[mikeh]

Codo, on 2014-April-15, 08:16, said:

And about fanatics: Anybody who is fine with other point of views and other believes looks quite moderate to me. (And if I understood him right- to Rik too.)

This sort of thinking is prevalent in at least NA society. I think that the idea sounds fine but of course it is like the bible...nobody can live by this credo. Some beliefs are so harmful to others that we should not tolerate those who actively promote them, nor should we be 'fine' with anyone who both holds and acts on them.

Here are some points of view with which I am not fine....and I can't imagine that you are:

a) it is ok for an adult man to sexually express his love and affection for pre-pubescent children
b) it is ok for a major religious organization to shelter and protect child molesters in its employ, while ignoring the victims unless forced by lawsuits to do otherwise
c) it is ok to beat up gays simply because they are gay
d) it is ok to discriminate against women because they are supposed to be inherently subordinate to men....as god dictated in the bible and the Koran
e) it is ok to discriminate against people because of their skin colour, or sexual orientation or identity
f) it is ok to have ritual human sacrifice (ok, so this one isn't real...I hope)

I am sure we could quickly come up with other examples.


There are countless more issues on which I agree that one should not get worked up about, and I confess that I fail on some of those, as evidenced by a number of my posts here. However, I would far rather see someone get pissed off at me and take me on in heated debate because they are as passionate as am I than have everyone adopt the attitude that only fanatics get passionate about anything...that the sophisticated, intelligent moderate affords ALL belief systems equal rights.

I don't mean to imply that I think that Roland or Rik would disagree with me on those factors, btw. I will venture to say that I am sure they would not tolerate people who lived by those beliefs.

Meanwhile, and without resiling from the substance of the arguments I have made, I do regret and hereby apologize, not only to the posters I have directly annoyed, but also to the other readers, for the manner in which I have sometimes written. I have become annoyed at what I perceived on occasion to be distortions of my arguments, set up as straw men to allow for rebuttal, but I accept that my perceptions probably reflected the difficulties inherent in forum posting. We lose all nuance. I tell witnesses in my cases that the written word is a very limited means of communication: body language, tone of voice, tempo of speaking, facial expression all convey a huge amount of information, to the point that one can say one thing while being clearly understood to mean another...but when that is reduced to written form, as in a transcript, only the actual words used are apparent.

So too I suspect that I have read into other's posts things they did not mean to convey, and I can tell from some of the responses that others have read into mine thoughts or attitudes that I did not mean...let me stress: having reread my posts I can see how that would happen....in terms of my posts, the fault was mine, not the reader's. So I apologize to all. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I will try harder. That doesn't mean that my underlying views of reality are not as I have described them, but it does mean that I have a far greater awareness of my own fallibility, and of the intelligence, morality and ethics of others than might appear from my more inflammatory posts.

[gwnn]

kenberg, on 2014-April-15, 09:40, said:

Ok, back to the Bible. Do you really believe that Jonah he lived in a whale? He made his home in that whale's abdomen, oh Jonah he lived in a whale? (Gershwin, It ain't necessarily so, Porgy and Bess, as probably everyone knows)
For many, the answer is "Hey, I am on my way to buy groceries, buzz off". Suppose that the interviewer is persistent. Many, if they come from an educated class, say "Well, no, not really". But many others say yes. Why? Because in the culture that they come from, they are more likely to be called names if they answer no than if they answer yes. Really they have no interest in the question and they definitely will not thank the interviewer for bringing it up. They regard the question as rude and the interviewer as badly brought up. If they say yes they won't have trouble with any of their friends, and they can get back to worrying about whether they should buy fish or chicken.

We just have the numbers from the poll, so interpretations are up to us of course. However, I think your interpretation gives way too little credit (or too much credit) to too many answerers. I have seen the distinction of 'us' vs 'the world' in many Christian sermons/discussions. The wisdom of the world is not the same as the wisdom of God. To many Christians, if I ask them 'do you really think Jonah spent three days inside that fish?' they will be more than happy to say yes, and not despite my incredulous tone of voice, but maybe even partly because of it. The fool says in his heart there is no god. I don't want to portray Christians in general to be like this, but this is certainly one way of going about things and one that I have heard from time to time. They are positively proud of how many times their philosophy contradicts current knowledge and they enjoy our incredulity. Now of course we are back to guessing precentages instead using the real ones, not sure if that is very productive. Codo thinks the poll had leading questions, you think the poll did not have leading questions in the other direction ("Surely you don't believe the Jonah story??" sounds a bit non-objective to me). I think the numbers give us a better idea than the numbers+arbitrary adjustments from our intuitions. This is, of course, another unproved assumption.

[Trinidad]

I think that many Christians consider the term "believe" a reserved word. Whenever it is used in - what could be - a religious context, they will "auto-answer" what they think the bible says about the subject.

If you ask them whether they believe a piece of wood will float on water, they look puzzled: That doesn't have anything to do with believing. It is a fact that wood (with a few exceptions) will float on water.

I think that there might be a big difference in answers to the questions: "Do you think people can walk on water?" and "Do you believe people can walk on water?". Many Christians see these as two entirely different questions, whereas for non-believers they are pretty much equivalent.

Rik

[gwnn]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a devoted Christian the other day. He said something about his belief and how we can't be certain of anything anyway. I replied that I have many things in my life where I believe things without absolute certainty, for example I don't know that the chair next to us that looks exactly like ours is an actual chair. Maybe if I want to sit on it, it turns out to be a highly advanced hologram, or maybe it was a hallucination, but from my experience, things that look like that and have shadows like that etc are indeed chairs and are indeed for sitting (sounds like a convoluted example, yes, and it was no less convoluted when I brought it up). He replied that God's promises to him are much more real and tangible than anything I can bring up about chairs. He believes in God's existence far deeper than in the chair's existence next to us. He was really proud of this very deep faith and I did not know how to converse about the matter any more.

[Winstonm]

Trinidad, on 2014-April-15, 13:25, said:

I think that many Christians consider the term "believe" a reserved word. Whenever it is used in - what could be - a religious context, they will "auto-answer" what they think the bible says about the subject.

If you ask them whether they believe a piece of wood will float on water, they look puzzled: That doesn't have anything to do with believing. It is a fact that wood (with a few exceptions) will float on water.

I think that there might be a big difference in answers to the questions: "Do you think people can walk on water?" and "Do you believe people can walk on water?". Many Christians see these as two entirely different questions, whereas for non-believers they are pretty much equivalent.

Rik

I think you have hit upon the crux of the matter with the thinking versus belief concept. Now all you have to do is figure out why someone would believe that which is contrary to known fact, i.e., resurrecting dead human tissue, walking on water, etc.

[mikeh]

gwnn, on 2014-April-15, 15:07, said:

. He was really proud of this very deep faith and I did not know how to converse about the matter any more.

This is an extreme real life example of an idea of mine for which I have been criticized when I express it here. Religion succeeds by preventing the use of critical thinking about the subject of religious belief. If you think about it, this is an astoundingly ingenious idea: gain access to the brains of humans not yet able to think critically, due to their age and dependent status in life, and train them that having faith is far better than having reason or knowledge. Hence the real life spectacle, to which I referred in an earlier post, of a preacher earnestly explaining that if the bible said that the sum of 2+2 was 5, he'd accept that as true, and find some way to explain away the apparent difference between this article of faith and what his senses and reason told him.

It is by elevating belief above reason, by instilling an automatic, and I suspect often unconscious, rejection of reason or knowledge when it contradicts or raises questions about core beliefs that religion is at its most effective. Believers, if my idea has any validity, may be able to acknowledge that their belief is irrational, but while to a secularist this is an admission of error, to a believer it is a proclamation of virtue....look! See how contrary to reason and evidence is my view of the world! See how that makes me a better person in the eyes of god!

Paradoxically, the more the secularist hammers home the lack of plausibility of the belief in god, the more sure the believer becomes in his or her belief.

Recognizing that makes me realize how stupid I was to start, metaphorically, pounding the table in frustration at what I saw as the irrational rejection of reason. What I see as irrational, the believer sees as virtue. The louder I rant, the more confident becomes the believer.

I suspect this approach just evolved, over millennia, but if I am wrong and some religious leader somewhere actually thought this up, then that person was a genius, and arguably the most influential human ever to have lived.

[Vampyr]

The inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy is the main symptom of schizophrenia. Yet it is considered neurotypical when the person's delusion concerns the existence of a god or gods.

Strange.

[mikeh]

Vampyr, on 2014-April-15, 18:31, said:

The inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy is the main symptom of schizophrenia. Yet it is considered neurotypical when the person's delusion concerns the existence of a god or gods.

Strange.

In fairness, I think a lot of the more sophisticated believers may be aware that the evidence is against the existence of their god, but knowing that there is no conclusive proof of its non-existence (and there may well never be any such proof even possible, since we may never be able to understand or even conceptualize whatever 'was' before the big bang and indeed the very question may make no sense, in that maybe there was no 'before' in the sense that we understand time) they make a choice.

Anyway, in those circumstances, someone could choose to believe, on the basis that they gain from so doing, and that they lose nothing, or at least nothing that is of value to them. I don't understand how one could choose knowingly to live in what is probably a fantasy world, but I don't doubt the sincerity of those who do.

Such people are not mentally ill, in the sense of the schizophrenic, who lives in a deluded condition involuntarily.

[nige1]

mikeh, on 2014-April-15, 19:29, said:

In fairness, I think a lot of the more sophisticated believers may be aware that the evidence is against the existence of their god, but knowing that there is no conclusive proof of its non-existence (and there may well never be any such proof even possible, since we may never be able to understand or even conceptualize whatever 'was' before the big bang and indeed the very question may make no sense, in that maybe there was no 'before' in the sense that we understand time) they make a choice.
Anyway, in those circumstances, someone could choose to believe, on the basis that they gain from so doing, and that they lose nothing, or at least nothing that is of value to them. I don't understand how one could choose knowingly to live in what is probably a fantasy world, but I don't doubt the sincerity of those who do.
Such people are not mentally ill, in the sense of the schizophrenic, who lives in a deluded condition involuntarily.

Mike echoes Pascal's Pensées, part III, §233
If God exists, then it behoves us to behave as if He does.
OTOH, in a world of uncertainly and illusion, what does one more illusion matter?

[nige1]

mikeh, on 2014-April-15, 09:49, said:

Here are some points of view with which I am not fine....and I can't imagine that you are:

a) it is ok for an adult man to sexually express his love and affection for pre-pubescent children
b) it is ok for a major religious organization to shelter and protect child molesters in its employ, while ignoring the victims unless forced by lawsuits to do otherwise
c) it is ok to beat up gays simply because they are gay
d) it is ok to discriminate against women because they are supposed to be inherently subordinate to men....as god dictated in the bible and the Koran
e) it is ok to discriminate against people because of their skin colour, or sexual orientation or identity
f) it is ok to have ritual human sacrifice (ok, so this one isn't real...I hope)

I am sure we could quickly come up with other examples.

IMO, few dissent from such moral condemnations but nobody can arrive at converse precepts by science -- or by logic shorn of unproveable moral assumptions (beliefs?).

[mikeh]

nige1, on 2014-April-15, 19:57, said:

Mike echoes Pascal's Pensées, part III, §233
If God exists it behoves us to behave as if He does.
OTOH, in a world of uncertainly and illusion, what does one more illusion matter?

Yes, but that old standby of Christian apologists is demonstrably silly. Pascal of course considered that only the version of god in which he believed was the right one, an arrogance almost universal amongst all believers, and so he was able, in his mind at least, to dismiss the argument that there can be no way to know which god one should choose. He seems to have suggested, at least according to popular analysis of his somewhat cryptic commentaries, that anyone who looked into the 'many gods' argument could soon enough identify the correct god by study of the teachings of the various religions. Guess whose god he said would be the obvious choice! LOL. And he had arrived at that without doing that analysis, which he couldn't do because of his profound (but, given when and where he lived, probably unavoidable) ignorance.

Not only was he contemptuous, and ignorant, about many of the then-prevailing or earlier extinct religions, but he didn't even reference the prospect that there odds must be immense that even if there is a god of some kind, humanity had not yet and might never choose the right one. Given the size and age of the universe, unless one is a true wingnut (read: creationist), that seems to me to be a virtually insoluble problem should one concede that in theory any religion might be valid. Of course, the nature of the religion meme is such that it imbues the carrier with a inherent certainty that they, and only those who believe as they do, have it 'right'.


Pascal's Wager might sound impressive to a high school junior, but one would like to think that most intelligent people could spot the gaping holes in the logic that underlay it.

[kenberg]

I strongly believe that one of the many things that I and my religious friends would agree on is the total irrelevance of Pascal's Wager.

[nige1]

mikeh, on 2014-April-15, 20:17, said:

Yes, but that old standby of Christian apologists is demonstrably silly. Pascal of course considered that only the version of god in which he believed was the right one, an arrogance almost universal amongst all believers, and so he was able, in his mind at least, to dismiss the argument that there can be no way to know which god one should choose. He seems to have suggested, at least according to popular analysis of his somewhat cryptic commentaries, that anyone who looked into the 'many gods' argument could soon enough identify the correct god by study of the teachings of the various religions. Guess whose god he said would be the obvious choice! LOL. And he had arrived at that without doing that analysis, which he couldn't do because of his profound (but, given when and where he lived, probably unavoidable) ignorance.
Not only was he contemptuous, and ignorant, about many of the then-prevailing or earlier extinct religions, but he didn't even reference the prospect that there odds must be immense that even if there is a god of some kind, humanity had not yet and might never choose the right one. Given the size and age of the universe, unless one is a true wingnut (read: creationist), that seems to me to be a virtually insoluble problem should one concede that in theory any religion might be valid. Of course, the nature of the religion meme is such that it imbues the carrier with a inherent certainty that they, and only those who believe as they do, have it 'right'.
Pascal's Wager might sound impressive to a high school junior, but one would like to think that most intelligent people could spot the gaping holes in the logic that underlay it.

Blaise Pascal: "silly, "arrogant", "contemptuous", "illogical", and "profoundly ignorant" -- especially of odds?

[mikeh]

nige1, on 2014-April-15, 20:36, said:

Was Blaise Pascal "silly, "arrogant", "contemptuous", "illogical", and "profoundly ignorant" -- especially of odds?

in terms of religion, all of the above. In terms of mathematics, not at all.

read his description of the beliefs of others, and you'll surely see that he was contemptuous of other beliefs. Read his assertion that anyone seeking the true religion would come to his, Pascal's, choice through study, and you'll surely see that he was arrogant. The very notion of the wager is illogical, since it is based on the implausible premise that Pascal's version of Christianity was the only true religion of all that had ever existed or then existed, and omitted those that might later be invented (Mormonism anyone?).

Profoundly ignorant: see the item of contemptuous.

Where am I wrong, btw...on which of these topics do you assert that I am incorrect in my description?

[mike777]

Wow I thought Pascal's Wager was ground breaking in terms of science and theology.

I thought it was impressive to Phd's in science and theology not just middle school students.

[nige1]

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 02:06, said:

Someone is wrong on the internet .....

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 02:06, said:

I think it is pointless to discuss things which both parties have strong (but opposite) opinions about on an open forum. I sometimes sent luke_warm personal messages about my opinion on some issues and it could move things a little bit further and at least ease the tensions between us. But having such discussions in public would be pointless. If someone challenges your hard-held beliefs on a public forum, wouldn't your knee jerk (no pun) reaction be to attack back, even if you knew that your "opponent" actually had a point? Mine certainly would.

Those as ignorant as I are grateful for the chance to learn

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 02:06, said:

It is like having ATB discussions with partner while the opps listen. Worse than pointless. (A petty that we don't do the POTY anymore because Rik's post about the AKQ convention certainly would fit. But I digress...). Of course, forum discussions at least can be successful if your true aim is to show the rest of the World that your opponent is a moron. Fair enough. Just don't tell yourself that your aim is to change your opponent's viewpoints. Because you are smart enough to know that cognitive dissonance works the opposite way: the stronger arguments you pose for the theory that the Earth is round, the more stubbornly the flat earthers will stick to their belief.

Practical behaviour doesn't always accord with fashionable psychological theory. Even in my short lifetime, public debate has substantially shifted opinion on issues like divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and take-out doubles of pre-empts.

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 02:06, said:

Btw, Father, I have sinned. I didn't keep my new year resolution of not upvoting religion, CO2 or gun related posts in the water cooler. Maybe a bit paradoxical that I posted this instead of PMing it to everyone. Now everyone is going to hate me. Oh well ....

We sinners love you, Reverend Mother.

[gwnn]

I came up with Pascal's wager (to the best of my knowledge) independently when I was about 10 and dismissed it immediately because I knew God would not allow such phonies in his Kingdom (of course, this objection is also not original to me, but is perhaps the easiest one to see). Also, expressions like 'it costs you NOTHING' and 'it will cost you EVERYTHING' do not belong in proper probability assessment. Later I did become converted (something like between ages 14-22), but due to other reasons. I still would have never used Pascal's wager to try to convince people. If someone had called Pascal's wager silly or arrogant, my likeliest response would have been a high five. Why can't you try to address the point mikeh was making, nige1? I know his posts can drag on, but this particular one was refreshingly to the point. He didn't just say "Pascal is silly!! Haha!" There was a post after those assertions, a post in which he explains why he says that.

[mike777]

gwnn, on 2014-April-16, 00:19, said:

I came up with Pascal's wager (to the best of my knowledge) independently when I was about 10 and dismissed it immediately because I knew God would not allow such phonies in his Kingdom (of course, this objection is also not original to me, but is perhaps the easiest one to see). Also, expressions like 'it costs you NOTHING' and 'it will cost you EVERYTHING' do not belong in proper probability assessment. Later I did become converted (something like between ages 14-22), but due to other reasons. I still would have never used Pascal's wager to try to convince people. If someone had called Pascal's wager silly or arrogant, my likeliest response would have been a high five. Why can't you try to address the point mikeh was making, nige1? I know his posts can drag on, but this particular one was refreshingly to the point. He didn't just say "Pascal is silly!! Haha!" There was a post after those assertions, a post in which he explains why he says that.

ok so at ten you had the wisdom to say it was crap got it.



"Historically, Pascal's Wager was groundbreaking because it charted new territory in probability theory, marked the first formal use of decision theory, and anticipated future philosophies such as existentialism, pragmatism, and voluntarism"
Alan Hájek

to put it another way...posters say it is crap that at ten they knew it.

to be honest this sounds like Nobel prize stuff or "Fields medal" or Templeton

Otoh...so far at least 2 posters or more claim this is middle school crap.

[Fluffy]

mikeh, on 2014-April-15, 09:49, said:

f) it is ok to have ritual human sacrifice (ok, so this one isn't real...I hope)

This is a bit off topic but:

Between a ficticional african tribe who makes a party and cooks their elders when they are really done and even eats them afterwards, and the westerns who attach them to machines to stay alive in pain for several years I prefer the african approach. And I would respect it.

Your points b, c, d and e are all about discrimination, most forms of power in humanity are based on discrimination, you arrange a group and discriminate the rest, if the group gets big/powerful enough you will have a minority that suffers. Just getting some sneaky examples that seem religious on face, but are actually political in essence, doesn't mean religion is bad on any sense. Perhaps organized religion because it gets politized is bad, as any kind of group.

I don't think I could tolerate a), due to my human nature, however Bonobos seem to have no sexual problems with children and they are fine. If we ever coexist with some form of life from another galaxy and they are used to that I would tolerate it.

[mike777]

Fluffy, on 2014-April-16, 00:35, said:

This is a bit off topic but:

Between a ficticional african tribe who makes a party and cooks their elders when they are really done and even eats them afterwards, and the westerns who attach them to machines to stay alive in pain for several years I prefer the african approach. And I would respect it.

Fluffy you do know this sounds like "Michael" in the book

I understand this sounds STRANGE