Re: A probabilistic analysis of the resurrection of Jesus
- From: "." <emanswen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:36:48 -0700 (PDT)
On Mar 22, 4:26 pm, Tim Little <t...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On 2008-03-22, . <emans...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Do you think that the reasoning is sound? If not, where do you
think it goes wrong?
In many places.
The very first numerical statement is unsound: "The initial
probability that Jesus rose from the dead [P(R | K)] would therefore
be about 9.1 x 10-12 (1 in 110 billion)"
Many people have been known to rise from the dead. Hospitals even
keep files of who wants to be brought back from the dead or not, but
even apart from that sometimes people are pronounced dead and yet
later are found to be alive (or to have been alive at the time).
Then the unjustified assumption that G and C are independent.
The unjustified assumption that P(C | K) = 0.85.
More completely unjustified numbers for P(L /\ J) etc listed as
"personal estimates" upon which the whole argument turns.
Then more and more unjustified assumptions.
In short, it goes wrong pretty much everywhere except the actual
formal symbolic manipulations, which I didn't even bother to check.
Even if they were correct: garbage in, garbage out.
- Tim
I think you are right about G and C not being independent; if Jesus
was God, then whether or not he would predict his resurrection would
depend on whether or not a) God intended to rise from the dead after
becoming incarnate, and b) God wanted to reveal this to the world
before it happened. So they clearly are not independent.
This being the case, I cannot see any way to get a value for P(R |
K). If G and C are independent, then P(G & C | K) = P(G | C & K)P(C |
K) = P(C | G & K)P(G | K). I don't see how we can estimate values for
P(G | C & K) or P(C | G & K) without making tenuous speculations about
God's divine plan, requiring a full-blown theology to which I am sure
no agnostic or atheist would be willing to commit.
Can anyone else see how we could get a value for P(R | K) without
having to rely on such speculations?
If not, it seems that we are stuck with either a very low value for
P(R | K) (though not as low as I proposed, as you pointed out) or no
value at all. Therefore, P(R | E & K) would either be probably less
that 0.5 or unknown.
As for your problems with my estimations for the other probabilities,
they were not supposed to be objective values, but subjective; they
represented my personal degree of belief with respect to each
proposition or combination of propositions.
Thanks a lot for your reply; it was really helpful.
.
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: proper ideals of Z
- Next by Date: Re: A probabilistic analysis of the resurrection of Jesus
- Previous by thread: Re: A probabilistic analysis of the resurrection of Jesus
- Next by thread: Re: A probabilistic analysis of the resurrection of Jesus
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
