Hey guys,

Whew! Finally. Sorry about the delay. Unfortunately, I'm more busy, not less, so the delay for the next round of responses will probably be just as bad. (Sorry to keep doing this. The thing is, I really don't have time to have a highly active discussion and keep the quality up right now, and if I didn't explicitly say that I would not respond for several days, I'd feel impelled to).

OK, so, I'll start with you again, @dave:

I appreciated your response -- thanks! Very interesting points. The second one interests me somewhat more than the first, so let me know if my response to the first is inadequate as a result and I'll focus on it more.

Let's begin with point 1. You say not to confuse irrational beliefs with irrational actions. Fair enough. I would say that a rational action is one which one has good cause to believe will lead to a desired end. An irrational action would not be so tailored. You desire a third category -- arational. Certainly interesting, and possible, but before I get too deep into that discussion, I have to wonder why you brought this up. I don't recall mentioning actions as rational or irrational in my last post. I thought I was talking about beliefs -- right?

Perhaps it is because I have several times referred to the way people behave as indicative of their actual beliefs. This I think is perfectly fair. If somebody tells me (not that you did) that he does not believe one way or the other about the regularity of the future, but he always waits for the walk light to cross the street, I'm going to really wonder whether he's being completely honest about his intellectual beliefs.

Anyway, your next paragraph is more precise, so let's go there:

"It is not irrational to accept a belief is not rationally justifiable, but still act on it....My actions (which assume induction) aren’t irrational (as rationality doesn’t say anything about the issue), but a-rational (if that’s a word)."

Well, technically, I wouldn't entirely agree. Irrational behavior, to my way of thinking, is acting without a reason. Under your hypotheses, all behavior would have to be without reason, so all behavior would have to be, at least by this definition, irrational -- rational behavior would not even be theoretically possible, since there could be no tailoring of actions to ends.

Anyway, though, I think I only discuss behavior in the first place with reference to beliefs, as mentioned above. If somebody tells me he doesn't know one way or the other about the future, but nothing in the world will induce him to take one of my counter-regularity bets for $500, I do start to wonder why not. Of course, he may be able to explain. But if he can't explain, then he is acting without reason, and I would call that irrational.

2. Your first sentence is exceptionally interesting. I will probably respond to it for a long time. Here goes:

"You seem to argue that, because we need SOME assumption to get going, that ANY sets of assumptions are equally valid and should just be compared for their consequences."

This is quite close to a truth, but it's also very far from what I actually believe. I certainly _don't_ think any sets of assumptions are equally valid! But I do think they have to be analyzed for their consequences, and in particular for their self-consistency. Why is that? Simply because there is no other way to analyze them!

What could I possibly mean? Well, consider my basic assumptions or beliefs. One of them is that the Bible is the true Word of God. Now, if I try to argue with you, and I assume that in the argument, I'm going to be continually frustrated (as are you), because I will be quoting Scripture to you about how you're wrong and I'm right, but it will accomplish nothing, because you don't accept the validity of my premise.

Similarly, you hold the following premise as a basic belief:

"I argue we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed."

Since I don't hold this as a basic belief (well, at least not the way you mean it! Though I might accept it in some form.), your attempt to settle this argument by appealing to it would be futile. For example, when you say

"You however make many other assumptions (that every single statement in the bible is true) whereas I make only a minimal few. So I win ;-),"

That is only valid under your assumptions. Appealing to your basic assumptions like this has no more validity to me than my quoting Scripture would have to you.

So what is to be done? The situation seems very like we might just have to throw up our hands and give up talking to each other, because each of us can make points only using his own assumptions, which the other does not accept.

But this is not the case. If the question is which basic set of assumptions to adopt, then of course, yes, I can't use one to defang the other. But I can ask, is this worldview consistent with itself? Because both claim to be logical. So if I can show that, in fact, your worldview destroys itself, or is self-inconsistent, _without assuming MY worldview_, then I have actually shown your set of assumptions to be flawed; while mine is not (unless you can show the same about it).

Does that make sense? So, the reason I think we have to adopt the assumptions of each worldview and analyze the consequences is because that very literally is the only logical possible way to compare them.

And what do I find if I assume your worldview? That there isn't a single belief you have that can't be destroyed _with your worldview_. You say we both must assume the validity of rationality. Well, we both need it, but my point is that as a bare assertion by itself, it is self-defeating. You assume rationality and what does it tell you? That you have no possible way of having confidence in your assumption of rationality!

Of course, I've focused on induction thus far, but I needn't have. Memory, the senses, personal identity, etc., are all subject to the same devastating critique on the bare assumption of rationality. And so, for that matter, is reason itself. There are immaterial logical rules that can always be relied on for truth? And our finite, evolved human brains have gained access to these, and the ability to know of their existence and reliability, through finitely many interactions in a physical world? Really? How does this possibly make sense to a materialist? (Not that you've said you're a materialist, and I don't know, but of course, most atheists are. But even if you're not, the problem only shifts itself slightly). (I think you actually alluded to this problem with the parenthesis at the end of your post).

In short, your assumptions are self-canibalizing. You assume that reason is reliable for finding truth, and it straightaway tells you that it's not. This is a woeful incoherency, and, I submit, an irreperable flaw in your world view. You say that we both must assume reason. I say, we both must assume the minimum necessary _to_ reason, and you have not.

So nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions. Does this make it false? Well, it certainly makes it irrational!

Now, you made an interesting point, and will doubtless make it more forcefully anon, so let me go ahead and respond to it now, especially since I won't be writing again for some days. You pointed out that I need reason myself to read/understand the Bible. After the passage above, you might well also point out that I need my eyes, memory, etc., and need to assume the reliability of all of them. Very true. But again, on my assumptions, that reliability makes sense. If I once decide to trust the revelation of God in the Bible, then I see how my eyes are trustworthy, and why I was able to rely on them even before I had heard of God, or in His grace He had revealed to me the reason. So, certainly I am not saying I _don't_ need sight, and reason, and induction, and all the rest. Merely I am saying that I can make sense of why I rely on them. My basic beliefs do not cannibalize either each other or themselves.

And in this way we see -- without introducing arbitrary assertions such as "less is more" or the like -- that your worldview is actually irrational.

I hope I have now better clarified my cart-before-the-horse claim from before. The point is that if one only assumes bare logic, induction, and the like, you can use them to smash each other, so the result is one doesn't have logic, induction, etc. left. Whereas if one assumes Christian theism, well, then you have all the logic, induction, memory, and reason you want, but you're already at God from the start. (Not to say, of course, that there isn't plenty of evidence for Him once you look for it inside this world view).

In short, then, I think you make, not a minimal few assumptions, but a less-than-minimal few, which is your problem. :-) The suggestion that the human mind is useful for reaching truth about the world, through either reason or generalization, is not a weak one. It is actually a dazzlingly strong claim, both about the mind and about the world, and your worldview is hopelessly inadequate to give it even the travesty of a support.

I hope I have responded to your points, but please let me know. I'm sure you will. :-)

@santosh,

Ack! You did not respond to my request for clarification. I fear I have already responded to the points you make here. There is little point in both of our just responding the same exact words back and forth to each other. Please answer the questions I asked, and address your points to the arguments I made. I already know what you are claiming. I have said why I think it is wrong. Now don't just tell me THAT I am wrong. Tell me why.

@dexter,

Yowzers! This is a ton to respond to! So, first of all, thank you for your voluminous responses, and second, sorry about the fact that I'm almost guaranteed to forget to respond to some of it. I'll do my best.

First off the bat -- apology accepted re: the two mutually recognized straw men. I'm sure we've all gotten confused in a long internet discussion. Sorry for being snarky -- you can perhaps understand my frustration as well.

OK, so on to your former point #3, which you continue to maintain was valid.

The argument you are accusing me of making (in your original point #3) is this: "My intuition says God exists, and reality looks like I would expect it to if He does, so He does." This bears no resemblance to any argument I have made. My argument is and has been that knowledge of various forms, and reason itself, would be impossible if God did not exist.

Moving on to the quotes you take from me -- the Page 3 quote simply does not say that I am asking for groundless faith, or that evidence is not necessary, or anything like that. Read it again. I'm sorry, it doesn't. It is criticizing the addressee (I have no idea who anymore) for inconsistent rational standards.

The page 4 quote -- when I said "revealed Himself," I was not referring to any subjective in-my-head experience, and I'm not sure why you would think I was. Anyway, I was referring to the Bible, as well as to the Incarnation.

Ditto with the second page-4 quote.

Page 5 quote, you ask, "And what are these beliefs based on?" They are based on the revealed Word of God in the Bible. They are supported by reason in various ways -- the one I am referring to at present is that reason would be impossible without them.

On the page 6 quote, you say:

"So... you *do* accept physical evidence... but you are selective about it and only accept those pieces of evidence that support your pre-existing view. From what stance do you choose to accept certain evidence but not other evidence? Your feelings?"

Dexter, please: I don't want to have to say this again. I have NEVER said I do not accept physical evidence. I accept ALL physical evidence, and believe in its validity. This is the THIRD time you have accused me of saying otherwise, and the third time I have corrected you. I will have to take further repetitions of this by you as deliberate twisting of my words.

My point has never been that I don't accept physical evidence. It has been that YOU should not, given your beliefs, and that this inability of your beliefs to support the rationality of accepting physical evidence is a flaw.

On page 7: "I read that as, more or less, "my invented model for the world does not contradict itself, therefore it is true" i.e. Reification fallacy... because you think something you take it as real."

Um, that's not what the reification fallacy means, first of all. Second of all, yes, if one is comparing two beliefs and one of them is self-contradictory and the other is not, then the latter has an immediate advantage. A more interesting critique would be, "Well, how do you know there aren't others that are self-consistent?" That will have to be for another day, though for now I'll just say, as I did to abge, that it's not a discussion I feel the least impelled to have while you're still sitting in your admittedly inconsistent worldview. (Not that you have admitted that, but if you accepted the first premise of the argument, then you would have).

Look, it really feels like you have a handy wall guide to fallacies, and you're putting a lot of effort into putting all my arguments into one of those boxes. The problem is, you're doing it so fast, you're completely missing what my arguments actually are. Please just respond to the substance, and don't constantly (mis)label. This had nothing to do with a reification fallacy.

You go on to mischaracterize two more of my quotations as based on feelings, when I said nothing about feelings. I'm not going to respond individually to those. But honestly, you can't just read things into what I said ("Sounds like feelings to me") and then criticize me for it, lol. If I didn't say feelings, you're going to have to make do with a rebuttal that doesn't depend on my having said feelings.

And I didn't say them, or anything like them. This is all desperate reading in.

The argument I'm actually making is subtle, interesting, and hard enough, without my having to respond to critiques aimed at completely different arguments that I never made at all, and never would make. :-P

OK, that is the end of my response to your first post. (I'm putting in bookmarkers like this to try to increase clarity).

Third post: Yes, I do place faith in the Bible. Your original point 6, however, was not just about placing faith in the Bible. It was about doing so because the Bible contains spectacular accounts, or because my prayers have been answered. These are not the reasons I believe in the Bible. You can't just equate all arguments that rely on the Bible and say that if I made one, I made them all. Arguments are logically distinct.

In this particular case, my argument is that the Bible is the only ground for reason.

As for the many logical problems you point to with the Bible -- thank you for your speculation that I don't care to mix reason and theology. It happens to be false. I can't very well answer vague and undirected claims of problems, though. Feel free to post specifics if you wish, although I am not going to turn this thread (or my part in it, anyway) turned into an unending witch hunt for Biblical problems. You can post one or two, but there are plenty of resources on such things, and it is an aside to my main argument.

End of third post, beginning of fourth post.

"To say that we have absolutely no reason to assume order then therefore that disorder is probable is nonsense. In order to make such a statement you (and the probability theory you mention) have to assume probability itself as a valid concept... which would be itself assuming rationality."

Well, again, I am happy to assume such things, in order to show that they destroy themselves in your worldview. That's my point.

"Further, the assignation of equal probability to every imaginable world is arbitrary"

Well not really -- you could say so, I guess, but it's the principle of insufficient reason. The point is that if you don't have any reason to prefer one of the options, you should view them all as equal or you're sneaking in an assumption.

Once again, remember the context of this discussion: YOU are assuming induction/order. I only have to show that YOU are making unwarranted assumptions in so doing. That is and has always remained true. If my calculation is flawed (say you) because I am assuming all the probabilities are equal, what does that say about your calculation, which assumes that one of the probabilities is one?

"You have no basis to make such an assumption. "

False, as noted.

"And... simply because you can imagine something does not give it likelihood."

OK, but that goes for order, too.

"The only world that we can currently have any knowledge of its likelihood is the one that exists... we know it is possible and you cannot refute the possibility that it is inevitable"

Yes, but we don't know whether the one that exists is ordered after today, or not.

And yes, there is the possibility that it is inevitable, and the possibility that it is not. Why don't you tell me why you feel free assuming one of those?

"I see a rational universe... which is consistent with it being either God-run or inevitable... I don't see a god (and I do see quite a bit suggesting no god), therefore I figure it (the universe) must have been inevitable. "

Fine, fine, but you continue to completely ignore the main point, which is that you have no way of knowing, without just assuming, that the world will continue to be rational.

Onto the fifth post:

"In regards to your response to #7 - I think maybe you missed my main point. My point was that each of these alternate beliefs (alternate to typical Christian belief) were each "possible" given what we know of god (i.e. nothing). And for you to argue that my belief (bb2b)"

Ah, OK. Well then I would just reaffirm that I hold only to Christian theism, so the other theistic possibilities -- yes, those are self-refuting, like atheism. And the atheistic possibilities are, as well, since none fo them gives us access to knowledge.

Incidentally, you continue to miss a subtle point that is fundamental to everything I'm saying: I'm not just talking about whether the universe is regular. I'm talking about our ability to know whether it's regular. In that distinction lies everything.

I didn't really follow this post very well, to be honest. But I think you're saying that whatever I'm doing to your world view, you could do to mine. That is false. My assumptions to not lead to their own refutation. Yours do.

Again: the possible knowledge sources in your world are whatever evolution put into our brain because it was adaptive over the course of the generations when it was being selected for. Nothing in that process correlates with the future of the world, a priori, and nothing about it enables you to make infallible -- or even probable -- assumptions about said future out of thin air, so you are left with no knowledge at all about the future of the world.

I am not.

Nor am I left without knowledge as to how I came to my knowledge of God.

On to the sixth post. Once again a disclaimer here -- I of course don't think that the attractiveness of either worldview is really on-point with respect to its truth, but I'm happy to discuss it as a side issue.

You seem to me to be very inconsistent here. You blame Christians for finding the universe _without God_ dark, but you yourself admit you would find the universe _with_ God dark. Why do Christians get judged on the basis of the worldview they don't believe in, but you get judged on the basis of the one you do?

What I mean is, you believe that the world, without God, is a beautiful place. And Christians believe that the world, with God, is a beautiful and happy place. So BOTH of them actually believe that the world, AS IT IS, is a beautiful place. Why does that make them (us) pessimists, but you an optimist? That seems terribly unfair.

"I don't see the world that way - and I don't need to inject god into it to explain it. "

Well, logically you do, but don't feel obliged to be logical I suppose.

On to a little theology!

"Similarly, many Christians (not you necessarily - though I invite a response) feel that people are essentially bad and that they would do bad things all the time if they could get away with it (and didn't have God looking over their shoulder) and didn't have commandments against bad behavior."

Well, I do think that people are fallen, so they are "essentially bad" in the sense that they are rebels against God who sin a great deal, who love sin, and who resist giving up sin. Moreover, many of their motives are sinful even for apparently OK actions.

That said, do I think people "would do bad things all the time if ... God weren't looking over their shoulder"? Well, no. If I believed that, I would have to think that atheists never do good things, since atheists don't believe God IS looking over their shoulder. But plenty of atheists do very good things.

"Indeed, many Christians feel that moral behavior is actual reducible simply to behavior that is in line with God's will - period. i.e. it is completely morally relative. I see this as an evil, actually. "

OK, well, you might be able to guess how seriously I am going to take a lecture on moral relativism from an atheist who admits five sentences on that his own morality is relative.

God is the only possible grounding for _absolute_ morality. It is relative to God, of course, but God is absolute and necessary.

"I admit that morality in my world view is not absolute either... but I do see it as logical and in my self-interest and the interests of those I love to endeavor to be moral... my view does not change when no one is looking - even without an all-seeing god. "

OK. My view doesn't change when noone is looking either.

Of course, you just said that your own morality was based on your self-interest. Presumably, there might be times when your self-interest in being IMmoral could be so overwhelming that it would override the interests of morality?

"1) I observe the universe to be rational. "

OK. But you don't observe it to be rational _tomorrow_. Yet.

"4) While I can concede that I'm somewhat agnostic about the beginnings of the universe, I understand from physicists such as Stephen Hawking that the big bang did not require any god - that the physics/math/probabilities were sufficient by themselves. I figure they probably know what they are talking about (and at least have an "epistemologically" consistent view on the matter, if that's the right word [it's not a word I'm used to using])."

Ah! Here you and I differ. I find their arguments to be utter rubbish.

5) I didn't make any prime mover argument, here or anywhere, so I am not responding to this. And your other points also aren't really on-point to any of my arguments, which is why I didn't respond to them. (Even if I don't agree with everything you say, it would take us very far afield).

You still haven't explained how you can have access to such a truth as "the universe is rational," though (in the future, not just in what you've observed).

Seventh post:

Yes, you're quite right, Last Thursdayism is a problem for you. You can't really give any good argument for why it's false, on your assumptions.

I confess I am getting decidedly pessimistic as to whether you will ever engage my actual argument, or even acknowledge that, in assuming the regularity of the future, you are making a bare assumption, one which the past cannot, by itself, possibly support in any way.

But I'll try once more, with an illustration I used earlier.

Suppose I tell you I'm going to write down a bunch of numbers -- 100 -- and the first 10 I write down are

1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100.

Do you see that there is no rational argument for why the next one will be 121? That you have to _assume_ that I'm going to keep being regular?

OK, on to Stenger. Both sides in this debate have people who rarely make anything but bad arguments, or at least, who make so many bad arguments that it is hardly worthwhile to sift through for their good arguments. Victor Stenger is one of those on your side.

Here is the problem with this particular article. He makes his whole article irrelevant where he says, "Of course, that requires providing a physical definition of nothing." The problem is, when people ask, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" they mean nothing in a philosophical sense, NOT A PHYSICAL VACUUM. If you have a vacuum, then you already have a universe with physical laws. That's not nothing! And all of Stenger's analysis proceeds on the assumption that that is the nothing you have. So, I fear, it is completely uninteresting. It gets you to an inevitable universe only if you already assume all the laws of physics exist as necessary. But that's probably why you were asking the question in the first place. Getting from "all the laws of physics and a space for them to work in" to "everything today" is a lot different than getting from "nothing" to "everything today."

Of course, this is an interesting question even for a theist -- why is there a God? So I'm not saying it's not a good question. Just that Stenger's analysis of it, as of most things, is useless.

I also looked at the other article you linked, but that, too, is addressing something completely different. The question that is addressing is: if there are going to be physical laws, and in fact, if there are going to be OUR physical laws, what is the probability that the physical constants should be what they are?

All very interesting, but it already starts as a position of assuming there are going to be physical laws, so it has absolutely nothing to say to any of the arguments I have been making.

I hope that your new responses will be more on point to the arguments that I have actually made, and not to those that I haven't. ; ) Specifically, not whether you claim to know something, but how you possibly could. And the number example above, and induction. For a start.

Thank you again, though for your response.

@orathaic,

"Chaos" was a word in English long before it was a word in math or physics, so I will not make the least apology for how I used it.

I agree that chaos (in the physical/mathematical sense) is very beautiful, and can help increase one's appreciation for nature.

You're quite right that there are other forms of theism, which would not support reason or knowledge. I am not arguing for bare theism, but for Christian theism, which eliminates the possibilities you refer to.

As for a materialist's beliefs being a best estimate -- my point of course is that he has no reason to believe they are even that, or indeed a good approximation in any way.

Whew! It seems to be near 7 AM and I have yet to get to bed. As I say, busy week. :-) Take care. I look forward to reading such responses as you all may send, and I will reply when time allows (not before the weekend).

Wow semck83, incredibly long post!
I will reply when possible.

@semck, You have a most unusual take on Christianity and religion. I guess I couldn't quite believe it and kept at what I assumed must be some of your reasoning... though really, you've been quite mysterious as to your actual reasoning. If you don't present your reasoning you never have to defend it, that is for sure. I do appreciate you taking the time to write out responses despite the fact that what I wrote apparently doesn't apply to you. What does apply to you?

As to Stenger, you make a broad assumption about his conception of space-time at the beginnings of the universe... as in current Big Bang theory it is not an explosion of matter and energy into an existing space/vacuum structure... but more correctly an expansion of space-time itself - sound like rubbish? (see below). Further, by exploring possible physical laws and seeing that they also work out is, first of all, an amazing computation, secondly a pretty good argument against the universe needing to be "fine-tuned" for us to exist. Granted that it still assumes laws of some kind - but it answers pretty much everything else in pretty good order.

My remaining questions are as follows:
1) Why must my belief in a rational universe need to be provable or "knowable"? Your claim of epistemological bankruptcy is based on a misconception of what a rational universe assumes. As someone pointed out previously in the thread, science does not prove things... it is not its design or intent. It disproves things and it creates and refines models that explain the data and continually seeks to test those models. Who says that science has to be the only way that I experience the universe? (Certainly not most scientists). And who says the universe has to be fully comprehensible (or "knowable" as you like to say) to finite creatures such as you and I? Who says that a rational universe has to explain itself to our current low level of knowledge and brain power?

2) You have given no evidence that your Christian model is provable or consistent or reasonable. Yes it is at a level that you can accept as consistent and self-contained, but how is that anything other than a statement that it is simply a model. A model that invokes unobserved phenomena to explain itself (not unlike other religious models). Cheats, if you will.

3) You say that Last Thursdayism is a problem for me. No, it decidedly isn't. Last Thursdayism is the extreme of your view - that the world doesn't follow laws on its own and was created from nothing. If it was created from nothing miraculously by a god, then what stops it from being created last Thursday complete with fossils in the ground pre-aged and light in transit? It is the bible that asks us to ignore evidence in front of us when it contradicts the dogma - just as Last Thursdayism asks us to do the same. I have no dogma that is immune to contradicting evidence. It is you that is willing to deny what is in front of them if it conflicts with the dogma. Yes, I cannot ever completely prove that the world will be gone or irrational *Next Thursday*... but it is *you*, not I, that posits this bizarre and unfounded red herring of Next Thursdayism being somehow possible.

Again like someone else in the thread (sorry - to lazy to go back and find out who) - if things suddenly change next Thursday my view will change - new data and all that that implies. That approach is consistent with my view of the appropriate way to approach the world - skeptically but operationally a rationalist... you, on the other hand, would probably take no matter what happens next Thursday as continued proof of your current view. What you see as a strength in your view - that it can encompass all eventualities by making broad assumptions about god being magic and having a plan I see as a weakness. Your view is untestable. At least my view is testable and I'm willing to put it up for challenge. Yours is as untestable as Thor or Zeus or leprechauns. Is it more subtle and complex than those older theologies? Sure - but ultimately the same in their dependence on magic and exceptions to the rules.

4) You also are completely without proof... more than that, you are without evidence beyond the bible (which is self-contradicting and therefore epistemologically bankrupt, as you like to say - and would be thrown out of any court as being an unreliable witnes). Explain to me how the bible being self-contradicting is not a problem for it.

5) Why do you assume that there is a universal morality? On what basis to you make that claim? The burden is on you since you make the claim. You can hardly use the bible for such a claim since it itself violates that concept of consistency. Even if it were consistent, it proves nothing. I imagine the Communist Manifesto to be probably pretty darn consistent with itself... <--- that says nothing about how consistent it is with the world or how correct it is. Being a self-contained internally consistent model is not a solid argument for much of anything... there are countless numbers of those. So... What is the basis for your claim of universal morality?

6) Your lack of understanding of quantum physics and its probabilistic nature does not make theories based on it utter rubbish. You may find them incomprehensible or bizarre... but as Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman said, "If you think you understand quantum physics, you don't". Just as observing that a hammer and a feather fall at the same acceleration on the Moon (no air resistance) is bizarre to us Earth-bound air-breathing folk, does not make it any less true. The data argues strongly that a model the same or similar to the one that Stenger describes is a fair representation of reality given our current information... the fact that it is strange to us is not an argument against it. There is no reason to think that the vast universe has to be palatable to us to little ol' us. (touching back on point #1). It certainly does not follow that because it is uncomfortable that we then should ignore the data. Along this line, I present to you the possibly apocryphal story of Hippasis and the discovery of irrational numbers: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/math_for_intro_physics/math_for_intro_physics/node10.html
The fact that irrational numbers defy our ability to become fully comfortable and comprehending of them does not belie their existence.

One more thing (ok - a couple more things):
you said: "Again: the possible knowledge sources in your world are whatever evolution put into our brain because it was adaptive over the course of the generations when it was being selected for. Nothing in that process correlates with the future of the world, a priori, and nothing about it enables you to make infallible -- or even probable -- assumptions about said future out of thin air, so you are left with no knowledge at all about the future of the world."

Who said first of all that evolution is perfect?... my knowledge is limited - it is essentially only good enough to have a reasonable chance of reproducing. (And many are born not so lucky) Evolutionary history is full of creatures that went extinct because they could not adapt to swiftly changing environments - and many individuals that have no chance of survival or reproduction. The vast majority of types of creatures that ever existed are now extinct. Of course my knowledge of the future is limited... thus why I'm bound to make mistakes as I and all humans and animals and plants do. My model does not predict that creatures or humans specifically will have infallible assumptions about the future. Why should it? The theory of evolution does not predict that the future is knowable. Why should it?

To say (as you've been avoiding directly saying) that the bible provides this sort of perfect knowledge is both wrong and irrelevant. Wrong because the bible has been wrong and thus is not infallible (despite its claims that it is). Irrelevant because such an ability, if it exists outside of the bible, does not necessarily lead to a conclusion that all other aspects of that world view are correct.

It occurs to me that you never responded to my point about fallacy of depending on anonymous and second-hand/rumor sources... that the bible depends on only one known historical figure, Paul the Apostle. And his claims beyond that are based on fantastic stories and hearsay. Not unlike Joseph Smith or Rev. Sun Myung Moon or Kim Jung Ill, for that matter. Yes, apparently someone named Jesus lived and gathered a modest following during his life (he is not unusual in that regard)... not much else is known beyond what is based on said shaky "sources".

@ semck83
Indeed I have replied!! :)
I'm away for a week, so won't be able to reply to your next post.


1. Whether or not the problem of induction means all our actions is irrational is an interesting question, but I don’t think it’s relevant to this discussion: I want to focus on whether our beliefs are rational/justified.

What I will say though is the following. If my actions are irrational (I accept induction isn’t rationally justified but act as though its true), then so are yours. This is because your beliefs can’t be justified on rational grounds (something you seem to accept, by saying they must be assumed ahead of rationality) so actions stemming from those beliefs are irrational. They are rational given your beliefs, but still ultimately irrational. Belief in induction is irrational whether made is as a blind assumption, or as a consequence of a blind assumption in the Bible.

2. Your argument here is very interesting. You essentially claim to assume the bible’s truth is prior that of rationality. The Bible’s truth, in you system, logically underpins the truth of rationality. If this is true, then I don’t think I can convince you without resorting to battling out the Bible’s apparent contradictions (something I’m not willing to do), because even showing your beliefs are irrational won’t be enough. I’m extremely sceptical you actually think the Bible’s truths are more certain than that of rationality, or that of logic. I will argue as though you assume logic’s truth prior to the Bible’s truth, as you opened the door for me to find logical flaws in the Bible. If you didn’t assume logic prior to the Bible, you couldn’t even understand the Bible, or take any conclusions from it as asserting one thing wouldn’t rule our its contradiction being true (the essence of logic is it doesn’t allow contradictions). The Bible wouldn’t be able to assert the truth of logic without presupposing it (because the sentence ‘logic is true’ only implies that logic is indeed true, if logic is already true! If logic wasn’t already true, then we’d have no reason to believe A=A and so no reason to accept that logic was true). The following link explains this idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles Achilles tries to establish the logical principle, but the tortoise shows it can’t be proved unless it is already assumed. Logical truths are tautologies, so couldn’t really be false.

What I can say is that it’s clear that there are an infinite number of logically consistent belief systems that are possible. I could assume rationality, induction, memory etc. and not contradict myself. That is what most people do. I could alternatively assume rationality and accept beliefs about induction, memory etc. can’t be known with certainty, without contradiction. I could even invent a logically self-consistent set of beliefs about reality that in no way relate to my sense experiences (e.g. that nothing exists but mushrooms; that the world is just one big diplomacy game, that nothing exists at all…). There are no logical contradictions involved in these worldviews, so to you they are equally valid.

You claim my view falls down because it self- cannibalises. For this to be true my beliefs would have to lead to a contradiction, and they certainly don’t. Arguments that contain rationality as their premise and conclude that rationality is invalid are never valid arguments. I challenge you to find one. I don’t need to account for why humans are rational- I assume it. The fact that its scientific theories imply its possible rationality is flawed doesn’t matter, because unless it shows its definitely flawed, my assumption stands (also, it assumes induction/a material world, both of which aren’t rationally justified, so the theories aren’t just predicated on rationality).

You also seem to claim mine falls down because “nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions” (I take the ‘nothing’ to mean ‘nothing apart from that which is assumed’). Even if this were true, it would not make the view irrational, just not useful. If lack of utility is a problem we can just add extra assumptions (e.g. induction) to allow us to know things with certainty, but we certainly don’t need to assume God exists, or that the Bible is true, to know things.

Yet people won’t accept the made up (but self-consistent) versions of reality I mentioned above… why not? It’s because the self-consistency of a belief system isn’t good enough justification for it, as it allows for many different truths to be simultaneously true. The “way of deciding” you’ve suggested (comparing self-consistency of systems) is inadequate, because almost nothing is ruled out. In your view, nothing makes your system better than my one about mushrooms, or any other system I could dream up that wasn’t self-contradictory.

In reality, what we all do to assess systems is to compare their claims to our experiences (i.e. judge them on rational grounds). I doubt you would believe the Bible if it in no way correlated to your experiences. I will try and show on logical grounds why assuming rationality is better than assuming the Bible, then on rational grounds why assuming the Bible is unjustified.

It is a logical truth that if you assume more things to be true, then more things must be true in order for your assumption(s) to be valid. Logically then, you are demanding more to be true of the universe than I am (as my assumptions assume less). Logically then, for your assumptions to be true both my assumption must be true (my assumption is rationality) AND your extra assumptions must be true. Thus there is no logically possible situation in which your assumptions are true and mine are not, but they are many logically possible situations in which mine are true and yours are not. For that reason, I my assumptions are more likely to be true.
Rational beliefs are ones that can be justified by logic or by use of the senses. Irrational beliefs can’t be justified in this way. Assumptions that aren’t justified by logic or by the senses are therefore irrational. The Bible’s assumptions aren’t justified by logic or by the senses (if they were they wouldn’t be assumptions!!), so they are irrational beliefs.

Hence the principle you described as my assumption “we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed”, is made on the basis of rational and logical considerations, not blindly asserted. I realize you may not accept my arguments if your belief in the bible comes before your belief in logic. However, the Bible accepts logic and rationality to be true, so the fact that the two suggest it is an inferior belief system to mine (which just consists of rationality and logic), that is problematic for you.

1. Whether or not the problem of induction means all our actions is irrational is an interesting question, but I don’t think it’s relevant to this discussion: I want to focus on whether our beliefs are rational/justified.

What I will say though is the following. If my actions are irrational (I accept induction isn’t rationally justified but act as though its true), then so are yours. This is because your beliefs can’t be justified on rational grounds (something you seem to accept, by saying they must be assumed ahead of rationality) so actions stemming from those beliefs are irrational. They are rational given your beliefs, but still ultimately irrational. Belief in induction is irrational whether made is as a blind assumption, or as a consequence of a blind assumption in the Bible.

2. Your argument here is very interesting. You essentially claim to assume the bible’s truth is prior that of rationality. The Bible’s truth, in you system, logically underpins the truth of rationality. If this is true, then I don’t think I can convince you without resorting to battling out the Bible’s apparent contradictions (something I’m not willing to do), because even showing your beliefs are irrational won’t be enough. I’m extremely sceptical you actually think the Bible’s truths are more certain than that of rationality, or that of logic. I will argue as though you assume logic’s truth prior to the Bible’s truth, as you opened the door for me to find logical flaws in the Bible. If you didn’t assume logic prior to the Bible, you couldn’t even understand the Bible, or take any conclusions from it as asserting one thing wouldn’t rule our its contradiction being true (the essence of logic is it doesn’t allow contradictions). The Bible wouldn’t be able to assert the truth of logic without presupposing it (because the sentence ‘logic is true’ only implies that logic is indeed true, if logic is already true! If logic wasn’t already true, then we’d have no reason to believe A=A and so no reason to accept that logic was true). The following link explains this idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles Achilles tries to establish the logical principle, but the tortoise shows it can’t be proved unless it is already assumed. Logical truths are tautologies, so couldn’t really be false.

What I can say is that it’s clear that there are an infinite number of logically consistent belief systems that are possible. I could assume rationality, induction, memory etc. and not contradict myself. That is what most people do. I could alternatively assume rationality and accept beliefs about induction, memory etc. can’t be known with certainty, without contradiction. I could even invent a logically self-consistent set of beliefs about reality that in no way relate to my sense experiences (e.g. that nothing exists but mushrooms; that the world is just one big diplomacy game, that nothing exists at all…). There are no logical contradictions involved in these worldviews, so to you they are equally valid.

You claim my view falls down because it self- cannibalises. For this to be true my beliefs would have to lead to a contradiction, and they certainly don’t. Arguments that contain rationality as their premise and conclude that rationality is invalid are never valid arguments. I challenge you to find one. I don’t need to account for why humans are rational- I assume it. The fact that its scientific theories imply its possible rationality is flawed doesn’t matter, because unless it shows its definitely flawed, my assumption stands (also, it assumes induction/a material world, both of which aren’t rationally justified, so the theories aren’t just predicated on rationality).

You also seem to claim mine falls down because “nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions” (I take the ‘nothing’ to mean ‘nothing apart from that which is assumed’). Even if this were true, it would not make the view irrational, just not useful. If lack of utility is a problem we can just add extra assumptions (e.g. induction) to allow us to know things with certainty, but we certainly don’t need to assume God exists, or that the Bible is true, to know things.

Yet people won’t accept the made up (but self-consistent) versions of reality I mentioned above… why not? It’s because the self-consistency of a belief system isn’t good enough justification for it, as it allows for many different truths to be simultaneously true. The “way of deciding” you’ve suggested (comparing self-consistency of systems) is inadequate, because almost nothing is ruled out. In your view, nothing makes your system better than my one about mushrooms, or any other system I could dream up that wasn’t self-contradictory.

In reality, what we all do to assess systems is to compare their claims to our experiences (i.e. judge them on rational grounds). I doubt you would believe the Bible if it in no way correlated to your experiences. I will try and show on logical grounds why assuming rationality is better than assuming the Bible, then on rational grounds why assuming the Bible is unjustified.

It is a logical truth that if you assume more things to be true, then more things must be true in order for your assumption(s) to be valid. Logically then, you are demanding more to be true of the universe than I am (as my assumptions assume less). Logically then, for your assumptions to be true both my assumption must be true (my assumption is rationality) AND your extra assumptions must be true. Thus there is no logically possible situation in which your assumptions are true and mine are not, but they are many logically possible situations in which mine are true and yours are not. For that reason, I my assumptions are more likely to be true.
Rational beliefs are ones that can be justified by logic or by use of the senses. Irrational beliefs can’t be justified in this way. Assumptions that aren’t justified by logic or by the senses are therefore irrational. The Bible’s assumptions aren’t justified by logic or by the senses (if they were they wouldn’t be assumptions!!), so they are irrational beliefs.

Hence the principle you described as my assumption “we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed”, is made on the basis of rational and logical considerations, not blindly asserted. I realize you may not accept my arguments if your belief in the bible comes before your belief in logic. However, the Bible accepts logic and rationality to be true, so the fact that the two suggest it is an inferior belief system to mine (which just consists of rationality and logic), that is problematic for you.

1. Whether or not the problem of induction means all our actions is irrational is an interesting question, but I don’t think it’s relevant to this discussion: I want to focus on whether our beliefs are rational/justified.

What I will say though is the following. If my actions are irrational (I accept induction isn’t rationally justified but act as though its true), then so are yours. This is because your beliefs can’t be justified on rational grounds (something you seem to accept, by saying they must be assumed ahead of rationality) so actions stemming from those beliefs are irrational. They are rational given your beliefs, but still ultimately irrational. Belief in induction is irrational whether made is as a blind assumption, or as a consequence of a blind assumption in the Bible.

2. Your argument here is very interesting. You essentially claim to assume the bible’s truth is prior that of rationality. The Bible’s truth, in you system, logically underpins the truth of rationality. If this is true, then I don’t think I can convince you without resorting to battling out the Bible’s apparent contradictions (something I’m not willing to do), because even showing your beliefs are irrational won’t be enough. I’m extremely sceptical you actually think the Bible’s truths are more certain than that of rationality, or that of logic. I will argue as though you assume logic’s truth prior to the Bible’s truth, as you opened the door for me to find logical flaws in the Bible. If you didn’t assume logic prior to the Bible, you couldn’t even understand the Bible, or take any conclusions from it as asserting one thing wouldn’t rule our its contradiction being true (the essence of logic is it doesn’t allow contradictions). The Bible wouldn’t be able to assert the truth of logic without presupposing it (because the sentence ‘logic is true’ only implies that logic is indeed true, if logic is already true! If logic wasn’t already true, then we’d have no reason to believe A=A and so no reason to accept that logic was true). The following link explains this idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles Achilles tries to establish the logical principle, but the tortoise shows it can’t be proved unless it is already assumed. Logical truths are tautologies, so couldn’t really be false.

What I can say is that it’s clear that there are an infinite number of logically consistent belief systems that are possible. I could assume rationality, induction, memory etc. and not contradict myself. That is what most people do. I could alternatively assume rationality and accept beliefs about induction, memory etc. can’t be known with certainty, without contradiction. I could even invent a logically self-consistent set of beliefs about reality that in no way relate to my sense experiences (e.g. that nothing exists but mushrooms; that the world is just one big diplomacy game, that nothing exists at all…). There are no logical contradictions involved in these worldviews, so to you they are equally valid.

You claim my view falls down because it self- cannibalises. For this to be true my beliefs would have to lead to a contradiction, and they certainly don’t. Arguments that contain rationality as their premise and conclude that rationality is invalid are never valid arguments. I challenge you to find one. I don’t need to account for why humans are rational- I assume it. The fact that its scientific theories imply its possible rationality is flawed doesn’t matter, because unless it shows its definitely flawed, my assumption stands (also, it assumes induction/a material world, both of which aren’t rationally justified, so the theories aren’t just predicated on rationality).

You also seem to claim mine falls down because “nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions” (I take the ‘nothing’ to mean ‘nothing apart from that which is assumed’). Even if this were true, it would not make the view irrational, just not useful. If lack of utility is a problem we can just add extra assumptions (e.g. induction) to allow us to know things with certainty, but we certainly don’t need to assume God exists, or that the Bible is true, to know things.

Yet people won’t accept the made up (but self-consistent) versions of reality I mentioned above… why not? It’s because the self-consistency of a belief system isn’t good enough justification for it, as it allows for many different truths to be simultaneously true. The “way of deciding” you’ve suggested (comparing self-consistency of systems) is inadequate, because almost nothing is ruled out. In your view, nothing makes your system better than my one about mushrooms, or any other system I could dream up that wasn’t self-contradictory.

In reality, what we all do to assess systems is to compare their claims to our experiences (i.e. judge them on rational grounds). I doubt you would believe the Bible if it in no way correlated to your experiences. I will try and show on logical grounds why assuming rationality is better than assuming the Bible, then on rational grounds why assuming the Bible is unjustified.

It is a logical truth that if you assume more things to be true, then more things must be true in order for your assumption(s) to be valid. Logically then, you are demanding more to be true of the universe than I am (as my assumptions assume less). Logically then, for your assumptions to be true both my assumption must be true (my assumption is rationality) AND your extra assumptions must be true. Thus there is no logically possible situation in which your assumptions are true and mine are not, but they are many logically possible situations in which mine are true and yours are not. For that reason, I my assumptions are more likely to be true.
Rational beliefs are ones that can be justified by logic or by use of the senses. Irrational beliefs can’t be justified in this way. Assumptions that aren’t justified by logic or by the senses are therefore irrational. The Bible’s assumptions aren’t justified by logic or by the senses (if they were they wouldn’t be assumptions!!), so they are irrational beliefs.

Hence the principle you described as my assumption “we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed”, is made on the basis of rational and logical considerations, not blindly asserted. I realize you may not accept my arguments if your belief in the bible comes before your belief in logic. However, the Bible accepts logic and rationality to be true, so the fact that the two suggest it is an inferior belief system to mine (which just consists of rationality and logic), that is problematic for you.

1. Whether or not the problem of induction means all our actions is irrational is an interesting question, but I don’t think it’s relevant to this discussion: I want to focus on whether our beliefs are rational/justified.

What I will say though is the following. If my actions are irrational (I accept induction isn’t rationally justified but act as though its true), then so are yours. This is because your beliefs can’t be justified on rational grounds (something you seem to accept, by saying they must be assumed ahead of rationality) so actions stemming from those beliefs are irrational. They are rational given your beliefs, but still ultimately irrational. Belief in induction is irrational whether made is as a blind assumption, or as a consequence of a blind assumption in the Bible.

2. Your argument here is very interesting. You essentially claim to assume the bible’s truth is prior that of rationality. The Bible’s truth, in you system, logically underpins the truth of rationality. If this is true, then I don’t think I can convince you without resorting to battling out the Bible’s apparent contradictions (something I’m not willing to do), because even showing your beliefs are irrational won’t be enough. I’m extremely sceptical you actually think the Bible’s truths are more certain than that of rationality, or that of logic. I will argue as though you assume logic’s truth prior to the Bible’s truth, as you opened the door for me to find logical flaws in the Bible. If you didn’t assume logic prior to the Bible, you couldn’t even understand the Bible, or take any conclusions from it as asserting one thing wouldn’t rule our its contradiction being true (the essence of logic is it doesn’t allow contradictions). The Bible wouldn’t be able to assert the truth of logic without presupposing it (because the sentence ‘logic is true’ only implies that logic is indeed true, if logic is already true! If logic wasn’t already true, then we’d have no reason to believe A=A and so no reason to accept that logic was true). The following link explains this idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles Achilles tries to establish the logical principle, but the tortoise shows it can’t be proved unless it is already assumed. Logical truths are tautologies, so couldn’t really be false.

What I can say is that it’s clear that there are an infinite number of logically consistent belief systems that are possible. I could assume rationality, induction, memory etc. and not contradict myself. That is what most people do. I could alternatively assume rationality and accept beliefs about induction, memory etc. can’t be known with certainty, without contradiction. I could even invent a logically self-consistent set of beliefs about reality that in no way relate to my sense experiences (e.g. that nothing exists but mushrooms; that the world is just one big diplomacy game, that nothing exists at all…). There are no logical contradictions involved in these worldviews, so to you they are equally valid.

You claim my view falls down because it self- cannibalises. For this to be true my beliefs would have to lead to a contradiction, and they certainly don’t. Arguments that contain rationality as their premise and conclude that rationality is invalid are never valid arguments. I challenge you to find one. I don’t need to account for why humans are rational- I assume it. The fact that its scientific theories imply its possible rationality is flawed doesn’t matter, because unless it shows its definitely flawed, my assumption stands (also, it assumes induction/a material world, both of which aren’t rationally justified, so the theories aren’t just predicated on rationality).

You also seem to claim mine falls down because “nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions” (I take the ‘nothing’ to mean ‘nothing apart from that which is assumed’). Even if this were true, it would not make the view irrational, just not useful. If lack of utility is a problem we can just add extra assumptions (e.g. induction) to allow us to know things with certainty, but we certainly don’t need to assume God exists, or that the Bible is true, to know things.

Yet people won’t accept the made up (but self-consistent) versions of reality I mentioned above… why not? It’s because the self-consistency of a belief system isn’t good enough justification for it, as it allows for many different truths to be simultaneously true. The “way of deciding” you’ve suggested (comparing self-consistency of systems) is inadequate, because almost nothing is ruled out. In your view, nothing makes your system better than my one about mushrooms, or any other system I could dream up that wasn’t self-contradictory.

In reality, what we all do to assess systems is to compare their claims to our experiences (i.e. judge them on rational grounds). I doubt you would believe the Bible if it in no way correlated to your experiences. I will try and show on logical grounds why assuming rationality is better than assuming the Bible, then on rational grounds why assuming the Bible is unjustified.

It is a logical truth that if you assume more things to be true, then more things must be true in order for your assumption(s) to be valid. Logically then, you are demanding more to be true of the universe than I am (as my assumptions assume less). Logically then, for your assumptions to be true both my assumption must be true (my assumption is rationality) AND your extra assumptions must be true. Thus there is no logically possible situation in which your assumptions are true and mine are not, but they are many logically possible situations in which mine are true and yours are not. For that reason, I my assumptions are more likely to be true.
Rational beliefs are ones that can be justified by logic or by use of the senses. Irrational beliefs can’t be justified in this way. Assumptions that aren’t justified by logic or by the senses are therefore irrational. The Bible’s assumptions aren’t justified by logic or by the senses (if they were they wouldn’t be assumptions!!), so they are irrational beliefs.

Hence the principle you described as my assumption “we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed”, is made on the basis of rational and logical considerations, not blindly asserted. I realize you may not accept my arguments if your belief in the bible comes before your belief in logic. However, the Bible accepts logic and rationality to be true, so the fact that the two suggest it is an inferior belief system to mine (which just consists of rationality and logic), that is problematic for you.

1. Whether or not the problem of induction means all our actions is irrational is an interesting question, but I don’t think it’s relevant to this discussion: I want to focus on whether our beliefs are rational/justified.

What I will say though is the following. If my actions are irrational (I accept induction isn’t rationally justified but act as though its true), then so are yours. This is because your beliefs can’t be justified on rational grounds (something you seem to accept, by saying they must be assumed ahead of rationality) so actions stemming from those beliefs are irrational. They are rational given your beliefs, but still ultimately irrational. Belief in induction is irrational whether made is as a blind assumption, or as a consequence of a blind assumption in the Bible.

2. Your argument here is very interesting. You essentially claim to assume the bible’s truth is prior that of rationality. The Bible’s truth, in you system, logically underpins the truth of rationality. If this is true, then I don’t think I can convince you without resorting to battling out the Bible’s apparent contradictions (something I’m not willing to do), because even showing your beliefs are irrational won’t be enough. I’m extremely sceptical you actually think the Bible’s truths are more certain than that of rationality, or that of logic. I will argue as though you assume logic’s truth prior to the Bible’s truth, as you opened the door for me to find logical flaws in the Bible. If you didn’t assume logic prior to the Bible, you couldn’t even understand the Bible, or take any conclusions from it as asserting one thing wouldn’t rule our its contradiction being true (the essence of logic is it doesn’t allow contradictions). The Bible wouldn’t be able to assert the truth of logic without presupposing it (because the sentence ‘logic is true’ only implies that logic is indeed true, if logic is already true! If logic wasn’t already true, then we’d have no reason to believe A=A and so no reason to accept that logic was true). The following link explains this idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles Achilles tries to establish the logical principle, but the tortoise shows it can’t be proved unless it is already assumed. Logical truths are tautologies, so couldn’t really be false.

What I can say is that it’s clear that there are an infinite number of logically consistent belief systems that are possible. I could assume rationality, induction, memory etc. and not contradict myself. That is what most people do. I could alternatively assume rationality and accept beliefs about induction, memory etc. can’t be known with certainty, without contradiction. I could even invent a logically self-consistent set of beliefs about reality that in no way relate to my sense experiences (e.g. that nothing exists but mushrooms; that the world is just one big diplomacy game, that nothing exists at all…). There are no logical contradictions involved in these worldviews, so to you they are equally valid.

You claim my view falls down because it self- cannibalises. For this to be true my beliefs would have to lead to a contradiction, and they certainly don’t. Arguments that contain rationality as their premise and conclude that rationality is invalid are never valid arguments. I challenge you to find one. I don’t need to account for why humans are rational- I assume it. The fact that its scientific theories imply its possible rationality is flawed doesn’t matter, because unless it shows its definitely flawed, my assumption stands (also, it assumes induction/a material world, both of which aren’t rationally justified, so the theories aren’t just predicated on rationality).

You also seem to claim mine falls down because “nothing at all is knowable on your assumptions” (I take the ‘nothing’ to mean ‘nothing apart from that which is assumed’). Even if this were true, it would not make the view irrational, just not useful. If lack of utility is a problem we can just add extra assumptions (e.g. induction) to allow us to know things with certainty, but we certainly don’t need to assume God exists, or that the Bible is true, to know things.

Yet people won’t accept the made up (but self-consistent) versions of reality I mentioned above… why not? It’s because the self-consistency of a belief system isn’t good enough justification for it, as it allows for many different truths to be simultaneously true. The “way of deciding” you’ve suggested (comparing self-consistency of systems) is inadequate, because almost nothing is ruled out. In your view, nothing makes your system better than my one about mushrooms, or any other system I could dream up that wasn’t self-contradictory.

In reality, what we all do to assess systems is to compare their claims to our experiences (i.e. judge them on rational grounds). I doubt you would believe the Bible if it in no way correlated to your experiences. I will try and show on logical grounds why assuming rationality is better than assuming the Bible, then on rational grounds why assuming the Bible is unjustified.

It is a logical truth that if you assume more things to be true, then more things must be true in order for your assumption(s) to be valid. Logically then, you are demanding more to be true of the universe than I am (as my assumptions assume less). Logically then, for your assumptions to be true both my assumption must be true (my assumption is rationality) AND your extra assumptions must be true. Thus there is no logically possible situation in which your assumptions are true and mine are not, but they are many logically possible situations in which mine are true and yours are not. For that reason, I my assumptions are more likely to be true.
Rational beliefs are ones that can be justified by logic or by use of the senses. Irrational beliefs can’t be justified in this way. Assumptions that aren’t justified by logic or by the senses are therefore irrational. The Bible’s assumptions aren’t justified by logic or by the senses (if they were they wouldn’t be assumptions!!), so they are irrational beliefs.

Hence the principle you described as my assumption “we should minimize unnecessary assumptions, and just include the bare few ones that are needed”, is made on the basis of rational and logical considerations, not blindly asserted. I realize you may not accept my arguments if your belief in the bible comes before your belief in logic. However, the Bible accepts logic and rationality to be true, so the fact that the two suggest it is an inferior belief system to mine (which just consists of rationality and logic), that is problematic for you.

Yes, chaos was a word in the english language before physicists managed to define it, and bring some understanding to what kind of regular simple laws can generate chaotic systems.

In some sense you might try to hold onto a philosophical/meta-physical idea of chaos, but that kind of mental construct may not exist in the universe we observe.

I think we've been over the 'regularity of nature' more than once, and your view remains to be premised on the assumption of a regular God (that is, a God which based on your definition implies a regular Universe) thus you have a perfectly self-consistant model/worldview... That said, you have for some reason rejected ever other religion a priori, atheistic to their self-consistant beliefs...

a further thought...
The existence and indeed the central importance in the universe of *seemingly* irrational physics and mathematics, to me, argues that we cannot reasonably expect our universe to make rational sense *to us* - at least at our current level of understanding and perhaps brain capacity. This again does not mean it is ultimately irrational... only that certain aspects are necessarily alien to our perceptions born out of our middle-world perspective. By "middle-world" I mean Richard Dawkins' use of the phrase... where our perspective is distorted by the fact that we do not directly perceive either the very tiny (atoms and quanta) or very large (galaxies and black holes) nor do we perceive the very fast (ultrasonic, ultraviolet, etc.) or the very slow (subsonic, infrared, etc.). We are creatures of a middle world - where our senses have been tuned by evolution to perceive what is useful for our survival - and nothing more. I think I said something on this concept already here or in the previous thread...

Anyway... e, the natural log, is an irrational number, pi is an irrational number, i (the square root of -1) though called an imaginary number - has many uses... there is an amazing equation that pretty much sums up for me how: 1) the laws of the universe appear to tie together and make some grand pattern, 2) this pattern is beyond our comprehension in some very key ways. Anyway, the equation I'm referring to is called Euler's identity. It goes like this:
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0
Therein you have a concise and elegant (though hardly comprehensible) showing of the relationship between some of the most important numbers out there...

In light of equations such as this as well as the bizarre (but utterly self-consistent and mathematically based and evidence based) world of quantum physics, I am completely comfortable concluding that though I cannot make "common sense" sense of such things, that never the less, these things reflect reality and make some deeper sense that is beyond my limited Earth-bound middle world ability to relate to in the same way that I relate to basic Newtonian physics or 2+2=4. Further - because I already see that the universe is that complex and strange and not at all human based, I find the simple cut and dried and very culturally-bound anthropocentric Christian view to be wholly unsatisfying... Said another way, once I've grown outside of the box, there isn't any way I'm going to fit myself back into that box.

...OR you could just ask God if he exists.

its not this complicated
i was born an atheist
i remain an atheist

I'd also like to write a long response, but I'm not yet decided whether I'm too lazy or that I don't care enough. In my opinion, there are several questions that need to be answered: Do you want proof of His existence?
If the answer's no: keep believing, you good at it! If the answer's yes, what evidence will prove His existence to you?
As most opponents of religion consider the proof of His existence (or that of any other deity) is weak, most religious people don't need proof and think of it as questioning their God.

if god exists,nice,ill thank him for this great life when ill meet him/her/it
if not ,ok
does it really make any diference to our daily life?
what is the rigth path to live my life in that case?
so many religions offering diferent ways to thank,worship,sacrifice,think,eat.
are they all rigth? are they all wrong? how do i choose?