Help: How do I know that your God is the one, true God?

[Kir Komrik]

Hi all,
I'm new here and have just read up on the policies and finished my signature, etc. I hope I've done everything correctly so far.
I would like to believe in an almighty power but the problem is that in my research I've found so many gods out there. Coming from a family that has been explicitly atheist for generations, I'm starting from scratch and am looking at all religions.
I am sincerely curious to know how would I know, for instance, that your god is the one, true God?
Thank you.

[AdHoc]

Hi all,
I'm new here and have just read up on the policies and finished my signature, etc. I hope I've done everything correctly so far.
I would like to believe in an almighty power but the problem is that in my research I've found so many gods out there.

Why do you want to believe in an almighty power?

Coming from a family that has been explicitly atheist for generations, I'm starting from scratch and am looking at all religions.

That's an interesting thing to say, I can't tell you with an certainty my families religious beliefs more than 2 generations at the most.

I am sincerely curious to know how would I know, for instance, that your god is the one, true God?
Thank you.

I'm sure you already know there is no way for anyone to answer this question for you. I'm guessing that might be the point you are making. The best answer I can give is to ask God to reveal Himself. Whichever God shows up is the one true God.

[EduChris]

...Is it more likely that Joshua's Narrative is the result of Confirmation Bias or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?...

It is virtually impossible for confirmation bias--a form of selection bias in collecting evidence--to have produced the Joshua narrative. Either it is a work of pure imaginative fiction, believed only on the authority of the agents behind the narrative, or else it is an attempt to express (perhaps in stylized poetic idiom) the author's sincere belief that God was acting in some miraculous way on behalf of the Israelites.

Although the probability of confirmation bias is minimal, we can't rule out the probability of some other sociological or psychological "tools X, Y, or Z" being in play. Unfortunately, we have no way to assess the probability of these unspecified tools.

And now, finally, we get right to the heart of the genetic fallacy which has been dogging this entire thread from its inception. How do we calculate the probability of your second alternative--that our God (in this case the Christian and Jewish God) is the One True God? The only way this probability can be assessed is on the merits of the actual arguments for or against the God in question. So after some 500 posts, we haven't gained anything. We're still back at square one: what are the merits of the actual arguments for believing the Christian (and Jewish) God to be the One True God? The question is not dependent on the motivations others in different eras might have had for believing in quite different sorts of gods.

Your fallacious program of inquiry could be equally applied to science, with equally vacuous results. After all, every scientific theory to date has either been false or incomplete, so what makes us think science has finally gotten things right this time? We can't logically undermine the scientific enterprise simply because previous scientists (such as they were) believed (for whatever reasons) in failed scientific notions such as phlogiston or aether or alchemy or flat earth. The only way we can ever justify any current belief is on the actual merits of the case.

...Now we get to watch what happens when a fanatical belief system is confronted with its own invalidation. This is the point in the questions which some have been so desperately trying to prevent by derailing the thread.

Based on the content of your many posts on this thread, I'm wondering what makes you think your views are any less "fanatical" than anyone else's? Why couldn't you have at least attempted to address the many challenges you received, rather than repeatedly ignore them under the false pretense of having already addressed them?

[Kir Komrik]

Another notable quote

...the Conjunction Fallacy tells us that ]the simpler explanation is usually the correct one...How is this "mangled"? That's the fifty million dollar question you can't seem to answer for anyone...
Now, I'd like to begin showing the evidence for the fanatical mentality that has gripped this discussion.

The best explanation is not the simplest one ...

Who said that? Did I say that?

Let's read that again:

the simpler explanation is usually the correct one...

Do you see the word "best" in there anywhere?

No, you don't because that would change the meaning of the statement, right?

... --you have to consider explanatory scope as well.

No, you do not have to do any such thing because what you're trying to do isn't even related to the proposition (e.g. "most likely" not "best"). So, you're arguing in circles as you've been within some 500 posts now.

However, if you had claimed that the simplest explanation is not the most likely one then you'd need to disprove this:

P(A + B) ≤ P(A) ∀ A, B ∈ ℜ ; that is, the probability that A and B are simultaneously true, is always less than or equal to the probability that A is true.

Because the statement, the simpler explanation is usually the correct one is exactly what that equation says. In fact, in virtually every academic textbook on probability theory that is exactly the sentence used to describe it.

I think this is where your confusion began, for reasons I cannot know but I can say that both mathematical illiteracy and fanatical thinking are prime candidates, amongst others.

If you were a detective investigating a murder at a mansion, you wouldn't just throw out all of the clues except the ones that pointed to the butler.

Of course, but that isn't what this is saying. Again, I think this is an issue of simply not understanding this conversation at all. The correct analogy would be that if detective is investigating a crime scene and he or she finds that a man is in his home, standing over the remains of a bloodied female corpse and he is holding a bloodied knife and appears angry and disoriented, then begins rambling incoherently the simplest explanation for this scene is that he killed her.

Moreover, it is hence clear that this is also the most likely explanation. And you can clealry see that the question of who killed this poor woman and the answer are hardly meaningless, they're just qualified. But your objections to even stating this as a question are meaningless.

While we cannot say that for certain, it is the most likely explanation and we don't need further evidence to say that. Just like when you see something that quacks and walks like a duck you can say it probably is a duck without adding more details to the story.

And so, afterward, a full investigation will hopefully be done and the truth of that accusation will be fleshed out, but that doesn't change the basic premise of the Conjunction Fallacy.

Here's another example. If a poster states things that are incoherent, have nothing to do with the thread on which he is posting, demonstrates an almost child-like inability to understand what is going on and simply repeats unsubstantiated drivel over and over,

is it more likely that he really isn't simple-minded and is just experiencing fanatical emotional investment in his religion or that he really is a simpleton?

You're not dumb. Confused, but not dumb. You're just an adherent who is conflicted and compromised by your emotional attachment to a god I presume, based on Christian theology, you "love" very much. Tell me if I'm wrong on that because I'm not going to impute belief onto you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about your personal beliefs and feelings per se, which I respect in any adherent, I'm merely pointing out that those emotions are impacting this discussion.

The conjunction rule only kicks in when you have two or more rival explanations,

That is exactly what is going on in the hypothetical question, right? You're given a binary choice between one thing or the other, two different scenarios. One is supernatural and one is rather common.

Another notable quote:

...Moreover, I'm asking you questions, not advancing "pre-conceived notions"...your claims...are preconceived because you are the adherent...Ever since you realized where this was going - in particular after Question 10, your posts have illustrated a more and more fanatically vacuous comprehension of what is going on in these questions...

Actually, I objected to the fallacies underlying the premises of your questions from the very start.

And I proved you wrong with the Conjunction Fallacy, which you've never been able to get your head around, much less disprove.

As it became more and more obvious that you were not interesting in addressing the numerous challenges,

Addressing challenges that you erroneously rose to a simple question I posed. In fact, lets be clear here. I will also point out that the questions posed are hypotheticals and by definition hypotheticals have defined assumptions built into them, so even apart from the Conjunction Fallacy, which handlily defeats your "claims" by itself, the questions posed are perfectly fair, useful, meaningfull and most of all, illuminating.

... it became more and more clear that you are not here to debate, but rather only to preach to your non-theist choir.

I think that title belongs to you because, again, it is a bit more likely than not that you are experiencing a compromised ability to analyze some pretty simple concepts due to your attachment to your "god".

[Kir Komrik]

Just to be clear for a very small minority of readers out there what this thread is about, I'll reframe 11C again putting the Helio narrative nearby:

Question 11C

I've given a good 24 hours and we don't have an answer to Question 11B, therefore, I'm assuming no one can provide one.

Part C is simple and probably could have been guessed.

Recalling that the Helios narrative was first examined for its relation to Confrimation Bias, the inductive substitution of Joshua's Victory for the Helios Narrative carries that with it:

Is it more likely that Joshua's Narrative is the result of Confirmation Bias or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

Now we get to watch what happens when a fanatical belief system is confronted with its own invalidation. This is the point in the questions which some have been so desperately trying to prevent by derailing the thread.


A review of the Confirmation Bias discussion when we discussed the Helios Narrative

Adherents will often seek out a concrete pattern to confirm a pre-existing, general belief. It is a form of failed induction. But failures of inductive reasoning can occur anytime there is a pattern in a set of specific examples in which multiple general solutions are possible. In these cases people will tend to adopt the pattern that induces their pre-existing beliefs. Since life is full of cases in which multiple general solutions exist to specific occurrences in life, this is readily exploited as well. The rate at which this occurs in a randomly selected group of people is around 73%; that is, 73% will tend to confirm a general solution that is incorrect or not verifiable by the pattern given.

Study after study done on this subject shows that when a person believes something they tend to seek out confirmation of that belief, not anything that argues against it. And this preference is apparently very strong. This is called confirmation bias. So, this confirmation bias says this person might never pursue any other source material, or listen to arguments or ideas that support an alternative narrative – such as a foreign or alternative religion’s narrative – because it is human nature to seek out confirmation of a belief rather than an alternative. But let us add another wrinkle to this story. Suppose the adherent (someone in a similar role to educhris) who believed in the Helios narrative as above also established his or her own logic to back it up; reasoning that the sun does appear to move across the sky and the background story on Helios is accepted by everyone he knows and in fact is recorded in ancient texts as being true (the educhris role). Ergo, Helios dragging the sun across the sky does in fact explain what he or she observes, he or she reasons. But if we are to assume that your god is the one true god there must be some other explanation for these alternative narratives, right?

Does this sound oddly familiar to what some adherents said was an explanation for Joshua'a Narrative by claiming that the Earth based perspective was just "metaphor", "necessity in order to explain it to ancient man", etc.? This is not a coincidence because recall that we said that all 6 of the tools, to include Confirmation Bias, would be shown to apply to each of these narratives.

[Kir Komrik]

Hi all,
I'm new here and have just read up on the policies and finished my signature, etc. I hope I've done everything correctly so far.
I would like to believe in an almighty power but the problem is that in my research I've found so many gods out there.

Why do you want to believe in an almighty power?

Coming from a family that has been explicitly atheist for generations, I'm starting from scratch and am looking at all religions.

That's an interesting thing to say, I can't tell you with an certainty my families religious beliefs more than 2 generations at the most.

I am sincerely curious to know how would I know, for instance, that your god is the one, true God?
Thank you.

I'm sure you already know there is no way for anyone to answer this question for you. I'm guessing that might be the point you are making. The best answer I can give is to ask God to reveal Himself. Whichever God shows up is the one true God.

Hi AdHoc,

My reasons for wanting to identify The One, True God are captured in that definition I provided in response to one of sickle's questions. It basically comes down to ensuring I don't worship an imposter.

Why do you find knowledge of belief systems back as far as the plural construction allows is odd? Are you aware of the fact that some people have great-grandparents from Russia who have all been atheist for "generations"? It it doesn't just happen in Russia or formerly Communist-Bloc countries. So, I'm not following what your desired inference there is.

Finally, I don't know that there is no way for this question to be answered. As I've stated, much to some people's apparent surprise, I am more than willing to convert if you can answer my questions with a viable answer at some point. I've open to that all along and there is absolutely nothing dishonest about it. The inference has been made that because I am a deconverter that must mean I'm here to deconvert. One thing's got nothing to do with the other. You cannot deconvert online anyway, and anyone who has done it can tell you that. This is a sincere, open question that some simply cannot handle because of the cognitive dissonace it is causing them.

[Kir Komrik]

It is virtually impossible for confirmation bias--a form of selection bias in collecting evidence--to have produced the Joshua narrative.

Really? How do you know that? In fact, you're a victim of it right now. Your incessant need for embellishments to the narrative are nothing more than Confirmation Bias - seeking out a pattern to justify preconceived notions and beliefs.

Either it is a work of pure imaginative fiction, believed only on the authority of the agents behind the narrative, or else it is an attempt to express (perhaps in stylized poetic idiom) the author's sincere belief that God was acting in some miraculous way on behalf of the Israelites.

"sylized, poetic idiom" == embellishment

Although the probability of confirmation bias is minimal, we can't rule out the probability of some other sociological or psychological "tools X, Y, or Z" being in play. Unfortunately, we have no way to assess the probability of these unspecified tools.

This has nothing to do with the conversation. Again, I can only advise that you go back an read the threads again because you clearly do not understand, for whatever reason, this conversation at all. We're not asking the reader to do that. We're asking the reader to do a binary comparison of two things to assess which one is more likely than the other, not what the probability of any one being true is. Do you understand the difference?

And now, finally, we get right to the heart of the genetic fallacy which has been dogging this entire thread from its inception.

No, it has not. I've debunked that about 300 posts ago and you've never responded. The Genetic Fallacy is predicated on the scope and context of the intended assessment. In other words, if you are given a hypothetical with a defined scope and context, the Genetic Fallacy cannot, by definition, apply to a different scope and context (narrative plus embellishments) to use for assessment (of the narrative alone) that you are trying to post hoc force onto the analysis. Do you understand this? I have to ask that now not rhetorically but quite sincerely because otherwise we'll never progress the conversation.

But there is even a more subtle problem with trying to apply that fallacy here. If the thing you are wanting to assess can be shown to be fictional from the start then any attempt to assess it is not an assessment, right? And the probability that the narrative plus its embellishments is true drops as you add more embellishment. All of this is before we've even contemplated much less performed the assessment. And the genetic fallacy only applies to an assessment, right? I realize this might be a slippery concept, so I'd only suggest that you research what "epistemologically prior" means. But this isn't the first time you've been told the genetic fallacy is inapplicable here, is it? You just never responded.

How do we calculate the probability of your second alternative--...

You don't. We are not calculating probabilities. Again, you clearly and quite manifestly do not comprehend this conversation at all. As just stated above, this is a binary comparison, not a numeric exercise.

that our God (in this case the Christian and Jewish God) is the One True God?

"Our" god? One thing that is evident from these posts is that they do not reflect humility.

And this isn't even remotely addressed to anything on this thread. What are you talking about? There is no request for anyone to perform a numeric probability assessment of whether YHWH exists. That isn't the topic nor the point.

The only way this probability can be assessed is on the merits of the actual arguments for or against the God in question.

Right, but, for the reasons just stated, that isn't what we're doing, right?

So after some 500 posts, we haven't gained anything.

Right, because you clearly don't undertand the conversation at all.

We're still back at square one: what are the merits of the actual arguments for believing the Christian (and Jewish) God to be the One True God?

Huh? That is not the question I'm posing to you. Here it is again:

11C: Is it more likely that Joshua's Narrative is the result of Confirmation Bias or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

The question is not dependent on the motivations others in different eras might have had for believing in quite different sorts of gods.

Okay? That would make for an interesting thread topic.

Your fallacious program of inquiry

Again, this is just fanatically driven, circular double-talk. What is "fallacious"?

could be equally applied to science, with equally vacuous results.

In this context I don't care what can be applied to science. It has nothing to do with what I'm asking you. Here it is again:

11C: Is it more likely that Joshua's Narrative is the result of Confirmation Bias or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

After all, every scientific theory to date has either been false or incomplete, so what makes us think science has finally gotten things right this time? We can't logically undermine the scientific enterprise simply because previous scientists (such as they were) believed (for whatever reasons) in failed scientific notions such as phlogiston or aether or alchemy or flat earth. The only way we can ever justify any current belief is on the actual merits of the case.

Completely wrong thread, right?

Based on the content of your many posts on this thread, I'm wondering what makes you think your views are any less "fanatical" than anyone else's?

I'm so glad you asked that. The reason why is that there is no emotional attachment, no "love" of god involved. I am ready at a moment's notice to modify my views if you can provide a meaningful answer to the presenting, primary question, which was:

How do I know that your god is The One, True God?

Why couldn't you have at least attempted to address the many challenges you received, rather than repeatedly ignore them under the false pretense of having already addressed them?

This is laughable. Scroll up.

[Kir Komrik]

About The Genetic Fallacy

Since educhris has made such a fantastic and impassioned plea to examine the Genetic Fallacy ad infinitum, I decided to use a source that he seems to like. That might help him understand what we're talking about here a little better.

As soon as you go to the wikipedia website you see this:

The genetic fallacy, also known as fallacy of origins, fallacy of virtue,[1] is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context (my emphasis).

Did we base our conclusion solely on the source of the narrative? The sources of educhris? The sources of YHWH? The sources of any other Canon? In fact, "sources has nothing to do with this conversation, does it? As the source itself, the narrative? Still, in all these the answer is emphatically no. We're basing our conclusion on how any one of these tools applies in the narrative, the narrative itself and the mathematics of probability theory.

I can't even get past the first paragraph before this argument completely crumbles. Now, for educhris, you do seem to accept Wikipedia as an infallible source, or something close that, right?

You are wasting everyone's time, for whatever reason, with these obnoxious, repetitive posts.

Not addressing the Genetic Fallacy? laughable.

[Kir Komrik]

I would order my motivation for attempting to identify The One, True God as the following:

1.) Are there any consequences to failing to make this identification?

Not divine consequences . No hell. The consequences are ignorance. THe consequences are loss of knowledge. And usually destruction of the ignorant. Not through divine intervention, but through a lack of balance with a place. Not knowing the heed something. THink of it this way. Say you want to chop down a tree. Unbeknownst to you , there is a beehive in this tree. Now, if you chop down this tree without the knowledge of the bees, you destroy unknowlingly something orderly and organized and deserving to be there. You made a misjudgement. You destroy 2 things instead of 1 out of ignorance. If you DO know about the bees, then you are being malicious. Then it is based out of selfishness or survival, not ingorance. THe ultimate consequences are the same: Mutually assured destruction.

2.) Are there any consequences for failing to worship/follow or otherwise identify with the god presumptively identified?

worship .. no. Follow.. no. There is no commandment. Its about the knowledge of good and evil. Supposedly these gods have it. They know how to properly maintain balance. IF these gods are destroyed by unnatural means then those unnatural forces endorse a new god of that place. this is an indictation of lack of balance. The new god that takes up that place can be based off of man made balance. Man would then be presuming to have the knowledge of good and evil, which he certianly does not have. "And on the day that you eat of that tree, you shall surely die. "

3.) Are there any advantages to identifying this god beyond 1 or 2?

Identifying a god is like finding a thermometer. You can know that this place is in balance. Through this god you can see all of life connected to one another without exception.

In your definition of god as you gave it here, I'm not sure how it filters through these questions? It would help me to know that because if the answer is no to all questions then the conversation is a non-starter vis-a-vis my intent and motive behind posing the question.

It kinda is not concerned with salvation and damnation. It is concerned with survival and diversity.

You could consider this, for the purposes of my inquiry, to be the set of conditions necessary but not necessarily sufficient (excepting possibly 3) to suffice as my operational definition of god (a minimal definition).

having a narrow definition of the divine could have you disprove something that is not divine. This is the definition of a straw man. For example you could disquialify YHWY and Allah perhaps. Maybe not Hindo and animism. Have you really accomplished anything then? Did you fulfill your goal of inquiry?

Hey - from your answers it sounds like none of those conditions are met so I'd guess that animism would indeed fall out of my consideration in this question. And I'm fine with that, I just would not view this as a religion (that is just my opinion and not intended to offend) but rather as a philosophical way of life of one sort or another.

[catalyst]

Hi all,
I'm new here and have just read up on the policies and finished my signature, etc. I hope I've done everything correctly so far.
I would like to believe in an almighty power but the problem is that in my research I've found so many gods out there.

Why do you want to believe in an almighty power?

Hi Ad Hoc, I cannot answer for Kir and I would never even suggest to, but there is a huge difference between like and want.

Kir said he would like to.. not that he WANTS to.

Kir wrote:

Coming from a family that has been explicitly atheist for generations, I'm starting from scratch and am looking at all religions.

Ad Hoc replied:

That's an interesting thing to say, I can't tell you with an certainty my families religious beliefs more than 2 generations at the most.

See I find that interesting from your position, Kir. I know the religious and non religious element from my own family tree dating back to around 400CE on one side (a alot of stuff has been lost, burned prior to that.. ) and the 1400's on the other.

I am sincerely curious to know how would I know, for instance, that your god is the one, true God?
Thank you.

Ad Hoc wrote:

I'm sure you already know there is no way for anyone to answer this question for you. I'm guessing that might be the point you are making. The best answer I can give is to ask God to reveal Himself. Whichever God shows up is the one true God.

I am failing to understand that, Ad Hoc. I know when I was a christian I would have been able to answer that one myself in a heartbeat. My God WAS the one true God for me at that point, as if it were not, I would not have been a "follower".

I suppose that is why I am a little as to why the christians who have put their 2 bobs worth in, are finding that their religious faith... something that their worldview pretty much revolves around, cannot explain WHY they believe their God is the "one true".

I presume that you as a Christian DO believe that the God YOU believe in IS the "ONE TRUE GOD", right?

Cat.

[Kir Komrik]

Kir said he would like to.. not that he WANTS to.

Thanks Catalyst. And you are, as usual, correct.
And yea, I don't know why someone should be surprised that I would know my families religious status back 3 or 4 generations.