quote:What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
My problems are not with the nature of their experience, but with the conclusions drawn.
Suppose I pray for confirmation of a religious proposition and in response I feel a tingling sensation, a warmth throughout my body, a profound sense of peace, or hear a disembodied voice saying "it's true". These have all been described to me by different people as genuine spiritual confirmations.
Even if I personally experience any of this, I do not see how it follows then that:
* There was an external causality for these experiences. * That the external causality is a sentient entity * That the sentient entity is a god * That the god is "the" God * That God is good * That any other doctrine of the particular religion on behalf of which I'm praying is correct.
(not a complete list)
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quote:Good for him. It seems to me that to the extent that his faith was based on such experience, he ought then to drop it, or at an absolute minimum have a really major crisis of faith - Halt, Melt, and Catch Fire, as the joke goes. Did he?
It wasn't really a crisis of faith as people tend to describe it. There was no deep soul searching and emotional turmoil. He just decided that things didn't work the way he had previous thought they worked and walked away from the church.
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: I remember when that game came out! I never played it, though.
It was fun, although it would be terribly dated now.
The amusing part was the way the game mechanics worked out. In Hell, you would do the reverse of everything you would in a normal SimCity, try to encourage traffic and build houses near the equivalent of power plants. Plus you had limited power to send down prophets to Earth, making it more lusty to improve your rate of new citizens or making it more evil to add more citizens to Hell (which was decidedly more interesting).
Each of the buildings (rewards or punishments) had a nice description, written by the people at Lucasarts during a good era, so many were filled with great puns and pictures.
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: I thought of another analogy which may (or may not) be fruitful. It's as though we're arguing over which is really true, Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry, with the one side ridiculing the other, and both casting aspersions on each other's sanity.
I don't think this analogy would serve your purpose. The difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries is the choice of an axiom i.e. in the latter case the parallel postulate is REPLACED with another axiom. On the other hand, theists import axioms such as existence of a god, legitimacy of the bible etc., an atheist simply removes such axioms from their world view.
A couple of notes: 1)Some atheists probably do assume there is no god (as against concluding there is no god). My experience is that most atheists do not do this. 2)I'm assuming your talking about abstract geometries; in specific cases there is a right answer. For example, if, say, you are calculating travel distances between say Sydney and New York, Euclidean geometry would not be very helpful.
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posted
Personal experiences which only confirm things we already want to believe are not necessarily an accurate judge of truth in the world.
If I run race after race against slower people, and win every time, I may have loads of personal experiences which bring me to the conclusion that I'm the fastest man alive, but until I've won the Olympic gold, they constitute a poor sample to come to such an extreme conclusion.
Nobody can tell me that those life experiences aren't real, or that they didn't effect me deeply, or that they didn't give me a real and honest feeling of being super fast, or that I'm lying to myself, or deluding myself. I actually won all those races. I actually felt really fast compared to all those people. All my experiences tell me that I'm the fastest man in the world.
That belief is also completely wrong. I'm taking a set of perfectly good experiences, and I'm coming to a conclusion which has no basis in reality. This could be due to any number of reasons, my lack of experience, my desire for it to be true, the slow people in my circle of friends, the support my group gives me to believe as I do, whatever, it doesn't matter.
The fact remains that while those experiences are true, and the conclusion makes a certain amount of sense within the framework I have set up, in the final analysis, my conclusion is still completely wrong.
This is what I mean when I talk about religious experiences falling into a similar category which lacks the rigor of the scientific method. It's especially telling when several different people describe the same experiences, and attribute them to different, mutually exclusive causes. The cannot logically all be correct, yet they all insist that they are.
That's not knowledge. That's simply wishing to confirm ones own world view, and refusing to accept contradictory evidence or conclusions.
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posted
This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
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quote:This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
Nope.
In it, a man driving a truck along a dark icy road sees repeated visions of people throwing themselves in front of his truck and killing themselves. In fact, they are not just visions, they are physical people, but when he gets out to check each time, they are not there.
In fact they are people from the future, at a party, transporting themselves back in time to experience a weird sort of time-travel-death-orgasmic ecstasy. It's a future tech that just allows people to get off sexually. But they don't particularly care what they are psychologically doing to this person from the past.
The man, however, comes to the conclusion that these visions are angels, and he is receiving a message from God saying that, since he allowed his child to die, he must kill himself. So he does. He purposely drives his truck over a cliff.
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posted
I just had a fantastic idea for a science fiction story. Thanks, Sean, for bringing the sci-fi angle in.
(It's entirely possible my idea has been done, and also possible that I can't do anything with it, but until I know I'm going to keep it under my hat. )
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quote:For me, religion is much more about a community of people than about belief. It's fine literature and music. As far as I can tell, people who belong to my church don't necessarily believe anything. Certainly we don't talk about that much. I suppose I'm a better Jew than I am a Christian. Jewish religion is much more a matter of community than it is of belief, and I think that's true of us Christians to a great extent, too.
So in effect, Dyson doesn't believe in God but wants to be nice to religious people and copy some of their habits.
Sounds fine to me.
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posted
I disagree; this is just more of that automatic respect for a particular class of false beliefs that is so poisonous to real discussion. If you believe that something is untrue, and yet you find that millions of people are not only believing it true but basing their decisions on it, then you ought to speak up.
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quote:The fact remains that while those experiences are true, and the conclusion makes a certain amount of sense within the framework I have set up, in the final analysis, my conclusion is still completely wrong.
This is what I mean when I talk about religious experiences falling into a similar category which lacks the rigor of the scientific method.
Except that science does the exact same thing. In the same way that you might have thought you were the fastest man in the world until you found someone truly fast to run against, scientists accepted Newtonian physics until it found exceptions where it did not work. It is common for scientists to accept one model based on current evidence, only to change the model when further evidence comes in.
quote:That's not knowledge. That's simply wishing to confirm ones own world view, and refusing to accept contradictory evidence or conclusions.
Nothing in your "fastest man" example involved wishing to confirm your own world view or refusing to accept contradictory evidence. It was only an example of drawing a wrong conclusion based on incomplete evidence. Now, if you got beat by somebody in a race and STILL thought you were the fastest man in the world, that'd be different - but I wouldn't consider it analogous to religion.
Neither science nor religion typically refuse to accept contradictory evidence - both take contradictory evidence and typically try to explain it within the framework of the model they are using, altering the model accordingly.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: In the same way that you might have thought you were the fastest man in the world until you found someone truly fast to run against, scientists accepted Newtonian physics until it found exceptions where it did not work.
Note that Newtonian physics are still used in an overwhelming majority of contexts -- building bridges, engines, even rockets. Newtonian physics literally got us to the Moon.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Neither science nor religion typically refuse to accept contradictory evidence - both take contradictory evidence and typically try to explain it within the framework of the model they are using, altering the model accordingly.
Why are the standard Christian or Islamic models of the universe so vastly different than the scientific models? Both postulate an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being that actively interferes in our day-to-day lives. This is a major point of conflict with science.
EDIT: It feels odd to refer to just "science". The conflict is with scientific reasoning, not an establishment.
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quote:Note that Newtonian physics are still used in an overwhelming majority of contexts -- building bridges, engines, even rockets. Newtonian physics literally got us to the Moon.
Yes you are right. Similarly, one may still be fast enough to win an overwhelming majority of races even if one is wrong about being the fastest person in the world.
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quote:If you believe that something is untrue, and yet you find that millions of people are not only believing it true but basing their decisions on it, then you ought to speak up.
I don't think this is a matter of principle, it's just a practical question about how best to educate people. I suspect you'll catch more flies with honey, especially if you're talking to intelligent people who don't like to be insulted.
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posted
That last post kinda reminds me of this exchange: link
Now KoM is obviously not an educator, but to bring it back to the first page, the question is not whether Dawkins is actually wrong, but whether atheists should sugar-coat their disagreement in order to persuade more effectively or whether they should just "put the truth out there."
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Nothing in your "fastest man" example involved wishing to confirm your own world view or refusing to accept contradictory evidence... Now, if you got beat by somebody in a race and STILL thought you were the fastest man in the world, that'd be different - but I wouldn't consider it analogous to religion.
You're correct. I should have elaborated on my fastest man analogy more, as it is incomplete. The point I was trying to make though, is that a rational person can only continue to believe that I am the fastest man in the world (when it's pretty obvious that I'm not) by severely limiting the scope of available data, or by sticking with the original assumption, and forcing all contradictory evidence to fit that world view.
Why haven't I run in the Olympics? The Olympics would just be showing off - I know I'm fastest. Why don't we compare my times to those of top athletes and see how they match up? I only run non-standard race times, because they're a better judge of True Speed.
It's possible for me to convince myself, and my devout followers, that I'm the fastest man based on a small amount of relatively insignificant evidence. I simply must be willing to refuse actual evidence, or construct my worldview such that things only count when they prove my assumptions.
In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers. How could you disprove that I'm the fastest, when it's obvious that I AM.
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In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers. How could you disprove that I'm the fastest, when it's obvious that I AM.
Ok: 1.I am the fastest man in the world. 2.I am not you. =>you are not the fastest man in the world. QED
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In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers.
Ok: 1.I am the fastest man in the world. 2.I am not you. =>you are not the fastest man in the world. QED
You're actually very slow, and you're being deceived by Fastius, the invisible spirit of fastness who is jealous of my standing as the Fastest Man in the World, and uses his invisible powers to trick other people into such false beliefs.
Besides, I have raced my wife and won (obviously, since I'm the fastest) and you have never raced my wife and won, so you cannot be faster than me.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: That last post kinda reminds me of this exchange: link
Now KoM is obviously not an educator, but to bring it back to the first page, the question is not whether Dawkins is actually wrong, but whether atheists should sugar-coat their disagreement in order to persuade more effectively or whether they should just "put the truth out there."
How long ago was that? And did Dawkins have anything like a "real" response that wasn't just a joke?
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posted
Well, that was from a conference in 2006. I think there was a related follow-up in a column or some such. I'll try to take a look.
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There is no timer on my quicktime plugin, but the relevant section is roughly slightly less than a quarter of the way through, a viewer asks if he's considered a more 'intelligently designed' approach, that merely stating the truth is not enough and that he should find different ways to appeal to people.
Since its a bit hard to get to the right spot, I'll paraphrase. Dawkins basically responds that he's getting that response during his tour, that maybe he should try more emotion and be more comforting. He states that while he sees that there is room for that approach, it is not his strength which is logic and reason. He says that there is plenty of room for people to try the other approach.
Unfortunately, thats before the conference (I don't know if you found anything especially relevant there), but thats probably more like the type of response he would have given, given more time.
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quote:Dawkins basically responds that he's getting that response during his tour, that maybe he should try more emotion and be more comforting. He states that while he sees that there is room for that approach, it is not his strength which is logic and reason. He says that there is plenty of room for people to try the other approach.
I agree with this.
Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Dawkins's method does not work well for any online forum participant I've ever met. People should not flatter themselves into thinking that what works for a super-genius will work for them.
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quote:Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism. My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You missed two points of my observation: First, in your second case, the woman is not validating the faith she already happened to have. Second, I was actually referring more to spiritual experiences, "feeling the nearness of God", such as many people report as a cause of their conversion or an effect of prayer or meditation.
You are overlooking the fact that many people have faith that is not at all based on "feeling" anything and that was not taught to them by their parents.
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posted
There is such a thing as statistical significance. Would you like to submit some evidence that the group kmb refers to is large? While you're at it, you might check if they have any better evidence for their beliefs. If many people believe X for bad reason Y, it is not an argument in favour of Y to say that other people believe due to bad reason Z.
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quote:Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism. My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: There is such a thing as statistical significance. Would you like to submit some evidence that the group kmb refers to is large? While you're at it, you might check if they have any better evidence for their beliefs. If many people believe X for bad reason Y, it is not an argument in favour of Y to say that other people believe due to bad reason Z.
So now you are back to overlooking the fact rather than denying its existence.
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posted
All right. Suppose, say, 10% of religious people are not following their parents' religion, and have not had any sort of spiritual experience. What significance would you like to ascribe to this?
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posted
You misunderstand me KoM. I'm not trying to debate you or persuade you. I've seen more than enough evidence here at hatrack to be fully convinced that such a conversation would be pointless. I'm just mocking you for using bad scientific method and fallacious reasoning while evangelizing the virtues of reason and science.
[ December 12, 2008, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
I'm genuinely curious what reason people have for believing in any particular religion if they HAVEN'T had a religious experience and were not taught it by their parents.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm genuinely curious what reason people have for believing in any particular religion if they HAVEN'T had a religious experience and were not taught it by their parents.
There are many types of religious experiences and not all of them are accurately described as "feeling the nearness of god".
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quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism.
Well, its not like one can simply do a census and find out. However, there is a rather long section on his website called "Convert's Corner" which has letters from people that want to express their thanks for converting and to give mutual support to one another. The usual caveats about web surveys apply.
quote: My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
There is a kernel of truth to this. Indeed, his targeting of in-the-closet atheists and doubting believers is explicitly Dawkin's aim as often expressed in interviews and as part of an organised campaign. In other words, he's often expressed the idea that he has no illusions that anyone can convince the really indoctrinated believers, but that his main focus is to convince enough atheists that are silent about their true beliefs to stand up and mutually support each other.
Perhaps he just has a different opinion than you about how many people do in fact doubt their faith anyways. Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
The difference between Dawkins and both Sagan and Adams (and Vonnegut and Asimov and Clarke, etc...) is that Dawkins is making a case for atheism, rather than being an author who just happens to be an atheist.
I've noted many times that there does not appear to be a bridge of tolerance between theism and atheism in the same way that different denominations have established tolerance using interfaith or ecumenical councils. I wish there were one, and continue to look for avenues that might help bring such a thing into existence.
Years ago I used to participate actively in the alt.atheism newsgroup, and I noticed that most of the threads were originated by theists, who entered the group with a variety of motives. In cases where the theist appeared to be genuinely interested in understanding the atheist mind, I noticed a particular mechanism:
The theist would ask: "Why don't you believe in God?" To which the atheist would give their answer.
Then the theist would reply something along the lines of "how dare you attack my religious belief?"
Other atheists in the group generally assumed that the theist had set this up as a trap, but I often continued the conversation with the theist, and came to my own conclusion that the question had been asked in earnest. It occurred to me that the answer to the question: "Why don't you believe in God?" must be given as a series of statements that detail the logical process the atheist followed to reach their particular conclusion. Which is to say, the atheist responded with an argument in the classical sense. The theist of course took the argument in a less that classical sense, and felt that they had been attacked.
I also noticed that the more academic sounding the atheist's answer was, the worse the response from the theist. When couched in emotional language, the theist was generally more sympathetic. Dawkins' arguments are explicitly academic, and in response to the suggestion that he should be more warm and fuzzy, his response is that this simply isn't his strength. So it's no surprise to me that his style offends so many theists.
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posted
The Douglas Adams choice is an interesting one since as you note, his Hitchhiker's or Dirk Gently books aren't actually atheist writings so much as they are books that are written by an atheist and are particularly atheist friendly. The book that does note some of his explicitly atheist writings is "The Salmon of Doubt" which is a grab-bag of essays, stories, and a bit of a Dirk Gently book.
quote:AMERICAN ATHEISTS: How long have you been a nonbeliever, and what brought you to that realization?
DNA: Well, it’s a rather corny story. As a teenager I was a committed Christian. It was in my background. I used to work for the school chapel in fact. Then one day when I was about eighteen I was walking down the street when I heard a street evangelist and, dutifully, stopped to listen. As I listened it began to be borne in on me that he was talking complete nonsense, and that I had better have a bit of a think about it.
I’ve put that a bit glibly. When I say I realized he was talking nonsense, what I mean is this. In the years I’d spent learning History, Physics, Latin, Math, I’d learnt (the hard way) something about standards of argument, standards of proof, standards of logic, etc. In fact we had just been learning how to spot the different types of logical fallacy, and it suddenly became apparent to me that these standards simply didn’t seem to apply in religious matters. In religious education we were asked to listen respectfully to arguments which, if they had been put forward in support of a view of, say, why the Corn Laws came to be abolished when they were, would have been laughed at as silly and childish and - in terms of logic and proof -just plain wrong. Why was this?
Well, in history, even though the understanding of events, of cause and effect, is a matter of interpretation, and even though interpretation is in many ways a matter of opinion, nevertheless those opinions and interpretations are honed to within an inch of their lives in the withering crossfire of argument and counterargument, and those that are still standing are then subjected to a whole new round of challenges of fact and logic from the next generation of historians - and so on. All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
So, I was already familiar with and (I’m afraid) accepting of, the view that you couldn’t apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of ‘truth’. (I now think this is baloney, but to continue...) What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn’t stand up to it. So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
So Douglas Adams would be one specific example of an agnostic that was significantly aided in his choice to become an atheist by Dawkins.
I guess its in the eye of the beholder as to whether his writings on atheism in specific are more or less acceptable than Dawkins' writings.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
Would you mind giving a small summary of what you find offensive about Dawkins' writing? I've been trying to reevaluate how I approach religious discussions in general because its clear that there is a disconnect between how atheists perceive certain comments and how theists perceive certain comments. In relation to Dawkins, I'm wondering if its his attitude that you find objectionable (perhaps he comes across as aggressive?) or more some of the things he says. He does say some things that are pretty offensive (ex: faith-as-a-virus analogy that pops up now and then) and while they do detract from his argument, its surprising to me that he gets classified as offensive and arrogant when most of arguments are good and written in an easy-to-understand manner (though clearly that's not how everyone perceives them). But impressions are impressions and if he is viewed as offensive and arrogant then I would like to know why so I can improve my discussions.
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quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
Can you give examples of this atheist philosophy? I ask only because I think some academic philosophy that could be classified as atheist is very narrow i.e. they work from a very specific set of assumptions. The end result of this is that even when their purpose is to augment a classical argument against god, it does not read as if they are telling theists "you're wrong." Which is essentially what Dawkins does. And it's pretty presumptuous to pass judgment on someone's deeply held personal beliefs - this presumption can easily be viewed as arrogance.
Incidentally, another atheist writer that I have seen in Borders is Sam Harris; if Dawkins is thought of as arrogant, then Harris must be regarded as orders of magnitude more so.
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