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Author | Topic: Broken Thinking Skills & Pointless Discussion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18653 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
You come here everyday and talk about what you've been researching, reading and talking about. True. But what I mean is that I dont see or hear voices, believe that I experience Gods audible voice, or see demons on a daily basis. In fact, it is a skill that I believe is developed and only if one is living right and focusing on Spiritual things versus Ego, impressing other people, or fleecing a flock. You guys make the mistake of assuming that if God speaks to one guy (through impressions, dreams, voice, or whatever) than by logic He should simply speak to everyone. This is where you error. Even among Christians, not more than (I would guess) 10-20% of them even have had such experiences. They are not loons, though. They are people who pray frequently and have a relationship with God, study scripture, and fast occasionally. They cannot be gluttons, arrogant, greedy for money, power, or prestige, living sinfully or thinking that all gods are relativistic concepts of human minds. That would be unbelief and also loony, I might add. Edited by Phat, : No reason given."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.- Francis A. Schaeffer The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.- Criss Jami, Killosophy
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jar Member (Idle past 99 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: They cannot be gluttons, arrogant, greedy for money, power, or prestige, living sinfully or thinking that all gods are relativistic concepts of human minds What does the evidence relating to gods show Phat? What evidence is that that even indicates that all gods are not relativistic concepts of human minds?
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ringo Member (Idle past 671 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
My father didn't suffer from mental illness - everybody around him did. Every few years he would feel so good that he would stop taking his medication and then it would get really bad. Some would say I was mentally ill. I feel fine and don't even think about such things on a daily basis."I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member
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You guys make the mistake of assuming that if God speaks to one guy (through impressions, dreams, voice, or whatever) than by logic He should simply speak to everyone. This is where you error. Here is an excerpt from the preface of an unpublished book I wrote, entitled - THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS: Finding Life Amidst the Valley of the Shadow of Death
quote: Does it feel like that, Phat? Some would say that is pretty powerful testimony I gave about 18 years ago. The question is, was any of it real or did my brain find what I wanted it to? Maybe I can no longer hear God because of my apostate ways.... maybe I never heard him at all. Maybe that voice was my own. I have no way of knowing. No one reading these words can know for certain whether that experience was a delusion or a reality; including me and I'm the one who lived it. At the end of the day, if the scriptures are accurate then it all boils down to faith. But do they say that so that you rely on your convictions or do they say that because they know they can't prove any of it? I will tell you this concerning my conversion story. I had joined the Navy specifically and exclusively to become a Navy SEAL. Prior to this time it was an obsession of mine. In about July of 2000 I got my shot and went to BUD/S. Long story short, 1.5 months in I failed out on a pass/fail evolution. My worldview collapsed. I found myself in an existential crisis and my psyche was deeply fractured. I broke up with a long-time girlfriend and began dating a woman who I was absolutely madly in love with. Did I mention she had a boyfriend? Did I mention her boyfriend went to BUD/S with me and that we were pieces of shit for doing that to him? Did I mention that he found out on September 10, 2001? Why do you suppose I remember that date specifically? So now my fractured psyche is more fucked up than ever... Needless to say to fill the void I engaged in a lot of sexual encounters until I hooked up with a chick, mentioned in the story, who in the long run was a total and complete disaster. But can you see that I was being set up for something; anything to give my life meaning at that point in time? So... again... I ask, was it real or did I want it to be real? Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given."Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1
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The main point is that we extremely rarely reason ourselves into believing, but rather there are many emotional, psychological, and social factors, along with other kinds of basic needs going into each individual's mental state that would lead to conversion. One size does not fit all.
After the conversion happens for whatever reason, there can be a stage in which the individuals then turn to reason in order to rationalize their decision to convert. Some such individuals may come up with all kinds of rational arguments for converting, but those will have very limited success because they ignore the real reason why people convert, that they offer to people who strongly need something with the very thing that they need. Whether you actually have it to offer or not. Now, if you find what you so dearly need, then good for you. If that then leads you to do evil, then not so good. What do people like to say nowadays? It's complicated. Now for the other slope: deconversion. Reason can work well enough for rationalizing religious belief, but it also has a nasty habit to lead to thinking (almost as nasty as the habit of a Linux PC becoming an unauthorized router). Dan Barker's testimonial in his book, Godless shows that his own deconversion resulted from him asking questions that he was not supposed to ask. Once you start to ask questions, all those other religious structures start to fall apart. Down to the most basic level, once you have stopped believing, then what? There is a scene in an early X-Men movie where a parent learns that her son is a mutant: "Have you considered deciding to not be a mutant?" That is not something that you can decide. You either are one or you are not. I have read so many deconversion stories. One abiding theme for so many is that they did not want to deconvert. Rather, reason had led them inexorably to the point of realizing that their faith did not work. They wanted so desperately for their faith to still work, but they realized that their faith could not work. It was so painful for most of them, but once you have seen the light, you cannot return to the darkness.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member
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I have read so many deconversion stories. One abiding theme for so many is that they did not want to deconvert. Rather, reason had led them inexorably to the point of realizing that their faith did not work. They wanted so desperately for their faith to still work, but they realized that their faith could not work. It was so painful for most of them, but once you have seen the light, you cannot return to the darkness. Not much else to say... Pretty much perfectly summarizes it. "Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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Phat Member Posts: 18653 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
How exactly is/was faith supposed to work?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.- Francis A. Schaeffer The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.- Criss Jami, Killosophy
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Tangle Member Posts: 9583 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 6.5
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Really, really bored now. COVID is killing me and I haven't got it yet.
This is another post from MiketheWiz on Evolution Fairy Tales, it's a mirror image of what we say and do here
wibble, an atheist writes: The evidence from the fossil record is compelling. You never find modern mammals (such as dogs) in the Triassic, you never find flowering plants (such as bananas) in the Carboniferous and you never find ray finned fish (such as salmon, which include 99% of all existing fish species) in the Cambrian. Etc. etc. etc. You have no sensible answers for these facts that fly in the face of your faith. MtW replies (sometimes in red ink, and bold type as they seem to do in these places)
MtW writes: WARNING. These things have been addressed before and there are answers for them by creationists you have been given. The epithet, "sensible" is BS. This is rhetorical phlegm, there should be no more of these bare-assertions here about things you have been refuted on many times before. The answers have been given and none of the forms you mention can be shown to have any intermediates from previous ancestors. DO NOT TROLL THE FORUMS with ad nasueam PRATTS that have been addressed time and time and time again, which clearly shown you had not even a basic grasp of logical reasoning. As creationists our model does not depend on finding modern mammals such as dogs in the triassic but I did show you a chart of push-backs that have been found earlier and earlier. But we do not need to chase that red-herring because our model does not predict a dog would have lived in an ecological zone with dinosaurs, such as the triassic which for creationists would represent a preserval of a certain area that existed. Because our model means such rocks were trawls of certain areas, and we do not argue they are eons of time, then no, it is a red-herring fallacy to argue that we should expect such patterns in the rocks to be different. The pre-flood world was full of forms now extinct and it is impossible to predict the food-chain and ecological zones that would have existed because the post-flood world is like another planet. The answers are there, you are simply too stubborn to understand why they refute your objections. And how many times do you need teaching these things? A teenager of poor to average IQ could understand it well by now. I propose you are simply A LIAR. What it possible in these situations? They have invented a world where what he says makes sense, it's a total alternative reality that they can inhabit and no amount of fact can change it.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.
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Stile Member (Idle past 303 days) Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined:
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Tangle writes: What it possible in these situations? They have invented a world where what he says makes sense, it's a total alternative reality that they can inhabit and no amount of fact can change it. I don't think much is possible. 1. If wibble continues - he'll likely just get banned. 2. MtW (and other's of the same) don't want to look at facts and reason, they want to believe what they believe and pretend it's all based on facts and reason. 3. You can try to continue for the sake of onlookers, or yourself, for entertainment purposes (one of the main reasons I continue visit this site, even - personal entertainment - I find the conversations interesting, for whatever reason, and not everyone finds all the same things interesting to the same levels - to each their own.) 4. You can just laugh - as most reasonable people will do to such comments, since folk like MtW are in such an extreme minority. And be thankful that such a turn-around has occurred while we're alive. Such folk did use to be a majority and run most of the world. But we've been out of the Dark Ages for a long time, now. 5. Ridicule can be fun, if you don't mind hurting their feelings. Just like how Flat Earthers and other various conspiracy nuts are treated - the psychological profile is an exact match.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
How exactly is/was faith supposed to work? I'll try to address that within the context here, which is that in my Message 20 I was assessing Hyroglyphx' Message 19 conversion story (ie, he presented his conversion story from 18 years prior and was asking questions about it). My assessment is that conversion is rarely rational, but rather is part of a personal response to whatever one is going through on a level of emotional or other needs (which are not rational). Within that context, faith is also non-rational in that it's functioning in the absence of rational reasons or of objective information. But that would be oversimplifying somewhat. Faith is also rationalizing your beliefs, so it can take on the trappings of rationality. A further development of that would be theology which tries to create a rational basis for faith through the use of over very rigorous logic, yet roots that logic in unfounded and often irrational premises *.As a result, faith can end up propping up beliefs that are in conflict with reality. That most often results in selective blindness or selective stupidity in order to not see nor understand the conflict, which in turn can escalate to self-delusion, and which can eventually result in deconversion. What Hyroglyphx quoted from my Message 20 was from my discussion of how faith can start to unravel in the face of rational thought and questions, leading to deconversion even when that person does not want it to happen:
DWise1 writes: I have read so many deconversion stories. One abiding theme for so many is that they did not want to deconvert. Rather, reason had led them inexorably to the point of realizing that their faith did not work. They wanted so desperately for their faith to still work, but they realized that their faith could not work. It was so painful for most of them, but once you have seen the light, you cannot return to the darkness. My impression is that that is what you were asking about. So what is your exact question? I would add here that deconversion need not be a complete rejection of religion, which does happen so often mainly because of one's own religious teachings (eg, "If we find even one error in the Bible, then we must through it on the trash heap and become atheists!" or ICR's John Morris' "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old, then Scripture has no meaning."). It can also manifest as changing to a new and different religious position while rejecting the false teachings of one's old religious position; ie, growing up into a more mature religious understanding. FOOTNOTE *:
Immediately after three years of the original airing of the original Star Trek, I graduated from high school and started college, where one of my first classes was formal logic -- I had previously learned about the informal fallacies in my senior English class. Formal logic is not quite what most people think it is. Formal logic is all about structure (from λεγω meaning to lay in order, to speak rationally). We worked mainly with syllogisms which are logical arguments in which two premises result in a conclusion. The premises are particular types of statements usually derived from the Square of Opposition. A syllogism can either be valid or invalid, which is determined strictly from the form of the syllogism. The conclusion from a syllogism can then be used as a premise of another syllogism, such that you can construct a network of syllogisms, a network whose ultimate validity depends on each and every component being valid. And even if that logic network is valid, that still does not mean that it is true. All that logic can determine is whether an argument (eg, syllogistic network) is valid. Now, if you have a valid argument and you feed it true premises, then you will get a true conclusion. However, if you instead feed it false premises, then you have no idea what you are getting. That is what most people do not understand: just because something is logical that does not mean that it is true. And that is the ultimate problem for theology. No matter how rigorously valid theologians may make their intricate logic, if the premises are not true then the conclusions cannot be accepted as being true. Even worse, if the the premises are not proven to be true, then the conclusions cannot be considered to be proven to be true. There is an actual practice, sophistry, which uses logic to deceive. Basically, if you can get your victim to accept your premises, then you can prove anything such as day being night and black being white. Many creationists and apologists (which Christian bookstores group together) attempt to use such sophistry to deceive us. The most recent practitioner here was Richard L. Wang, who tried his darndest to get us to accept his false premises before he would even begin to present his case. One of the most famous modern examples of sophistic arguments was from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which something that should prove the existence of God actually disproves God:
quote: BTW, George Boole (1815 — 1864) developed a symbolic logic called Boolean Algebra which is based on values of true or false and operators of AND, OR, and NOT. Going into the 1930's, Bell Labs used Boolean algebra to design the relay networks for automated telephone switching, from which it grew to be used in designing computer circuits. As a computer system technician (pre-PC) I was taught and used Boolean algebra to describe a combinatory network and then in CS/EE class how to use it to design a digital logic network. Very powerful stuff. The point is that those networks use the outputs of AND, OR, and NOT (AKA inverter and state indicators) gates as the inputs of the next gates in the network. The same kind of intricate and complex logic networks generated by theology, and by astrology, and by any other complex system that depends on logic.
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Phat Member Posts: 18653 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
I enjoy reading your posts, by the way.
dwise1 writes: I guess I was asking Hyroglyphix to explain what no longer worked for him faithwise. Was it the trap of Biblical Literalism? I know that for me personally, some facts matter, some are unproven, and some are inconsequential. One abiding theme for so many is that they did not want to deconvert. Rather, reason had led them inexorably to the point of realizing that their faith did not work. They wanted so desperately for their faith to still work, but they realized that their faith could not work. It was so painful for most of them, but once you have seen the light, you cannot return to the darkness.(...)My impression is that that is what you were asking about. So what is your exact question? I could care less if the earth is/was 5000 years old, 10,000 years old or 5 billion years old.I dont care whether Adam, Eve, and the snake were literal or metaphorical. All I care to explore are the various philosophical lines of thought regarding the stories and myths. On the other hand, I have chosen to care very much on the literalness of a Virgin Birth and a Character of a Man who was in the Beginning...Jesus Christ. I need that reality or my faith ceases to work. I have gone to great lengths to prove it to myself and to believe it, but all that I have is some subjective eexperiences of having a transformed mind one day and of seeing (hearing) what I labled as supernatural manifestations and what ringo labels as unexplained. Hanging out with like-minded believers is comforting to my flesh at best. My spirit is restless. "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.- Dr.John Lennox The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.- Criss Jami, Killosophy
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Tangle Member Posts: 9583 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 6.5 |
Phat writes: I dont care whether Adam, Eve, and the snake were literal or metaphorical You really should. If Adam and Eve were not real then there was no Fall. If there was no Fall, Jesus was not required to be sacrificed to save us from it. The whole pack of cards collapses.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.
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Phat Member Posts: 18653 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
The whole pack of cards is only held together by Jesus Christ anyways.
Biblical Literal-ism does not have to be true but the Virgin Birth and character of Jesus Christ does. When jar says that even if Jesus was simply a mythical character told in a tale around a campfire,the message still has value he fails to realize that if Jesus is not literal and Divine the whole pack of cards does collapse. But fear not. I will never believe the Christian(anti-christian more likely) Mythologists anyway. Now before I go back to sleep, I would be wise to pray. I can feel myself getting a bit feisty, snippy, and carnal in my replies to you. Edited by Phat, : No reason given."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.- Dr.John Lennox The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.- Criss Jami, Killosophy
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jar Member (Idle past 99 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined:
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Phat writes: When jar says that even if Jesus was simply a mythical character told in a tale around a campfire,the message still has value he fails to realize that if Jesus is not literal and Divine the whole pack of cards does collapse. Yet the important point to remember and understand is that Christianity is just a structure built from a pack of cards. Christianity is but one path, one set of rules, one club, one vision, one set of possible choices. A set. It is not unified or unique or in any way special. It is designed and created by humans for humans. The backs of the cards might be blue or red or yellow or green but the fronts are all pretty much the same. You need to learn what literal means. Look at the Bible. There are dozens of literal description of god. Each literally describes a character that is literally different than all the other descriptions of god in the Bible. The God of Genesis 1 is not the God of Genesis 2 or the God of Exodus. This is also true of the descriptions of Jesus in the Bible. The literal descriptions literally describe different characters. The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels is different than the Jesus of John.
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Phat Member Posts: 18653 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
jar writes: Perhaps you have a point, but I would argue that what makes Christianity unique is the character of Jesus Christ. Perhaps in a Science Thread such as this one, we have a dead end.
Christianity is but one path, one set of rules, one club, one vision, one set of possible choices. A set. It is not unified or unique or in any way special. It is designed and created by humans for humans.jar writes: The debates center around the possibility and probability of whether One God (described many different ways and interpreted to be of many varied characters) actually exists and what the implication is for humanity. Unless God is just an observer watching His kids grow up. You need to learn what literal means. Look at the Bible. There are dozens of literal description of god. Each literally describes a character that is literally different than all the other descriptions of god in the Bible. The God of Genesis 1 is not the God of Genesis 2 or the God of Exodus. This is also true of the descriptions of Jesus in the Bible. The literal descriptions literally describe different characters. The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels is different than the Jesus of John."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.- Dr.John Lennox The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.- Criss Jami, Killosophy
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