Bayes Theorem Sucks As A Arguement For The Existence Of God, The Resurrection Etc!

[Guest Valk0010]

 

http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~irena/ai01/nn/p005.jpg

 

I am using the simplified verison cause I am mathematically retarded and its easier to make my point. Though as far as I understand the full verison, the simplified verison says more or less the same thing. The links for this stuff will be at the end of the post.

 

I have been mulling over this arguement, as its applied to the resurrection for about a week now.

 

It sucks. Not because its accurate, but because it does the opposite of what you really want a apologetic to do.

 

It murkies the water, totally.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterior_probability is the following

 

"In Bayesian statistics, the posterior probability of a random event or an uncertain proposition is the conditional probability that is assigned after the relevant evidence is taken into account."

 

Prior probability is to paraphrase Jeff Lowder is, how likely is it that something will happen given what is known about the world. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jesus_resurrection/chap5.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability

"In Bayesian statistical inference, a prior probability distribution, often called simply the prior, of an uncertain quantity p (for example, suppose p is the proportion of voters who will vote for the politician named Smith in a future election) is the probability distribution that would express one's uncertainty about p before the "data" (for example, an opinion poll) is taken into account. It is meant to attribute uncertainty rather than randomness to the uncertain quantity. The unknown quantity may be a parameter or latent variable.

One applies Bayes' theorem, multiplying the prior by the likelihood function and then normalizing, to get the posterior probability distribution, which is the conditional distribution of the uncertain quantity given the data.

A prior is often the purely subjective assessment of an experienced expert. Some will choose a conjugate prior when they can, to make calculation of the posterior distribution easier."

 

Here is the problem with this arguement in regards to the resurrection.

 

Prior probability depends entirely on if the evidence already known for the christian worldview. As we know, there is no good reason to believe that we live in a christian universe. We may be in a supernatural universe potentially but not a christian universe. If say you take the principal of analogy ala Robert M Price, or ehrman's view on miracles one has to put weight on factors like, once your dead, your dead kinds of things. One has to basically assume a theistic worldview to get anywhere near close to a high probability of a resurrection actually according. And also you have to get pass the assumption that, god=resurrection of jesus.

 

Given all that, I am not sure how one, unless one is playing really finnicky business with the numbers could ever get the resurrection to come in bayes theorem as probable.

 

As they say, crap goes in, crap goes out.

[jblueep]

I agree and have always thought that Bayes was much more easily viewed as a refutation of the ressurection than a support for it.

[mcdaddy]

I'm reading Carrier who uses it a lot. It just basically shows things to be "unlikely" and doesn't flat out refute them.

 

But he's a mythicist so he's cool in my book.

[Guest Valk0010]

I'm reading Carrier who uses it a lot. It just basically shows things to be "unlikely" and doesn't flat out refute them.

 

But he's a mythicist so he's cool in my book.

Well used right, its great. As far as I can see apologists use it wrong.

[3DollarBill]

This is definitely evidence against the resurrection. Think of all the times a person has been presumed dead, for whatever reason, and then is discovered to actually be alive- happens all the time.

 

And now think of all the times dead people have been observed to come back to life- never been observed.

 

So, according to Bayesian statistics, if you think somebody rose from the dead, there's probably another explanation.

[Kaiser01]

WLC spouses about probability quite often, i often find it humorous he tries to say he thinks God is the most probable cause for the existence of our universe, but what he seems to forget, is that when dealing with a number pertaining to infinity, probability breaks down until you can actually do something to prove God is the creator of the universe.

[Guest Valk0010]

WLC spouses about probability quite often, i often find it humorous he tries to say he thinks God is the most probable cause for the existence of our universe, but what he seems to forget, is that when dealing with a number pertaining to infinity, probability breaks down until you can actually do something to prove God is the creator of the universe.

All of that stuff seems to be to me, a glorified verison of the reasoning i bet people used when they decided thor was responsible for lightening.

[mcdaddy]

WLC spouses about probability quite often, i often find it humorous he tries to say he thinks God is the most probable cause for the existence of our universe, but what he seems to forget, is that when dealing with a number pertaining to infinity, probability breaks down until you can actually do something to prove God is the creator of the universe.

All of that stuff seems to be to me, a glorified verison of the reasoning i bet people used when they decided thor was responsible for lightening.

 

I thought that was Zeus.

[Guest Valk0010]

WLC spouses about probability quite often, i often find it humorous he tries to say he thinks God is the most probable cause for the existence of our universe, but what he seems to forget, is that when dealing with a number pertaining to infinity, probability breaks down until you can actually do something to prove God is the creator of the universe.

All of that stuff seems to be to me, a glorified verison of the reasoning i bet people used when they decided thor was responsible for lightening.

 

I thought that was Zeus.

Works for him too.

[Guest Valk0010]

http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/bayes/BayesCalc.htm