tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post1841067880281821356..comments2024-03-18T03:57:46.934-05:00Comments on Theological Data Mining: Data Sources: Which Books Belong in the Bible?Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-71621475923692946872014-07-10T20:36:35.986-05:002014-07-10T20:36:35.986-05:00Thanks very much Roger!! I totally agree about the...Thanks very much Roger!! I totally agree about the inconsistent standards. And I love your surface analysis analogy. It fits very well in so many ways. I'll add that I'd much rather have ten slightly different analyses than ten that are identical in every way, especially if I'm making a probabilistic forecast.Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-48711865758820502912014-07-09T23:29:38.573-05:002014-07-09T23:29:38.573-05:00Matt,
In reading your latest entry, the analogy o...Matt,<br /><br />In reading your latest entry, the analogy of the subjective map analysis kept coming to mind. Thanks in large part to your BLOG, I understand how accounts, parables and events in the Bible (whichever books you wish to examine) can be treated as data subject to probabilistic scrutiny. The same goes with a meteorological surface map, which contains a lot of explicit integers (temp, dew point, MSLP, change fields) and estimated numbers (wind barbs and direction to the nearest 5 kt and 5 or 10 deg respectively)--but unlike the Bible, no parables or commandments. :-) <br /><br />Compared to something as vast as the Bible, a surface map is ridiculously simple. Nonetheless, I can offer ten duplicates of a Great Plains surface chart to ten highly experienced, knowledgeable researchers and forecasters for analysis, ask them to analyze temp, pressure, dew point, and boundaries (fronts, drylines, outflows, etc.), and essentially guarantee you that results will differ, sometimes in major ways. No two will look precisely the same, with all features in identical positions. Cold, hard numbers--and still only loosely similar subjective analyses! Yet if all or most of those analyses show a cold front or dryline in a particular region, minor placement differences aside, we can be quite confident that it is bonafide. Given that, it amazes me that there can be as much general agreement as there is regarding large parts of the Bible: many hundreds of pages of literature where underlying numbers and sequences are abundant but so are parables, riddles, gaps, (apparent) contradictions and translational differences. <br /><br />In short, one of the most hackneyed arguments God-deniers like to make about the Bible--that those uncertainties, missing pieces, apparent errors, and mysteries must somehow nullify the God behind it, can be used to throw out surface analyses as a valid means of diagnosing and understanding part of the atmosphere. I think not. I'll keep analyzing those surface and upper-air charts and examining the Bible, to understand better (if never perfectly) the atmosphere's diagnostic state and God's ways, respectively. <br /><br />Other than that, I don't have anything particularly useful to offer at this stage, except that I am deeply intrigued and intensely curious about where this course of thinking (books of Abrahamic religions as data) will lead. Thanks for the insights. <br />===== Roger Edwards =====http://www.spypix.wsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-29563833848047150982014-07-07T20:51:34.667-05:002014-07-07T20:51:34.667-05:00Chuck, thanks for the comment. Some books of the B...Chuck, thanks for the comment. Some books of the Bible don't claim to be God's word, but I don't think it matters anyway. What matters is whether you're handling the data properly or not. Either it's reliable enough to move prior probabilities or it isn't. If a particular book in the Bible has minor errors, I'd give less weight to that particular book (and others by the same author), but I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water, just as with any other data source I work with, none of which are perfect. That's why I don't mind having lots of extra books in my "Bible", even some that I know to contain errors, because they still have some useful data points.Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-84994545486589164962014-07-07T12:46:00.790-05:002014-07-07T12:46:00.790-05:00"... many arguments against Christianity focu..."... many arguments against Christianity focus on alleged errors and contradictions in the Christian bible, usually about very insigificant details in the gospels" - those arguments aren't necessarily against christianity, but rather are presented as evidence against the reliability of scriptures as a data source. I don't know your stance on the bible's being the word of a deity, but it seems to me that an omnipotent, omniscient deity would not write (or, inspire human authors to write) a history that contained such elements, even "insignificant" ones. Of course, if you accept the bible not as the inerrant word of god, but rather the work of humans writing about their religion, then these become not only plausible as errors and contradictions, but are a virtual necessity.Chuck Doswellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03099345055614900157noreply@blogger.com