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Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 9)

After hearing many objections in succession as we just have, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. For instance, one may fall into the trap of thinking that if even one of these objections has even the slightest chance of being true, the argument would fall apart. But is that really the case? […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 8)

Another class of objections would just argue that the witnesses to the resurrection were crazy: "Obviously anyone who claims that they saw someone coming back from the dead is crazy. How can we take their stories about these outlandish miracles seriously? Clearly there was something mentally wrong with these people, and we ought to dismiss […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 7)

Yet another class of objections may argue for 1e8 being too large, on the basis of people being intentionally deceptive rather than being mistaken. It may go like this: "1e8 is a ridiculously large Bayes' factor for people's testimonies. People lie all the time. Do you really think that only 1 out of 1e8 things […]
2016-04-18

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 5)

One possible class of objections would try to argue that the prior probability for the resurrection wasn't small enough. So one may say: "It's not just that people don't rise from the dead. NO supernatural claim of ANY KIND has EVER been validated in a controlled setting. Therefore the prior probability for the resurrection must […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 4)

Now that we have all the necessary numerical values, we can finally calculate the probability that Jesus rose from the dead. To begin, I gave the prior odds for Jesus's resurrection as 1e-22. This number was obtained from the argument that "empirically, people do not rise from the dead. Therefore, Jesus also couldn't have risen […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 3)

The previously given probability value for the resurrection - 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 1 (which can also be written as 10^-22, or 1e-22) - is a prior probability. That is, it's the probability based on the background information, taking into consideration the fact that Jesus was human, and that humans don't rise […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 2)

What is the probability that Jesus rose from the dead? Here I'm going to construct a foolish partner to advance certain arguments. This is just a rhetorical device. I have to be careful to not commit a straw man here, nor do I wish to insult anyone. I don't intend to imply that anyone actually […]
2016-03-14

Finding pi in a square grid: or, why you can have square brownies for pi day

This is a picture I took on the side of a road: The trees are planted in a regular pattern, in basically square grids. This creates the fascinating picture you see when you then look at the trees from the sides. You can see far off into the distance along some angles, but are blocked […]

The intellect trap

I have another math brainteaser for this week. It's easier than last week's problem. You're taking a long drive, and you want your average speed for the trip to be 50 miles per hour (mph). But you run into some traffic, and when you've traveled half the distance to the destination you notice that your […]
2015-08-03

The two envelopes problem and its solution

A job I was looking at had a requirement that read: "Inability to stop thinking about the two envelopes problem unless you’ve truly come to peace with an explanation you can communicate to us". So I thought I'd post my explanation for the problem. The setup to the problem goes like this: You have two […]
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