Phat writes:
Thats an oversimplification. Everyone knows that stars are incapable of changing anything.
Not true, many people believe (wrongly) that the stars influence their lives.
.unless we were to take astrology seriously.
Or stories about kings following stars to witness important religious births.
All utter fantacies but you're simply special pleading; you're beliefs are true, all others are not. Nonsense.
And so what if many believers have a preconceived outcome?
I think that actual knowledge is important and false beliefs are dangerous.
You seem to be saying that believers have a need to believe and that sociology proves that they make things up.
It's obvious that people have a need to believe in something that gives them meaning, it seems to be universal.
While I agree that we have a need to continue to believe, I would argue that in the solid cases, the belief was concluded from experience...not propaganda.
If the experience is purely your own, why would it impress anyone else?
I have a question, though. If for the sake of argument we assume that your prior belief was every bit as strong as mine and that you also had some confirming experiences, what fact, facts, or bit of information caused you to reconsider your belief?
You're just going to have to take my word for it that my belief was very, very real to me. I didn't have any facts or experiences that changed my belief, I simply grew out of it. Exactly like I did with Santa - I didn't pull his beard off to suddenly reveal the truth, it just became obvious that it was all a total fabrication by a conspiracy of grown-ups.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.