MellowDem
MellowDem's JournalYes, that is the premise...
how is it not? I am able to determine what parts of the author's post I wish to discuss. One premise I chose from the author's piece is that gods are not provable or falsifiable. We both agree on this. It is from that premise that I arrive at a lack of belief in gods. It is from that premise that the author (irrationally, IMHO) arrives at the conclusion in a belief in gods.
I am not discussing whether god exists or not, but rather the method used to come to a conclusion on that question (or any question that is not proveable or falsifiable).
Of course the author is asserting that gullibility is the only way for believers not to be hypocrites, and she's right. Read the piece again if you need to, but she asserts that all religions are equally valid because she won't question the validity of someone's explanations of their experiences. That is gullibility. It's well intentionted, that is, it's all about avoiding conflict with other people that hold different supernatural beliefs. It unites believers under their common faith and gullibility. But I'm saying gullibility and faith are not rational grounds to proceed from the original premise.
All of the words I've used have been relevant, you quoting them does nothing to bolster any argument you have, whatever it may be.
Considering the informality of a discussion board on the internet, I don't believe I need to do more than present common knowledge on such subjects. It's like saying the sky is blue. Honestly, if someone doesn't know that religions have and continue to use supernatural explanations for experiences that have been shown to be nothing more than psychiatric disorders, then they can look it up themselves and find many examples of it. I don't believe the burden is on me, and I really don't care if someone else thinks otherwise, because, once again, it's not something in controversy. It's widely known and accepted.
Sure, on some things...
for most things, I'd have to say I don't know, or have to resort to probabilities based on limited evidence.
I understand that others have different ideas of what is "true". I am saying that how they arrive there is less useful, and indeed, in some cases harmful, according to my preferences, and that the way I and many others go about it is better. It's my opinions and my preferences that inform what method I use to find the truth.
Once again, I am not saying the "experience" itself is not true. Just the explanation of the experience. I have no way of knowing whether someone is lying about their experiences, and I don't care. But the explanation of those experiences, on the other hand, is as open to me as to anyone else.
I think I need to prove claims I make to others if they are to reasonably believe me, and vice versa. That's why I require proof before I will just automatically believe explanations for experiences. Unfortunately, many people who choose "truth" based on faith, or gullibility, are indeed infringing on the rights of me and others every day, throughout the world, precisely because of the method of thinking they use. I think attacking these methods of thinking as harmful and bad is therefore a good thing for me to do, according to my preferences.
Rationality isn't a double edged sword. It just is. What is subjective are preferences. The vast majority of people have very similar preferences, due to evolution. I understand some people are willing to be gullible on some subjects in exchange for perceived comfort, or more often through childhood indoctrination, social pressure, social rewards, and fear of punishment of some sort (financial, by the state, losing your family ties, etc.). I just prefer truth over all of those things, but then again, I am relatively privileged. If I lived in Iran, I'd be lying to myself with the best of them most likely. I wouldn't want to lose my life, my family, my friends, etc. etc. by renouncing Islam, for example.
The fact that many of the preferences of the religious are through coercion of some sort or other (mostly cultural) diminishes them to me though, and makes me think that they are the leftovers of a type of society humans are moving on from. Not to mention, religion is not required to have a community, to be close with family, or to even not fear death. But in many cultural contexts, it is impossible to have those things due to the nature of religion. Which is why I'm glad it is slowly dying off. It's not needed for all the positives it brings and is the source of a lot of negatives in the method of thinking it requires.
As for the mental illness thing... it's common knowledge, not my "opinion" that religions have long used supernatural explanations for experiences that are not supernatural:
http://www.cmf.org.uk/publications/content.asp?context=article&id=619
From the link:
Anthropologists, psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists see beliefs about demonology as being culturally or socially determined explanations for problems which can otherwise be fully explained in sociological, psychodynamic, psychological or psychiatric terms.
The fact that I have to link you to "common knowledge" sources that you or anyone else could easily find thanks to the internet seems to make me think you're not very serious or like engaging in semantics.
Because religions discriminate against them...
it forces many more GLBT people to critically examine their beliefs than for others. If you're relatively privileged in your society, your religion likely first established (and upholds) those privileges.
Given that very few people truly care whether the things they are indoctrinated into as children are actually true, few people ever look into their beliefs and are quite satisfied with convenient cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty. But when you are the target of those beliefs, holding that belief can be so uncomfortable and problematic that people who would otherwise be apathetic like most finally apply critical thinking to religion.
And you get less believers as a result. Not exactly surprising.
You have the question wrong...
it's not whether or not I believe a person has had an experience, but whether their explanation of that experience is true. And under that question, how I measure "truth" is quite relevant. If I will just accept any claim from experience as true, then I am very gullible indeed.
Their "mistaken belief" comes in their belief of the explanation of the experience, not the experience itself. There's really no reason for me to question the statment "I felt lighter, I felt a great weight lift off me, I felt a wonderful, rapturous feeling of warmth and comfort". But the explanation that that experience was the result of a supernatural force can and should be questioned on the basis that there is no evidence for it. And the much more rational answer would be that that person doesn't know why they felt that way, or that it is likely (as has been the case in other experiences, and for which there IS some evidence) a result of the very complex nature of the brain and the interaction of chemicals.
There is nothing "offensive" about stating facts. Certain religions have (and many still do) indeed interpreted various experiences as supernatural, only to later find out with the advance of knowledge that these expereiences were the product of the brain. It's no different really than religions back in the day having gods that threw lightning bolts down to Earth. The lightning was real enough, but the explanation of it was not. I never said that religious people were more likely to have mental disorders...
I understand not everyone shares my views, not exactly sure where I said that everyone shares my views (or must).
I'm not limiting the term...
I did not reject the premise. I accept the premise that gods are unproveable and unfalsifiable, just as the author did. So it's in what follows where we part. I say that the only reasonable way to proceed is to hold a lack of belief. She says beliefs based on "experiences" are rational. That's irrational to me.
I understand it's subjective, so I'm just saying what my preferences are. Namely, she is advocating gullibility in my opinion, or faith. Faith is irrational.
I understand why she is advocating gullibility. It is the only way to not be hypocrites for believers. After all, the believer that claim their god is the real god based on no evidence, but then that turns around and rejects all other gods because there is no evidence for them is engaging in cognitive dissonance at least, if not intellectual dishonesty. Or claiming that other gods require proof where their god does not.
Or, as is more often the case, claiming that there is more and better "evidence" for their god than others, though I find the "evidence" to be very poor or not evidence at all (like "experiences"
. Indeed, if that's the claim, then it's a rejection of the original premise that gods are unproveable and unfalsifiable to a degree.
So, she is in the supremely silly position of accepting all supernatural claims from experience as equally true, whether it be about experiences with Batman or Alice in Wonderland.
As for mental disorders, I certainly don't need to be an expert to make that claim. It's common knowledge in most first world nations due to there being plenty of evidence both contemporary and historical on the internet, produced by experts, that show how different mental defects are or were interpreted as something supernatural.
When a claim is unprovable and unfalsifiable....
The rational position to take is a lack of belief, or atheism in this context. Someone can tell me that they've experienced God, but I can quite easily claim that, in reality, I don't believe they did because they have no evidence. Rather, they have a mistaken belief. Not uncommon, given how many mental disorders were and still are claimed to be experiences with the supernatural or even demon possession.
The idea that because all experiences cannot be explained yet (or maybe ever), that I should therefore accept a person's explanation of their experiences as supernatural seems rather bizarre. To me, they don't know and are just filling in their lack of knowledge with the God of the gaps, which suspiciously usually aligns with their cultural upbringing.
Yep...
And it requires a bit of intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance as well. Of course, it's the only time many religious people will reject reality in favor of the supernatural, because believing it is easy compared to applying it. Now, the parents that reject medical care for their children based on supernatural beliefs are no different overall, they're just being intellectually honest and consistent.
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Member since: Thu Jul 24, 2008, 05:59 PMNumber of posts: 5,018
