BBO Discussion Forums: BBF religious matrix - BBO Discussion Forums

 Fluffy, on 2013-January-11, 09:57, said:

Sorry, Gonzalo, but if your understanding of how the mind works is based on your own thinking, then you are, whether you want to accept it or not, ignorant of a great deal of how the mind works!

There are a number of exceptionally intelligent, dedicated, and highly educated people who have made it their life's work to understand how the mind works. They have generated a large amount of carefully worked-out, and often experimentally tested, notions. They build on each other's works, and many of them have been working on this subject for longer than you have been alive.

More importantly, as you would know if you had done any significant amount of reading, they have shown that our minds do NOT operate the way that we subjectively think they do. Thus, almost certainly, you cannot, from your own mental resources, come to have any understanding of how your mind works.

There have been, a month or more back, some posts in the bridge part in which the poster trumpeted new methods, including a bizarre form of Gerber, tho it wasn't called gerber, and an even more bizarre form of signalling on defence. The writer had no doubt convinced himself that his ideas were brilliant. I am sure that part of the problem was that the writer was profoundly ignorant of current bridge methods, and so was unaware of how wrong his ideas seemed to those who knew more. You are, in terms of understanding the mind, in the same position. It is silly for anyone, who admits he has not done any reading in a field, to claim that he has a good understanding of the topic. The only reason you can say you do is that you don't have a clue about what there is there to be learned.

It's like me claiming that I understand the makeup of the atom, but without ever taking a physics course or reading a physics text...I just thought about it a lot and worked out how it must be.

For people who have time, this is a great debate on morality with/without God:



William Lane Craig (who is usually regarded as a theist who has won most if not all his debates vs atheists) appears to have lost this debate, later he claimed that this is because this was supposed to be an 'informal discussion' and not a proper debate. Therefore he didn't want to give too strong arguments (?). It makes for good watching anyway I think.

Note that my previous post in this thread directly stole one idea of Kagan's, namely the hypothetical dialogue
'Why do you not kill people?'
'Because God told me not to'
'Why do you do what God told you to?'
'Because what he says is good'
'But why is what God told you good'
'Because he is good'
'But why is he good?'
etc. (edit: somewhere around 48:00)

For people who have less than 90 minutes, I can summarise poorly here that Shelly Kagan proposes an objective morality that is agreed upon by infinitely intelligent conscious creatures based on the best possible conditions for everyone, assuming that these creatures are not aware of their own possible bad intentions at the time of their agreement (i.e. if I am a homicidal maniac, I do not find out about it until after I agreed to the principle of murder is bad - well anyway I am hardly infinitely intelligent so I wouldn't be asked about it). Given that we are far from this ideal situation, we cannot hope to realise this objective morality, but it is nonetheless a well-defined situation that constitutes an objective standard. Of course then one can ask again 'but why would this social contract constitute moral good?' which is cool but does not really apply to a better degree than 'why does obeying the Creator of the Universe constitute moral good?', at least not until you meddled with the definitions sufficiently (IMO).

double

 32519, on 2013-January-09, 04:19, said:

 billw55, on 2013-January-09, 07:54, said:

How do I know beyond doubt that God is real and that he exists? Ask anyone who has been baptised in the Spirit of God. It is an unmistakeable life-changing experience. It happened to me on 28 December 1995. I was visiting a family of believers. The father of the house had the practice that at 20h00 every night all members of his family (and any guests present at the time) had to pray together. A bit extreme I thought as a complete novice believer. Each person in turn was expected to pray something, no matter what. I was extremely nervous as this was new to me. It was also unexpected. When it was my turn I managed a few barely audible words. It was then that the Spirit of God fell upon me. The weight of his presence pinned me down in the chair I was sitting on. The warmth of his presence began washing over me. I began crying uncontrollably, a crying from deep within which can only happen when touched by God. Snot began streaming from my nose as I cried and cried. But the weight of God’s presence had rendered me immobile. It was absolutely impossible for me to lift an arm or a hand to wipe away the snot. After about 5 minutes God’s presence lifted and I was able to move again. I had zero understanding of what had just taken place. But the father of the house did as he had seen it happen to many others as well. After cleaning up the snot puddle he began explaining to me about being baptised in the Spirit of God.

The second time this happened was during 1996. A preacher from the USA was in my hometown. I can’t remember the guys name but it could have been Virgil Johnson. Neither of us had ever set eyes on the other before. During the service he called me forward and started praying and prophesying over me. I can’t remember exactly what was said but it was something along these lines, “I can see that you are on fire for God, a sailing ship ready to set out to sea, a violent and tempestuous sea. But God will bring winds and storms across the face of the ship, forcing it back into the safety of the harbour. You are not ready to leave.” I never had the faintest idea what this guy was talking about at the time. However, as he began praying and prophesying, the Spirit of God fell upon me again like the first time. This time I was standing in front of a church full of friends and strangers, crying openly at once again unmistakably being touched by God.

The third time happened in one of the home fellowship meetings. Someone was praying over one of the woman who had been molested as a youngster. God was busy cleansing her of all the anger, hatred and hurt of some very painful memories. But this meeting had a difference. There were others in the group who had also suffered some or other form of abuse. When the Spirit of God fell upon the woman being prayed for, he fell on the others in need of healing as well. I was one of the others who was being healed.

You ask me how I know God is real? I know because he showed up more than once!

Prior to this third happening, I had attended a church course dealing with healing. I don’t know where he got his numbers from, but the guy presenting the course claimed that 7 out of every 10 woman were molested or raped at some point. In my own country South Africa, statistics reveal that every 7 seconds, a woman or child is being raped or molested somewhere in the country. That is truly shocking. The world population recently passed the 7 billion mark with 51% of the population women. Take the South African statistic and extend that worldwide and the number of woman and children in need of healing is truly staggering. A psychiatrist or a psychologist cannot heal you. The best they can do is give you a crutch to cling to so that you can cope with your ordeal.

The question has been asked a myriad times: If there really is a God, why does he allow these things to happen? In short; I don’t know. Fallen man void of the indwelling presence of God is capable of doing some really horrific things. But this I do know. It is necessary for us to be born. We are all to become God’s vessels wherein an invisible God becomes visible. The things that happened to us during the 70+ years before we die will become completely irrelevant.

The same question can be extended to the millions (especially Africans) born into abject poverty and no future of any kind. Millions die of starvation, mostly before they reach age 5.

 32519, on 2013-January-11, 13:27, said:

Delete

 32519, on 2013-January-11, 13:27, said:

It is shocking.

That you think it is shocking is progress. 500 years ago, you wouldn't have.

3000 years ago your God was rewarding his follower(Lot) for offering up his daughters to be raped by strangers.

This story was actually one of the most shocking things I read as a kid and went a long way to convincing me that the Bible was morally bankrupt. New Testament or not, any God that ever did such things is despicable.

This and the genocide of the Canaanites and the story of the prophet who called upon God to punish children that were taunting him for being bald and God responded by sending bears to maul 42 of them. Going to Sunday school made me feel sick after reading those stories.

 32519, on 2013-January-11, 13:27, said:

It sounds like you have had some very powerful emotional experiences.

I can say with certainty, that nothing remotely like this has ever happened to me. I suppose God must not want my belief, as much as he wants yours.

 billw55, on 2013-January-11, 15:53, said:

Either that, or those rape happy South Africans roofied 32519...

 32519, on 2013-January-11, 13:27, said:

I don't know whether to feel sorry for whatever events in your life left you so vulnerable to what sounds like an extremely powerful internal event, to be repeated later if I understood you correctly, or whether to congratulate you for finding a way to believe that (it seems) makes you feel better about yourself than you did.

I hope you will not take offence, but I suggest that you probably already know and agree that sometimes people have subjective experiences that are not objectively true. I do NOT mean to equate your experiences with the delusions of people suffering from paranoia or in the grips of a psychosis. I mention these as extreme examples of power and propensity of the human brain/mind to entertain, as 'true', ideas that are false.

I DO mean to suggest that lesser and far more benign situations can arise in which we have experiences that we struggle to frame. The fact that you describe yourself as a 'novice believer' at the time of your first experience, and the fact that you were voluntarily associating with what sounds like a cultish sort of religious family suggests that you were pre-disposed/conditioned by your upbringing to frame an emotionally powerful experience in religious terms.

Put another way: if I were at someone's home, as a guest, and the 'head' of the family said that at 8 pm we ALL HAVE TO PRAY....I'd make my apologies and leave.

We are by nature social animals. We tend to defer to those we sense are in positions of authority, and we tend to believe what those around us believe. Obviously these generalities are just that and different individuals react differently, but collectively it is fairly easy to predict human reactions. This is why newspapers (when they were the dominant media) could cause entire countries to go to war (as two examples: the Crimean War and the Spanish-American war were both brought into reality by the newspapers of the day).

It's why cults are so successful, provided that they can isolate the candidate member amongst established cultists for a short time, and why the Stockholm phenonomen exists.

My guess, and it can only be a guess, is that you were emotionally vulnerable, placed into a situation in which your companions were deeply religious, and you had an emotional event of some kind, and naturally you saw it as 'god'.

But that doesn't make it 'god'. Nor do your efforts to quote biblical passages make those biblical passages true.

To persuade non-believers, you need to be able to do such things as coherently state a definition of god.

And that definition must be such that one can construct experiments to see whether the universe acts in a manner consistent or inconsistent with the existence of that entity.

Telling us that we will find out when the Second Coming happens is just nonsense....until and unless the Second Coming occurs. Until then, it's simply fantasy.

Prayer, for example: most religions include the concept of prayer. Yet the only truly scientific study ever done on the power of prayer revealed that there was zero...absolutely zero....positive effect from prayer. Interestingly this study was endorsed, before the results were known, by a number of religious figures. They ALL chose to repudiate the study rather than to change their beliefs to accord with the evidence. That says a huge amount about the type of people who are religious.

I know nothing will persuade you to consider that you may be mistaken. And maybe nothing should: your feeling obviously makes you happy. It is sad to see someone who seems to be quite articulate go through life blinkered and 'stoned' but that's on me, not on you. So long as you agree that you and your co-religionists have zero right to ask others to abide by your beliefs, then I wish you well.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 17:05, said:

My congratulations on a truly outstanding post. It shows both understanding and humanity. My only remaining wish is that all your posts may show such moderation.

 Scarabin, on 2013-January-11, 19:36, said:

Thanks for the compliment and the carefully phrased insult

I see no real difference between the post you like and the posts you apparently dislike.

Yes, the tone may be different, but that is a result of the post to which I respond. When I see idiocy, especially masquerading as knowledge, or when I see someone insulting me or others who think in a similar manner to me, then my posts will be, shall we say, blunt and to the point.

There has been a great deal of idiocy and ignorance (the two are not invariably linked, tho stupidity can tend to lead to ignorance)in the recent threads. We see people (including you) distorting what others have said. We have seen both strawman and no true scotsman arguments made in support or defence of religion. We have seen accusations that an increase in atheism has given rise to an increase in mass murder. We have seen assertions that atheism would lead people to kill because we can't have a moral code without god. We see people assert that when there exists a difference of opinion on a subject, the 'intelligent' response is to reserve judgment: to be 'balanced'. In fact, the intelligent response is to weigh the evidence. If the evidence is balanced, then reserve judgment. But if the evidence points strongly in one direction, the intelligent response is to go with the evidence, altho in the absence of completely incontrovertible evidence, the wise person remains alive to the possibility of having to rethink his or her opinion at some later time.

The post to which I responded above was written from the heart, or so it seems. He or she (I am not going to speculate and I don't 'know') seems to have had some painful experiences and seems to genuinely believe that he or she experienced communion with god. I am confident that this was not true but equally confident not only that my opinion matters not, but also that he or she needed and maybe still needs it to have been true. So he or she merits compassion, so long as he or she doesn't try to force religion on the rest of society.

I don't see why you'd expect me to have responded in any fashion than the one I employed.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 23:35, said:

I meant no insult. I promise you that although I may criticize you I will never deliberately insult you.

Would you accept "My only wish is that all posts may show such moderation" without feeling insulted? Some other replies showed less compassion.

Since brevity seems to invite misunderstanding, let me elaborate. I judged 32519 to be sincere, as you did, and hence felt his post deserved your reply. I can understand that other posters may feel he is perpetrating an elaborate hoax and hence their replies are suitable. Where we may differ is that I think we should always assume posters to be sincere.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 23:35, said:

Damn, if that's what you read from my posts I have totally failed, I rather stay silent.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 17:05, said:

I think the following quote from noted Christian author William Lane Craig really explains all that is needed to understand the religious mind:

Quote

Fluffy, if religion is a good last resort against something and someone lacks religion, it follows that (other things being equal) that person is more likely to commit that something. The other part seems to be more complex but certainly the most natural reading of 'I see no reason' is 'I think there is no reason.' And I am not saying that your wording was careless or what not, the ideas are quite clear to me and you are entitled to them but please do not expect atheists to agree with you or enjoy reading these views.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 17:05, said:

Yes, although I would probably never be there in the first place. I certainly have been to houses where grace is said before we eat. This causes me, and I suspect it would cause you, no problem. I was once a guest at a Passover Seder and took it as a compliment and an honor to be invited.

Last May my wife Becky took a tumble and broke five bones in and around her ankle. Later, we were out somewhere and as she hobbled up to an elevator a young woman asked for her permission to pray for her. She said yes. This is the right way. Similarly, I have been to religious weddings where the minister/priest at some point says something like "We will now do such and such, those who are of faith are invited to participate" . Exactly.

You, Mike, while upvoting a post of mine, also took me to task for sitting on the sidelines. I take that seriously and I see your point. but there are so many things to fight about.


At any rate, Becky reads a lot of stuff including, recently, Three Cups of tea. See http://en.wikipedia....ree_Cups_of_Tea or http://www.amazon.co...e/dp/0143038257
She highly recommends it, although apparently there is considerable dispute over its accuracy. The aouthor, Greg Mortenson, claims to have organized funding for the building of many non-religious schools in the heart of Taliban territory. I gather that there is no dispute that at least some schools have been built, but there is dispute over exactly what has been done and exactly how all of the money was used. The idea is right, the execution is disputed.
Late breaking news on that: He is now in jail. Here, not there. Another tarnished angel.



At any rate, there is a long arc from asking my wife for permission to pray for her, at one end, and killing people who try to educate children, at the other end.

Most religious people I have known have some sense of restraint. I am content to advocate this restraint. If someone tells me he cannot take a scheduled exam on Saturday for relgious reasons, I accommodate him. ( I am required to, but I did so before it was a requirement, no question. I don't require a note from a religious authority.) If someone tells me, as someone once did, that he cannot take an exam anytime during a six week period, I figure that's his problem to solve, not mine. College football games are usually on Saturday. I would not expect a college coach to explain that he cannot coach on Saturdays and expect to be accommodated. A little common sense can go a long way here.


One more note on my experience with students. From time to time I served on a committee to evaluate claims of academic dishonesty. I believe in every such hearing a priest/minister attended and spoke of the student's regular attendance at religious services. They were wasting their time and mine.

 mikeh, on 2013-January-11, 17:05, said:

This reminds me a lot of the dowser-sandbox experiment.

For those not familiar (and to my best recollection, without looking it up), some years ago a skeptics organization invited several self-proclaimed dowsers to participate in a test. A dowser is a person who claims to find/follow water or other natural resources, under the ground, using sticks, bits of metal, and other inert tools. The testers built a sandbox 50 feet on a side, and ran ordinary pipe/hose through it on a wandering path. Then sand was placed over the entire sandbox, and a pump set up to move water through the pipe. The dowsers could see the inlet and outlet, and were to attempt to trace the path with their sticks and such, and mark it with flags. They all agreed, this is a very fair and easy test, we will be able to plot the path accurately. They were even given a modest margin of error for distance of their flags from the pipe, and agreed that it was adequate. All of the dowsers plotted very different courses, and none resembled the actual path. Afterwards, they all decided the test was improper after all, for various reasons, and maintained their belief in their ability (I do think they genuinely believe - why would a fraud or hoaxer agree to a published test that they know will fail?).

 kenberg, on 2013-January-12, 08:18, said:

There are plenty of examples from sport of people who won't play on a Sunday, the most obvious one being Scottish rugby player Euan Murray who plays most of the internationals which are on Saturdays, but misses the Sunday ones. In Europe now, I suspect you'd be sued if you didn't take account of a muslim student being a little sub par in an afternoon exam during Ramadan. Special circumstances forms are rife.

While some use their religion as an inspiration, others use it as a crutch (there's a passage in Jim McMahon's autobiography where he says his pet hate was a receiver dropping a ball and saying "maybe HE meant it that way"), and others think you can do anything providing you go to confession afterwards and say the hail Marys.

 Fluffy, on 2013-January-12, 03:32, said:

You may not have intended to say exactly that, but that is definitely the way it read to a lot of people. My first post in response was upvoted 8 times: far more than any other post I have made.

You later clarified your thoughts, but not in a way that persuaded me that you didn't mean what you wrote. For example, you stated that without god you were worried that you would end up killing others and/or yourself. You have questioned how atheists can know what is moral.

I accept that you didn't mean to insult atheists. I suspect that you were just stating something you felt to be true, without thinking at all about the possibility that it would offend anyone. I suspect that you don't in real life know well any atheists and that your upbringing conditioned you to think the way you do.You even tried to pass it all off as a joke once you realized how angered some of us were. My take is that you would never deliberately cause the sort of response you got, and my initial anger dissipated very quickly. I hope that you have learned from the posts that followed. I don't care whether what you have learned persuades you to stop believing in an imaginary sky fairy...if you do, it may actually cause you some pain, especially if any members of your family are devout. I do care, since we are part of a small community and I enjoy many of your bridge posts, that you accept that people can think differently from you and not thereby be amoral potential killers

I watched some of the "Is God necessary for morality" debate. I thought it was decent.

I don't understand why William Craig thinks accountability to a God entity is more of a motivator for doing the right thing than accountability to our ancestors, our progeny, our family members, our friends, our fellow bridge players, other living things with whom we share this incredible planet and, of course, ourselves. All of his arguments seemed circular to me.

I understand the importance of church entities, including the church of the water cooler, for clarifying collective thinking about what doing the right thing consists of and for occasionally inspiring their congregants to do more of. I don't think anybody has an exclusive monopoly on the creation of these entities or exclusive insight into what doing the right thing consists of. To accept such a monopoly is a huge moral cop out imo.

Edit: I got the debaters names mixed up. I changed that.