How does one distinguish faith from delusion?

Hi Theodoric,Tempting as it must have been to give your personal answers to those questions, that's not what I was asking for. If you look again at that post, you will see that I was asking Straggler to tell me about the method he would use to answer them. Since he is demanding empirical evidence, I asked him how he would hypothesise and experiment in order to do so. My question to you would also be what process you used to arrive at your answers. If you didn't think about that then doing so might be enlightening for you.And yes, as others have said here recently, I'd rather not stray too far from the topic. To reiterate my position: the judgment of someone as delusional is a subjective one and it requires the person doing the judging to be certain that they have arrived at The Truth while the person being judged has not. Your posts to me, instead of addressing this point, seem to basically be amounting to unsubstantiated arguments from incredulity.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

So far in this thread I have pursued the idea that there are different ways of perceiving, and different ways to the truth (epistemologies), which make the decision to label someone as delusional a subjective one. While I think there's still a lot to talk about here, I would like to add some thoughts I had last night which went in a slightly different direction. From the OP again:

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Faith - belief that is not based on proof. (dictionary.com)

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Delusion - in psychology, a rigid system of beliefs with which a person is preoccupied and to which the person firmly holds, despite the logical absurdity of the beliefs and a lack of supporting evidence. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008)

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A claim that repeatedly occurs is that spiritual faith is not empirically verifiable, therefore it is delusional. Another way to address this is to look at reasons why empirical evidence may be lacking in any situation. Some I thought of are:1.) No scientific studies have been done.2.) The studies that have been done, have been flawed.3.) Funds for studies in a certain area are severely limited, so there have been very few.4.) We do not yet have knowledge of a subject's existence (for example, the atom or the Big Bang to a person from the Middle Ages).5.) We don't know how to detect the subject; we don't have the correct instruments (again, the atom is a good example).6.) The subject of study is considered by the establishment to be inappropriate or illegitimate (e.g. those with the label of paranormal) or the establishment is slow to accept it (e.g. plate tectonics, the Channeled Scablands as the product of catastrophic floods).7.) The evidence is being kept top secret or otherwise concealed (conspiracy theory, anyone?).8.) People don't report phenomena for fear of being ridiculed (again, this often applies to paranormal subjects).9.) The subject does not meet the requirement of being repeatable in experiments. (Ghost sightings can be included here, as can psi experiments done in laboratories when possibly the producer of the phenomena needs to be in a certain state of mind.)10.) It is impossible to differentiate genuine evidence from wishful thinking or confirmation bias (e.g. trying to study whether mantras, positive thinking or the law of attraction actually work).11.) The evidence has been erased (e.g. pre-cosmic microwave background universe, or human agency).12.) The nature of the evidence depends on the person's preconceptions (e.g. negative observer effects; being on the lookout for events that demonstrate the principle of synchronicity -- if you accept it as legitimate in the first place).13.) It can be hard to concretely determine cause and effect (e.g. the famous incident where Jung and Sigmund Freud were in a room when Jung began to feel an odd physical sensation. Then Jung and Freud heard a loud popping noise in a bookcase. After the first noise, Jung felt strongly that there was going to be a second noise, and said so. Then there was a second bang), especially if the two are separated by a significant amount of time. This can also include study of the effects of prayer.IMO, the numbers above that could go some way to explaining why some people say there is no empirical evidence for the divine or transcendent are the following:1.) No studies have been done.4.) We do not have knowledge of the subject's existence (or at least, humans are not in agreement about whether the divine exists; seems to me you have to accept your subject's reality before you attempt to experiment on it).5.) If it does exist, we don't know how to detect it objectively.6.) Most people would say that a scientific study of the divine would be an impossibility.9.) Divine phenomena, if they exist, are quite possibly unrepeatable at the experimenter's behest.10.) It would be extremely difficult to separate legitimate evidence from wishful thinking or confirmation bias.11.) In the case of Deism, the evidence has been erased. (God created everything and then sat back and let it unfold -- we missed that creation moment.)12.) The nature of the evidence depends on people's preconceptions. If you don't believe in the divine in the first place, you are less likely to find evidence for it or accept it as legitimate if and when when it is discovered (experimenter bias).13.) It can be hard to determine cause and effect. For example, while we know how lightning occurs and how it works, and that it's a random event, who's to say that there is not one divinely-caused lightning bolt out of all the rest that occurs for some specific reason.Given the above complications, then lack of empirical evidence surely points to the conclusion "We don't know" rather than "God doesn't exist." Any thoughts?Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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We cannot test for the existence of things that are just human ideas and mental constructs.

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I have some suggestions which may assist your contributions to this thread.There are other ways of perceiving. Philosophy is concerned with these. Message 140 This time maybe you can read the whole post and not skip to the questions at the end.Find out what epistemology means and be aware that you are advocating one particular kind. As far as I can tell, no one epistemology is applicable to all situations all the time, not even empiricism, which has been discussed.Realise that despite your personal opinion, the list of questions from Message 140 has actually intrigued many thoughtful people for centuries. IMO they are questions which cannot be answered empirically, so there must be other epistemologies we need to employ. It's interesting that your reaction is to avoid having to do so at all by dismissing the questions themselves.I think we're straying from the topic here, which is the difference between faith and delusion.

Hi Modulous,

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So when Abraham was about to kill his son he was deluded, for example?

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What about when Jesus for all intents and purposes killed himself?

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I can't vouch for the historical efficacy of these events. But yes I'd say that if Abraham thought Jehovah was telling him to kill his son, he was deluded, for the same reasons I gave about the divine or transcendent being of a loving and beneficent nature. I don't know if Jesus thought he was martyring himself but it wouldn't be the first time someone died for a cause; the cause is of course not always religious.

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I know what you are saying about religions et al. However, you seem to be saying that if your experience has all the qualities of a delusion, but falls within cultural norms then it is faith.

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I would argue that this is simply avoiding the issue, no?

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No, I don't think so. I'm just conscious that our society almost universally dismisses such experiences as delusions, when instead we could possibly learn from some of them. The judgment of delusion is subjective and so we need to employ criteria like the ones I outlined in my last post. Maybe the dividing line between delusion and spiritual experience can be blurrier than we realise. Sometimes it may be impossible to tell the difference between the two, and the final decision rests with the judgment of the experiencer themselves after the fact. You decided, once your experience was over, that you had been deluded, and you had some good reasons for doing so. Someone else might decide that they had briefly received communication from the "other side." Why not let them think about it and see where it leads, as long as it's doing no harm to anyone?

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Empiricism has a lot to say about morality. See Descriptive ethics.

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I agree that descriptive ethics is empirical study. While it does not answer ethical questions themselves, it can show us how others do so. We can try to make decisions based on this though there's no guarantee that what works for some will work for others. The point I was making, which you say is obvious but clearly isn't to some here, is that empiricism cannot explain everything, and normative ethics is an example.

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If you think that declaring somebody to be suffering significantly mentally ill is something done lightly?

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In our society, yes. You might be interested in this article: In Your Head: Hearing Voices. I remember reading about this a few years ago and I was stunned. Hearing voices in one's head is more common than most people realise, and the majority of people who experience it "don't experience difficulties and may even consider their voices supportive or inspiring." Yet most of us would equate hearing voices with mental illness. This is why I said in my previous post that it's important to consider the experiencer's own views of the experience. If such a benign or helpful thing happened to me I would never consult a psychiatrist for fear of being labelled schizophrenic and drugged.

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How can you say that empiricism has little to say about determining the mental health of somebody?

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Yet the examples you gave after this quote imply that we already have strong suspicions that someone is mentally ill. This may be so if you think your wife is a hat. What if you believe you had an experience where you talked to Jesus and he talked back? What if you believe you have experienced enlightenment? And by all other appearances you are perfectly sane? Empiricism can't get us very far with making a decision. IMO we would need to apply some of the other epistemologies discussed here previously (some objective, some subjective, perhaps some more suitable than others in the circumstances): historical, textual, psychological, philosophical, logical, experiential, instinctive, anecdotal.

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Obviously, if they were doing this to Jesus and it turns out that Jesus really was an amazing spiritual being and not a delusional apocalyptic madman - then I'd hope that being an amazing spiritual being has the benefits of being able to get your message across to the right people before accepting the modern day cross of mental health care...or something.

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We know what happens to people who claim they are Jesus Christ. He'd have to do some serious miracle-working to save himself. Interesting idea that the psychiatrists could act as modern-day Pharisees.

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we can devise completely independent tests to try and verify our conclusions. If you know of another epistemological methodology that can be employed by blind independent investigators to verify your results (especially if that method is able to calculate the expected error margins and confidence levels etc), then I'd like to hear it.

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Well you need to use empirical methods within an empirical system. It works well for science but not always in other areas such as philosophy or spirituality.

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We define what a god is, what the consequences of such an entity existing are, and then we devise a test to see if those consequences have borne out. For example, if we define a god as being an entity that answers the prayers of others, we do a 'prayer experiment' if the results show that those that pray get positive results above and beyond chance we have ourselves some evidence in favour of this go.

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The more defined the god, the more evidence we collect the more confidence we have in its existence.

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Well this is an approach you could take, but it means making a lot of guesses which cannot always be tested, and it also allows for a lot of assumptions. For example, let's say we conducted a study on the effectiveness of prayer and the results were positive. That still doesn't tell us whether the efficacy of prayer is due to a god answering prayers, or perhaps the collective consciousness of the praying people having some kind of effect on material reality, or something else. How do you then test to resolve this question? I don't see how you can. I also don't see how you could test concepts such as "God is good" or "God is merciful." See Message 180 for my attempts to explain why we are not finding empirical evidence for the divine or transcendent. I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

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The idea isn't just mocking - there is a serious point behind it. It is a challenge to rigorously define your epistemology such that it includes the ability to know that a god exists or Ultimate Truth, or ghosts or whatever while also excludes any number of other beings we can dream up. If it can't - the epistemology has been show to be absurd: Reductio ad absurdum.

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The shocking thing is that people who champion this alternative epistemology spend more time getting defensive about how offensive or 'mocking' this argument is than they do actually rigorously defining their alternative epistemological method.

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In such cases, empiricism can simply leave us saying, "I can't be sure." And often that's still what we have to conclude. But the other epistemologies I listed earlier in this post can help us to be more certain about the existence of the transcendent versus the flying spaghetti monster. Some will simply say that lack of empirical evidence equals delusion but hopefully I've shown in this thread (along with others here) that this is not correct.

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It is empirical evidence. And physicalists suggest that this interconnectedness is because the mind is what the brain does - the brain being part of the body.

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That's getting on toward the opposite of what I was saying. I believe in meridians and energy healing. Eastern medicine has believed in these things for thousands of years. I also believe that Western science may one day verify these things empirically but I'm not fussed about whether it does or not. It doesn't contradict them. I do not believe this makes me deluded.These are long posts, and I lost the first response I typed to you. I am exhausted LOL.

Hi Theodoric,Thank you for your honesty. I'm not asking you to adopt my personal beliefs. My position here is that calling someone deluded is a subjective judgment. Now the OP gives a definition of faith and one of delusion and the clear implication is that they are the same thing due to a lack of evidence. If you are an empiricist, which is one epistemology, then you will consider anything delusional which cannot be proved empirically. Maybe this is why you are so firm about disagreeing with any of the philosophical viewpoints I posited, or why thinking about the nature of existence does not appeal to you. Philosophy must be one enormous delusion in your regard. Presumably you would also reject all anecdotal evidence and never trust your gut instinct once in your life; your choice. You might just have a look at Message 180 for reasons why it is difficult if not impossible to study the divine or the transcendent empirically. IMO it's a bit disingenuous to claim there's no objective evidence when you can't even set up the test in the first place.

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If Western methods of investigation were to reliably show that such practises resulted in outcomes that were identical to a placebo would you reconsider your position?

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Is your position one of evidence (anecdotal or whatever) or is it a more conventional pure faith based approach?

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I think this is off topic but I will give a brief response. There are assumptions underlying scientific procedures, some more than others. If I'm told that the decay rate of potassium or uranium shows that a rock is 2.7 billion years old, and that there's good consilience between dates, then that's about as clear as it gets. No one has any reason to skew results of the tests, unless you're Steve Austin. Other types of studies can be more problematic, such as studies done on drugs or different systems of healing. A lot depends on who is doing the study, what they expect or want to find, how they set it up, what the methodology is, what the initial assumptions are . . . and so on. As usual you are asking me questions which are more complicated than you perhaps would like them to be, and I imagine you'll think that I'm being evasive again. But no, if science has shown unambiguously that a rock is old, it would be silly of me to disagree; I am doubtful that it is currently able to show unambiguously that energy healing is -- what word would you use? -- bunk, probably.To answer your last question, yes my belief is anecdotal. I don't think many scientific studies have been done in the subject. We do know that the body emits a weak electrical field, and that galvanism can be a problem in the mouth when incompatible metals are inserted. I also think we may reasonably posit that we can learn a thing or two from a system which has been practised for so long. Please don't try to debate me on this here. I already said I'd start a thread about the scientific study of the paranormal; I am researching and I've ordered a book, though at the moment this thread is keeping me busy.

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But evidence is not a subjective judgement. That is the problem with your thinking.

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The subjective judgment is claiming that you have access to The Truth while someone else doesn't, so you can call them delusional. Since you have personally rejected most epistemologies that have been mentioned here, I'm not sure what else you hope to gain from this thread. The fact of your rejection doesn't automatically cause everyone else's viewpoints to become invalid.

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A form of evidence either demonstrably and reliably leads to conclusions that are superior to guessing or it doesn't.

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Yet you still haven't explained what you mean by guessing (at what?), so by this point I'm going to assume you won't. There are quite a few people for me to talk to here now so please excuse me if I wait to see something new or original from you before I reply again.

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you guys seem intent on the idea that faith in immaterial beings is not irrational, is not illogical and that any comparison with "absurd" ideas like the Immaterial Pink Unicorn is insulting and unwarranted because there is in fact some form of "evidence" that I just will not admit to but which justifies such faith.

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I think this is the fourth time I've said here that I think the fact that humans have adopted various forms of spirituality as far back as we can see, points to something real. Yet humans also have a propensity to personify and simplify abstract concepts. The fact that you keep referring to "immaterial beings" shows that you are not listening to what I'm saying.I've talked a lot with Modulous lately about differentiating between delusion and spiritual experience. If you are as interested as you say you are then please read my recent posts to him. I don't expect you to respond in any detail or at all, which should make it easy for you.You reject most other epistemologies, which is causing some of your confusion. IMO epistemology is a philosophical topic, and while you can debate it you can't ultimately show that you are right and everyone else is wrong. I feel sometimes that certain things are "right" though I make sure I look for other types of evidence too, because I don't fly by the seat of my pants and I do not want to cause harm to myself or others. Like I said to RAZD, you couldn't put this in a scientific paper, but you could use it to help you formulate a hypothesis, and it's a good motivator (as long as you remain open-minded to the notion that you could be wrong).Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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I am interested in the faith/evidence thing

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I'm not sure you really are.You don't answer questions I've put to you several times about things you've said.You don't read posts I direct you to when my answers to your questions are there.You ignore replies I make in favour of reiterating the same things you've been saying throughout the thread.We have been here once before in this thread and it sounds like RAZD is used to this in other threads. I'm wondering now whether it's a good idea to introduce a paranormal thread because if you carry these habits over there we won't have a very productive conversation.

Hi Theodoric,Peace. I think you can say what you want to say without the ad hom.You made it clear that you thought the philosophical questions I listed earlier in the thread (in order to discuss epistemology) were "mumbo jumbo." You said in reply to at least one of them that you didn't care. This didn't sound to me like someone who is interested in philosophy; and since you said you are an empiricist, I deduced that you were uncomfortable with the limits of empiricism in philosophy. If you believe I'm wrong, I suggest you simply say so and give your reasons why.

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Still waiting for some tangible way to tell the difference between delusion and faith.

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When Straggler asked this yet again, I told him he could find a detailed discussion of this between Modulous and me, particularly my last two posts to him. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that no matter what I say, neither of you will ever be satisfied with the answer.

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Is the idea that it was developed to explain the unexplainable hold any credence with you?

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Yes. I just don't see why that has to be the sole purpose of religion. It certainly isn't today.If this isn't clear now, then I'll spell it out so that people know where I stand. I don't believe in a personified god or gods and I've given my reasons why. Pantheism comes close to what I currently believe, though I wouldn't say that's a 100% accurate description. I am, and always have been, willing to change my viewpoint. I was an agnostic for maybe 15 years. I see too many connections in life now to maintain that old standpoint. I've also read studies in subjects such as near death experiences. Believe it or not I always weigh evidence carefully and am always synthesising it into my world view; I just don't limit myself to empiricism alone. And most importantly for this discussion, my beliefs are not falsified by empirical evidence. I can't be sure of where I'm at on the road to The Truth, but I think it's reasonable to say that I am not deluded. Edited by LindaLou, : typo

Hi Perdition, thanks for your input.

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you can't just jump between epistemologies.

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Well, jumping all around with wildly different ones is very inconsistent and is probably likely to lead more to confusion than knowledge. But what about using the best that seem to apply to a certain situation -- why do you believe that is not possible?

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If you think rational empiricism is the best way to get answers in one instance, why does it suddenly stop working in another? Is it because the answers given by rational empiricism do not satrusfy you, or go against what you want?

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It's because I do not see empiricism applying in every situation; at which time, you use another epistemology. In Message 140 I wrote a list of questions that I believe empiricism cannot answer, and asked the empiricist I was speaking with to propose how he would hypothesise and then test his hypotheses in regard to those questions. Sometimes logic is the better option, especially where empirical evidence is limited or absent. Some others that have been mentioned in this thread, in varying degrees of subjectivity and objectivity, are historical, textual, psychological, philosophical, experiential, instinctive and anecdotal.Empiricism is very important; it is the foundation of science. Science has taught us a great deal about physical reality (though the smallest of the small is still a puzzlement in many ways). But empiricism cannot tell me if there is a purpose to life; it cannot tell me if free will exists; it cannot tell me what my dream meant last night; it cannot tell me what the nature of consciousness is; it cannot tell me if aliens exist; it cannot confirm for me that I am in love. I thought before I joined this thread that these things were obvious but maybe they aren't. I am used to using other epistemologies in order to try to answer these questions or at least assess possibilities, so why should it be irrational or delusional of me to do the same when meditating on the nature of the divine?

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you use each epistemology to try and discern something about the world and then see if that viewpoint leads down a path to more accurate ideas and predicitons, or if it ends up giving you inaccurate answers.

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This works with empiricism, but not all epistemologies. How do I know what is accurate if . . . I don't know what is accurate? Is there an accurate answer to all the questions I posited above, or is it sometimes the best we can do just to study the possibilities and admit we don't know the answer?

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In essence, I use rational empiricism because I see it work.

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I do too. But I also see energy healing work. Yet I expect the empiricist crowd would simply tell me that my personal experiences are irrelevant. I don't agree with that, though you then get into messier issues of subjectivity.

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When I come up against a question that rational empiricism can't answer, I make a guess that I like best, acknowledging that I'm possibily (and quite probably) either wrong, or merely making a subjective judgement and leave it at that. I in no way assume that the answer I have come to must be TRUE, merely that it works for me, though I'm willing to change that answer if I find compelling reasons to do so.

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An honest answer, thank you. Though I suspect that if you look at that moment in time where you make your best guess, you are probably employing some combination of the other epistemologies I've listed. I admit that I use all of them myself, depending on the circumstances.

Hi Rahvin,There have been quite a few posts here since we saw you. Maybe you can have a look at my last two posts to Modulous: Message 157 and Message 189. Also my recent post to Perdition. I don't expect you to respond in detail to the posts as such, but I think they would give you an idea of what I've been saying here. I've been exploring the issue with Modulous of how one can differentiate delusion from spiritual experience. And you'll see that I've told Perdition that I feel empiricism is important; there are simply some areas where it does not apply, and in those cases we need to use other epistemologies.I think that looking for objective proof of the divine is difficult if not impossible, though its absence does not disprove it as other types of evidence can be examined. In Message 180 I have attempted to list some reasons why empirical evidence for the divine is lacking. (Sorry to link you to so many posts but I hope you can appreciate that there's been a lot of discussion here and I'd rather not repeat whole arguments I've made.) There are other reasons too for me personally. I don't believe in gods who interfere with physical reality so I have no problem with a lack of evidence for this. I don't believe in the divine personified, so I'm not concerned about defending whether Zeus or Allah or Tiamat is the "true" god. It would be complicated to explain what I do believe but it's not contradicted by what we have learned so far empirically.I'm particularly interested in your ideas about Message 180. No one has responded to that post so far, though I only posted it this morning. I will slow things down over the next few days as we will be going on holiday. (Summer -- no work, no night school. Too much time on my hands.)

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I disagree. If rational empiricism is the method you've chosen to view the objective world through, why would you change that just because rational empiricism gives you an unsatisfactory answer? If R.E. doesn't work, it either means the question is subjective in nature, which is a different thing entirely from what we're discussing, or the question itself is probably invalid. If you're talking about liking a picture, love, or anything of a subjective nature, then R.E. doesn't touch it, but it doesn't claim to, and if it's subjective, then delusion and faith don't apply either, as both imply some measure of objectivity.

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If I'm trying to measure the objective world, as the term is commonly used here, then empiricism is almost always the best way. What sort of hypothetical case are you talking about where the empirical result would be "unsatisfactory" to me?One of the earlier points I made in this thread is that all of us here have a way of looking at or perceiving the world, which acts as the basis for how we think about and measure all things. I think it's easy to forget about this when the apparently straightforward, commonsense view is that there's me, this thinking brain, inside a body, and I'm a separate objective part of the world which is full of other separate objective parts. And it works well in science -- but it is not the only way of perceiving.This should perhaps answer a lot of questions put to me here, some of them repeatedly, though I was hoping that Message 140 was clear enough on its own. The terms subjective and objective are philosophical positions, not given facts. I briefly discussed some examples from philosophy that are are very different from each other: empiricism and rationalism (which complement each other well) and solipsism. Solipsism in some form has been advocated by many philosophers down the centuries and forms part of the basis of some systems of religious thought today. If you are a solipsist, then objective and subjective are meaningless. I believe there is a spectrum bewteen solpisism and empiricism on which one's world view can be placed. And while the two extremes and everything in between can be debated til the cows come home, I don't see how it is possible for anyone to definitively demonstrate that they have arrived at The Truth on their own chosen point of the spectrum.I tend more toward a solipsistic view of reality than most others here, as I explained in Message 140. I don't believe that makes me more "right" than anyone and I'm sorry if I've come off as sounding patronising at times -- I don't mean to be. I think sometimes we are working from different basal philosophical positions and when this isn't recognised there can be confusion. I don't draw the distinctive lines between objective and subjective that some others here do. The extremes of each are more clear cut, such as the age of a rock vs. my opinion about a piece of art, but in between there are shades of grey.Just to elucidate my way of thinking a little more: I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality test, but I get INFJ every time I take it and I feel it's a very accurate description of me. Just for fun, if anyone else wants to take the test, you can find a good free version of it here. It might explain why some of us find it challenging to understand each other's points of view. IMO no single personality type is any "better" than any other, and they all have different ways of viewing and responding to the world.

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A faith or belief posits something that objectively exists.

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Spiritually speaking, maybe. I've dealt with difficulties in finding empirical evidence for the divine elsewhere; see Message 180. Personally, I do not believe in a deity. I am closer to being a pantheist. But I think it's possible that we have a soul and that spirits exist (other than the intoxicating kind). I could cite evidence for why I believe this too, though some of the complications I listed in Message 180 also apply.

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You've seen someone get better after having something done that was claimed to be "energy healing." For this to become a rational belief . . .

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You've described how it can be a scientifically validated belief. If I believe I've seen it work on me and others, and it is doing no harm (I would not advocate doing that in place of necessary medical treatment), then personally I'm not fussed about the absence of scientific studies. If well-conduced scientific studies soundly condemned it as a valid way of healing, then I would not avoid reading the studies and evaluating my own beliefs. As I've said in other posts, I would want to know about possible experimenter bias, parameters, methods of measurement, the actual methods which are used and tested, the details of the cohort involved, the reasons for the conclusions reached, and so on. I'm used to doing this with tests on drugs and vitamins because they are usually not as cut-and-dried as many would like to believe. You don't get these kinds of complications when you are measuring the ages of rocks

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it's a logical extrapolation tro believe that life exists on other planets based on what we know and assume, but I hold that possibility with a grain of salt and knowledge that I want it to be true and that this want may overshadow my skepticism at times. When it comes to actual extraterrestial visitations, I am much more skeptical, again because of what we think we know about the universe, it's physical laws, and the entirely subjective nature of any "evidence" provided by UFO believers.

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I think I'd take a similar approach to you; my grain of salt would perhaps be just a little smaller. I imagine that if intelligent aliens exist, perhaps they've found ways to punch holes through dimensions or dematerialise and rematerialise, who knows? Maybe we will do such things ourselves one day. Also, UFO stories would make an interesting psychological study, and I like the frisson of genuine-sounding cases that are unexplained.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : Bold & italics aren't working the way I want . . .Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix a quote box.

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I have previously explained that I have studied philosophy and feel your philosophical take on the world is not what I agree with.

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I don't have a problem with that, and we're fortunate to live in a society where we can freely choose what to believe.My point, though, is while we may each choose different philosophies to guide us, I don't think it's possible to demonstrate that one is closer to The Truth than others (see Message 226). The most honest thing I feel we can say to each other in this respect is simply, "My opinion is different from yours," and not "You are wrong." If philosophers haven't been able to hash it out over the course of centuries, what hope do we have?

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Kind of condescending don't you think.

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Well you did say that the list of questions in Message 140 was "mumbo jumbo." Which is dismissal rather than engagement. As I've said before, instead of taking my comments as insults, why don't you just tell me why you think they are wrong?

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I have the sneaky suspicion that you won't be satisfied with anything we say.
So there you go.

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I said this because Straggler has taken little of what I've said on board and has not read many of my posts here, including the ones I directed him to. Not bothering to listen to me, he keeps repeating the same things he's been saying throughout the thread. He seems to have added something new lately, which I will look at, but we've been over the old ground a lot and I'm not going to keep running round in circles on it.

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Linda, if you have answered his question, I do not see it either. All I see is you evading Stragglers repeated request for a specific criteria for subjective evidence.

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Please see Message 226.

quote:

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You say there is subjective evidence separating delusion and faith but are not willing to provide a rigorous specific criteria separating the two.

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I don't believe there is a specific stand-alone set of "rigorous specific criteria." People like Straggler who want this are bound to be disappointed. That isn't to say that we can't apply some epistemologies to differentiate between the reality of the experience of enlightenment and the flying spaghetti monster. RAZD and kbersche have been discussing this here and I've so far discussed it with Modulous in Message 157 and Message 189. His recent post to me is pending a reply too, which will take some thought and which I'll probably work on after I come back from holiday the next few days.