quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Precisely. And to spin a bit further on your example of the Spirit telling someone that their daughter would be healed, if your friend went on to reason that "Well, clearly she is not sick in Heaven, so she was healed", that is the sort of rationalisation I'm referring to.
Well sure. It can ultimately mean whatever it needs to mean to be consistent with the extent belief system, though in my friend's case it was clear to him that it meant that she would be physically healed during her mortal existence and, rather pragmatically, he just decided that spiritual experiences as he'd come to recognize them weren't a reliable way to obtain knowledge.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
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.
This is far more difficult to describe in words or example.
Also, if this is what everyone is talking about (and I'm not sure if everyone is on the same page as discussions like this can get bogged down in semantics), then I'm afraid my answer to this:
quote:Originally posted by katharina: What are the characteristics you identify of people who are more poorly equipped than an outside person to judge their own experiences? Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
is: Humans.
A more interesting question than the ones posed here is: What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
Given that I acknowledge myself to be a humble human, on the same footing as those who may or may not be deluded, I try only to make judgment calls when there is some clear and present danger involved, such as when people are sure God is talking to them and telling them to kill people.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Actually, in my personal religious philosophy, they can both be right at the exact same time. But I acknowledge that I'm weird and a the moment, I'm just enjoying this back and forth between the idea that there is a God or that there is no God.
I've always thought it would be kind of funny if what happens to you when you die is what you believe will happen. Christians go to Heaven or Hell, Buddhists get reincarnated, atheists get oblivion, etc.
Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality Series suggests this. Not a bad series, either...some are better than others.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Precisely. And to spin a bit further on your example of the Spirit telling someone that their daughter would be healed, if your friend went on to reason that "Well, clearly she is not sick in Heaven, so she was healed", that is the sort of rationalisation I'm referring to.
Well sure. It can ultimately mean whatever it needs to mean to be consistent with the extent belief system, though in my friend's case it was clear to him that it meant that she would be physically healed during her mortal existence and, rather pragmatically, he just decided that spiritual experiences as he'd come to recognize them weren't a reliable way to obtain knowledge.
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?
quote:A more interesting question than the ones posed here is: What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
Well, that's just my point: It ought not to take a psychic. If you need a mind-reader, then that data point is just plain unreliable and doesn't support anything. Throw it out and find something that produces an effect demonstrable without recourse to internal states of the brain. You don't have to believe in electrons, but when someone flips a light switch, then there is light.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
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)
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
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. )
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
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."
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
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
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
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?
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
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?
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
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?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
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 ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
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".
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
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
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
)
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
![[Taunt]](graemlins/taunt.gif)
