Is faith the answer to cognitive dissonance?

And what would these contradictions be? And these well-established theories? Don't forget that I shared the faith you have for about as long as you have been alive The reason I am no longer an evangelical Christian (or even theist) is because I completely ran out of excuses for the complete lack of evidence outside of my own delusions.(aside: Don't think I took an easy way out of not wanting to be a Christian any more. I lost my extensive social life; the ability to talk and share with some of my closest friends; the strongest common bond with my wife. And I get to watch my children be brought up in a faith I now know is bullshit. De-converting from Christianity is fucking horrible...)And I don't think anyone here would be stupid enough to declare the concept of a creator deity to be "impossible", for almost exactly the same reasoning I gave above.

Yes, true. These problems and contradictions would be equivalent to the duct-tape in the analogy, correct? These problems and contradictions would be describable and they would be able to be shown to others, correct? Yes, I understand that you think this point has been reached regarding abiogenesis. What I'm asking for is why you think that to be true.What is the problem with abiogenesis that you think shows it to be practically impossible?
What is the contradiction within abiogenesis that you think shows it to be highly unlikely?You've mentioned "the laws of nature", but I do not recall a law of nature that says "abiogenesis is impossible". There are laws of nature that allow for chemical reactions. There are laws of nature that allow for sustained, evolving processes. There are laws of nature that allow for growth.We do not understand how abiogenesis specifically happened (and, therefore, if it really happened). So it's not like we stood beside the pool table and watched all the balls drop into the pockets. But we have yet to identify any "law of nature" or any other stumbling block that would obviously constrain abiogensis. We have yet to identify a solid strip of duct-tape that blocks the balls on the pool table from going into the pockets.Do we have a known, verified pathway? No, we do not.
Do we have issues, and unknowns? Yes, we do.
Do we have ideas about how to incorporate these issues and unknowns and still have abiogenesis be possible? Yes, we do.
Do we have indications of any outside force? No, we do not.
Do we have a known blockage of any natural pathway? No, we do not.What we have, is more akin to some sort of barrier that moves back and forth in front of the pockets on the pool table. That is, sometimes the balls could just drop in, and sometimes they could be blocked. Do all the balls have enough initial momentum to keep flowing over the table and sometimes bouncing off the barriers until they all eventually drop into the pockets? Not sure yet... that's what's currently being tested.But what we certainly do not have, is duct-tape blocking the entire pockets.That is the cognitive dissonance. The belief that some sort of total blockage exists (duct-tape) when in reality, you are unable (so far, anyway) to actually point to some sort of total blockage. At best, what really exists is some sort of partial-blockage along with many ideas on how to 'deal-with' or 'get around' anyway.There is no cognitive dissonance in hoping or wanting abiogenesis to be impossible. It may still yet be discovered to be so. However, there is cognitive dissonance in saying that you think abiogenesis actually is impossible without being able to show any reasoning within reality to support such an idea.

Whoops, sorry, I meant to answer your final question to cavediver as well. Since I hijacked your conversation with him, I only think it's fair if I also answer your question to him
(And I'm a bit conceited and just like to listen to myself continue to talk sometimes... but that's really just between me and my therapist) No, I would not "become a theist".But, going back to where the goal-posts were placed originally, I certainly would become extremely open to the idea that "something weird was going on" (perhaps even supernatural).(I just regard "becoming a theist" to be different from acknowledging the existance of some "supernatural realm" that has yet been undetected).

I think we finally arrive at the point I wanted it to come to. I will try and make a thread about the impossibility of naturalistic abiogenesis.This may take some time though, as I want to make as much an airtight argument as possible, along the lines of what cavediver requested.

Do you accept the scientific finding that Mod is referring to here? Do you accept that conclusions made on the basis of wholly subjective experiences are poor indicators of reality?Or not?

This reminds me of our current What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You? thread. Would you agree that the first group does not employ critical thinking as much due to their choice regarding faith over evidence? Personally, I think I belong more to the first group. I realize that I have confirmation bias in many aspects of my faith. I realize that I assume that the "invisible Unicorn" must be there as my default position. In short, I question my belief but due to the emotional support that it gives me, I never allow myself to doubt it.

The armchair psychologist in me is curious why you resist becoming a Theist. My current theory is that you cherish the idea of being in charge of your thinking and that any sort of allegiance to belief in a Deity robs you of this freedom. Oh and that you honestly have found no Deity thus far....though I wonder if you have a confirmation bias in regards to evidence over faith.

Some would challenge that and say that blessed (and sane) are those who won't believe without evidence. I suppose it all depends how seriously we take Jesus--be He actually alive, as I believe...or whether He is simply a character in a story. Even if the latter were true, the character considers faith without evidence to be a blessed trait. Which in my opinion is a good thing. An untested faith is not very strong. Although Thomas was most certainly "blessed" after he found his evidence. We can't assume that skeptics and atheists who demand the evidence will be any less blessed were they to die tomorrow having found none. As long as they are honest about their belief that evidence is necessary, I personally believe that they did not live their lives in vain. Perhaps for some of us, evidence is only found after death.

I'm resisting becoming a Theist as much as you are resisting becoming a millionaire.
I really would love it if it actually were true... but it's just not. I don't think so.
I don't have an issue with bending my will to a better idea.Can you explain why this is your current theory?
Are you basing it on any evidence from my actual actions? Or is it just something you wish to be true?What about the evidence that I just provided you with? That I don't have a problem letting someone with a better idea lead the way. Does that change your theory or do you stick with your theory despite the evidence? I believe that would cause you to have some cognitive dissonance. This is true. I have a massive confirmation bias in regards to evidence over faith.
Mostly because evidence is confirmed to lead to accurate results while faith generally is not.
When I'm looking for accurate results... I then choose to look for evidence.If faith actually provided better results than evidence, I would follow faith. But this just doesn't seem to happen in our world.

All Im saying is that you have followed the evidence and found no god. Perhaps I am judging you in that I cant understand why you dont feel as I do. Perhaps you dont understand why I accept feelings over evidence or why I interpret my feelings as evidence.Other than that, you have to understand that my theories are always tentative.

Sure, but that's not what Jesus said.

I will agree with that without issue.
You can even tack on "following the evidence doesn't always lead to true conclusions" if it makes you feel better. Maybe. Only you can figure this one out definitively. Not really, no.
But kind of.People are different.Maybe my favourite colour is green and yours is red.
I wouldn't really understand why you like red over green when green is obviously so much better.
But, kind of... I can understand that your feelings are yours and my feelings are mine. In that context, I can understand how you like red... it's the same way I like green.Same thing with God.I accept evidence over feelings for my reasons (personal experience and their track record with all of humanity).
You may accept feelings over evidence for your reasons (personal experience and your personal track record).I feel that evidence is much better for judging reality about God.
You feel that feelings are much better for judging reality about God.I don't really understand why you think feelings are better than evidence when evidence is obviously so much better.
But, kind of... I can understand that your feelings are yours and my feelings are mine. In that context, I can understand how you like to follow your feelings while I like to follow the evidence.I really don't care if you think differently than I do.
People are different... of course there's going to be people who think different than I do.If you try to force the idea that all people really should think about God in the same way, while in reality people are all different, you're going to run into cognitive dissonance. Your ideas about reality are not going to align with how reality actually is. This will cause a certain level of discomfort. Many people try to deal with this discomfort by attempting to persuade others to think the same way they do. After all... if everyone thought the same way they did, the cognitive dissonance (the "uncomfortable-ness") would go away.But that's just not going to happen.
That's like trying to persuade everyone else that red is a better colour than green. You're just wrong.
("Well, when God shows Himself to you and you really see Him for real... then you'll see the truth!")
("Well, when red shows itself to you and you really see red for real... then you'll see the truth!")
Seriously... no difference.The correct way to relieve this sort of cognitive dissonance is to understand that people are different and different people are going to think about God in different ways. Then you can understand why some people don't agree with you. Then you'll feel comfortable when others disagree with you. Sure.
You also need to understand that objectively speaking theories based on evidence are much more likely to be an accurate representation of reality than theories based on feelings. Regardless of the level of tentativity. This doesn't mean that having your theories being tentative is a bad thing... that's always a good thing. But if your goal is to "follow an accurate representation of reality" and 2 paths are both tentative and possibly wrong... why not choose the one path that has the best track record for leading to the correct answer?The answer to that question is, of course... that not everyone wants to "follow an accurate representation of reality" to the best of their ability. They have other desires.That's okay. But if you're not honest with yourself about your own priorities... you'll run into even more cognitive dissonance.

Long John Silver considers stealing gold doubloons to be a blessed trait. We need something beyond somebody else's opinion - even God's opinion - to tell us what really is blessed.

The problem with all this, and in fact the whole discussion at EvC about these things is that we do NOT have faith without evidence, and Jesus is NOT saying that, CS and Phat, what we have is faith without the kind of scientific evidence EvC regards as the only kind of evidence, but we have tons of witness evidence.Jesus chided Thomas for not believing all the other disciples who had told him that they'd seen the risen Christ. He was willing to back up their testimony with physical proof in Thomas' case, so WE could see that behind the witness evidence there IS real physical evidence and all of today's Thomases should get the point from that story. But they simply refuse to believe any of it. They say they want evidence but they throw out all the evidence they've been given.You too, Phat, probably believe to some extent on the basis of this witness evidence, though you seem to have fallen for the EvC debunkery bit that says witness evidence isn't evidence.Believing Jesus, believing the Bible, is all based on a willingness to believe the witnesses that it musters for us. The Levitical Law required that two or three witnesses be produced to determine any case, and the Bible gives us a lot more than two for all the great claims it makes about God and Jesus, and the story of Thomas is about how he'd ignored the witness testimony of all the other disciples who had seen the Lord, that's a lot more than two.But the point of having multiple witnesses is that witness testimony is known to be unreliable, which is always thrown at me when I bring this up here but without recognizing that scripture also recognized this and made abundant provision for it. The Biblical authors recognized that too, and God commanded that there never be just one witness. But it doesn't matter how many we give them they will knock themselves out to discredit all the witnesses given and leave themselves without the evidence they say they want to have.They think they want to see the wounds that Thomas saw? Why don't they just believe that Thomas saw them? They think they want to see the Red Sea part? Why not just believe Moses and all those who experienced it? As Jesus told the rich man in Hell, if they won't believe Moses and the Prophets they would also not believe even if someone came back from the dead to show it to them. This describes our "honest skeptics" at EvC. Well, they are just so much smarter than all those "bronze age" people they can't trust a word of it. So they leave themselves without the evidence they claim to want.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The witness evidence is enough for my beliefs, but when talking with those at EvC who are not believers, I follow their standard for evidence rather than my own. I have not "fallen" for anything...i simply use the standards that they use for the sake of argument.My belief may be logical or illogical in the final analysis...but for the purposes of discussion I try to agree on some sort of consensus so that we may communicate without arguments.were my standards for proof used as a basis for the discussion, likely nobody would agree with me.Standards of proof and evidence require a consensus in order to discuss further.