are you an atheist?

other means of explanation may not pass scientific scrutiny, but that doesn't mean they've failed on their own terms.

― CANONICAL artists, etc., etc. (contenderizer), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:50 PM (8 minutes ago)

Like what?

― Evan, Tuesday, February 11, 2014 1:01 PM (2 hours ago)

depends on the means, right? if a spiritual belief system purports to describe purely supernatural (metaphysical, w/e) aspects of ostensible "reality", then the success or failure of that system can't be evaluated scientifically. science doesn't concern itself with the supernatural/metaphysical, with things that can't be observed and measured. science doesn't decisively deny such things, it simply ignores them as non-germane.

the belief system itself, however, can still be evaluated on own terms. does it seem to work? does it offer useful insight into spiritual matters (however such things might be constructed)? does it satisfy the needs & square with the perceptions of perceptions of those that employ it?

Or even, what does it tell about the culture that gave birth to it? What morals are most important? How are stories structured? Why do they decorate their houses the way they do?

by those criteria, a sugar pill is an effective treatment for a multitude of conditions. which in a way, it is...but it is not having any direct effect on any symptom or cause. same with religion.

bitcoins are a self-consistent thing, and can be thought of as a spiritual belief system, but once it interacts with our "real" world, we have something approaching a duty to debunk it.

i don't think the value of believing in god is that you get emotional relief. maybe it's true, but it's secondary. the value of believing in god is that you get to have a relationship w/ god.

the value of believing in smurfs is you get to have a relationship with smurfs.
uh ok?

yep u got it

"i've created this little thing in my head i call god, and we can chat"...how is this different from insanity?

very strong links in canonical texts between insanity + prophetic vision

smurfs are a race engineered by the evil scientist yakob gargamel!

if you really and truly did believe that smurfs existed and could be spiritually apprehended, then sure, by believing in them you might be able to gain access to some kind of relationship w them. ur hypothetical has unclear parameters tho.

like i try to stay pretty lucid so i can work + take care of my kids but it's not like i'm uninterested in extreme psychologically atypical religious experiences

it's not like i'm uninterested in extreme psychologically atypical religious experiences

by those criteria, a sugar pill is an effective treatment for a multitude of conditions. which in a way, it is...but it is not having any direct effect on any symptom or cause. same with religion.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:26 PM (6 minutes ago)

sugar pills can have a real & valuable effect. to elevate blood sugar or make things taste sweet or w/e. if you proceed from bedrock assumption that any belief that can't be scientifically validated is not worth having, then sure, the belief in god seems unsustainable. but i don't personally accept that intelligent, reasonable, "sane" people are obligated to proceed from that point.

well you're the one who got all worried about insanity + irrationality xp

ur hypothetical has unclear parameters tho.

there's something else similar that has "unclear parameters"

The entire history of human knowledge?

Or are you fine w ignoring all of the cranks and visionaries who produced batshit theories in the name of science? Do they not invalidate science?

yes sugar pills aren't totally inert, that is irrelevant. are you saying they can directly have effects on all the conditions they have been shown to improve? if not, I fail to see your point.

if you proceed from bedrock assumption that any belief that can't be scientifically validated is not worth having

I never said that. I just said it's an irrational one.

There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather. But such individuals are "geniuses" in the religious line; and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. (William James, Varieties)

Humans are irrational. It's not a case strictly limited to religion y'know.

Or are you fine w ignoring all of the cranks and visionaries who produced batshit theories in the name of science? Do they not invalidate science?

crazy guy comes up with batshit theory ---> others, presumably many not so crazy, are able to test it, try to get repeatable, verfiable results to see if it holds any validity
crazy guy has chat with/visions of God ---> others, presumably many not so carzy, believe him without any proof other than his own word.

I never said that. I just said it's an irrational one.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:43 PM (58 seconds ago)

i disagree. but, for the sake of clarity, define "rational".

I think you're thinking I'm saying "apart from religious thought, no person ever acts irrationally". Obviously that is false (scientifically-proven to be!).

But certainly even if the belief system is irrational, you can rationalize it by saying well they were born to Southern Baptists and the high school was next to a church, etc. economic factors, social factors, etc.

crazy guy has chat with/visions of God ---> others, presumably many not so carzy, believe him without any proof other than his own word.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:45 PM (16 seconds ago)

the thing you're missing is that religion seems to square with people's spiritual perception of the world. i know when i am in love not by application of scientific measurement or principle, but simply because i know. i perceive, become aware of that feeling within myself. by the same token, it may well be that some of us perceive the spiritual, the supernatural, the divine or whatever - and it may further be that religion helps these people make sense of that aspect of their apprehended reality. i'm willing to accept that possibility. why not? what irrational arrogance could possibly incline me to define the perceptions of someone who isn't me?

whichever definition of rationality allows you to disagree with me, let's go with that one

i know when i am in love not by application of scientific measurement or principle, but simply because i know. i perceive, become aware of that feeling within myself.

even though today we "know nothing about the brain", we can detect chemicals that produce the "love" feeling and other physiological states/activties that signify it. just because it feels nebulous and mysterios and metaphysical to you, doesn't make it so.

crazy guy has chat with/visions of God ---> others, presumably many not so carzy, believe him without any proof other than his own word.

And yet i believe every word that Macmillan/McGraw-Hill told me about world history without little further proof.

just because it doesn't feels nebulous and mysterios and metaphysical to you, doesn't make it not so.

just because it feels nebulous and mysterious and metaphysical to you, doesn't make it so.

Again, feel like I need to back it up with http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

say there's an alien who feels love whenever sunlight hits a sensor on its back. or maybe it has a "religious" experience whenever it ingests ammonia. (there's animals who are only fertile/in heat at a certain temperature...they are perhaps totally oblivious to the true reasons behind their subjective experience of "love"). because we are not aware of the exact machanisms (yet) that give rise to such subjective experiences in humans, then we should assume there are supernatural/divine/mystical factors at play? Sure, their COULD be, but why is that a default assumption?

just because it doesn't feels nebulous and mysterios and metaphysical to you, doesn't make it not so.

absolutely

where do you guys stand on the herbalife fight between ackman and icahn?
(the issues seem eerily analogous)

even though today we "know nothing about the brain", we can detect chemicals that produce the "love" feeling and other physiological states/activties that signify it. just because it feels nebulous and mysterios and metaphysical to you, doesn't make it so.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:52 PM (6 minutes ago)

if a smock-equipped scientist were to examine my brain during a period when i suffered from affections and told me, "you're not in love, you lack the requisite chemicals", i would find this scientific truth useless. the much more basic and usefultruth of my own emotional perception - you'd best believe i'm in LOVE L-U-V - would necessarily trump the lab readings.

I see the pattern (thanks, brain!) of grasp of spiritualism/mysticism retreading steadily as scientific knowledge progresses. That leads me to the conclusion that there likely isn't any sort of spiritualness/mysticness in the universe (think of a graph with sci knowlege on one axis, spiritualism on the other...once sci knowledge hits the theoretical top, spiritualism reaches zero). I could be totally wrong, but until there's evidence that has a stronger pull on me than that pattern, I see no reason to think otherwise.

lab readings and/or a scientist's interpretation of them are not foolproof, would be my assumption. Rather than ok they're must be supernatural forces at play here. Occam's Razor.

because we are not aware of the exact machanisms (yet) that give rise to such subjective experiences in humans, then we should assume there are supernatural/divine/mystical factors at play? Sure, their COULD be, but why is that a default assumption?

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:59 PM (4 minutes ago)

we should neither accept nor deny, imo. if folks come up to me and say, "we feel the presence of THE LORD!", who am i to tell them they're wrong? what the fuck do i know about what they feel or don't, whether or not THE LORD exists? i'm perfectly happy to accept that the lord might exist in some manner imperceptible to me - and science.

but until there's evidence that has a stronger pull on me than that pattern, I see no reason to think otherwise.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 4:04 PM (2 minutes ago)

sure, you're under no obligation to think otherwise. nor is anyone else. there's no single right answer.

there are participants in herbalife who genuinely feel benefits from using their products, being involved with their system, but does their personal truth trump the larger truth that herbalife is a scam?

it might exist, seems unlikely. seems even more unlikely that The Lord is making his presence known, but only in those who are prone to believe in the 1st place. who are you to say people don't feel Lord Zogronov telling them to wear a tinfoil hat?
people can hold any sort of irrational belief they wish, and I can hold the belief that they're silly.

well in the case of herbalife, the fight over belief is an existential one (where the determination of whether its a scam or not will bring down the wrath of gov't intervention), but in a larger sense, that's so with any such system, no?

xp to granny on herbalife etc:

sure, you can hold any old belief you want, just as they can. thing is, you're claiming the high ground in this thread, condescending to beliefs that don't square with yours. the benefits of the herbalife program are claimed scientifically, and can thus be evaluated scientifically. that's the crucial, as i see it. benefits or truths that claim no basis in science or even the material world can't be dismissed in quite the same manner. sure, one can simply deny the existence of that which science can't observe, but i see no rational reason to do so. frankly, i see no scientific reason to do so, either. instead, i do what science itself does. i put such things aside. if someone else's mind grapes are stomped by the foot of jesus, then more power to them. it's no concern of mine.

as I said, people are free to hold any sort of belief they wish, whether it's irrational or not. I'd just like more to admit that there is no repeatable verifiable evidence, that the pattern of spiritualism's grasp declining actually points in the opposite conclusion, and that the only evidence is subjective experiences of vague ~feelings~ they experience due to their brain activity and structure. there's still a LOT of "yes but you never know!" in there. It'd just be nice...not planning on burning at the stake anyone who doesn't acquiesce.

thing is, you're claiming the high ground in this thread, condescending to beliefs that don't square with yours.

ah that's the thing that really bugs people, isn't it. If I say someone's beliefs are irrational, how condescending, right? Well, aren't they irrational? Am I saying that being more rational makes me a better person? Absolutely not. More logical? Probably, but who really cares.

Everything about Christianity can be justified within the context of Christian belief. That is, if you accept its terms. Once you do, your belief starts modifying the data (in ways that are themselves defensible, see?), until eventually the data begin to reinforce belief. The precise moment of illogic can never be isolated and may not exist. Like holding a magnifying glass at arm's length and bringing it toward your eye: Things are upside down, they're upside down, they're right side up. What lay between? If there was something, it passed too quickly to be observed. This is why you can never reason true Christians out of the faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never reasoned into it—many were—it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping into a circle, one that closes with you inside.

Read More http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/200401/rock-music-jesus#ixzz1c1OcexJ6

but if you go "hmm I can't quite explain this...must be something supernatural at play" or "this subjective experience...it feels SO real, it must be real what I'm feeling here" while I go "maybe this is another in the countless ways in which spiritual answers were positied, but then discarded once more knowledge was gained" or "hmm maybe this is yet another of the countless ways the brain can trick itself"...then your thought processes need some work. Call it condescending, don't really care.

condescending to beliefs that don't square with yours

cause you never do this, right? all beliefs are exactly equal in your eyes, right? you wouldn't be trying to pretend otherwise just to feel superior to me and my condescension, would you?

well, one of the illuminating things about the herbalife case to me is the idea that belief itself doesn't matter with regards to any kind of system of beliefs. Icahn's position in the herbalife fight is based on the balance sheet, not whether herbalife works or not, and thus one of the larger actors in the saga is someone whose belief in it is irrelevant.

In this sense I think it would have been more interesting for Nye's opponent to say, "I don't believe in this stuff, anyway, therefore any evidence you present me makes no difference."

xxxp You are implying that the modifying your line of belief of from within that very same line of belief is a simple matter and/or desirable for most people which is a bit naive.