Dysrationalia: Why smart people do dumb things

Globe and Mail

Give this problem a shot before you keep reading, but don't feel badly if you get it wrong.
Bob is in a bar, looking at Susan. But she is looking at Pablo. Bob is married. Pablo is not.
Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? The answer could be (a) yes, (b) no or (c) cannot be determined.

Roughly 80 per cent of people choose (c), but it is not the correct answer, says Keith Stanovich, a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto.
He studies why smart people do stupid things - or, in more scientific terms, how intelligence is distinct from rationality. His work offers insight into important cognitive abilities that are not measured by IQ tests. It also suggests that deficits in real-world reasoning can be corrected, whether in adults or in children.

He says most people get the Bob-Susan-Pablo problem wrong because they tend to be "cognitive misers" - they put as little mental effort as possible into solving a problem. In this case, they quickly jump to the conclusion that they don't have enough information rather than making the effort to see if they do.

What Is The Difference Between A Perception And Knowledge?

Or, "What is the difference between private personal experience and knowledge?". I know this may sound like a stupid question to some, but it seems that it is pivotal in the "Disregarding Established Knowledge..." discussion. In my view, considering inaccessible personal experience to be of the same value as established knowledge is untenable.

Disregarding Established Knowledge Is Bad, UnKay?

Its simple,
If your beliefs are not consitent with established human knowledge, then they probably are not justified. In that case, other people are not justified in believing what you say about them, and furthermore you have no reason to expect anyone to believe you.

Nonpartisan Media Discussing Failed Arguments For God

Over at The Fallacy Files, the article The Arguments That Failed discusses the Boston Review Article God; Philosophers Weigh In by Alex Byrne. Both demonstrate the problems with Anselm's "Ontological" Argument, The Design Argument and The "Fine-Tuning" Argument.

Christians Must Be Agnostic

The Use Or Intent Of Information Does Not Determine Its Quality
Over at Sophies Ladder, Jeff says

"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."

Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.

Blaming The Victim
Is the Bible reliable – not as a history or science book – but as a conveyor of information regarding the transcendental, spiritual realm? How can one ever know? There is nothing to compare it to, nothing to triangulate (aka cross-check) it with. That is really the point of all my IDQ articles. Using the information in the Bible, the Christian remains agnostic about God whether they realize it or not. For example Jeff brings up Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus.

“How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” he asks. Jesus chastises him for not knowing any better than to be so literal. “You’re a master of Israel and you don’t know these things?”

This is completely ambiguous and, additionally, lacks nurturing. Can anyone be blamed if they don't understand something that is presented ambiguously? Generally, teachers are held accountable if the students don't comprehend the information. In a small percentage of cases, the student has some individual difficulty that prevents them from grasping the information whether its ambiguous or not. When that is the case, the student is not chastised. In all cases, principle dictates that more attention is given to the student, until the student can comprehend the information. From the text it doesn't seem likely that Nicodemus was being deliberately difficult, it seems that the material was exceptionally difficult for Nicodemus, and, as we can see, it is of poor quality because it demonstrates the IDQ flaws of Incomplete Representation and Ambiguous Representation. Simply stated, Jesus did not explain himself clearly. Simply stated Nicodemus is being blamed for not understanding. Is the material impossible to convey in words? Considering how common the phrase "Born Again" is, when clearly explained, it can be "understood" by some. But Jeff says

In the case of the Bible, it is likely that it’s not possible to speak plainly, given the subject matter.

If God Engineered Us, And If We Don't Get It, It's Not Our Fault
Alright, I'll stipulate that "it is not possible to speak plainly given the subject matter" for the sake of argument and I'll point out that if the material necessary to be comprehended to obtain salvation is too complicated for our minds, then, since God supposedly engineered us, he is solely responsible. But he has another option. Being all powerful and the creator of all things gives him the option of implanting the knowledge directly in the brain. There's no excuse for the material to be unobtainable, incomprehensible unless it was of poor quality.

Getting Burned is All You Need To Know About Fire
At this point Jeff tries to build the case that

There is something very small about a concept if it can be contained in words alone.

additionally he goes off down a slippery slope. He asks

Why do we shout for joy or turn to music to express ourselves, if words alone can suffice?

but he seems to ignore the fact that plenty of understanding goes on without shouting for joy or turning to music. The theory of General Relativity and String Theory can be explained in words alone, it takes a long time, and a lot of words, but it can be done. I know because I understand them and can explain them. I can also explain how schizophrenia is produced by a genetic mutation, and how human behavior is affected by that. I can also explain the History of the concept of the Soul starting with Orpheus. In my opinion someone who says that a thing is indescribable doesn't understand it well enough to talk about it.

Data Abstraction
Jeff goes on to reference John 21:25 where Jesus says that the world cannot contain the books necessary to express the Logos. That's fine, but using data abstraction, I don't need to know how fire works or how my computer works, or how the elements in my steak marinade combine for me to benefit from them. Likewise I didn't need to know how the Logos worked for more than thirty five years as a Christian to appreciate it. When I realized that the Jihadists were right when they said that it looked like their prayers were answered and Allah guided those planes into the towers and that, to me, it looked like God was ignoring the prayers of those people jumping out of the towers I decided to stop using a double standard for my religion. I started to "cross-check" Christianity.

Circular Reasoning And Shooting Yourself In The Foot
Jeff's reasoning is circular. There is nothing to Triangulate his data except with such things as the Bible, his personal experience, the personal experience of other Christians, the personal experience of non-christians and Science. Unfortunately the more data we accumulate to triangulate with, the weaker Jeffs case gets. While Jeff continues to minimize the importance of the text of the Bible and emphasize the importance of the inner dwelling of the Spirit, he keeps using Biblical texts to support his case. The problem is that he is weakening his own case by minimizing the information in the Bible.

Christians Must Be Agnostic About The Things They Do Not Agree On
Unless Christianity can value each others information equally, they must remain agnostic on the topics they do not agree on. The topics they do not agree on get to the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Since that is the case, Christians must necessarily be agnostic about a large percentage of the things they think they know. They must be Agnostic.

Christianity is a disorganized mess and it has all the symptoms of an organization that needs their data cleaned up using the principles of IDQ.
But I think that would be its undoing, and I think that Christians know that intuitively, and that the biological algorithms for comfort and self-preservation kick in to preclude them from committing to the inference from the Data.

With help from John, Prup, an Ed Babinski article, and Sconnor, here are a list of some disputed topics within Christianity.
And following that, I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations.

- Evolution or creationism?
- Being Born Again?
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism


RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
* Data Quality Assessment
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations

IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible

Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia

IDQ Applied
* National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
* Thank Sully!

Rebuttals
* IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit
* Cooking The Books To Avoid IDQ Principles
* Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"

A Plausibility Heuristic

I think I've come up with a weighted ranking scale heuristic for scoring the plausibility of claims derived from government, business and theoretical criteria and I'd like to put it out here for critique. This weighted ranking scale could be used for the bible, literature, science, history, news articles etc... and we could compare them. Worksheet

I suspect that the score for a history text book would be much higher than the bible, the average historical fiction would be somewhat higher, and your average folklore tale would be about the same as the bible.

here's how it goes.
the number by the metric is its relative value.

0. an unsupported claim.
1. a claim has witness testimony
2. a claim that has a verifiable precedent
2. a claim has support of physical evidence
2. a claim that can be reproduced

for example lets take the simple claim that
"Yesterday, the ice in Jans drink melted before she finished it"
- I have seen this happen
- I can put ice in a drink and let it set till it all melts, therefore it has a verifiable precedent, it has support of physical evidence, and it can be reproduced.
So it gets a score of 7.

Now lets take the claim
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
- I have not seen this happen
- there is no physical evidence that this happened.
- There is no evidence that this has ever been reproduced
- there is a witness
therefore it gets a score of 1.

Therefore the more plausible claim of these two is that Jans Ice Melted.

Here are some more examples to test the heuristic with thanks to Jeff Carter over in the comments section at Exploring Our Matrix.

1. Mary loves me
2. John is thinking of the theory of relativity
3. James is happy or sad or afraid
4. David has faith in me
5. Greg wants to go to the store

"1. Mary loves me"
assuming the claim has a one to one relationship to a real world event ....

1. are there witnesses?
yes
2. a claim has a verifiable precedent?
people have reported feelings of love, I have experienced love and people that love each other, yes
2. a claim has support of physical evidence?
Love's all in the brain: fMRI study shows strong, lateralized reward, not sex, drive, maybe some other outward signs, rapid heartbeat, flushing skin, fast breathing, yes
2. is it a claim that can be reproduced?
does it happen to her again? yes

I give it a 7

"2. John is thinking of the theory of relativity"
assuming the claim has a one to one relationship to a real world event ....

1. are there witnesses?
maybe not
2. a claim has a verifiable precedent?
someone thought up the theory of relativity, yes
2. a claim has support of physical evidence?
when asked to explain it, he does, yes
2. is it a claim that can be reproduced?
when asked to explain it again, he does, yes

I give it a 6

"3. James is happy or sad or afraid"
assuming the claim has a one to one relationship to a real world event ....

1. are there witnesses?
yes
2. a claim has a verifiable precedent?
self-evident, yes
2. a claim has support of physical evidence?
Implicit perception of fear signals: An fMRI investigation of PTSD. The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry,5, 135 and if there are outward signs , yes
2. is it a claim that can be reproduced?
when given the same stimulus it happens again, yes

I give it a 7

"4. David has faith in me"
assuming the claim has a one to one relationship to a real world event ....

1. are there witnesses?
have people observed that his behavior is consistent with having faith in you? yes
2. a claim has a verifiable precedent?
self-evident, yes
2. a claim has support of physical evidence?
if there are outward signs, when asked he says yes, so yes
2. is it a claim that can be reproduced?
the behavior is independently verified on some other occasion, yes

I give it a 7

"5. Greg wants to go to the store"
assuming the claim has a one to one relationship to a real world event ....

1. are there witnesses?
maybe not
2. a claim has a verifiable precedent?
self-evident, "the store" implies that the identity of the store is understood further implying that Greg has been there before, and also other people want to go to the store otherwise the store would be unsustainable, so yes
2. a claim has support of physical evidence?
if there are outward signs, when asked he says yes, so yes
2. is it a claim that can be reproduced?
the behavior is independently verified on some other occasion, yes

I give it a 6, stipulating that the data recorder does not count as a witness

I think the real stickler here, would be quality of evidence. I think a quality heuristic for evidence is needed and possibly exists.

In any case, plausibility is not certainty, and since sometimes decisions need to be made using plausibility as a consideration (for example legislation related to womens rights, civil rights, Invitro fertilization, cloning, homosexuality, stem cell research, abortion, participating in war, etc) a plausibility ranking would come in handy.

Religion As A Logic Puzzle

Here is a logic puzzle. You are walking down a road to a town. You come to a fork in the road. Standing there are two men. You already know that one of them always lies and one of them always tells the truth. What one question can you ask one of them that will give you the information you need to choose the right road?

The answer is "which road would he tell me to take?" and when you find out, you go the other way. Now lets add three more liars for a total of four liars and one truthful. At this point, it becomes unsolvable. How can you determine who is telling the truth and who is not?

Now Imagine we replace the town with Heaven, and replace the men with a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim and add a road for each. How can you determine who is telling the truth and who is not? All you can do is just pick a direction and go. That doesn't seem like something that was set up by the supreme intellect in the universe. That strategy violates the principle of minimizing as much uncertainty as possible to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. That is a strategy that wasn't thought out very well.

Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent

This an article to show that Adam and eve did not know the difference between good and evil before they ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil therefore could not understand the consequences of what they were doing. It uses a timeline and a matrix for analysis. Points in time are defined and used to document the point along a timeline where one event occurred in relation to another. It concludes that since Adam and Eve were missing a vital element in decision making, were uneducated, had no life experience to speak of and had no reason not to trust anyone, they were mentally incompetent to be held accountable for disobeying God and causing the punishments of Sin and Judgment to be given to every human thereafter.

Another interpretation of "Fall of Man" story is that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is really the tree of all knowledge where the terms Good and Evil are used as a merism ("bookends" or "upper and lower limits") to express a range, in the same manner as the term "young and old". This is considered a common usage in Biblical Poetry. I don't use this interpretation for this document but it wouldn't change the conclusion anyway.

Keep in mind when you read this, that since Adam and Eves situation is counter-intuitive, meaning that no-one but a person with a mental handicap or a child knows what it is like not to understand the difference between good and evil. It may be hard to avoid slipping into a "normal" frame of reference when discussing their state of mind before they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (K, G & E)

TIMELINE OF EVENTS
GENESIS 2:16

Time 01 - Warning about the Tree of G&E
Here is where people become accountable for knowing about the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. At this point they still do not know the difference between good and evil and have never had any other relationships with anyone else except God whom they trust completely. God was being ambiguous and therefore deceptive by saying "you will surely die". He wasn't exercising the principle of clarity in communication.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

T02 - God decides to make a helper for Adam from the animals
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

T03 - Adam names the animals and tries to pick a helper
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

T04 - Adam did not choose a helper so God decides to make one for him from his rib, effectively making him the first mother.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.
22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

T05 - They were naked and felt no shame.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

GENESIS 3: THE FALL OF MAN

T06 - Eves first experience with someone she shouldn't trust.
Eve is now introduced to her first experience with someone whose intent may be to decieve her and possibly manipulate her, and she doesn't know the difference between Good and Evil. There was evidently no warning about the snake. There are several default reasoning schemes that people commonly use and seem to present naturally. It takes education and experience to be able to overcome these. Presumably, since Eve and Adam were human, uneducated and with no life experience to speak of, they were susceptible to most if not all of these. A partial list of Cognitive Bias and Factors of Persuasion relevant to Adam and Eves situation taken from one of my other articles follows.
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.
5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Eve took this as new valid information and acted on it. According to the context of the story, it should not be possible to know that disobeying God was Evil. She had no concept of Good or Evil.

The snake told the truth. Even if his intent was to get Eve and Adam to disobey god, he still exercised the principle of clarity better than God did. And Eve did not have any experience with "Bad people" or know the difference between "good and evil" people. Eve gave the snake the benefit of the the doubt, she evidently did not dislike him, what he said fit what she wanted to believe and she undoubtedly took it to be authoritative about the Tree. She exercised her naturally occurring reasoning schemes.

T07 - They eat the fruit.
Neither Eve or Adam had any wisdom or knowledge of good and evil at this point, she trusted the snake because she did not have any reason not to. There is no indication that they had any idea about lying. Adam and Eve both had built in cognitive biases that come into play here, such as trusting what others say, and Desire was apparently built into Eve as described in Gen. 3:6.

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. The bible says, through inference, that she was missing wisdom. She wanted to gain wisdom.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

T08 - God calls for Adam and Eve to come out of hiding
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

Because it was likely that he would trust her.

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

Because it was likely that given the opportunity, this would happen.

T09 - God distributes the punishment establishing the origins and explanations of several things
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...
15 And I will put enmity
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...
16 To the woman he said,
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...
17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...
19 By the sweat of your brow
...OMITTED FOR BREVITY...

T10 - Adam names Eve
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

T11 - God makes clothes for them
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

T12 - God realizes the fact the Adam might eat the fruit of the Tree of Life
22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from
the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

T13 - Banishment
23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

T14 - Closes Eden off
24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

HYPOTHESIS MATRIX

This is a Hypothesis matrix testing the hypothesis that Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between Good and Evil when they disobeyed God. The data are labeled with a "C" for consistent with the hypothesis, "A" for Ambiguous (it doesn't make a difference but is worth mentioning), and "I" for Inconsistent. The hypothesis that is least inconsistent with the data is the better hypothesis.

Data	Didn't Know	Did know
God is all knowing	A	A
God is all powerful	A	A
T01 Gen. 2:16 Adam can eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, but he doesn't. Evidently he is not interested in it or maybe he doesn't realize what it means. God may have known that he wouldn't eat it although what God says at T12 in 2:22 contradicts his supposed omniscience.	C	I
T01 Gen. 2:17 Commands the man not to eat the fruit of the Tree of K, G&E or he will surely die, but neglected to tell him the truth which is that he will know the difference between good and evil and as a result will realize that he is naked	C	I
Until man eats the fruit he will not know the difference between good and evil	C	I
T02 Gen. 2:18 Adam was alone and has never had any experience with anyone he shouldn't trust	C	I
T06 Gen. 3:4-5 The snake could not have known the difference between good and evil unless it had acquired it from somewhere. If it did, then it had the advantage over Eve. If it didn't know the difference between good and evil then it did nothing wrong by telling Eve the truth. In any case It was smarter than Eve because it knew that she would not literally die. The serpent clearly described what would happen with the Tree of K, G&E better than God did. This is where Eve got the truth about the tree.	C	I
T07 Gen. 3:6 Eve trusted the serpent, evidently because she didn't know not too, she didn't know that dying was bad, or that disobeying god was bad. The desire was built into her and Humans have or acquire cognitive biases that must be unlearned.	C	I
T07 Gen. 3:7 After they ate the fruit, their eyes were opened and they knew that being naked was bad. This is a cultural rule, not a natural one.	C	I

The Hypothesis that "Adam and Eve did not know the difference between a good and an evil act" is the least inconsistent with the data, therefore, I conclude that they were not at fault. They were following the natural cognitive processes that they were born with (untempered by education), and when prompted by a new agent, they innocently did what it suggested. To suggest that Adam and Eve were somehow immune from cognitive biases that have been shown to be commonly naturally occurring in humans is pure speculation. Since it has been demonstrated by the timeline that Adam and Eve were missing a vital element in decision making, were uneducated, had no life experience to speak of and had no reason not to trust anyone, they were mentally incompetent to be held accountable for disobeying God and causing the punishments of Sin and Judgment to be given to every human thereafter.

Further Reading on Cognitive Biases and Persuasion Principles

The Role of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias In Your Church

Religion As A Logic Puzzle

Here is a logic puzzle. You are walking down a road to a town. You come to a fork in the road. Standing there are two men. You already know that one of them always lies and one of them always tells the truth. What one question can you ask one of them that will give you the information you need to choose the right road?

The answer is "which road would he tell me to take?" Now lets add three more liars for a total of four liars and one truthful. At this point, it becomes unsolvable. How can you determine who is telling the truth and who is not?

Now Imagine we replace the town with Heaven, and replace the men with a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim and add a road for each. How can you determine who is telling the truth and who is not? All you can do is just pick a direction and go. That strategy violates the principle of minimizing as much uncertainty as possible to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. That is a strategy that wasn't thought out very well.

Fun With Fallacies: Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

Which fallacies are the good cardinal guilty of and why?

...he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme why he thought it was dangerous to be governed by reason alone. He said that "supposedly faithless societies" ruled only by reason were like those created by Hitler and Stalin, ripe for "terror and oppression". Full Story

These are the ones I identified in the course of five minutes. Can you identify any others?

* Part to whole Comparison fallacy - If its true that societies created by Hitler and Stalin were "supposedly faithless", that doesn't mean that all "supposedly faithless" society are like Hitler and Stalins or that "supposedly faithless societies" necessarily will end up like Hitler and Stalins.

* Faulty Analogy - Hitler and Stalins societies had more going on in them than just being "supposedly faithless".

* Causal Oversimplification - Ignores qualifiers that made Hitlers and Stalins societies "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Unrepresentative Sample - Stipulating that the two examples are valid, two bad examples are not enough examples to show a trend that "supposedly faithless" societies are likely to be "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Special Pleading - Because not only "supposedly faithless societies" were ripe for "terror and oppression". I know that a few in the catholic church leadership over the centuries have quite a bit of blood on thier hands.

* Appeal to Consequences - Simply asserts that "supposedly faithless societies" are "ripe for terror and oppression" without saying why.

* Appeal to Emotion - Trying to evoke strong negative emotions in relation to a society ruled by "reason alone"

* Non-Sequitur - Because I don't think that any rational person would say that Hitler "governed by reason alone". In my view, Hitler was a little insane.

Faulty reasoning in leadership is scary.

Its also interesting to note that his motivation to respect atheists seems to be driven by his "concern about the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life".

Hone your skills over at the LSAT Logic in Everyday Life podcast.

The Devil Is In The Details

This is a kind of commentary and overview of my observations after participating here for a year.

Reasoning is a discipline. There are several heuristics you can use for reasoning that speed up the process, but the process depends on the quality of detail and evidence you introduce into the process. I solve problems for a living. My bread and butter depends on how well I provide solutions to other peoples problems. I became an atheist after I started using the tools that contribute to my success to my personal philosophy. My religion.

Stephen Toulmin, Richard D. Rieke and G. Thomas Goodnight all talk about spheres of influence or reasoning. The concept goes that there are schemes of reasoning that are more successful depending on the field they are applied in. For example you don't use the same reasoning schemes in critiquing art that you use to convict criminals or determine a drug is safe for use. However, there have been plenty of artists and writers that have discovered and investigated, in their own way, concepts that have been incorporated into science. The most notable ones are that Natural Philosophy has a relationship to Science, the exploration in literature of Human Behavior and Psychology has a relationship to modern day Cognitive Sciences. Artists discovered the Golden Ratio as a perspective that just "looked good" and it was later described in mathematical terms and has a relationship to Architecture.

Religion is and always has been a philosophy about life. A way of thinking about life. This is what it has in common with art, music, law, medicine and science. Dealing with the questions of life. Since all these disciplines share this commonality, and since we know there is overlap, the principle of science can be used to investigate religion.

Christianity depends on the Bible. What is the bible? It is scripture. Where did this scripture come from? That is the question. It says it came from God. But applying the principles of Science, Law and Medicine to this question necessitates another form of validation, or another form of ID. Something to verify that it is what it says it is.

This is where looking at the details comes in. Looking at where these scriptures came from. Tracing the source. Doing this will take you from textual criticism, to sociology, to psychology, to biology, to paleontology, to archeology, to philosophy and not in that order.

Most of the arguments that Christian use here are some kind misrepresentation or misunderstanding of the world. They are referred to commonly as "straw man" arguments. Their philosophy is outdated, needs an upgrade, it doesn't represent an accurate picture of the world. They need new information. Decision making depends on new information. People should change their minds according to assessment of new information. It shouldn't be discouraged or looked at as being indecisive or wishy-washy, it should be demanded! It should be a virtue!

Solving peoples problems requires looking at the details and following the evidence. It requires suspending the tendency to follow authority, tradition and personal bias and instead use logic and inference. We should depend less on authority, consensus and tradition and more on principle, inference and strong criteria for evidence.

In my mind, to Debunk Christianity, or Break the Spell, requires people to follow George Santanaya's advice and don't forget the lessons of the past. Learn about the past, learn about where we came from, find out where those Virtues first appeared, find out where that "let your light shine" came from, find out which god was the first to die and go to hell and come back and have a son, how most of the kings in antiquity were sons of gods or gods incarnate or somehow related to gods.

People need to take the principles they use in the practical application of living their lives and apply it to their religion. When this is done, it brings to light how silly eternal punishment is compared to rehabilitation or just scrapping everything and starting over. How silly it is punish other people for the 'sins' of another group. How silly a human sacrifice is, or just a sacrifice to appease a god is. How silly it is to depend on premises that have no precedent and then create a philosophy of life around it. Just try to plan and execute a project using premises without precedent, and see how successful you are.

Here are some hints to Debunk Christianity. Apply your practical principles to your religion. And do your homework. Find your heritage.

Look up syncretism, sumeria, mesopotamia, ancient egypt, indus valley, harrapas, the axial age, greece, minoans, phoenicians, canaanites, hittites, fertile crescent, hellenism, Byzantium, trade between the indus valley, sumeria and mesopotamia, and follow the water, and pay attention to ancient peoples whos culture and religion idealize life as a journey. Key word "Journey" as in spiritual and economic and trade. Learn about World History between 40,000 bce and 500 ce. Learn about what was important to those people. Learn about their religions.

You will find, the Devil is in the Details, but so is your solution.

A Rejoinder To "Atheism is not rational"

Brian asked me to comment on a link that asserts that Atheism is not Rational. My rejoinder follows. This started as an email and I hastily posted it to get it on the table.
I cannot afford the time to defend this as well as I should, but if any one wants to take me to task on it, there will be ample time in the future. I'm hoping that it is coherent enough that it won't need much defending.

My rejoinder to "atheism is not rational".
First lets look at what is considered rational.
Rationality is a process that uses logic and logic makes inferences from data. Inferences are correlations and experiences between objects or things whatever you want to call them. The more correlations and dependencies in a relationship between two objects the more inferences we can make about them until we can get to a point of some 'understanding' where we can make accurate predictions about it.

A large part of that process is the criteria we use for data and evidence.

As I see it, the whole debate between Christians and atheists calling each other irrational boils down to the criteria for evidence.

So now lets look at Atheism. Atheism is not subscribing to the authority of a god.
Show me what is irrational about this viewpoint.
I do not know if there is a god,
therefore I do not act like there is one
therefore I am an Atheist.

Now what is the definition of atheist? I think some want to include anti-christian or anti-religious activity in the definition but that is unwarranted.

I do not know if some crystals have healing power,
therefore I do not act as if they do,
therefore I am not a person that 'uses' crystals.

What is irrational about that?

Lets look at Christians.

- Christians assume god inspired the bible. Christians don't agree on how much inspiration that means, but some of them think it was so much that he helped write the bible in some fashion. Indeed I argue, that if a Christian does not take this position to attribute some "quality assurance" then there is no warrant to giving the bible any more authority than the Hindu Upanishads or Bagavadgita, or Islamic Quran.

Here are four assumptions that Christians must make to get Christianity off the ground.

1. Assume god exists to get him into position to help write the bible.

2. Assume that all other scripture purported to come from a god is false.

3. Assume God is the first cause when there is no precedent for any 'first cause' or "spontaneous existence"

4. And assume that the soul correlates to consciousness but does not use the brain and is not affected by any consciousness altering brain trauma. At that point why infer any correlation to consciousness at all?

Now to make these the result of a rational process, they need to follow the rational process. They are a conclusion, based on using the principles of logical inference about the relationships of data/evidence. How many correlations do the data have outside the sphere of Christianity? Not as many as the data that atheists have for their world view. How is a conclusion sound if it is based on an assumption? It is not.

There is an alternate hypothesis to how the universe got here that is based on empirical observation and inference that is consistent with the laws of physics as we understand them. Thats a lot of correlation. We can see that larger more complex things depend on smaller simpler things. This principle spans every category you can think of. It is a sound principle with many correlating examples in unrelated fields. That is its strength. Correlations across categories. It is used to make accurate non-supernatural or non-metaphysical predictions about things.

Atheists do not ascribe to any of those assumptions, and we have more strict criteria for our evidence. Our strict criteria for evidence are comparable to the strict criteria used in science and law. If you use the Christian criteria for evidence in science and law, it wouldn't work very well. Just look at how much regard the four gospels are given by Christians, and then think about how you would feel if you were convicted on testimony as uncorroborated as that.

Atheists do not make any of those assumptions. One can assert that atheists do make all kinds of assumptions till they are blue, but those are PRESUMPTIONS. They depend on Evidence in some way. And once again our criteria for evidence is different than Christians. So if the Christian wants to say that Atheism is irrational, they are saying that it is derived outside a rational process. This argument can just as easily be turned around on the Christian.

So obviously a Christian can say anything she wants to about Atheism, but she cannot say it is irrational without convicting herself.

When We Doubt, God Can Only Blame Himself

Applying a sound principle to God, if you take your car to an expert and the work doesn't meet your expectations, then you have doubts about the expert don't you? That's normal.

As I've said before, if god is going to buy off on being called trustworthy, Just, merciful, omnipotent and omniscient in the bible, he is compelled logically to act that way. If not then since we are rational animals and he knows that and he knows what that entails, then it is incumbent on him to act in a way that doesn't betray those labels of being Trustworthy, Just, Merciful, etc because he can reasonably expect to create doubt in us. This doubt would be a result of reasoning about him with the only facilities we have at our disposal which he provided. Therefore, if he's going to refer to himself in that way and expect us to believe him, then a reasonable expectation can be made that he would act that way.

If god acts in a way that causes us to doubt, he has no one to blame but himself because he supposedly made the architecture that makes up the 3 pounds of meat in our heads.

Is it too much to ask for someone to do what they say? Is it too much to ask that someone walk the walk instead of talk the talk? What Would Jesus Do? What did Jesus say he would do?

He didn't come back in the lifetime of the Apostles and good luck getting a prayer answered when its crunch time.

Like Sheep Among Wolves

Lets think about that for a minute. What happens to a sheep when it's surrounded by wolves? Chances are It won't survive. Now lets bring that analogy a little closer to home. What happens if we threw a cat in among dogs? Chances are it won't survive.

Why would we throw a sheep in among wolves or a cat in among dogs? To get the sheep or cat to depend on us? To trust us? I wouldn't, but thats just me. The atheist with no moral compass.

If the sheep, cat or us get shredded is it because we didn't trust enough? Trust presumes that there is something to trust in. Some way out. But when bad things happen to us, its not Gods fault.

Everything happens for a reason.

Its a result of Mans Sinful Nature.

And everything works for the greater good.

So lets pray for help, faith, tolerance. Sometimes the answer is no. And everything happens for a reason.

So who's reason is it? How did we get to be among wolves?

When we pray what is there to pray for? What is there to hope for? God already knows doesn't he? He threw you in there among those wolves didn't he? And its for the greater good. Everything that is happening to you is the result of mans sinful nature. God already knows what you want, He already knew what the result would be. Why do you think your prayer is going to change his mind when everything happens for a reason, and it is for the greater good and Its caused by mans sinful nature anyway? You have some responsibility for what is happening to you. What you are going through must be part of Gods plan. If you get stuck and the only way out is to burn to death or jump 100 floors to your death, remember God is a strong tower, and this is happening to you because you were thrown in like sheep among wolves, everything happens for a reason, it happens for the greater good and it is the fault of mans sinful nature, and you need to pray for faith and strength to withstand the fear and pain of falling or burning to death. Trust in Jesus, he's stronger than the tower you are stuck in.

In the next second whatever happens to you is part of a chain reaction of evil that people do to each other. It is an infinite regression of evil deeds and consequences. You may be the innocent victim, but are you sure there is not something you could have done differently to avoid this? What happened to you is not someone else's fault, you share the responsibility with whomever is doing you harm. It is a recursive loop of evil actions and consequences right back to the beginning, so don't expect god to get you out of this, you did it to yourself.
* You were thrown in like a sheep among wolves
* The bad thing happened for a reason, and
* its not Gods fault,
* it is the fault of mans sinful nature
therefore, there is a correlation between the reason and mans sinful nature.
* therefore it happened because that is what you would expect to happen to a sheep among wolves.
* therefore since it doesn't make sense to throw us in like sheep among wolves without a way out, Jesus is the way out.
* So pray about it, but remember, sometimes the answer is no.

Just like it would be if there was no God and everything happened by Chance. What Was Jesus Thinking?

Here's a praise prayer that I used when things went south.
"Thank you Jesus for not completely squashing me like a bug."

Analyzing A Typical Well-Meaning Christian Response.

An anonymous commenter wrote this to me in response to my article that God is an accessory to Child Abduction.

Lee, I sympothize with you that it seems that you are hurting and are trying to find someone to blame for something that has happened. I will pray for you!

I'm trying to find someone to blame? The blame falls where it resides, on chance, or whichever individual does something harmful, or me, but it doesn't automatically default to me as much as Christians will tell me it does.

God is not to blame for things that happen. He sees things that we don't so to say that there isn't a reason for even the most horrible thing to happen you just don't know what the bigger picture is. None of us do.

The other side of this logic is that the Christian doesn't know that there IS a reason. Since we neither know that it is true or that it is not true, all we can say is that we don't know. When we don't know we are agnostic. When we choose one belief over the other without a reason other than it makes us feel better, we are biased. So go ahead and say it. Lee you are biased. However I have demonstrated that I can overcome my bias because I was a Christian once.

Another aspect to this logic is that if there is a reason, who's reason is it? It must be the reason of whomever is in control. That would be God. For Gods reason horrible suffering happens. Then, if we do something to try to interfere with this horrible suffering, then we are interfering with Gods reason. We can make one of a couple of assumptions, that it is a test for us, or a test for the sufferer, or we don't know what is going on, so by interfering, we are acting out of ignorance which may be mucking up gods reason. Sounds silly doesn't it? There's no reason, just chance.

Here is the fundamental flaw in Christian reasoning. It is the starting point for a hasty conclusion that leads to a slippery slope that can only be justified using special pleading and the sliding window of criteria.

An assumption must be made that God exists to get him into a position to help write the Bible.
1. Christianity is built on an assumption that God exists and he helped write the Bible
2. and Christian faith is built on the bias of wishful thinking that the assumption is true obviously because it makes them feel better
3. With ambiguous evidence when viewed in the light of confirmation bias, maintains the good feeling about their assumption.

So my suggestion is that you stop blaming God for all the sick and despicable things the MAN does in this world and start looking at how to either correct the problem or how to help yourself deal with what has happened. It maybe hard and you may need some counseling.

I need the counseling? Am I really that bad off? You don't need counseling? I may need some counseling and you do not. Does it make you feel better to think that I'm that bad off?
anyway...
If God made it so that a tumor in the frontal cortex will make a man act on pedophiliac tendencies (true story) then god didn't design the brain very well. If god designed the brain such that a malfunction in the Limbic system will create a psychopath, then god didn't design the brain very well. If god designs us such that we get worked up so much with religious fervor that we kill people over it, then he's got a problem in his design. Granted these are all extreme examples, but less extreme examples are seen in the behavior of Christians every day and throughout history. It wouldn't be a big deal except that they think they have the moral advantage. Even Christians get cranky from lack of sleep and get depression and panic attacks and sexually aroused at an odd moment occasinally.
The other option is that God didn't have anything to do with any of it.

Again, I will pray for you.

Thanks I appreciate the sentiment. Thats the equivalent of saying "Good Luck" or "I wish you the Best".
But what makes you think YOUR prayer will make any difference?
1. will it influence god?
2. if it influences god, won't it turn out worse if it was going to happen for the best anyway?
3. does he not know already?
4. doesn't he know what you want already?

You don't realize that your prayers cannot logically have any effect at all as long as an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent being already has a plan.

Think about it.

People Can't Choose To Believe, Therefore Christianity is False.

The Following is a contribution from The Dude in the Atheist RFC for Empirical Evidence... I think it is brilliant.

Christian salvation doctrine clearly stated in the bible dictates that in addition to good deeds, a "saved" follower must, above all else, choose to believe with no doubts. If one does not utilize the "free will" given to him by god and choose to believe, they will be banished to an eternity of hellish suffering upon death. No amount of good deeds over a lifetime will save a person if they do not choose to believe in the biblical god/Jesus.

The problem with this biblically-stated doctrine is that humans are naturally unable to choose to believe in anything, as belief is the result of biochemical/neurological processing of evidence in the human mind, and how information is processed is biologically unique to every individual. The way an individual processes information is absolutely out of their control - one cannot simply choose to accept evidence, it must be processed and evaluated by the brain, and the result of this processing is either non-belief or belief. Humans are born with specific genetic tendencies beyond their control that dictate how to process information, which can then nurtured or suppressed based on outside factors such as parenting, education, social influences - all of which are not within the control of the individual.

With this premise laid forth, the biblical requirement for salvation based on choosing to believe goes out the window, and thus in my mind dismisses the entire doctrine as jibberish.

Measuring Morality, The Highlighter Test

Since Logic is necessary to understand God, we can apply sound principles derived from reasoning, using logic grounded in experience and evidence to other areas of our lives. We can derive a list of sound moral principles in this way. We can take our list of sound moral principles and apply them to other cultures, other time periods and stories in the bible to see if they meet, beat or break the principles.

In this way we can compare our list of sound moral principles to those displayed as evidence and compare them. In this way we can see what percentage of our list of moral principles are met, and then measure how much our morality matches another. I suggest we all take a highlighter and go to the bible and highlight all the verses that do not match our list of morals and see what we have at the end.

I think Christians will agree that their set of morals don't really come from the bible.

Logic Is Necessary To Understand God

(God Limits Himself) This article is an extension of an article called "God Limits Himself". It is intended to show that principles of Logic are valid and necessary for an inquiry into the characteristics of the Christian Religion. It will be referenced by subsequent articles as a premise for their complex arguments. It intends to show that God (if he exists) has agreed implicitly to use the principles of logic to further our understanding of him.

Our trust in another being, including God, is built on the avoidance of the violation of those principles. Every case in which he violates a principle of Logic is a violation of that commitment. A violation of that commitment results in a violation of the trust. In order to maintain that trust it is necessary to use due care and diligence not not violate principles the trust is built on. In this way God must limit himself to working within the principles of Logic in order to maintain our trust in him.

* The Bible tells us that God exists and that he created all things.
So how were people able create the Bible so that we can look at it and come to know about God and attempt an understanding of Him?

If God wants us to know about him and to understand him he must commit to following rules that will achieve that goal, effectively making the commitment to limit himself.

1. All things have various interdependencies and relationships between themselves.
2. We can observe our environment and when we see that an event reliably follows another event then using a rule such as "when this happens, then this follows", we can create a simple rule that describes it. This rule is called a precedent. It is based on experience. It depends on evidence created by the successful performance of this rule. This becomes a principle and we can add it to a "set" of "rules". This set of rules and principles we call logic.
3. Using this set of rules and principles we can develop another set of rules. By applying sets of rules to create other sets of rules we create a complex set of interdependent rules. One of these sets of rules we call "Reasoning".
4. Using the process of reasoning we can make reliable observations and predictions about our environment.
5. Using reasoning from precedent we can look at the accumulation of successful predictions about our environment and we are able to identify more interdependencies and relationships in the world. The idea that results from the application of these rules is called "inference". When our inference is shown be correct by a successful prediction then we call it "understanding".
6. When we see a phenomena or "sign" we are able to think and recall things that are interdependent and have relationships to it, and make predictions or conclusion about the next event, or its state or past events.
7. These successful rules and processes, when appropriate, can be applied elsewhere with varying success and we call this extending the rules or principles.
8. Applying these rules and processes help us to successfully interact, survive and create memories of rules and processes that we use to understand our world and make further predictions. It creates a complex rule set that we can call our "world view"
9. We can extend these principles to other areas such as communication and language. We can create rules for sets of sounds that we can call words, and using principles that regulate how we use these sounds we can create a category of sounds and rules that we call language.
10. We can extend these principles to a set of rules that we use to represent these sounds and call it writing.
11. We can apply these rules to a series of sounds and apply other rules for representing them using lines and record the proper sequence. This recording can be observed and understood by another being using those same rules and principles. In this way we can transfer information between beings and ensure as much integrity as possible.

Therefore, the bible comes to us by a complex set of rules derived from the extension of sets of simpler rules and our understanding of it as information depends on applying these rules to comprehend the content and to make inferences, conclusions and predictions about it. God must follow these rules if he wants us to know about him and understand him. This knowledge and understanding is necessary to have a "relationship" with him.

Christian apologists appear to agree that logic is necessary to understand God since they use logic and reason to provide apologia for their faith. Logic is necessary to understand God, its use spans categories of people (i.e. Christians and Atheists) and categories of subjects ( religion and science) and God (if he exists) has apparently made the commitment to participate.

The simplest rules of logic are even exhibited to be understood by animals. The algorithm for understanding simple principles of logic seem to be hardwired in the brains of many species of animals. Any one with a pet can tell you anecdotes about smart things their pet has done. Additionally researches have observed and measured in the lab the use of rudimentary logic with fish and some predatory animals. One of the simplest rules of logic is one that can be made using precedent. For example, since the sun has risen every day of recorded history, then the sun will rise tomorrow. Another (lame?) example. Since the stop light changes every minute and it just changed to red at 0700, then if I record how much time it stays red in addition to the time it takes the other lights to change, then I can reliably predict that unless something unexpected happens, the light will turn red at 0746 (for example). Using rules (principles) created from experience and evidence we can create rules (principles) of precedent, and we can describe how we derived the rules and principles. Should the light become irregular or random, it would need to be repaired because it would not be trustworthy since there will be a case when it will be green when it should be red.

Resolved! God Caused The Problem of Evil/Needless Suffering.

This argument is intended to show that the problem of Evil/Needless Suffering is actually a result of the creation process and that Humans only have the appearance of Free Will.

* God is omniscient.
* God is timeless.
* God Created everything.
* God Chose how to create the world and knew how it was going to react after he made it.
* God Chose how to create people and knew how we were going to react after he made us.
* If he knew what was going to happen to us, then before we were made, our destiny was recorded.
* If he made us with free will, and he knew what was going to happen to us before he made us, then any exercise of that free will was already known by him and was really only the appearance of free will.
* In the course of our life, because we can not know the future, it appears to us that we have freewill.
* We can not change our destiny if we want to because it was already recorded.
* We do not have freewill, we have the illusion of freewill.
* Our problem of evil/needless suffering was a result of our illusion of free will.
* Our illusion of free will is the cause of the Problem of Evil/Needless Suffering, therefore Genuine Free Will as a premise for the cause of the Problem of Evil is refuted.
* If we only have the appearance of free will, and the problem of Evil/needless suffering is a result of Mans exercise of his apparent free will then the Problem of Evil/needless Suffering was determined before the world was made. God knew it before he made it. The process of the creation of the universe is the cause of the Problem of Evil/Needless Suffering. It is Gods Plan, it is a result of the way he chose to make things.

He knows what I am going to do in five years. No matter what I do now, I will do what god knows about in five years.
Any choice I make will not make a difference. It will appear to me that I am freely making choices but all of them lead to what god knows I will be doing in five years. I do not really have free will, I only have the appearance of it because I can't know the future.

If one stays Christian, one goes to heaven, if one loses faith, one goes to hell, but god knew it before it could be chosen. No matter what anyone does, God knows the outcome.

So stop worrying be happy, if you get to heaven, you get there, if you don't you really didn't have a choice anyway.

Christians can explore atheistic ideas without fear because if they were not made with the properties needed to be atheist, they cannot be.

If God is Omniscient, then there must be predestination.

God Limits Himself

This argument is intended to provide the warrant (underlying principle) for the Atheist argument that the Problem of Evil negates a perfectly Just, Moral, Benevolent, Good, etcetera, God. It intends to show that the principle or Warrant comes from God himself. This is the first in a series of articles that create a complex argument against the existence of the Christian God.

It is believed that the bible is revelation from god. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness". In the bible, if he has not authored it himself, he has at least approved of being labeled as Good, Just, Merciful, Reasonable and Trustworthy among other things. Since God has approved of this to be said about himself, he implicitly agrees to behave that way. These are his limitations to his behavior. For example a trustworthy person will act in a way that supports that characteristic and is prohibited from acting in ways that negate the trustworthy characteristic. They are limited by their commitment to be trustworthy.

Goodness, Justice, Morality, Mercy and Reasonableness have a meaning and have characteristics that are more or less consistent between languages such as hebrew, Greek and English, to name a few. So If God has approved of these labels being applied to him, he has implicitly agreed to behave in a way that supports those characteristics. He has in effect limited his own behavior to comply with his self-proclaimed characteristics. If he is trustworthy, he will behave in a way that supports that characteristic. If he is reasonable, he will act in way that supports that characteristic.

Morality has meaning to us, and God has agreed to be Moral, therefore in order to appear Moral to us he must agree to behave in a way that doesn't violate enough moral principles to negate that characteristic.

- God is moral.
- the set of morality as understood by humans contains a set, or subset of moral principles.
- God has properties similar to the set of human moral principles.
- We say god is moral because we compare him to the set of principles comprising the set of morality. Otherwise we have no basis for the comparison.

So now if pick a valid principle out of the set of morality, and see if it can be compared to god, this should be a valid test of Gods similarity to the set of morality that we are comparing him to.

Additionally let’s add these qualifiers.
- We are made in gods image,
- God loved us so much that he have his only son so that none should perish

So how moral is god? How many of our characteristics of morality does god possess? And if we make a list of moral principles, and we compare it to god’s behavior can we come up with a value of "how moral is god when compared to our set of moral values"?

Then if we say that some principles in our set are "universal morals" I'd be willing to bet I could get a consensus that god violates some of those "universal moral" principles. A lot of them have been written about here on DC.

If god Violates a Moral principle he becomes less moral. This affects his trustworthiness in a negative direction.

If we say that it is reasonable to impose this set of morals on a human, and we say that god is moral, then we can say in some respect it should be valid to impose this set of morals on god. If we can't, then saying that god is moral is meaningless, especially, perfectly moral. So if humans cannot possibly be more moral than god, then God must meet or beat any expectations that we can place on a human. For example, If we say that a human is deficient in morality for condoning slavery, then if god does not at least meet that expectation, then he is deficient as well, unless we can say that violating this principle is not an indicator of a violation of this principle or any shortcoming of morality.

On what grounds does god not need to meet this expectation? On what grounds do people need to this expectation? If people need to meet this expectation and god meets or beats our expectations of morality, then he should be expected to do it to. Not just because I say so, but because it is consistent with what he has approved of to be said about himself, of which he says about himself, should be trustworthy.