Why accept consensus as reality?

Faith & Science Conversation
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It seems to me that either you are directed to a certain conclusion regardless of evidence or we’re not communicating somehow.

I previously said that “I do gather with believers in various small groups of various denominations or more open home gatherings where we can share with each other.”
So I’m at a loss to consider what you think my “church” is that believes a certain thing to be true much less to do so based on consensus. Perhaps you can clarify what in my experience you think is doing so.

Well for each of my groups we have to agree on a time a place (or zoom) to meet. So that is a consensus. But that is a category error from anything I said in my OP. My issue is with determining truth based on consensus. If something is true in the natural world it should be based on the evidence and logic. It should not be based on naturalism as I’ve detailed and noted in several of my replies here.

Sorry, I just don’t even get what you’re trying to say.

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It the same doc. So it is a good one. The RTB group did post is as written by a Guest Writer.

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So you are not freethinking enough to answer a few questions? You have to imagine and project a mysterious conclusions and thoughts onto me in order to avoid answering them?

Any lawyer, religion, and used car salesman can find logic and evidence to support whatever conclusion they want you to believe. What makes science different is that they test their hypotheses and provide procedures anyone can follow to get the same results no matter what the person wants or believes.

So you don’t understand how this makes science different than the rhetoric of a lawyer or pastor?

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You like to tell me what I am saying; however, it does not follow from what I have said.

Your extrapolated conclusions are neither mysterious nor grounded in reality. And you have no reply on why you imagine I am accepting what my “church” says? I don’t even know how to apply your claim to the reality I am living. What do you think my church is?

Are you just trying to demonstrate the need for a “consensus” in order to have a discussion? Because you are not making sense.

Explain your false claim that I am following the consensus of my “church” as a means to determine truth. Give any example of what you think I accept as a consensus of my “church”. I an totally unaware of what that would be.

To the actual matter at hand on science: No, if one claims a notion as scientific evidence based on a belief system such as naturalism (even with a “scientific consensus”) it is no different than the rhetoric of any other religion. In fact to consider it scientific is worse than any person expressing their beliefs as beliefs.

If you continue to retort without substance to discuss I’ll eventually just a stop trying to communicate with a wall.

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We should talk some time. My history in IT was being “Agile” before it was a thing and so happy to see the Agile Manifesto as something I’d been saying based on my experience in developing systems.

But I can just imagine how the onerousness of the the waterfall was applied without any consideration of what was being produced is now being replaced with an onerousness of agile for the the very same reasons.

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No… I asked you questions which you still haven’t answered.

I asked for examples of how you think differently and you gave none. I am not forming conclusion from this. I just continue to wait for answers… perhaps with a little frustration and impatience… but all that is easily dispensed with by answer the question.

I made no such claim. I simply asked you for examples of how you think differently. The point wasn’t to claim you had none but to hear what they were. But, without an answer to this question your claims for free thinking are empty words. You claim to care about logic and evidence. Shouldn’t I expect evidence for your claims about yourself?

If you ask me questions, I will answer them. The discussion goes nowhere so far because I asked questions and you do not answer them.

Shall I demonstrate with myself? I definitely think differently on a great many things. I come to many of the same conclusions as other Christians but often my reasons are completely different. Here are the reasons I believe. Here is why I like Christianity. So I am Trinitarian and not universalist, but I disagree with some of the common ideas of western Christianity like on atonement and ideas about God.

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Eternity is the simplest, most parsimonious extrapolation. That means an infinity of universes from eternity, by Kolmogorov - not my - complexity. All with the same utterly deterministic constants. Nature - not God - oms in the self tuned keys or harmonics of c, e, G and h. Everywhere. The alternative is complete absurdity out of the mouth of madness. Lovecraftian. You’re in good company, many postmoderns can’t do eternity. And they’re right ultimately not to do too much parsimony, rationality, which does not explain the brute fact evidence of the accelerating expansion of spacetime driven by negentropic dark energy. Our feeble brains will never understand that absolute truth. They can’t even come up with social justice.

The absolute fact of the multiverse gives us four levels of nine types. Some more absurd than others. Which is why I favour 11D brane collisions in ergodicity. Quilted, inflationary, brane, cyclic or landscape feel more rational than quantum (many-worlds), holographic or simulated.

One consensus I disagree with as it is as imparsimonious (my word) as many-worlds, is that for reasons I have never been able to obtain, the relativity of simultaneity requires the block universe B-theory of time. What do you think?

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You have made some pretty tall claims. Why can’t you tell us who you are? What kind of scientist are you? In what peer-reviewed scientific journals have you published?

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Do you know about Mein Kampf?

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What, as great as Jenner or Pasteur or Banting or Fleming?

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Hmmm.
Hard to word my doubts appropriately.

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And @Klax , this round and round and unvetted pet book references felt familiar.

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Ah. Now I see the miscommunication.

I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s not a glib statement. I read what Jesus says and try to do that.

I have no “church” to conform to. So I cannot tell you how I differ from this non-existent entity.

I do meet with other members of the body of Christ because God speaks though His people. But I test all things that I hear from everyone. I test it by the teachings of Jesus Christ.

There are many things I don’t agree with in the church I was in from 9-24 years of age. And the church I attended from then until about 40. Even when there I could see that there are areas that are not the teachings of Christ. And these areas often couldn’t be questioned. I don’t have those areas myself.

Jesus told the Pharisees (quoting Isaiah) that their lips were close to God but that their hearts were far from him. That their worship of God was empty because they taught teachings of man as the commands of God. That is such a strong saying of Jesus that, sadly, we believers fail to take to heart. The norm is to ignore Jesus words and teach our own extrapolations as the commands of God. We think our denomination “distinctives” are God’s commands. We have no fear of having hearts far from God by teaching man’s commands as the commands of God.
There are things I feel very strongly about such as NOT being a pacifist. I think it is wrong and evil to not defend others (especially your own family) from an evildoer set out to harm them. When one young man I met with started sharing his ideas supporting pacifism I expressed my thoughts also. Another woman who knew me well asked me “Is that what Jesus says?” I replied “No”.
I can share what I think is right and why I think this extrapolation is a teaching of Jesus Christ. But I cannot claim my extrapolation IS the teaching of God.
When we say what Jesus says we are establishing his Lordship. When we say our own extrapolations as the teaching of Christ we are usurping his Lordship. Jesus told his followers that all authority has been given to him. We (or the apostles) are teach what he said with all authority. We can share our extrapolations with whatever fervor we have but must make the distinction of these doubtful things and recognize our brothers and sisters are NOT our servants but Christ’s.

I know this does not fit the type of answer you are looking for. But I do not have nor accept the concept of “church” you seem to expect of me.

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Surely a member of the National Academy of Sciences!

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Like what? Ok you have mentioned pacifism. Anything else?

I liked the idea of pacifism when I was a child and it had nothing to do with Christianity but more to do with my extremely liberal upbringing. I grew out of the pacifism though I would never take this extreme judgmental stance to say that pacifists are evil as you have done. People are entitled to their own personal morality like vegetarianism and I see more evil in people trying to force their personal moral choices on other people with judgements like that than for the personal moral choices they make. I am not vegetarian, but have some personal moral choices like that.

So what are some of these things you think “Jesus says” and what are some of these “extrapolations” you believe in?

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My initial reaction to the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) was in response to how it was presented as needed because it is infinite. The idea that anything infinite must include everything. This is clearly false. Not only is the number system infinite on the integers but there are an infinite set of fractions between each one (or any two points within it). So we can have an infinite set of nonoverlapping infinities.
To suggest it based on the physics I haven’t given much thought to. I’m more of a minimalist on what we know even though I enjoy considering various notions on what we do not. My wild guess would be that we still don’t get the quantum world and that none of the proposed means to have it make sense are right. We may never understand it…or we may if we keep trying.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
and it is the glory of a king to search out a matter.

And we live in an age where many can reach the place of a king in not having to give so much of our time to have the food we need to live. So we have more time to search out a matter. And an internet. :slight_smile:

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Where are you getting that from? That is no part of Everett’s many worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

That is incorrect. I can easily demonstrate that infinite sets to not include everything.

Sorry… I am a physicist so great distortions of math and physics will get me to speak up against this.

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Just wondering, what are your thoughts on the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser? Have you seen the actual evidence from such an experiment.
Sabine H. states the evidence is not what was what was described by others.
Obviously I am just a dabbler in these things.

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I haven’t been following this discussion and TJO’s thread closely, but FYI (and his/her?) interest I’m also a scientist with a google-H-index of 40. The thing is, H-indices, as a measure, have their own assumptions and biases and are not very comparable across different fields of science, so to flaunt an “h-index” as something globally meaningful per se is not especially useful. Yes…it means you’ve published some stuff which is great.

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I consider pacifism to be evil if one fails to protect his family during a violent incident against them. We must stand up for one being so wronged and defend them from someone breaking the law and harming them.

I mentioned pacifism as something where I stand against myself in wanting to claim that it is Jesus teaching when it is an extrapolation of it. I’m not going to then accept anyone else’s extrapolation either.

I read the accounts of Christ and know that many gave their lives because they saw Christ alive after his crucifixion and death. Many people die for something they believe to be true even though it is not. But it improbable that someone would give their life for something they know to be false. Seeing a risen Christ was not simply a matter of belief to the many who saw him.

So accepting that Jesus is who he said he was and showed it by his resurrection, I look to his teachings.
Nothing is out of bounds including the notion of the trinity. Jesus clearly taught about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But to define God above what he revealed is foolish. The “required” trinity notion goes beyond what Jesus taught, is divisive, and is a usurpation of the Lordship of Christ. It is also used to wrongly judge others.
To say A=B and B=C but A!=C is also silly. I mean maybe that’s how God is but that’s not anything he revealed.
That Jesus is God and that Jesus is man are both said in the accounts of his life, death, and resurrection. I don’t play the 100% numbers game (100% man and 100% God) which makes Jesus a 200% person. Also there are ways he was a man which are unlike God and ways he was God which are unlike man. It is also clear that the Jesus is submissive to the Father and will be so eternally and that Jesus said his Father is greater than he is. My answer is I don’t know and we’re not deciding who God is for him. I worship the God who is even if I don’t understand how his revelation all works together.

Accepting Jesus teachings means I accept the Old Testament as God’s word and as it testifies about him but the law and the prophets has been filled up in doing to others as you would have them do to you. Also Jesus said that part of the OT law was there because of the hardness of the people’s heart. So his law given was adjusted based on what they were able to accept.
Jesus also said he would send scribes and prophets so I also give credence to the writings of his eye witness followers and those accepted by them.
I don’t see any notion of a “canon” as if God is finished speaking. I do see Jesus clearly stating he is the one teacher and we’re just brothers and sisters. But the notion of Sola Scriptura as if God only speaks through the Bible is self contradictory teaching of man because no verse says it is only scripture. The scriptures are filled with God speaking though his son, other physical appearances, visions, dreams, a burning bush, signs, writing in stone, etc. To try to say God can now only speak through the written word is just plain silly.

I don’t see any support for the protestant pastor or catholic bishop in the scriptures. We are to gather as gifted believers where we encourage each other to love and good works. We should gather around one man but that man is Christ not some other religious leader.

I am explaining how I start and then build up from there to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve mentioned a few “consensus teachings” I reject because it is not Jesus teachings but man’s. But I’m sure there are many as a consensus is not even a part of my consideration of Jesus teachings. Although I do give weight to the history on the writings and their acceptance. But that is a historical consideration.

I do enjoy listening to Michael Heiser, a scholar and historian of OT and Second Temple period. He relays information on various topics form other scholars who have studied it. And from reading the literature of the people at the time it is quite enlightening to see how the people it was written to understood things. But I also like to check on the original sources he mentions also.
His naked bible podcast website is quite informative including the understanding during Jesus times by some Jews about the Two Powers of Yahweh. He talks of it here Naked Bible 433: The Epistle of Jude Part 2 | The Naked Bible Podcast