quote:Originally posted by Teshi: I'm not really sure what difference it makes that modern science has its roots among the religious. Everything arguably has a majority of its roots among the religious.
Including secularism, at least for a certain definition of "roots."
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My point is that the past was a highly religious time. Anything that has roots stemmed from a lot of religious people.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is only my enormous self-restraint that has prevented me from observing that it was very likely an atheist who invented religion. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: My point is that the past was a highly religious time. Anything that has roots stemmed from a lot of religious people.
Agreed. Which, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that any given thing would not have arisen without religion being present. Given the times, we're unlikely to know.
It's rather like the mind-body division. For a good bit of time, it was taken for granted that the mind was essentially independent of the body. Much good science came from people who believed this, but it may well have in other circumstances too, and [that juxtaposition] is not in itself a reason to disbelieve in the effectiveness of psychotropic medications when indicated.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Much good science came from people who believed this
Really? Science of the body, perhaps - although even then, most of our drugs are less than 50 years old - but I am entirely unconvinced that any scientific account of the mind, or parts of it, predates the knowledge that the mind and the brain are inseparable. Can you show some examples?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Much good science came from people who believed this
Really? Science of the body, perhaps - although even then, most of our drugs are less than 50 years old - but I am entirely unconvinced that any scientific account of the mind, or parts of it, predates the knowledge that the mind and the brain are inseparable. Can you show some examples?
*grin
I am becoming used to being misread. Alas.
I did not say "any scientific account of the mind," I said "much good science" (unqualified as to subcategory, you will note). I had in mind physics, but that just because I am currently doing a review of physics in the history of science. Should you prefer, you are welcome to focus on something else in the broad field of "science."
Whatever you chose to focus on, though, is not a constraint on what I claimed. Which, as noted above, was unqualified as to type. Hope this helps.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mind you, depending on what you mean by predating "the knowledge that the mind and the brain are inseparable," there may well be much good science of the brain and/or mind before then, as well.
What general date were you thinking of as a marker for this claim? [i.e., as not being predated by any scientific account of the mind, or parts of it?]
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
I just don't see how this is different from saying "It's all peanut butter". It's just leads you into equivocation.
quote:I don't know how to explain it without preaching a sermon, so you'll just have to take my word that any scientific marvel you throw out is food for faith to me.
So, say, a parasite that ate the eyes of children, that would be food for faith? What kind of God does that lead one to believe in? What kind of lifestyle changes does belief in such a God suggest?
If all you are saying is "I believe that everything that exists, exists, and that there's a lot of stuff that exists", then that's not much of an argument, but you are making it more confusing by describing it with a word that is pretty universally used to mean a divine ego.
If you are saying that you believe in a divine ego that does nothing detectable, then I guess I just don't see the point.
quote:You're obviously laboring under the tired old cliche's promulgated by 19th century historiography. I don't even know what to do with this portion of your reply except again to speed the humbling that the so-called Enlightenment desperately deserves.
The essence of the Enlightment is humility. It's the sober realization that humans make mistakes, and that the ONLY reliable way of detecting them is to constantly reality test. Otherwise, we end up repeating the mistakes made by authorities a thousand years ago. That's the break that happened in the Enlightenment, people made a conscious effort to reject authority's teaching where authorities were shown to be wrong.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Mind you, depending on what you mean by predating "the knowledge that the mind and the brain are inseparable," there may well be much good science of the brain and/or mind before then, as well.
What general date were you thinking of as a marker for this claim? [i.e., as not being predated by any scientific account of the mind, or parts of it?]
Ok, I see what you mean, so this is not so relevant anymore. But I was thinking of ~1960, 1970 as the date before which no real science of the mind was done, just various guesses.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It is only my enormous self-restraint that has prevented me from observing that it was very likely an atheist who invented religion.
It's okay, because you'd probably be wrong.
Posts: 158 | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Ok, I see what you mean, so this is not so relevant anymore. But I was thinking of ~1960, 1970 as the date before which no real science of the mind was done, just various guesses.
No worries.
As for examples, it all depends on your definitions, but these may be of interest:
1) Galen (2nd century) dissected out the laryngeal nerve and attributed the power of speech to the functions of it. Granted, he was an anatomist and not a psychotherapist, but much of our current understanding of the body traces back to him, including something so basic as the circulation of the blood. But how he proceded (at least at times) was recognizable as a version of the scientific method, complete with null hypothesis. He also (if I remember correctly) first identified the blood-brain barrier, although he thought it separated some of the humours in the blood.
2) At least as far back as the 10th century, there was clinical study of mental disorders in the Islamic world, as well as the establishment of the first mental hospitals (with a general rejection of demonic possession as the cause of mental disorders). Avicenna (~11th century) wrote a treatise on optics, distinguished the five senses of the human body, experimented on pain relief, and developed a theory of mind that held that we learn by empirical observation (he believed in the tabula rasa) through sensation, hypothesis, syllogism, and then the development of abstract concepts. A near-contemporary in the same area noted the distinction between motor and sensory nerves.
Some of this is anatomy, and some is theory of cognition. But when I read about the history of medicine, I was really quite astonished at some of the sophistication of the ideas and methods used way far back in some areas. It may or may not be applicable to what you asked, but I find it notable and absolutely fascinating. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think any of that is science of the mind in the sense I intended, which is to say, explaining how the mind does what it does and how its disorders may be repaired, with perhaps the exception of the clinical study of mental disorders - it depends a bit on how they did the studies. For example, the tabula rasa hypothesis is just a guess, in the same sense that Democritus's atoms were just a guess. Either there is a smallest particle, or not; either we are blank slates, or not. Unless you do an experiment to find out, it's guesswork, not science.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I don't think any of that is science of the mind in the sense I intended, which is to say, explaining how the mind does what it does and how its disorders may be repaired...
Not even the mechanics of sensory perception and processing?
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Possibly, but I don't see that in your descriptions. Are you referring to the optics bit? A description of the eye does not have anything to do with how the brain processes visual input.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: ... distinguished the five senses of the human body, experimented on pain relief .. A near-contemporary in the same area noted the distinction between motor and sensory nerves.
This was via hypothesis testing and clinical experimentation.
Added: To be more clear: these were scientists who identified pain as a sensation transmitted by nerves, quantitatively but not qualitively different from normal sensation. And that the brain accepts input from certain nerves (and always the same set of nerves), whereas it conveys motor commands via a different set. And that there are 5 distinct types of sensory perception with specialized receptors and nerve bundles (taste, hearing, touch, sight, smell) for each.
That is indeed the basic mechanics of sensory perception, no?
---
Also added: And if we cannot agree on that, I'm afraid we might have different concepts of what sensory perception is, or its fundamental relevance to understanding how the mind does what it does, as well as some of the main disorders involving the mind and how to address them. *spreads hands
Which is okay, just that we'd be coming from such different places that I fear further discussion would be moot.
posted
By the way, and just for completeness' sake, this is just the science of the mind/brain way early on that comes to my mind (heh) immediately.
I'd hate any readers think that such examples prior to 1970 are limited to this small set. For anyone interested, it's a fascinating area of medical history.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok, fair enough, that's a bit more advanced than what I visualised from your first description. If I wanted to quibble I'd say that this is research on the mind-body interface rather than the mind, but pff. Quibbles.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, it would depend on definitions and so forth. But fascinating nonetheless.
Avicenna (or Ibn Sina) is one of my heroes. Amazing in his thoroughness and rigour, and in the 11th century! Incredible.
quote:Ibn Sīnā is regarded as a father of early modern medicine,[16][17] and clinical pharmacology[18] particularly for his introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology,[19] his discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases,[20] the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, the introduction of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials,[21] randomized controlled trials,[22][23] efficacy tests,[24][25] clinical pharmacology,[24] neuropsychiatry,[26] risk factor analysis, and the idea of a syndrome,[27] ... -- from Wikipedia with listed references
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: On the other hand, I am unclear on whether (and why) you attributed the founding of secularism to theists. What did you mean by this? *interested
It was theists who first felt it necessary to distinguish between the sacred and secular, for their various reasons.
Posts: 117 | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
A further clarification, if I may (and you needn't answer if you'd rather not, but it isn't a trap): do you see a difference between "secularism" as a movement or philosophy and assigning the characteristic of "secular" as a singular attribute?
Added for clarification: I do, and I was reading you as [initially] using the former denotation. It may have been a point of confusion.
---
Also added: And how broad is your category of "theists" (i.e., are you including pagans, animists, Shintoists, and the like as theists)?
quote:Why? What's the dividing line that you're using to make that determination?
You asked what sorts of things I was talking about and posited a few. Rather then trying to come up with every expression of religion that may be stifled one day I decided to limit our conversation to those three. If you have some more gray ones I'd be happy to do those instead.
quote: May I ask, specifically, what sort of things you wanted that God presumably did not want?
You may ask, and I must regretfully decline to go into details. It's not a topic I am entirely comfortable discussing in a public forum. One example I suppose I could submit for consideration is prayer, scripture reading, and church attendance. For a period of several months I did none of those things as I could not be bothered. Besides those things I was completely happy with my life, I went to work, hung out with friends, and still believed in my religion. I was just lazy. Eventually I just stopped wanting to do any of those things. During that period of time I felt God fade out of my life and I was definitely less happy.
Teshi:
quote:I've often heard people say this kind of thing. They know God exists because they feel that he does. It is an instinct thing.
It think that this befuddles a lot of atheists because they do not behave in this kind of way. They do not have that weird little thing in their brain that intuitively knows that some form of supernatural being exists. They are scientists at heart and if nobody had told them such a thing as God existed, they never would have imbued anything around them with God-like symptoms.
On the other side, the people with this intuition, this little bit of brain that has them 'feel' God (not God as we know it- if these people weren't told about God they would come up with some supernatural explanation of their own) cannot imagine a world without this supernatural presence outside of themselves. This is the fundamental reason I think people believe in God- because they feel a presence. They know.
Of course, this is just my speculation. Perhaps many atheists will chime in and go, "yes of course I feel that, but I deny it because of lack of evidence."
There are also those people who are psychics and such. They get around belief in a monolithic God by believing they are feeling other supernatural emanations.
But I think that this is the ultimate reason the majority of humans believe in God- because they feel it. It's hard to deny the sense of presence especially in moments where this seems strongest- large spaces, music, collective movement, solitude etc.
I think the first step to seeing the atheist argument is to recognise all the other things you give meaning to outside of the normal pantheon. A place or thing you love. A superstition you hold. A personal ritual you carry out that has no religious meaning, only a personal one, but it helps you (for example, closing the closet door long after monsters under the bed have disappeared.) "Your" song. They have to be things that until now you wouldn't have considered religious and yet you realise now that they are part of a presence.
If someone chopped down your childhood play tree, you would feel a sense of loss greater than, "that was my childhood tree!" You would "see" a gap in your presence. If you returned to that spot you would "feel" the tree where it used to be even if it was not.
If someone plays "your" song, you don't just remember the memories attached to it, you feel them outside of you the same way you might feel absent or deceased friends.
These things are smaller than the God-intuition and feel different, but I think they are part of the same network. If you constructed your entire world out of these little rituals (without God) I think you would attribute this same feeling of presence to the network of little rituals, rather than to one monolithic being.
I think what you have to do to understand how an atheist manages to "ignore" this sense, is to recognize that these non-religious presences feel similar to the God presence. An atheist recognises the God-intuition as a big version (perhaps the natural culmination) of these smaller, non-religious intuition.
An atheist walking into a church (especially one associated with his or her youth) still feels a similar sense of presence. He or she may even consider it something external or supernatural. But, for many reasons, they do not attribute it to God.
That is an intriguing hypothesis. My only contention would be then incidents where a person feels strongly impressed that a force outside themselves wants them to commit act X, an act they were not consciously considering nor had they done it before. Or when a person who does not believe in a religion and hears a believer testify of their belief and feels a strong unfamiliar feeling tell them to trust in what they are hearing.
From a neurological standpoint why would either example happen? I have seen both.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
(BlackBlade, we are often standing on different roads, but you should know I've always enjoyed reading your posts on these matters. Thanks. )
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:You asked what sorts of things I was talking about and posited a few. Rather then trying to come up with every expression of religion that may be stifled one day I decided to limit our conversation to those three.
Right. And I couldn't help noticing that you picked superficial, symbolic religious gestures -- although I don't necessarily agree that headscarves really fit in that category -- instead of the more serious issues I put forward. This could have been arbitrary, but I'm actually really interested in hearing if it was, or if those three struck you as somehow qualitatively different from the other three.
quote:From a neurological standpoint why would either example happen?
For the first, the obvious answer is subconscious self-selection. For the second, the obvious answer is charismatic priming. I'm not saying those are going to always be the reasons, but I'm sure they account for a fair number of those experiences.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: (BlackBlade, we are often standing on different roads, but you should know I've always enjoyed reading your posts on these matters. Thanks. )
And I wish out of the women who disagreed with me that more were like you, it's like to make me content even in defeat. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: During that period of time I felt God fade out of my life and I was definitely less happy.
It does not occur to you that this effect needs to be disentangled from the effects of not participating in your community to the same extent? You go to church, you meet people; primates like meeting people, we're a social species. God needn't enter into it. You're the one who spoke of confounding factors. Have you tried
a) A different ward of the same religion? b) A different religion? c) A board-games club?
Until you know that these do not give you the same happy buzz, you have not even begun to test your god's dicta.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Right. And I couldn't help noticing that you picked superficial, symbolic religious gestures -- although I don't necessarily agree that headscarves really fit in that category -- instead of the more serious issues I put forward. This could have been arbitrary, but I'm actually really interested in hearing if it was, or if those three struck you as somehow qualitatively different from the other three.
The first three are easier to discuss. But out of curiosity do you favor the banning of headscarves in schools? If not say somebody manage to pass such a ban in one of the fifty states. If the ban was (hypothetically) shown to strongly decrease religious sentiment in youngsters, and the long term prediction was that it significantly increase the number of atheists in the community, would you still oppose such a ban knowing that if such a ban could be applied nationally it would greatly facilitate the removal of religion from the public consciousness?
quote:For the first, the obvious answer is subconscious self-selection. For the second, the obvious answer is charismatic priming. I'm not saying those are going to always be the reasons, but I'm sure they account for a fair number of those experiences.
Could you explain "subconcious self-selection?" I did not necessarily mean that a man say sees a child drowning in the lake and feels impressed to go save them. I mean somebody is walking down the street and they feel compelled to stop and knock on a door and ask a complete stranger if everything is alright.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Edit: Re-reading, it still seems to me that what you are asking above is precisely what you say below that you never thought of, i.e. that I should need to search out "evidence" in nature either for God or against Him.
Specifically, what I am saying is that if you have not done this, your belief in God is completely irrational, although perhaps personally useful. If a world without God looks exactly the same as a world with God, the conclusion that there IS a God is one that seems unnecessary.
KoM's questions are in this vein: what would you do differently if there were no God, living as you do in a universe where you admit no visible evidence of God?
This is difficult. First of all, though I'm sure the questions must seem obvious to you, I could as easily turn them around and ask you and KoM the same ones. I suppose it matters what your default position is. To me it is obvious, on every level, that belief in a deity is the default, and atheism seems the most useless project I can conceive of.
I was born to parents who are not any type of believer, yet I don't remember a day when I was not as sure of there being a God as I was of the ground beneath my feet. Christianity came later, but that was simply like discovering His name. So when you ask if my faith is rational, absolutely, but it is also mystical. I consider reason a rather limited instrument when it comes to God. It is not that I think religion is opposed to reason, however reason is but a tool. As necessary as the tool is, it has limits and can certainly be fooled. Humans are not computers. We have other ways of knowing than rationalism, and other ways of reasoning than the very restricted sense that that point of view requires.
As I've already said, it is certainly NOT the case that I don't see any visible sign of God- quite the opposite. I am willing to accept that for atheists the opposite is true, i.e., everything that cannot be explained any other way "might" be admitted as evidence for God but if it has a natural explanation, that's all you require. I have a theory that I've thought about for a while, that for some people belief is more or less innate, and others just don't get the god gene. If they come to belief, it is by a more rigid and intellectual process (and earn my admiration for that fact). This is the only way that unbelief makes sense to me.
It seems that at least some here, including yourself, are willing to admit that the default position for humanity is in fact religious belief of some kind. I was wondering if you feel at all insecure about that fact. The question did not seem to go over too well in the forum as a whole. I suppose one difference is, as you explained, that you see humanity evolving ever upward and onward, whereas I tend to take a more cyclic view of history. In my view, nothing much ever really changes. There is such a thing as progress, but it is more like a slow spiral, and frequently it actually spirals down.
As for what I would do if there were no God: Not worship God. Is that too obvious?
I hope this answers your questions in some respect. It's been a long day and dinner is ready. If I have neglected anyone else's question, observation or hector, I apologize- I've somewhat lost the overview and the thread is advancing quickly. I'll try to go back and clean up.
Posts: 117 | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:During that period of time I felt God fade out of my life and I was definitely less happy.
There's also the fact that a lot of people have a sense of what they should or shouldn't be doing. When I don't do the things that I feel I should be doing (tasks at work, projects around the house, playing with my kids) there is a distinct affect on my mood, while engaging in these tasks can sometimes be downright energizing.
It could very well be that you are interpreting these different states of mind as being the absence or presence of God when the "should be doing" tasks are related to your religious obligations.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote: During that period of time I felt God fade out of my life and I was definitely less happy.
It does not occur to you that this effect needs to be disentangled from the effects of not participating in your community to the same extent? You go to church, you meet people; primates like meeting people, we're a social species. God needn't enter into it. You're the one who spoke of confounding factors. Have you tried
a) A different ward of the same religion? b) A different religion? c) A board-games club?
Until you know that these do not give you the same happy buzz, you have not even begun to test your god's dicta.
Yes I considered all these things KOM. I did not withdraw from the human race in any sense. I just decided to fill my time with alternate pursuits that I thought were important at the time. I didn't want to pose those three activities precisely because of confounding factors. But I have lived long enough and experienced enough things to recognize that Mormonism produce unique dynamics in my life that I have not seen elsewhere nor heard others describe them as arising from a different source.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:During that period of time I felt God fade out of my life and I was definitely less happy.
There's also the fact that a lot of people have a sense of what they should or shouldn't be doing. When I don't do the things that I feel I should be doing (tasks at work, projects around the house, playing with my kids) there is a distinct affect on my mood, while engaging in these tasks can sometimes be downright energizing.
It could very well be that you are interpreting these different states of mind as being the absence or presence of God when the "should be doing" tasks are related to your religious obligations.
I considered that as well, but it still does not account for the fact that previously I had alot of inspiration guiding me, whereas during my period of inactivity that all but disappeared. Even when I began doing those things again it was a long time before it returned.
edit: And yes while initially when I ceased praying, attending church, etc I felt guilty and therefore unhappy, even when I just stopped thinking about doing those things and replaced them with other pursuits that also made me happy, I could still feel an overall pall in my life.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:If the ban was (hypothetically) shown to strongly decrease religious sentiment in youngsters, and the long term prediction was that it significantly increase the number of atheists in the community, would you still oppose such a ban knowing that if such a ban could be applied nationally it would greatly facilitate the removal of religion from the public consciousness?
Would you support such a ban if the reverse were true? To bring this thread back around, that is one of the stated motivations for opposing SSM - society will become more/less accepting of ideas I oppose/support if I don't ban this.
Most atheists I know demand secular interest be demonstrated (secular <> pro-atheist) to support a restriction of rights. Banning headscarves merely to decrease religiosity would be as offensive as banning SSM to decrease societal acceptance of homosexuality.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:This is difficult. First of all, though I'm sure the questions must seem obvious to you, I could as easily turn them around and ask you and KoM the same ones.
What would I do if I thought a god existed? Whatever I thought would keep me out of Hell! Duh[/]i. This is not a hard question if you think gods have empirical consequences. It is only hard if you subscribe to wishy-washy gods which don't make a difference. [i]That why you shouldn't do that.
quote:Yes I considered all these things KOM.
Never mind what you considered, your mind is not powerful enough to pick out the right answers that way. Did you do the experiment?
quote:nor heard others describe them as arising from a different source.
You must not have been paying much attention, then. Church-goers are happier on average than non-church-goers. The church does not matter. Belief in the god is not required.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:I considered that as well, but it still does not account for the fact that previously I had alot of inspiration guiding me, whereas during my period of inactivity that all but disappeared. Even when I began doing those things again it was a long time before it returned.
Well, if you believe that such inspiration can only come when you are right with God, and if such inspiration is internally generated, then it may very well be that you simply don't generate it when you don't feel that you are right with God.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:I considered that as well, but it still does not account for the fact that previously I had alot of inspiration guiding me, whereas during my period of inactivity that all but disappeared. Even when I began doing those things again it was a long time before it returned.
Well, if you believe that such inspiration can only come when you are right with God, and if such inspiration is internally generated, then it may very well be that you simply don't generate it when you don't feel that you are right with God.
Yes but even when I repented and felt I was right with God it was still a long time before it returned. In fact it took so long I began to despair of ever getting it back.
KOM:
quote:Never mind what you considered, your mind is not powerful enough to pick out the right answers that way. Did you do the experiment?
by that logic I should have just stayed away from my church and kept trying out new things until I found a suitable substitute or barring that, until I died.
I filled those holes with other activities many of which I still enjoy today. None of them provided me with the same things Mormonism does.
quote:You must not have been paying much attention, then. Church-goers are happier on average than non-church-goers. The church does not matter. Belief in the god is not required.
I said "certain dynamics" I did not necessarily mean that phrase to mean "happiness."
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:would you still oppose such a ban knowing that if such a ban could be applied nationally it would greatly facilitate the removal of religion from the public consciousness?
No. I don't think religion does enough harm to justify depriving people of their liberty, and believe that the risk of enflaming sentiment might awaken religious fervor in people who otherwise just give it lip service.
quote:I mean somebody is walking down the street and they feel compelled to stop and knock on a door and ask a complete stranger if everything is alright.
I'm always deeply skeptical of these anecdotes. And as someone who has once gotten a horrible feeling about an aunt and been right, but who also recalls two horrible feelings about his mother that turned out to be wrong, I worry about selection bias.
-----
quote:It seems that at least some here, including yourself, are willing to admit that the default position for humanity is in fact religious belief of some kind.
No. I think humans have been conditioned into religious belief, but that the "default" state for most people is atheism. I do think that some people are neurologically predisposed to feel a "presence" that they seek to explain through narrative, and I further think that early man had little recourse but religious explanations for the observable world. Left to their own devices, though, I think the vast majority of people would be without religion and would notice very little difference in their lives. I suspect, however, that the ones with the "presence" sense would go around creating new religions all the time.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Yes but even when I repented and felt I was right with God it was still a long time before it returned. In fact it took so long I began to despair of ever getting it back.
We could probably go back and forth for quite some time, but I'd just say that it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with plausible non-God explanations for the gamut of feelings, inspirations, etc. that you describe. Weighed against everything else that must be true for it to actually be God generating these sensations, it seem much more likely, to me, that these are merely physiological experiences which drive (and are driven by) more mundane interactions between your mind and itself.
We are capable of writing narratives of these experiences, including periods of tension like you describe where the expected response is delayed substantially. If we can write such a narrative then why is it so unlikely that we can create and live that narrative using the same mind?
This is why we go on and on about external corroberation and concrete, repeatable, predictive, evidence. There is no way to distinguish between the mind that has actually been influenced by God and the mind that merely thinks it has been influenced by God.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm always deeply skeptical of these anecdotes. And as someone who has once gotten a horrible feeling about an aunt and been right, but who also recalls two horrible feelings about his mother that turned out to be wrong, I worry about selection bias.
I understand your worries regarding selection bias.
quote:We could probably go back and forth for quite some time, but I'd just say that it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with plausible non-God explanations for the gamut of feelings, inspirations, etc. that you describe. Weighed against everything else that must be true for it to actually be God generating these sensations, it seem much more likely, to me, that these are merely physiological experiences which drive (and are driven by) more mundane interactions between your mind and itself.
We are capable of writing narratives of these experiences, including periods of tension like you describe where the expected response is delayed substantially. If we can write such a narrative then why is it so unlikely that we can create and live that narrative using the same mind?
This is why we go on and on about external corroberation and concrete, repeatable, predictive, evidence. There is no way to distinguish between the mind that has actually been influenced by God and the mind that merely thinks it as been influenced by God.
I didn't say it could not be explained away. I think a direct visitation from God can be explained away. But as the only witness to what BlackBlade has experienced in his life, there is a certain force that sanctifies and directs my life which I have found in nothing else but in keeping specific commandments.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think a direct visitation from God can be explained away.
That would sort of be up to God. Again, without exercising too much imagination, I can conceive of a visitation scenario that would very difficult to explain away regardless of how skeptical the visitee was. Of course the more difficult an event would be to explain away, the less likely it seems that such an event actually occurs. How many people claim to have had a visitation from God vs how many people claim that a prayer helped them find their car keys or cured their illness.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:I just don't see how this is different from saying "It's all peanut butter". It's just leads you into equivocation.
I suppose if you start with peanut butter as a premise for the universe... the primordial goo? Otherwise I don't understand your comparison.
quote:I don't know how to explain it without preaching a sermon, so you'll just have to take my word that any scientific marvel you throw out is food for faith to me.
quote:So, say, a parasite that ate the eyes of children, that would be food for faith?
You turned my words around. I said "scientific marvel," you said eye-eating parasite. But is suffering the stuff of faith too? Absolutely. No matter what philosophy you adopt, you have to deal with it somehow. I think the problem of evil is much easier to deal with as a theist.
quote: If all you are saying is "I believe that everything that exists, exists, and that there's a lot of stuff that exists", then that's not much of an argument, but you are making it more confusing by describing it with a word that is pretty universally used to mean a divine ego.
If you are saying that you believe in a divine ego that does nothing detectable, then I guess I just don't see the point.
Not what I'm saying, on either score.
quote:The essence of the Enlightment is humility.
Perhaps it should have been, but it hasn't really worked out that way.
Posts: 117 | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think the problem of evil is much easier to deal with as a theist.
Gina, can you explain this? This particular statement is one I can't get my head around; I've looked at it from a variety of perspectives, and I have no idea what you might mean.
In what way is the classical Problem of Evil -- which is what I assume you meant -- easier for theists? I can't think of any possible interpretation for which this would be true.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Yes but even when I repented and felt I was right with God it was still a long time before it returned. In fact it took so long I began to despair of ever getting it back.
Which might lead you to believe that it was not actually the renewed faith and going back to church which lead to the good feelings. If there is no close correlation, you have little evidence that your religious actions are actually responsible for the renewed good feelings.
From an outsider's standpoint, were I conducting such an experiment and didn't see results for such a long time, I would begin to look for another cause or correlation.
Perhaps your church serves fantastic spaghetti, which you didn't get a chance to eat until some time after you started going back, and it is actually the spaghetti which gives you these wonderful feelings of fulfillment. Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Yes but even when I repented and felt I was right with God it was still a long time before it returned. In fact it took so long I began to despair of ever getting it back.
Which might lead you to believe that it was not actually the renewed faith and going back to church which lead to the good feelings. If there is no close correlation, you have little evidence that your religious actions are actually responsible for the renewed good feelings.
From an outsider's standpoint, were I conducting such an experiment and didn't see results for such a long time, I would begin to look for another cause or correlation.
Perhaps your church serves fantastic spaghetti, which you didn't get a chance to eat until some time after you started going back, and it is actually the spaghetti which gives you these wonderful feelings of fulfillment.
Well there's that and the possibility that when God grants us knowledge or insight and we go against it our state of being is worse than if we had always been ignorant.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: No. I think humans have been conditioned into religious belief, but that the "default" state for most people is atheism.
You certainly can have no empirical basis for that belief. I mean, the odds are overwhelmingly against you. Take what culture you will, and what time period, and unbelief is a blip compared to at least the inclination to believe.
I absolutely find the opposite to be true. It seems to me that people have to work so hard to not believe, I really wonder why they bother. You needn't choose a creed to just acknowledge some sort of ineffability. I've seen too many atheists who go on and on about the dangers of religion, but lapse into their own sort of religious jargon, either talking about "the universe giving them a gift" or commenting on some marvel of the natural world and how amazing it is. Certain sciences like astronomy strike me as more mysticism than anything else.
This business about religions being created by people and thrust on others is nonsense, too. At the very least atheism must be put right on the shelf with the others.
Posts: 117 | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
[quoe]You turned my words around. I said "scientific marvel," you said eye-eating parasite.[/quote]
Darwin explains the parasite as much as the butterfly. If the one is a marvel of science, so is the other.
quote:Not what I'm saying, on either score.
Then clearly you need to explain better. "Vague speech denotes vague thought."
quote:We have other ways of knowing than rationalism, and other ways of reasoning than the very restricted sense that that point of view requires.
This is not true. Or, to be more accurate, those 'other ways' give answers that are demonstrably false. No two people get the same answer using other methods, unless carefully coached beforehand. A method which gies contradictor answers cannot be trusted.
quote:By that logic I should have just stayed away from my church and kept trying out new things until I found a suitable substitute or barring that, until I died.
That is, indeed, what you should do; stopping at the first answer is a deadly pitfall. But I give you leave to search for only, say, five years; provided that you do genuinely search. And there is another experiment you have not done: Suppose you do all the scripture reading and whatnot, but cease to believe in the god? Jut how does "God exists" follow from "BlackBlade is happy", anyway? It is not as though Joseph Smith had amazing new insights into living the good life; his precepts have been propounded many times, before and since. This is not a hard problem! It does not require that you postulate a whole universe-creator to explain these insights, you just need to postulate that Smith knew something about what makes humans tick.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by GinaG: I've seen too many atheists who go on and on about the dangers of religion, but lapse into their own sort of religious jargon, either talking about "the universe giving them a gift" or commenting on some marvel of the natural world and how amazing it is. Certain sciences like astronomy strike me as more mysticism than anything else.
It's not clear to me what you're trying to say here. Mystical beliefs are different from mystical feelings.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Well there's that and the possibility that when God grants us knowledge or insight and we go against it our state of being is worse than if we had always been ignorant.
My point is that your experiment is not very scientific. If your feeling of badness wasn't directly caused by the cessation of prayer and church services, and the good feelings also occurred much later than when you resumed these activities, it's kind of a stretch to say that there is a clear, causal relationship.
It makes sense because you want it to make sense, but it doesn't actually carry much weight as a logical conclusion. It's simply too broad and imprecise a result to be able to say with any certainty that the general bad feelings had a single cause, or that the good feelings were a direct result of activities when they didn't really come back until so much time had passed that even YOU didn't think your prayer and churchgoing would bring them back.
I went to a New Year's Eve party a week ago, and today I got a stomach ache after eating a large, spicy lunch... I think it's pretty clear that going to a New Year's party gives me stomach aches. After all, I didn't have one before the party, and I did this afternoon. I vaguely remember having one some time after New Year's last year. That's kind of scientific.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:It seems that at least some here, including yourself, are willing to admit that the default position for humanity is in fact religious belief of some kind.
I disagree with Tom here, so I guess I'm one of those people who believes that the default for the majority (not all) of the human race is belief in the supernatural (rather than religious suggesting organized).
I believe that something about the human brain inherently makes connections and invents explanations beyond those that prove to be true when tested empirically. I think that this tendency is stronger in some than others and barely exists in a certain percentage of the population.
This does necessarily not mean religion or God and I do not think it makes atheism impossible or even difficult. Someone bought up to be an atheist simply recognises facts from fiction even as his or her brain invents new connections.
Going to church may be the thing that made BlackBlade feel better, but God's part in going to church could be quite minor. For example, I feel sad, lethargic, uninspired sometimes because I'm not at University, but that's not because I'm lacking God or some supernatural connection with the place, it's because I'm lacking my friends, surroundings that I loved etc.
Church aside from God provides good things to many people as a social group, as psychiatry, as a way of making peace with the things we dislike about ourselves. Leaving a church- or a university-, with all this support in many areas of our lives, is traumatic in itself because we will not have built up a support strategy outside of the church. This is tripled with the sense of guilt that is inherent in God.
When we return, there may even be a period of adjustment where the strategies we have learned outside of church or university struggle to fit in with the ones now restored.
But this is not to do with God unless you chose to make it so, it is to do with human nature and the very empirical supports a church often provides.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
