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So why is it that when we as humans determine the validity of something, we tend to work with a solid premise and then work from there, but when people of religion believe in their god or stories in their books, they work their way backwards? Like they have the outcome or the info and then are convinced that it exists and then goes out to find proof of that belief. Nothing else works that way... but somehow its acceptable in religion to do just that.

CandidAvocado 2 June 22
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Didn't you just describe confirmation bias?

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or support one's prior personal beliefs or values.[en.wikipedia.org]

Hardly exclusive to religions. its part of our irrational human nature and we are all victims of it at some point or another. Even folks calling themselves scientists often fall in the same trap. They start with a hypotheses that for some reason what to believe is the answer and they often make mistakes in research to justify their assumptions. Happens far more often then you think. And that is in the field you would think has far more objective side. And yet here we are humans and our confirmation bias.

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Concerning religious tenants ask what does it actually do? Religion cannot be understood with the pure logical approach, kind of like Sam Harris. A more productive approach is integrating the limbic system with intellect. We are actually quite irrational.

As you may know activist SJW's have an ideology that is effectively an evolving primordial religion, another way to see it is religion uses memetic tools to hack humans, it can hijack passion.

Let start with the bible or Oral Torah. With the high technology of writing the Oral Torah, the first 5 books of the bible, was written down maybe 3000 or so years ago. Oral Torah likely goes back to the end of the ice age, maybe more. For instance, at the end of the ice age there were repeated truly biblical floods. This is a likely source of the original Noah story. Once the ice melted preparing for biblical floods was not an issue, other parts of the story became the real focus. With 10,000+ years of retelling the story it got extremely refined.

Torah, תּוֹרָה, translated from Hebrew means law or teaching. What was the time like before Torah? F-ed up or FUBAR. One of the problems that law solves is it dramatically reduces violence. From the end of the ice age back we lived as hunter gathers, estimates of death rates by violence ranges between 25% to 40%. It is impossible to populate a city and have it function with violence levels that high. Pre hunter gathers groups could not get beyond 150 people.

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It used a to be the standard way of philosophy. You observe or believe something and then had a long think why this is so and why you are right.

People do not understand the incredible break through the scientific method is.

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There's probably very few people in history up through modern times who carefully look at an interrelated set of facts and try to link them together into an over-all theory that explains them - then test that theory against reality to see if it works. Most everyone starts with their conclusion and "work backwards" as you say.

Believers may jump to a conclusion based on few facts and personal experience, especially if that experience was emotionally moving. But that's rather human I think. Scientific method was meant to remove some of that... But there are scientists who still operate that way. They want their research to mean something, they want their theory to be correct so they unconsciously ignore contradictory evidence.
Ever heard of N-rays? [wired.com]

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Your comment immediately brings Galileo and Copernicus to mind. Can you think of any contemporary examples of the Church working backward against science?

Well, the Bible and Koran are both very clear that the universe is only a few thousand years old.
The modern churches just deny that this is an issue.

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Thousands of years of fulfilled prophecy documented in a book is strong empirical evidence.

I have been looking for that. Can you show me one that is clear, not ambiguous and that could not have been clear chance.
I studied many from the Bible and from other such as Nostradamus and Siener van Rensburg.
I have never found one that was even remotely clear or true.

@Hanno Psalms 22:1, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34. The latter two are two accounts of the same act. Read Psalms 22 and then tell me how David predicted the end of the life of his descendant 14 generations in the future. Consider that Christianity and Judaism are technically two different religions (I personally believe their the same), two different cultures intersect in history.

Also, compare Nebuchadnezzar's personal account in Daniel to Saddam Hussein's sad end. Daniel 4:33. Both were kings of the same region, Babylon/Iraq.

@Facci
Thanks. I have all studied those in the past. There are about 50 sections in the Bible counted as prophesy came true that I have seen.
I understand they may be good enough for your faith and I need to say I envy you to some extent and are happy for anyone to believe what they want as long as they don’t hurt anyone by dong so etc etc...

Psalm 22 is ambiguous and was not meant as a prophecy originally, with that I mean he was describing his own personal anguish by describing a death scene common at the time to describe the mental anguish he is in. It does not actually describe a crucifixion etc. It is very coincidental yes.
I know “my bones are out of joint” is believed to mean how Jesus was hanging, however it is more consistent with being torn to pieces by horses etc which was common at the time. same for them casting lots for my clothes... yes the gospels say that, however it was common practice with a dead prisoners belongings. We can go through the whole psalm and their are better explanations for every verse.

The actual prophesy Nebuchadnessar’s dream is more interesting. I studied this in detail in early 1990’s and the consensus was ( among many scholars) that the prophecy had been completed already by Roman times, final kingdom of iron and clay being the Romans crushed by the rock, the rock being Jesus and his modern day movement.
He then talks about loosing his mind and before his death which is very common and his own fears of that fate.
This is the first time I read anyone linking that with Saddam Hussein which kinda proves my point about the prophesy being ambiguous... it can mean many things and you picked one that fits for you.

However, I will concede that it is my standard not being met and not yours so will argue other reasons if we ever meet in person and wanted to discuss the existence of gods.

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