quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I can understand that reaction-- because for whatever reason, the areligious cannot see the evidence that is so clearly seen by the religious.
Perception-envy.
The a-schizophrenic cannot see the people or hear the voices so clearly seen and heard by the schizophrenic. Don't assume that's a problem with the a-schizophrenic.
(And yes, I know, that is a rather extreme comparison. But I think the analogy holds.)
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And yet science can be done perfectly well despite scorn, condescension, mockery, and contempt. And furthermore, I can guarantee you that you'd be "met" with those things from at most two people.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert: The a-schizophrenic cannot see the people or hear the voices so clearly seen and heard by the schizophrenic. Don't assume that's a problem with the a-schizophrenic.
But the reverse is true as well. The reality perceived by the schizophrenic (and bless you for using the term correctly) is indeed not the same as that perceived by the non-schizophrenic. But for an external observer, determining which of those realities is the real one is non-trivial. As anyone who saw "A Beautiful Mind" can tell you. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: And yet science can be done perfectly well despite scorn, condescension, mockery, and contempt. And furthermore, I can guarantee you that you'd be "met" with those things from at most two people.
Tom: I know I'm jumping in where I was not addressed, if you'd like me to stop I will. There are plenty examples of people discussing their religious beliefs to a hostile crowd, but almost all of those are because God commanded it, and gave the unbelieving one last chance to turn away from iniquity. A person can also find God amidst persecution, contempt, and mockery. But neither science or religion can be effectively transferred to the minds of other people in those environments.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: And yet science can be done perfectly well despite scorn, condescension, mockery, and contempt. And furthermore, I can guarantee you that you'd be "met" with those things from at most two people.
Should I assume that you do not consider yourself one of the two?
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I wouldn't consider Tom among one of those two. I think part of the problem is that people tend to take criticisms of their beliefs personally. That sort of reaction is beyond Tom's control (mostly).
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How you interpret my words is beyond my control. If you're offended where no offense is meant, I suggest that you're insecure as well as delusional and stupid.
Yeah, Tom's pretty much advocated that line before, too.
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quote:Originally posted by Threads: I wouldn't consider Tom among one of those two. I think part of the problem is that people tend to take criticisms of their beliefs personally. That sort of reaction is beyond Tom's control.
It most certainly is not. Tom would have full control in how he petitions a person into sharing their reasons for believing as they do. It's a two person effort as the other person has to decide how they will respond.
Saying in effect, "See you've got nothing otherwise you'd bust it out, but you've got nothing so you won't, see!" Is not going to open doors that should be opened. In fact a person who responds to such a challenge would likely be doing it out of pride not out of any respect for God.
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For the record: I would call -- and have called -- someone who believed they had spoken to God "delusional," in the same way I have been comfortable calling my brother "delusional" when he claimed that he heard the radio speaking to him. I would almost certainly not call people "idiots," however. And I wouldn't call someone who simply thought they had in some way felt the presence of God "delusional," because the odds are that they certainly did indeed perceive a feeling and are only mistaken in their interpretation of the event.
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Tom, you have ways of calling people idiots without ever using the word. It's almost inconceivable to me that you're not aware of it.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Tom, you have ways of calling people idiots without ever using the word. It's almost inconceivable to me that you're not aware of it.
How you interpret my words is beyond my control. If you're offended where no offense is meant, I suggest that you're insecure as well as delusional and stupid.
Yeah, Tom's pretty much advocated that line before, too.
I haven't seen him make a statement like that without additional qualifiers and subtlety that change the meaning quite a bit. I also don't think that I should answer for Tom anyways and I'm sorry for starting this line of discussion.
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I think if anyone here thinks that I think they're an idiot (with, honesty compels me to admit, a few exceptions who haven't posted on this thread), they're actually stupider than I thought.
All joking aside, I do not think that irrational people are idiotic people. I've said before that I have absolutely no difficulty believing that, if I tried hard enough, I could convince myself of the existence of a God. Does anyone here think I think I'm an idiot? I'm merely acutely aware of the limitations of reason in the face of human desire.
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I don't think there are irrational people at all-- only people who haven't examined all the evidence that exists.
Logic and critical thinking are not the sole domains of science, or of the areligious. Study, contemplation, discussion-- these things are as vital (IMO) to a person who is concerned with their spirituality as they are to a scientist.
Granted, in recent years, literalists and fundamentalists have given formalized reasoning a bad name in religious circles. I can't call them irrational-- they have reasons for the way they believe-- but I will call their beliefs unexamined and incomplete. They are still using the same processes to evaluate the information they have, but their assumptions filter the evidence they're willing to consider.
Which brings us back to the start.
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Scott: Do you believe in god simply because you WANT to believe in god?
I want to hear your evidence. I'd love for it to convince me. But you're going to get challenged every step of the way.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I don't think there are irrational people at all-- only people who haven't examined all the evidence that exists.
Logic and critical thinking are not the sole domains of science, or of the areligious. Study, contemplation, discussion-- these things are as vital (IMO) to a person who is concerned with their spirituality as they are to a scientist.
Granted, in recent years, literalists and fundamentalists have given formalized reasoning a bad name in religious circles. I can't call them irrational-- they have reasons for the way they believe-- but I will call their beliefs unexamined and incomplete. They are still using the same processes to evaluate the information they have, but their assumptions filter the evidence they're willing to consider.
Which brings us back to the start.
Would you consider the use of a logical fallacy in an argument to be irrational?
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: It *does* make it faulty reasoning.
Really? It's faulty reasoning to believe in God because I want to believe in God? All the reasoning in the world can't draw a conclusion one way or the other (and believe me, I've tried) so I can't think of anything else it would come down to save what made me happier....what I wanted to believe. Those who believe that there is no God do so through at least as strong an act of faith. They can talk about purple unicorns all they want to try to show that the lack of belief in God is the default position because, I suppose, thinking that way makes them happier.
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: Those who believe that there is no God do so through at least as strong an act of faith.
Completely false.
How does not believing in something due to the lack of good evidence to support it amount to anything even remotely like 'faith'?
You can deride the use of unicorns as a counter-example, but I don't see where it fails.
I don't believe in unicorns because there's no good evidence for their existence. Not because I 'have faith' that unicorns don't exist.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Generally, though, I think that people come to religious faith the same way they come to scientific knowledge: they have experiences or come across accounts of other people's experiences and something ignites within them.
You don't undersand science at all.
The whole virtue of scientific knowledge isn't just the collecting of facts, it's the rigorous reality testing. You have to put your knowledge to a test that it can fail.
Do you think that the mother in Wausau, whose daughter died becuase she got no diabetes treatment, only prayer, has concluded that her beliefs failed the test? Or will she keep believing, regardless of the evidence right before her eyes that her belief that God would keep her child alive without medicine was utterly false?
Do you think when Daniel Hauser dies from his untreated cancer, that his mother will change her mind about the validity of her religious beliefs?
Ria Ramkissoon, who starved her toddler to death for religious reasons, still thinks that he will be resurrected. What evidence do you think she would accept as disproving that claim?
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Christine: What is your goal here? If it's to be happier, then yes, believing in god is rational. If it's to find what is true, then your argument falls flat on its face.
What makes you happy does not define reality. There are a lot of ugly, painful, hateful things in life that are undeniably true. It would make everyone a lot happier if they just went away. But they still exist.
What would make me happy would be a giant chocolate waterfall (with dark chocolate "rocks") that I could eat and drink from all day long without getting fat. But no matter how much I try to believe it exists, I don't have one in my back yard.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: It *does* make it faulty reasoning.
Really? It's faulty reasoning to believe in God because I want to believe in God?
Is is faulty reasoning to believe that your child's cancer will go away with prayer because you want it to?
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The main pieces of evidence that have combined to lead me to believe in God are: *The fact that the way of life modeled by Christ seems to lead people to become good people *The stories recorded in the Bible, even if not perfectly accurate *Personal testimony from quite a few people who say they've experienced God *The fact that belief in God has become so widely accepted, by so many different religions, leading me to suspect there's something to it *The fact that it appears to me that the universe has a spiritual aspect to it, which doesn't directly give evidence of God per se, but which does open the door to that possibility
You can argue that these don't necessarily prove anything, which of course is true. They don't prove God exists, and to someone who has a desire to not believe in God, such evidence won't force them to believe. But, as I see it, the "evidence for" should be weighed along with the "evidence against". And the evidence against God's existence seems to be... not really much at all. The problem of evil and the question of why God doesn't reveal himself more clearly are the big ones in my book, and that's not really enough, because both seem like they could have reasonable answers.
The argument can and is made that other religions are just as backed by evidence as mine. That's true too - but I'm not going to reject all religion just because many different religions have similar degrees of evidence backing them. Instead I'm just going to conclude that some religious belief system is probably true, that most are probably at least in some part true, and try to make my best estimate as to which one is most accurate. It's the best I can do on an issue where logical certainty is impossible.
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tres: Could you elaborate on the "Spiritual aspect" part? I hear people throwing around "Spiritual" all the time in many different contexts and they can't all possibly mean the same thing.
Thank you for posting why you believe. Do you want me to go through why I don't find any of them compelling or are you fine with leaving it at that?
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Christine: What is your goal here? If it's to be happier, then yes, believing in god is rational. If it's to find what is true, then your argument falls flat on its face.
I gave up trying to figure out what was true a long time ago. The world doesn't break down neatly into true and false, despite the rationalists' desire that it do so. Once you get much past the existence of a chair and start to talk about things like love, evil, hope, the nature of man, and God, then true and false are no longer rational or observable constructs.
What is my goal? I don't really have one. When I said I believe in God because I want to believe in God I was talking to both sides of this debate: To those who believe in God I say I have never seen any proof that he exists. To those who do not believe in God (or more precisely, to those who believe there is no God), I say why the heck shouldn't I? Does it hurt anyone to believe in God?
I'm not looking for truth. It's a highly biased concept and it never ceases to amaze me how easily "truth" becomes whatever we want to believe. So I believe in God because I want to. I also believe in hope, love, and good intentions.
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quote:tres: Could you elaborate on the "Spiritual aspect" part? I hear people throwing around "Spiritual" all the time in many different contexts and they can't all possibly mean the same thing.
I knew someone was going to ask that.... That was the vaguest and most confusing (to me) of the ones I listed. It's also very fluid; my opinions on it next year will probably be different from this year. By "spiritual" I mean something along the lines of "relating to the soul." I believe in the existence of a soul, of an objective morality, and of meaning (as in, I think happiness is literally a meaningful thing, rather than just a function human beings have which determines their behavior.) I think those things are interrelated, and not fully explained by any physical objects in the world. I don't think I could give a clear explanation all at once as to why I consider this to be the case, but it is mostly from introspection, and I've explained pieces of it previously in other threads. The reason this relates to God is because, in my view, if souls can exist then other soul-like things don't really seem that bizarre - God and the after-life would fall in that category.
As I said, this is the least clear of any of the reasons I gave, but I figured I should include it because it does have an influence on what I end up believing.
quote:Do you want me to go through why I don't find any of them compelling or are you fine with leaving it at that?
If you have a unusual reason you could, but otherwise I suspect I already know. I doubt there's much compelling about them without corresponding experiences in life.
quote:Once you get much past the existence of a chair and start to talk about things like love, evil, hope, the nature of man, and God, then true and false are no longer rational or observable constructs.
That's only true if you're framing the question incorrectly. There's no reason that any construct cannot be rational. In fact, I believe all constructs are on some level rationalized.
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Depends... who are you willing to hurt for your belief in god? How much of your own will are you willing to surrender? How far are you willing to go oppose those who believe differently or not at all? Prop 8? 9/11?
People need to believe what they believe, but don't deny that religion has no consequences... Especially when it crosses into the public arena.
That being said, I don't think YOU believing in god hurts anyone.
quote: it never ceases to amaze me how easily "truth" becomes whatever we want to believe.
True. Unless finding out what IS true becomes important. Losing my faith sucked monkey butt. I clung to it like a life preserver as long as I possibly could. It's difficult, when you've grown up with the promise of Heaven, to realize it's all just something they tell us to make us feel better about the constant pain of living. To give in to the fact that when you die, it's over and the cake is a lie.
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Depends... who are you willing to hurt for your belief in god? How much of your own will are you willing to surrender? How far are you willing to go oppose those who believe differently or not at all? Prop 8? 9/11?
People need to believe what they believe, but don't deny that religion has no consequences... Especially when it crosses into the public arena.
I don't necessarily think belief in God caused these terrible things to happen. It is belief in one's own unfailing righteousness and the need to bend everyone else to one's own will. That arises from human nature, and if God were never in the picture, they'd have come up with some other excuse.
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We can certainly see that it doesn't take a belief in God to create a prideful certainty of one's own rectitude and infallibility.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: [QUOTE]Would you expect an evolutionary biologist to embrace the idea of giving an in depth presentation to a group of active YECs?
Yes, in fact, I would. And it often happens, at debates, in high school classrooms, and on internet forums. So often on the latter that there are entire websites devoted to answering the most common objections, so that one can simply point at the standard response instead of having to type it out every time. I do not think you can accuse evolutionary biologists of being reluctant to share their data with anyone.
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quote: things like love, evil, hope, the nature of man, and God
One of these things is not like the others; one of these things does not belong.
quote:I believe in God because I want to. Is that irrational?
Yes. If any other word were substituted for 'God' in that sentence, you would not even ask the question.
quote:Specifically the last post. What it seems like you're saying is that if I were using the same logic that I use to determine whether or not it's safe to start my car in the morning, I'd also not be religious.
Yes. Precisely.
quote:From my point of view, there's little difference. I test both systems daily using much of the same processes; both systems (the spiritual and the temporal) give me a great deal of satisfaction and happiness.
Your state of mind is evidence that your mind works in certain ways when you perform X actions. It is not evidence of anything external to your skull; nor do you treat it as such, when anyone else's mind is involved.
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quote:You can't prove that. You believe it, but you don't know it.
And it's possible that, just below the congratulatory furnace, there really was a cake. Certainly the ending cut scene might be interpreted as proof that, somewhere, a cake existed. There's no proof that cake would not be provided. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: This is the opposite of my experience. In fact, science is generally practiced in a hostile environment. You can even argue that the scientific method relies upon the creation of a hostile environment.
Really I would like to see what science would be like if it were "publish" rather than "publish or perish." Scholarly review as a Gold Star For Effort Good Job! environment.
No honestly everyone tom is absolutely right here. The scientific world is excruciating and brutal and it only works because it is tearing itself down constantly.
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