the Human Development index the top 30 countries are far less religious than the bottom 30. If the hypothesis is that prayer has a positive real-world effect (i.e that god rewards believers) and we assume that people in countries where people profess a strong belief in god pray more than people in countries where a minority does the same - then it is easily testable. This is a statistically valid argument for any of the major religions. This of course doesn’t prove that every conceivable combination of prayer and religion doesn't work.
When we do get into specifics though, it is quite testable. A hypothesis like: If you pray for patients recovering from heart surgery they will on average develop fewer complications and have a greater chance of survival than an equivalent group that you do not pray for. With a large enough sample size so that you statistically eliminate the influence of other parameters this hypothesis is both testable and verifiable.
Invoking god as an explanation for failing to beat the hypothesis (as god wanted the experiment to fail) is as much allowed as invoking the fairy god mother to explain away the ultraviolet catastrophe.
Now, as for naturalistic causes - of course I can dismiss prayer if it does not produce a measurable difference compared to null hypothesis. This is pretty basic stuff. To use Carl sagan's example - if I claim that there is an invisible and undetectable dragon living in my garage, you are on pretty solid scientific grounds to dismiss it. If rain dance does not produce rain, it does not work. If prayer doesn't (as it is presumed to do) produce a measurable effect then it does not work.
"How about the fact the people who believe in God are always shown on average to be happier"
Not that it is relevant to this discussion, but that's not a claim that is supported by data. Again, take a good long look at the Human Development index. Most religious people in the world live in miserable conditions. Most atheists have a good quality of life. If you wish to take a different metric, say suicide rates you can see that it has no correlation to religion:[1][2].
It is however as I said not relevant. Belief in X could make you the happiest man on earth - but that doesn't mean that X is true.
"The Bible does not say that all your prayers are answered"
Actually it does and in no uncertain terms: Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24. On the other hand the bible also says that pi = 3 and that insects have four legs. It also says "Love God" later "Fear God" and finally "There is no fear in love". So if you are trying to say that the bible is full of contradictions and that one specific failure can't falsify the whole thing, I would agree with you.
The bible (or koran or whatever) as a whole defeats itself all on its own - you can't treat it seriously from a scientific point of view. It is in itself not a legitimate hypothesis as it does not fulfill the minimum standards of internal consistency. There is no meta-bible that tells you which part of the bible that you can ignore or interpret, so you are pretty much stuck with its text.
Ultimately the testable parts are the specific ones. For instance the Mark 16:17-18 claims that believers are impervious to snake bites and poison can be tested and falsified. Or the claim in Leviticus that leprosy is best cured by the blood of a bird + incantations. These are not theological claims, but empirical scientific hypotheses that are falsifiable and testable.
Finally, a word about evolution, religion and children. To illustrate the flaw of the logic, let me do a slight modification to your hypothesis: "Evolution is always occurring, and as more uneducated people are having more children today and their children are more likely to be uneducated and thus to have more children themselves, you can reasonably predict more uneducated people in the future."
The correlation stands, but is not related to natural selection. As far as we know today neither is religion - although it may very well be a side effect of evolution. There are very good reasons for the teleological disposition that humans have (assigning intent to everything). When you encounter a tiger you must put aside all forms of rational analysis and get to the intent: it wants to eat you. And when it comes to unknown agents in nature, it is far safer to assume that they have some form of intent than blindly ignoring it. This is a perfectly justifiable evolutionary reason that in a different context misfires. We yell at our computers and pray to god. Furthermore you have the mechanism of children believing what their parents say (also reasonable from an evolutionary point of view as a trial-and-error approach for a child would have a deadly outcome) which provides a simple mechanism for transferring belief from one generation to another. Also note that evolution is a very slow process. Our current context of living in organized societies etc is very recent. We are still biologically optimized to roam around nature in small family bands. Finally, while evolution through natural selection is the primary mechanism for biological development once the genes constructed the higher brain functions the game changed. You are most likely not religious because you have a 'faith gene' but because of your upbringing, the environment you grew up in and your experiences in life. That kind of adaptation is many orders of magnitude faster than the evolutionary adaptation. --Denoir 13:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Dude, you're simply wrong about religion not being genetic. There is much evidence for it. Religious people do have more religious children, even if they give them away and they are then raised by non-religious people. Plus there is a hypothesis that there is a gene that has been found to make people more spiritual, as well as a part of the brain. See God gene.

If that's what it says about Britain on that page, I'm pretty sure it's wrong. Plus the majority of British say they are Christian and I'm postive that's a fact, so it's hard to be a Christian atheist, although many British pull if off as about half say they don't know if there is a God. And I'm positive there are more atheists in Russia than Britain. And how come America is so much more happy and successful than Sweden? Oh wait, now comes the part where you argue that Sweden is really better than America. Come on man, this is getting a little silly. None of these stats or arguments has any logical connection to the prayer hypothesis, or the God hypothesis whatsoever. And if say Sweden falls in this century due to low demographics, will that show God punished the atheism there? If say Muslims become the majority (which is the current trend) in Europe in this century, will that show God rewarded them for their faith? On both counts, I'm pretty sure we can't really say, so how can we say faithful nations having on average lower standards of living today falsifies the God hypothesis. Europe was much richer in relative terms than the rest of the world 100 years ago when it had more religious belief. Maybe in the future highly atheist nations will find themselves poorer. Either way, it's largely irrelevant. Plus I thought poverty was something good in the Christian context. Certainly more cars and hot tubs don't equal better people, or are you now going to argue rich people are better because they are rich? And as I said before, Jesus was very clear that you shouldn't pray for self gratification. And I've read several studies, worldwide, that show religous people are more happy than nonreligious, plus they are more helpful and charitable in general, so I think it is you who need to get your stats straight.

Now the Bible no where says the majority of heart patients will get better with prayer, so come on. You're taking some statements and overlooking others, and saying the Bible says all prayers will be answered. Do you really think Jesus meant all of Hitlers wishes (kind of like prayers) would come true? God can't grant an evil prayer. Come on. And these prayers in the study were not evil, but I've already been over the difficulties of testing the general prayer hypothesis. And the fairy god mother is not defined as totally omnipotent. It's hard to test for an omnipotent being, much harder than you are being honest enough to admit. And the prayer hypothesis doesn't make a definite enough prediction to make for an easy test. As I said, even if it did beat the null set, you could still argue it's not what is responsible for beating it. And we're only three rigorous tests in. Again, that's like saying we haven't found aliens on three planets, so we know they are not there or could not be there. I'll admit the prayer hypothesis isn't scientifically proven, but back to your original claim, it hasn't been falsified either. Sagan was also intellectually honest enough to say that the God hypothesis was very difficult to prove or disprove.

As for the Bible, you're not "stuck" as you say, with it all or nothing. You can easily think not all of it is true but that some things in it are. Are you now saying there are no true statements in the Bible whatsoever? For instance the Bible says Augustus existed. Is that false if something else in the Bible is? Come one man, you can do better. Plus Paul was very clear that you can determine what is true about Christianity by being faithful to God and testing everything. I believe Moses also said you can tell true prophets from false prophets by seeing which one's prophecies come true. But they were both also very clear you also have to keep faith in God

And there will be more uneducated people in the future. At least for a while. Evolution occurs every moment, over the short and long run. It's a continuous process.

So that's about it man. I'm kind of getting tired of this argument. I've easily shown that the prayer hypothesis has not been falsified as you claimed, and the rest is simply getting silly. If you don't believe, fine, but neither the God or prayer hypothesis has been disproven in any way, so don't act like it's certain that you know they are not true. And one last thing to consider. You keep ripping on faith, but if your honest, you'll have to admit that science itself, as is pretty much everything else, is based on faith. Now I'm a scientist. I've always loved it, loved doing it, loved thinking about it. But in the end, ask yourself why do experiments have to yield truth. It's certainly possible to imagine a universe where experiments don't yield truth. Now how do we know we are not living in that universe? We don't know, we just, especially these says, believe it. It's a belief, just like any other. Or put another way, what experiment could you perform to see if experiments always yield truth? See what I'm saying? Have a good one man. Roy Brumback 08:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


To make this discussion shorter, I'll stick to the prayer issue and skip the rest (ignoring the myriad of logical fallacies and inconsistencies). For a scientist you show remarkable lack of understanding for statistics. It is very simple -
  • Hypothesis: Smoking increases your chance of lung cancer. Test: Given a large sample of smokers and non-smokers, is there a statistically significant difference in lung cancer between those two groups?
  • Hypothesis: Prayer helps heart patients to recover from surgery. Test: Given a large sample of people recovering from heart surgery that are prayed for and that are not prayed for, is there a statistically significant difference in recovery between those two groups?
  • Hypothesis: Prayer improves the quality of life of people. Test: Take the 10% of the most religious people in the world and take the 10% least religions people in the world and see if there is a statistically significant difference in the quality of life parameter.
The answers to those tests are yes, no, no. The third test, as the test groups are not homogenous what can be said from the result is that other factors are significant and prayer is not. If you don't approve of the living quality parameter as defined by the UN development index, pick any stat that you wish - life expectancy, infant mortality etc - you'll get the same result. Antibiotics trumps prayer.
Does test two and three disprove god? No, not as an abstract undefined entity. If you however define god to include answering prayers of heart patients or that makes sure that the people that pray have a good quality of life on earth, then it does disprove the existence of such a god.
The disproving/proving part is not relevant ontologically because you can always in theory remove the offending attributes and create a new definition on the fly (see God of the gaps. It is however relevant in a social context (which after all is why we treat religion differently than the belief in fairies and goblins). For instance one of the main frustrations in the Muslim world is exactly the issue why they, the true believers, are worse off than the infidels. The practical belief of the majority of the religious people in the world is that god is a supernatural entity that interacts with the natural world. The practical belief, as in the prayer case, is testable and falsifiable as it makes predictions about the real world.
The moderate variety of religious belief that you seem to profess is a betrayal of both faith and reason. You make arbitrary changes to your faith by cherry picking the good stuff and ignoring the stuff that is offensive to the moral sentiment of the 21st century and ridiculous to the science of the 21st century. You are not a creationist as far as I can tell and although the bible specifically tells how creation was supposed to happen, you choose to interpret it on a metaphoric level. On the other hand when Jesus says to love your neighbor or that you will go to heaven, then you take it as the literal truth. So you are willing to throw out parts of your faith because the utility of ignoring certain articles of faith is now overwhelming. At the same time you throw your reason - if I told you that I carbonated water makes you invisible, you would like the next man demand proof. Yet you require no evidence for an invisible deity that will punish you with eternal fire if you don't fulfill the requirements specified in a book that you arbitrarily read metaphorically. The fundamentalists are on much more solid ground when they discuss ontological issues.
Your final objection to this testing - the question of the universality of our logic, is irrelevant. Our interactions with the world would be meaningless and subsequently all science. This isn't relevant because of what we are trying to do here - improve a wikipedia article. And wikipedia rules do not consider metaphysical and existential questions. In fact wikipedia is largely based on accepting the scientific method. That's why a published peer reviewed article on cow droppings is good enough reference for inclusion while the bible or the koran is not. By the way, I'm a cultural Christian and an atheist - Christianity is part of my cultural heritage but I do not in any way believe the theology. It's a perfectly normal combination. Here in Sweden a majority is (nearly 80% I think) are members of the Church of Sweden, me included. Various historical sites are in church ownership and I help pay for their upkeep. This approach is fairly common in Europe. --Denoir 11:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Dude, wikipedia does consider existential and metaphysical questions. Otherwise there wouldn't be articles on those subjects. And show me a "peer reviewed" article proving justice is good for instance. Come on. And the prayer hypothesis does not say prayer will improve your "quality of life" a subjective unscientific concept. Nor does it say which percentage of prayers will be answered. And as I was trying to tell you, faith and reason are really one. You can't reason without axioms, and that's just another word for a belief. Maybe you should take a look at the Incompleteness theorem. It clearly suggests that any fully logically coherent system can't ever contain all the truth. And if you don't believe in Christian theology, then don't love your neighbor, don't help the poor, ect. It's really you who are trying to have it both ways, denying a loving God yet still trying to behave as if there was one. Nietzche didn't make that mistake, but as I reject him, so too do I reject atheism. And I don't really take Genesis metaphorically. I certainly believe God created the universe. I certainly believe there was a first set of people, I believe that we gained a moral knowledge that is beyond instinct or even reason, that there was an Abraham, Isaac, ect. And I do believe God has talked to people. Certainly not all the people who have claimed such a thing, but with the millions and millions who have claimed it, all you really need is one for it to be proven that God exists.

And I didn't "object" to testing, I simply pointed out that faith in tests is itself a faith. I always use experiments, I'm working on a cool one right now involving entanglement and gravity. But if you're honest, you have to admit that the belief that experiments yield truth is just that, a belief. In the end man, you have to have faith in something, even if it's nothing. For instance, philosophers have never even disproved solipsism, so if there is no reason to believe the world doesn't just exist in your mind, then why believe it. Obviously just because it's what you believe. As I said before, have a good one. Roy Brumback 06:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't consider metphysical questions in its methodology, just like it doesn't consider the existance of ghosts - although it has articles on the subject. In an article about say car engines, you can't say that a ghost told you that tires are generally made of wood or that we don't really know if cars exist because our mind or goblins are playing an elaborate trick on our perception. Everything, including religion and science relies one basic axiom: that on average our senses provide a consistent representation of the universe. That is a belief on my part, but one universally shared and based on evidence - sure it is self-referenital. You wouldn't have religion unless you had that initial axiom as language would not exist and inter-human communication would not be possible and so on. So it's a non-issue. Indeed, it would be lovely if we had a closed system, but we don't, so we'll have to live with that first axiom.
As for Gödel's theorem, it does not state that there are truths outside the system. On the contrary - they are inside the system and unreachable. Although it was a nice way to shoot down principia mathematica, you shouldn't asssign too much value to it. Basically, it's a mathematical logical encoding of the liar's paradox and as in the linguistic case is an artificial construct. There is absolutely no reason to believe that such constructs occur naturally and much less that it has to do with deities or goblins for that matter.
Religion and morality - oh dear. Do you mean that the only reason why you don't rape and kill is because you believe that god thinks it is bad? I've got news for you, it's not only that you are not moral because of religion - you are moral despite religion. Otherwise you'd be out stoning homosexuals, adulturers and heretics. If you don't read genisis metaphorically then you need to be a creationist. Man was created from the dust on the ground and woman from his ribs. This is not compatible with evolution through natural selection unless you parse it extremely metaphorically. And again, if you look at it as a metaphore you are doing so not because of your faith or the bible but because you have assimilated some of the knowledge that we humans have gathered in the past 2000 years. It's not a coincidence that wikipedia articles on homo sapiens does not include references to dust or ribs.
You don't need to know what percentage of prayers are answered to test it - you just need a large enough sample to test the statistical significance of the hypothesis. As soon as it is assumed that something has an effect in the real world, it is testable. Any god that interacts with the physical world is something that can be studied scientifically. Even god talking to people can in theory be tested - if people have in linguistic terms put forward that god spoke to them, then they have used their brain. That means that there is a connection between the god world and the real world and that can be put under the microscope - as the brain is a very real material thing. Do you agree with that? Do you agree that any postulated process, for instance god, that is said to interact with the phyisical world can be tested? You have a good one too. --Denoir 07:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hitler Christian Edits

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Criticism_of_Christianity#Hitler_Edits.3F --Quirex 05:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

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