# Christianity Simplified Though LOGIC ! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842 "2005-08-06T03:06:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/121 "2005-08-10T08:43:43Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > Knock all the pieces off the table and concentrate. Whenever you find what is right, show it to me. Very well, friend, let us start over. If I can prove to you that the curvature of spacetime at the centre of the volume is independent of the entropy or information of the volume, would you be convinced? Since the other thread wasn’t much help, and since it is for someone who I respect so much, I’m prepared to wade through the required maths myself if necessary. However, I would need a clear idea of what would constitute success, and I might well have to defer such an endeavour due to an imminent dramatic change in my life. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/122 "2005-08-10T11:15:23Z")
> [@Dio](#): > > Lib is trying to base his entire argument around his opinion that “only God is holy” and that therefore Psalm 16:10 can only refer to Jesus. Maybe aiming at this key portion of your post will clear things up, because that isn’t the basis of my argument. That’s the basis of the argument of the Chrisitan Church — and lord knows, I’m a renegade. No, the basis of my argument is that no one person, least of all you or I, enjoys a position of authority over how others must interpret any of a number of things that you constantly and consistently present as The One And Only Definitive View (patent pending). In this thread, for example, your opening salvo, which I challenged, was this declaration: “All of the gospel accounts were written by non-witnesses long after the fact.” I explained that no one knows when they were written, that all we have are _copies_. No one knows who wrote them. And the phrase “long after the fact” is not necessarily appropriate given the zeitgeist of the time and the nature of premature reporting. You should have said, “Some scholars say that all of the gospel accounts…” Or, “It can be argued that…” Or, “As I see it…” But no. As always, it was (to paraphrase), “Here’s what you would know were you privvy to the Objective Truth in the same way that I am.” Psalms 16:10 wasn’t even an issue, but merely an illustration of how different people interpret texts. The reason there is a Christian faith and a Jewish faith is that people interpret passages like that differently. It is not the case that one interpretation is superior, more scholarly, or more definitive than another. History and experience show that your underlying premise — that if only people would apply a sensible interpretation, they would all agree with you — is fundamentally flawed. There is no objective interpretation of a writer’s intent. Even the writer’s interpretation of his own intent is subjective. You keep citing the tendentiousness of interpretations that differ from your own. I submit that your own interpretation is itself tendentious, as your tendency is to consider the whole case a myth, and therefore to interpret with a bias of atheism. And speaking of tendentious, it is perhaps interesting that what I keep saying is the point of my argument is the very thing that you keep side-stepping and have not addressed: namely, who are you to make these categorical declarations of objective interpretation? What qualifies you? Were you there when the text was written? Inside the minds of the men? Did they leave you private notes? Yes, I know that you believe that if we all look at it just the right way, we’ll draw the proper inferences. That one view is baseless, while another is justifiable. So please don’t repeat that — again. That’s not the question. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/123 "2005-08-10T11:21:49Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Very well, friend, let us start over. If I can prove to you that the curvature of spacetime at the centre of the volume is independent of the entropy or information of the volume, would you be convinced? > > Since the other thread wasn’t much help, and since it is for someone who I respect so much, I’m prepared to wade through the required maths myself if necessary. However, I would need a clear idea of what would constitute success, and I might well have to defer such an endeavour due to an imminent dramatic change in my life. Show that: 1. Not all of the information that enters a black hole escapes. And/Or 1. Entropy ceases to increase inside a black hole. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/124 "2005-08-10T11:25:42Z")
And if all information _did_ eventually escape and entropy _does_ continue to increase until total evaporation, this would prove that the curvature of spacetime at the centre could not be infinite because …? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/125 "2005-08-10T11:28:13Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > You should have said, “Some scholars say that all of the gospel accounts…” This again suggests that all opinions on the matter should be given equal consideration. Would you have objected if he had said “Most reputable scholars say that…” or even “Most scholars say…”, or _must_ we treat all opinions on the matter equally? This makes a mockery of the many years of dedication and study that the most learned have dedicated towards the understanding of history, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/126 "2005-08-10T11:36:35Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > In what way? In the way that they chose the phrase “Holy One”. Their choice reveals their interpretation. > [@](#): > > I would have to say I think the evidence points to Dio’s interpertation being the more likely one but I understand the thrust of your objection. Just because\* most \* agree doesn’t make it a certainty. Certainly. But it is also true that just because _most_ passages select a phrase like “saintly” over “holy”, that the lesser used is not appropriate where it is used. Suppose, for example, that we were having a discussion about physics, and we use the word “force” 16 times in the context of mass times acceleration. But suppose that the discussion meanders as discussions often do, and on 2 occasions, I mention the “force” of law. On 1 occasion, you mention a “force” play from a baseball game. And at the end, you say, “The force be with you.” Is it necessarily reasonable to conclude that, because we used “force” in a certain sense the majority of the time, that we must have meant a legal theory of motion, or the mass and acceleration of first base, or an imaginary entity composed of molecules and subject to the effects of gravity? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/127 "2005-08-10T11:41:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would you have objected if he had said “Most reputable scholars say that…” or even “Most scholars say…”, or _must_ we treat all opinions on the matter equally? This makes a mockery of the many years of dedication and study that the most learned have dedicated towards the understanding of history, IMHO. If most scholars say it, then _say_ that most scholars say it. But you’d better be prepared with a list of all scholars and their opinions. Merely a reference to some other guy who also says that most scholars say it is not enough. You must also be prepared to concede that opposing scholars are not wrong merely by virtue of their fewer numbers. Otherwise, Judaism and Islam are invalidated right out of the gate. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/128 "2005-08-10T11:41:58Z")
I guess that if you had said “force of law”, most people would understand that you meant something different that the original use of “force”, but if you had just used the word “force” without the defining words"…of law" it _might_ just confuse others, right? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/129 "2005-08-10T11:44:17Z")
Actually, **Lib** , reading through the last couple of pages, I suspect I find the assumption you make but I (or distracting others) do not: that singularities destroy information _by definition_. I think we might be applying different meanings to the word ‘destroy’. Does burning an encyclopedia _destroy_ the information within it? No. It just makes it _practically_ impossible to retrieve. Similarly, the inner volume of a black hole (including the point of infinite curvature) may only _scramble_ the information rather than ‘destroy’ it in the manner you alluded to when you mentioned other universes. Would you say that _this_ was your vital link between information/entropy and the existence of a singularity? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/130 "2005-08-10T11:44:27Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > If most scholars say it, then _say_ that most scholars say it. But you’d better be prepared with a list of all scholars and their opinions. Merely a reference to some other guy who also says that most scholars say it is not enough. You must also be prepared to concede that opposing scholars are not wrong merely by virtue of their fewer numbers. Otherwise, Judaism and Islam are invalidated right out of the gate. You have _got_ to be kidding, right? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/131 "2005-08-10T11:49:33Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > And if all information _did_ eventually escape and entropy _does_ continue to increase until total evaporation, this would prove that the curvature of spacetime at the centre could not be infinite because …? Because otherwise, that would be the point where information is irretrievable (it is not even defined) and where laws of physics are not the same as elsewhere (entropy equations fail). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/132 "2005-08-10T12:05:05Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Actually, **Lib** , reading through the last couple of pages, I suspect I find the assumption you make but I (or distracting others) do not: that singularities destroy information _by definition_. > > I think we might be applying different meanings to the word ‘destroy’. Does burning an encyclopedia _destroy_ the information within it? No. It just makes it _practically_ impossible to retrieve. Similarly, the inner volume of a black hole (including the point of infinite curvature) may only _scramble_ the information rather than ‘destroy’ it in the manner you alluded to when you mentioned other universes. > > Would you say that _this_ was your vital link between information/entropy and the existence of a singularity? It isn’t a matter of it being scrambled, but of it not coming back out. Your dictionary analogy would apply if the burning process made the dictionary forever inaccessible. It would be like having a set of numbers (like the integers, the reals, and so on) in which a number is missing, and there is no way of extrapolating what it might be. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/133 "2005-08-10T12:06:47Z")
Also, Sentient, I think that one point I made a couple of times keeps getting lost in all this. Just because the central point of a black hole might not be a strict singularity does not mean that it isn’t really really really dense. Just not infinitely so. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/134 "2005-08-10T12:09:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I guess that if you had said “force of law”, most people would understand that you meant something different that the original use of “force”, but if you had just used the word “force” without the defining words"…of law" it _might_ just confuse others, right? Sure. And as has already been pointed out, the Church believes that David’s reference to not being allowed to rot in a grave excludes him as he is in fact rotting in a grave. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/135 "2005-08-10T12:35:43Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > It isn’t a matter of it being scrambled, but of it not coming back out. But it _does_ (according to the speculation you cited) come back out. _Scrambled_. That is what the speculation is _about_: whether the volume in the event horizon **including** the point of infinite curvature merely scrambles the information. > [@](#): > > Your dictionary analogy would apply if the burning process made the dictionary forever inaccessible. I am _agreeing_ that information might not be lost. You are still, for some reason, saying that the singularity **must** lose information, even if it is only an infinitessimal point in that volume. How much information _can_ be lost in an infinitessimal, exactly? Are we to argue whether an infinitessimal loss is or is not equal to zero loss? I think I would forego such an angelically pinheaded pursuit. > [@](#): > > Just because the central point of a black hole might not be a strict singularity does not mean that it isn’t really really really dense. Just not infinitely so. Everything I have read on the subject, and everything that continues to be written, states that the formation of a black hole results in a cetral singularity. If you are proposing a non-zero outward force which prevents absolute collapse, good luck. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/136 "2005-08-10T12:47:12Z")
**SentientMeat** , why are you and **Lib** continuing to hijack this thread with the singularity stuff when you already went ahead and made separate thread for it? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/137 "2005-08-10T12:55:51Z")
OK, **Rev** , I’ll leave **Lib** the last word here and close the discussion (although, if I may say, this plane left its flightpath almost immediately after take-off) - I’ll pick it up again next time the same claim pops up. (That other thread was strictly seeking factual answers from those more expert than us two.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/138 "2005-08-10T14:10:41Z")
Angelically pinheaded. I really have nothing to say. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/139 "2005-08-10T14:50:24Z")
I have no idea what any of you are talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842/140 "2005-08-10T15:48:18Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Maybe aiming at this key portion of your post will clear things up, because that isn’t the basis of my argument. That’s the basis of the argument of the Chrisitan Church — and lord knows, I’m a renegade. Well then the Christian church is wrong. Like I said, a lot of the stuff that Christians- including some of the authors of the NT- try to cite as prophecies for Jesus actually has no Messianic or prophetic intent at all in context. That’s a fact, not an opinion. > [@](#): > > No, the basis of my argument is that no one person, least of all you or I, enjoys a position of authority over how others must interpret any of a number of things that you constantly and consistently present as The One And Only Definitive View (patent pending). We can tell some things about the intent of the authors. We can tell some things about the context of frequently cited verses. We can _tell_ if a cited text is a Messianic prophecy or if it’s something else. Genre and context _mean_ something. The _prima facie_ meaning of the text _means_ something. In the case of Psalms 16, I’m not even trying to interpret it. I’m just pointing out what it _doesn’t_ say. A reading of a predictive Messianic prophecy of Jesus is simply not warranted by the text. There is nothing arrogant in my pointing that out. > [@](#): > > In this thread, for example, your opening salvo, which I challenged, was this declaration: > > “All of the gospel accounts were written by non-witnesses long after the fact.” > > I explained that no one knows when they were written, that all we have are _copies_. No one knows who wrote them. And the phrase “long after the fact” is not necessarily appropriate given the zeitgeist of the time and the nature of premature reporting. We don’t know who wrote them but we can tell some things _about_ who wrote them and one of those things is that they were not written by witnesses. They do not even _claim_ to have been written by witnesses. As to “long after the fact,” my point was that they were written too long after the fact to have been credibly been written by witnesses (and that is far from the _only_ reason to rule out eywitness authorship but it’s one). Whether that makes them necessarily inaccurate history is a separate argument from whether they were written by _witnesses_, which was all I was arguing against. > [@](#): > > You should have said, “Some scholars say that all of the gospel accounts…” It’s a lot more than “some.” It’s pretty much a matter of settled fact. Hold outs for traditional authorship of the Gospels do not exist anymore in mainstream NT scholarship but only among religious conservatives who argue from faith rather than methodology. > [@](#): > > Or, “It can be argued that…” > > Or, “As I see it…” > > But no. As always, it was (to paraphrase), “Here’s what you would know were you privvy to the Objective Truth in the same way that I am.” I’m not “privy” to anything. I’m just telling you what the facts are. Sorry you don’t like them. I see no need to qualify myself so as to avoid the possibility that I may contradict somebody’s religious beliefs. If I’m talking about the age of the earth, should I say that “some scholars believe…?” Can I say that there was no global flood or do I have to say that “some geologists believe” there was no global flood? Authorship of the Gospels is on the same level. There is no controversy among NT scholars or historians about whether they are really eyewitness accounts. They are not. > [@](#): > > Psalms 16:10 wasn’t even an issue, but merely an illustration of how different people interpret texts. The reason there is a Christian faith and a Jewish faith is that people interpret passages like that differently. It is not the case that one interpretation is superior, more scholarly, or more definitive than another. And all I’m talking about is what the _author_ intended to say. The _author_ clearly had no Messianic intent. No all surmises about an author’s intent have equal pluasibility, you know. > [@](#): > > History and experience show that your underlying premise — that if only people would apply a sensible interpretation, they would all agree with you — is fundamentally flawed. There is no objective interpretation of a writer’s intent. Even the writer’s interpretation of his own intent is subjective. You _can_ say somethings about what an author did NOT intend to say. And that’s what i’m doing. > [@](#): > > You keep citing the tendentiousness of interpretations that differ from your own. I submit that your own interpretation is itself tendentious, as your tendency is to consider the whole case a myth, and therefore to interpret with a bias of atheism. I haven’t made an interpretation. I’ve only pointed out that yours is groundless. > [@](#): > > And speaking of tendentious, it is perhaps interesting that what I keep saying is the point of my argument is the very thing that you keep side-stepping and have not addressed: namely, who are you to make these categorical declarations of objective interpretation? Who do I _have_ to be? > [@](#): > > What qualifies you? I’m not attempting to speak from authority. I haven’t declared that you should believe me because I say so. I’ve given detailed explanations for my position. I’ve said nothing that requires “qualifications.” > [@](#): > > Were you there when the text was written? Inside the minds of the men? Did they leave you private notes? Yes, I know that you believe that if we all look at it just the right way, we’ll draw the proper inferences. That one view is baseless, while another is justifiable. So please don’t repeat that — again. That’s not the question. Please. You can’t possibly believe you’re actually making a point with this. Why would I have to be there when it was written or be inside the author’s mind to be able to tell that it says nothing about the Messiah? I can also tell that it says nothing about the Red Sox. You’re the only making assertions about what the text has to _mean_. I’m not commenting on what it _means_, I’m commenting on what it _says_ (and doesn’t say). There’s a difference. > [@](#): > > Sure. And as has already been pointed out, the Church believes that David’s reference to not being allowed to rot in a grave excludes him as he is in fact rotting in a grave. 1. David did not write the Psalms. They are mostly post-exilic. There is doubt these days about whether David even existed. Go ahead and call me arrogant for saying that, but, as with the traditional authorship of the gospels, Davidic authorship for the Psalms is purely legendary and not supportable by any objective evidence. 2. Even if (for the sake of argument) David did write Psalm 16, he was talking about the Jewish belief in a resurrection of the dead on judgement day, not immediately upon death, so there is no reason he should have expected to be raised from the dead yet. 3. Why couldn’t he just be _wrong_? Lots of stuff in the Bible is factually wrong. What does that have to do with divining authorial intent? Where did you get the idea that if an author is wrong about something that he must not have intended to say it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christianity-simplified-though-logic/315842.md?page=8)