quote: This is the balm of religious people, I understand that. But it produces tangible harm. That which is testable and true is easily demonstrated, given sufficient education- such as any basic scientific theory. But if you have a belief that can't be tested, but you still *really* believe it, the only way to feel secure in that belief is to be part of a group that believes together, and reinforces the belief. That means a church, and proselytizing, and eventually war and religious conquest, when the administration of your church gets *so* big, and *so* overpowered, that it develops the will to exercise its sovereignty and dominion over the world.
Where are you getting this from? It doesn't seem congruent with any of the research that I'm aware of.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Dude, how can you possibly make the determination about my evidence's ampleness or lack of amplenss if you haven't heard it yet?
Share it or be quiet about it. No one is interested in your claims unless you're prepared to substantiate them. Unless you're afraid to do so without first claiming victimhood for being disparaged when you eventually *do* share them. Honestly, this childish manipulation game is so common with religion- it's a wonder so many don't recognize it.
I'm the father of two small children, and even if I just wanted to spend my time playing xbox instead of having little time do to being the caretaker of my children, you really don't get to demand anything nor draw conclusions from my available time for discussion.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
You do realize that the reason Orin is fed up with such statements is because many people like to claim "I have evidence! I tooootally have evidence!" but play some song and dance about not giving it to people. You know, because they don't have it, and feel like they can get away with lying.
It's a common thing in discussions like this, so I can understand his viewpoint. What he means is that you can say you have evidence until you're blue in the face, but nobody will -or should- believe you have any unless you provide it. Because on subjects like this, people lie.
If it's unfair to you, then perhaps you should blame the people who've burned Orincoro, me, and others with their lies and attempted manipulation.
After all, just like some women, as discussed in the origin of this thread, consider men to be potentially rapists if they don't know them... many people will consider one who claims to have evidence on a matter like this, but won't share it, a potential liar. Or, if they continue to refuse it, it's a tell-tale sign of a definite liar.
Point is, when you play the same game that liars play, it's easy for someone to assume you are also a liar. Don't think I assume you are a liar. Just explaining the point of view as I personally see it.
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quote:Originally posted by shadowland: You said that "that the evidence could be legitimately interpreted in a different way," i.e. it could legitimately support other possible stories rather than the one you choose to believe.
If I'm not mistaken, all evidence requires an interpretation, it's facts that stand alone without analysis.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I get ya 0Mega...I'm just busy and he is rude. I will get to you, it's just difficult at times to find enough hours in the day.
Feel free to treat any claims of evidence as unsubstantiated until rendered, I'm fine with that.
In the end people will prolly say that it isn't evidence anyway...and possibly rightfully so, it's more like hints, clues and speculation.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Right, spend more time softpedalling your claim and getting victim status for being misunderstood before you even make the claim. That boosts your credibility a *ton*.
7 posts back it was evidence. Now you realized nobody is going to let you get away with that. Now it's hints and clues and goose bump feelings and eery coincidences, right? Right. Everyone is a sucker except you. Nobody could possibly be smart enough to see through that.
And don't act like you weren't just waiting for me to come back at you so that you could get pissy and refuse to share you "evidence". Because you were going to play that game until you had a reason to take your ball and go home.
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posted
Reading your posts Orin is like a drink of ice cold water on a hot day...I'll share when I have time. I don't have time as of yet. This post, and the ones above took prolly a grand total of ten min.
Ten min I can currently spare, the amount of time I need to put a cohesive argument together is substantial in comparison.
You have two options here, you can keep being aggravating and assume my intentions to be as negative as possible, or just sit back and wait til I post. I trust you to make the appropriate choice to your personality.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I think that "evidence" is problematic as well. It can mean anything from incontrovertable proof to "stuff the inclines me to believe one thing rather than another". That "stuff" could well be interpreted differently or even be meaningless to someone else.
What kind of "evidence" are you talking about here?
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quote:You do realize that the reason Orin is fed up with such statements is because many people like to claim "I have evidence! I tooootally have evidence!" but play some song and dance about not giving it to people. You know, because they don't have it, and feel like they can get away with lying.
Far more common, I think, is a belief that the evidence is sacred or personal and that sharing it opens oneself to painful criticism or mockery. I understand and sympathize with this position, but it suggests to me that there is a known but unacknowledged issue with the strength of the evidence, at least as evaluated with a rational, unbiased eye.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
The protective, caveat laden claims of "proof" which is never proof, and the demand that this silly nonsense be tolerated and even nurtured, and the hurt, indignantly toothless claims of unfair treatment get to me more than the strIght up lies. It's just lame. And yes, it is indicative of a knowledge, on some level, that the actual value of these beliefs and bits of proof is lower than the person wishes it to be. It being so clear that they recognize this weakness, and demand that others ignore it and play nice with them while they pervert the terminology of science and logic? That you might call lying. At least it is self deception.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
How is saying that using words like "theory" or "evidence" is problematic "perverting the terminology of science"? In fact, I would argue that using the language of science perverts discussions of faith.
You try to insist that your way is the only game in town and we should resist falling into that trap.
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posted
even when we were in the depths of the assertion that Judaism was not faith-based, I never for an instant felt like I was being lied to, merely witnessing an example of representative, intransigent religious bias (and the way in which it skews interpretation of likelihood / the likelihood of alternative explanations). When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you're convinced beyond rational review, everything looks like proof. Hell, young-earth creationists look at the geologic record and are sure it represents a few-thousands-year-old earth.
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posted
Yeah, I think that's accurate. I just sometimes find it hard to believe that people can be quite *that* naive, and still manage to eat and wash themselves. But they do! And here, I struggle with those daily chores.
(And yes, I'm kidding. Lest some overzealous poster should imagine me sitting in my living room, in a tattered shirt, starving and unable to satisfy my urge to scratch at my neck beard).
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: This is the balm of religious people, I understand that. But it produces tangible harm. That which is testable and true is easily demonstrated, given sufficient education- such as any basic scientific theory. But if you have a belief that can't be tested, but you still *really* believe it, the only way to feel secure in that belief is to be part of a group that believes together, and reinforces the belief. That means a church, and proselytizing, and eventually war and religious conquest, when the administration of your church gets *so* big, and *so* overpowered, that it develops the will to exercise its sovereignty and dominion over the world.
Where are you getting this from? It doesn't seem congruent with any of the research that I'm aware of.
posted
I'm not sure what you're looking for, Squicky. Evidence that beliefs are reinforced by membership in supportive groups? Or just evidence that beliefs which cannot be validated through actual observation might demand validation from other sources?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Tom, I'm looking for Ori's source for the claims he made, which seem to me to be far more extensive than what you said. Given the position he's staked out, Ori would have to have some pretty strong scientific evidence back those extreme claims, but I'd expect that I know at least an order of magnitude more about the relevant literature and I've never come across it. What I do know even seems to contradict it.
edit:
I've even gone into some depth about the classic research into the psychology of religion and what I consider some of the relevant social/group psychology on Hatrack. You can probably find it by doing a search on my user name and "Allport". I think that this whole line, both here and in the larger context, would greatly benefit if the evangelical atheists actually learned and at least considered incorporating into their worldview the extensive relevant scientific research or heck, even a working understanding of basic scientific epistemology. But you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath while waiting for that to happen.
posted
*grin* I'm an evangelical atheist. Do you think I don't have a working understanding of epistemology?
I'm curious: what do you think an understanding of Allport would bring to the table, here? Bear in mind that I'm reasonably familiar with his work, although obviously not in the intimate detail one would expect from a student of psychology, and I can't think of anything he's concluded that would be revelatory to critical thinkers.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Tom, I've seen you made very basic epistemology errors several times in your pursuit of evangelical atheism/materialism. The major one that really sticks out to me is that you regard necessary conditions as equivalent to sufficient ones. So, yeah, I don't think your understanding of epistemology is adequate.
Allport was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of religion and was one of the first to tackle the question of why religious people often behave so poorly from an analytical perspective. His work has obviously been greatly expanded on since, but he laid what I consider essential groundwork for exploring and predicting the behavior of ideological groups.
And, again, I've written in some detail on this here, I believe in conversations you were a party to.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:How do you think these people became "better" Christians? Couldn't have anything to do with education and rationalism? You know, all those schools of thought that promoted education so forcefully in the last 4 centuries? Cause seriously, education in the time of religious domination of academia was... sub-optimal.
In the quote you just quoted I said "education and the diversity of opinion brought about by free speech have had a major role in this." So yes, I think education did have something to do with it.
But education is not an outgrowth of rationalism. Rather, rationalism is an outgrowth of education. Education stemmed more from the church - specifically, the modern university system originated from the Catholic Church.
More generally, it is not very accurate to separate reason and education from religion. Reason and education are tools that are a major part of any major religion I can think of - certainly Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism - and have been for thousands of years, before the scientific method was thought out. Religion couldn't really exist, at least as we know it, without them.
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quote:The major one that really sticks out to me is that you regard necessary conditions as equivalent to sufficient ones.
I think it would be more correct to state that we disagree on which conditions those are.
quote:I've written in some detail on this here, I believe in conversations you were a party to.
To be fair, it's mainly involved ranting things like "why don't you people read the research? It's all so obvious! Why can't you just learn?" When in reality there's very little that Allport's work brings to the table that I think hasn't been considered here by me and by others. That's not to say that I don't find his approach intriguing, but I'm amused by your tendency to throw social "science" up into the air and say, "Hey, look, this is a settled argument because this professor has an opinion!"
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
So, what did you see in Allport's scientific research, even if it was already something that you considered?
Also, when someone says "You can't do X without Y, therefore X is completely accounted for by Y." that's a basic epistemological error. It matters very little what the conditions are.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Regarding what? If you're talking specifically about his religious research, I think he simply wound up identifying a lot of demographic traits that, yeah, are demographic traits -- many of which seem almost tautological. (This isn't to say that it's not useful to be able to definitively say that, yes, people who consider themselves old-fashioned place a higher value on tradition than people who do not.)
I appreciate his desire to cram people into measurable niches. I'm amused by his distinction between "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" faith, which strikes me as more than a little self-serving; I submit that it begs the question. And I'm sympathetic to the idea that someone's personality can actually be boiled down to a bunch of tendencies, but don't think that people are necessarily consistent enough for those tendencies to be itemized accurately in a way that would allow them to be reliably jammed into one of his niches.
More importantly, I don't understand what you think would change about, say, Orincoro's presentation here if he were intimately familiar with Allport's work.
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quote:Also, when someone says "You can't do X without Y, therefore X is completely accounted for by Y." that's a basic epistemological error.
I'd agree. Where have I done that recently?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
So, I haven't forgotten about this thread...I'm up to two pages in Word, but it is a difficult task to articulate personal beliefs as evidence. As a belief you don't need any real standard, but as evidence...well, it's daunting really. But even if the end result is a bunch of facts and just a lot of conjecture about those facts, I will share it. Thanks for your patience everyone...now Orin will tell you how horrible I am.
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