More Religious Nutters

[BlackCat]

Religion as an evolutionary advantage isn't so far out as one could expect. With the emergence of consiousness I guess that it primarily was used as a tool to explain the environment wether it was a lightning hitting a tree or the rising of the sun. It actually also are a nice sleeping pillow for fear, more precise the fear of what happens when you die. Currently I can't remember a religion that doesn't have a afterlife or transition (I admit that the greek afterlife wasn't exactly jolly, but still, you continued to live).

Religion is also a great community builder that improve a tribes chances to survive competing tribes.

In old times religion could actually be an advantage as long as it was reasonable.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok

Empiricism is indeed largely discredited...within philosophical circles. That's why I'm not a philosopher. Actually, I'm used to empiricism referring to the general attitude, "if I can't sense it/measure it in some way, for my purposes it ain't there." Your fear example sounds nonsensical to me, since fear is not just an abstract concept but a reaction, and a very important one at that. It's a logical derivation of the instinct to self-preservation combined with the existence of something dangerous to oneself.

Fear has no logical relation with self preservation.

The kind of empiricism you were talking about was the Humean Impression/Idea empiricism. That doesn't make much sense.

But the point was that we could have mental episodes that do not mirror any quality present in external reality. Fear is an example, so is any other emotion.

Religious experience is more of a feeling than a set of sensory-type data, so it might be apt, but can you name a form of psychological disorder that causes the brain to feel something that it never feels under other circumstances? For instance, phobias cause irrational fear, but there are things that it makes sense to be afraid of.

Psychotic people have delusions IIRC.

Actually, I didn't mean that they cannot be explained without the supernatural (as far as I know, they haven't come up with a good explanation, but that's another matter), just that our understanding of the biological nuts and bolts and ability to stimulate them ourselves does not invalidate the experience itself, any more than our ability to masturbate shows that women don't exist.

It does not show that the judgement based on the experience is necessary false, but it does not show that it is necessarily true either. You need the latter or at least the balance of probability to make such belief rational.

Like I said, I know that there are evolutionary non sequiturs, I'm the one that brought 'em up. I would like to point out that the female orgasm is analogous to the male orgasm, like many aspects of the female reproductive system, and furthermore that it has a known cause, namely stimulation of the genitals. The God Helmets work using magnets, no? Is there a natural phenomenon that causes focused magnetic fields to target one region of our brains? Like a really weird solar flare or something?

First of all, I must rap you on the knuckles for speaking of probability in a theological context.

?

That's one of my pet peeves; if you don't know the various causes of an event, along with the frequency of those causes, you can't say anything about its likelihood. Supposedly God doesn't even HAVE a cause, so...I know, figure of speech.

Anyway, back to the discussion. I'm curious as to what the evolutionary value could be. The experiences don't appear to tie in to anything like food or sex, and tend to incapacitate the person having them. St. Seraphim was known to just stand in place, looking awestruck, for hours at a time (though that's an extreme case). The wife of my church's deacon just wept for ten minutes when it hit her. As you and others have pointed out, the condition resembles mental illness. That's not advantageous in any material sense. It sounds like it should be selected against rather than for, but it's apparently pretty widespread. But then neither of us is an evolutionary biologist. Do you know one?

My question is simply this:

(1) Do you believe that it is possible for such an experience to be accounted for by some other explanation than God?

(2) If your answer to (1) is yes, then how do you justify explaining the experience in terms of God rather than in terms of neuroscience?

Just answer that, and then we can proceed.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Geronimo
can hatred be good if directed against a fictional entity allowing you to derive satisfaction when that fictional entity meets it's well deserved demise?

Hateful thoughts are hateful thoughts regardless of whether they are directed outwards or inwards. They are bad for the mind.

To put it another way; surely there would be something BETTER you could be doing with your mind than fantasizing about bad guys dying.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Blake
To put it another way; surely there would be something BETTER you could be doing with your mind than fantasizing about bad guys dying.

Is that you're definition of hateful thinking?

War, disease, poverty, injustice and 48" pizzas are things that should be hated!

[Blake]

You wake up and think "Grrrr! I hate poverty so much! I'm just so angry about that poverty! I feel as if I could explode!!!!"

Or you think that people should think that way?

I don't know about that.

I think it would be more positive, to forget about hating a condition, and instead feel compassion towards those who suffer due to impoverishment, compassion will surely motivate beneficial positive action better than hate.

Even hating hate itself is pretty dumb. Just don't hate at all.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Has anyone told then that the real number of the beast is 616?

AFAIK, it's not proven that the manuscript with 616 is better than those with 666.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Agathon
Fear has no logical relation with self preservation.

Sure it does. You're afraid of something, so your adrenaline gland kicks in and you run the fcuk away from it. Self-preservation accomplished, assuming it's not a very assertive cheetah. Panic, now, that has no relation to self-preservation, I'll admit that's a glitch.

The kind of empiricism you were talking about was the Humean Impression/Idea empiricism. That doesn't make much sense.

But the point was that we could have mental episodes that do not mirror any quality present in external reality. Fear is an example, so is any other emotion.

? And therefore...? Of course emotions are not observed in "reality." I can't pick up a happiness (beer joke goes here), or see anger in and of itself. But that's because those things are the way our minds react to reality itself. Are you saying that God's an emotion? I'm sure some branch of theology has gone there...

Psychotic people have delusions IIRC.

...which typically center around existing entities, or combinations of existing entities such as David Icke's lizardmen, conspiring against them. The human mind can't make anything out of nothing.

It does not show that the judgment based on the experience is necessary false, but it does not show that it is necessarily true either. You need the latter or at least the balance of probability to make such belief rational.

I base my belief on a number of things (I confess I don't understand all of those things myself). But I'm playing a purely defensive game in this thread. I.E., I fight until everyone gets sick of arguing and goes away. If I trot out new arguments now this'll never be finished. And like I said, the word "probability" is a no-no in this sort of discussion. You can't determine the probability of a unique event that you aren't even sure has happened at all. How would you determine the "probability" of God's existence? I'm talking hard numbers here, like "one in twelve million," etc., not just your personal inclination to belief or disbelief.

My question is simply this:

(1) Do you believe that it is possible for such an experience to be accounted for by some other explanation than God?

(2) If your answer to (1) is yes, then how do you justify explaining the experience in terms of God rather than in terms of neuroscience?

Just answer that, and then we can proceed.

I am confident that science can come up with an explanation it is satisfied with for pretty much any situation. But that doesn't mean much to me. Supposing they found a potential trigger for the experience (which sounds extremely difficult given the rarity of naturally occurring religious experiences), it would be unclear to me whether that trigger was the actual cause or simply a material side effect just like the portions of the brain that light up under a God Helmet. God is the ultimate confounding variable. So it seems pointless to try.

EDIT to remove a minor redundancy that was bugging me

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Agathon


I don't think Dostoyevsky was crazy, he was an epileptic.

It really doesn't matter whether I have had a religious experience or not. I'd like you to answer the question of whether you think any mental event (including perceptual events) necessitates the existence of some extra mental reality that directly corresponds to it.

No one said that. Aquinas, in the Middle Ages, already acknowledged that a prophet was a "man of imagination".

You are assuming that this has to be like a colour or smell. It doesn't have to be. Philosophers have been aware since Plato that cognition is separate from sensation.

Bull****. Plenty of empiricists believe that reason is formed by induction from sensation.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Blake
You wake up and think "Grrrr! I hate poverty so much! I'm just so angry about that poverty! I feel as if I could explode!!!!"

That's stewing hatred, not all hatred is like that

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake


Hateful thoughts are hateful thoughts regardless of whether they are directed outwards or inwards. They are bad for the mind.

To put it another way; surely there would be something BETTER you could be doing with your mind than fantasizing about bad guys dying.

There's no time spent fantasizing about bad guys dying per se. You read the book or play the game and when the bad guy bites it, it's fun. Of course if we can't feel hatred or anger even against fictional bad guys what fun is it to beat them or see them beaten?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake
You wake up and think "Grrrr! I hate poverty so much! I'm just so angry about that poverty! I feel as if I could explode!!!!"

Or you think that people should think that way?

I don't know about that.

I think it would be more positive, to forget about hating a condition, and instead feel compassion towards those who suffer due to impoverishment, compassion will surely motivate beneficial positive action better than hate.

Even hating hate itself is pretty dumb. Just don't hate at all.

compassion is less fun when applied to fiction and games. hatred works much better in these settings.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Of course if we can't feel hatred or anger even against fictional bad guys what fun is it to beat them or see them beaten?

Sadism provides violent fun without hatred or anger!

[Blake]

Originally posted by Geronimo
There's no time spent fantasizing about bad guys dying per se. You read the book or play the game and when the bad guy bites it, it's fun. Of course if we can't feel hatred or anger even against fictional bad guys what fun is it to beat them or see them beaten?

Exactly. So why bother.


Do you play video games motivated by hatred or anger? Or do you play it, to master the game? For the satisfaction of playing skillfully?


I suppose that SOME people may play video games to build up that lovely feeling of hatred and anger inside them, but I think most don't...

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake


Exactly. So why bother.


Do you play video games motivated by hatred or anger? Or do you play it, to master the game? For the satisfaction of playing skillfully?


I suppose that SOME people may play video games to build up that lovely feeling of hatred and anger inside them, but I think most don't...

all of the above! hating the enemy is just part of the fun. The only time I don't hate the enemy in games is when I play MP. Even then I happily hate their little electronic minions.

[Blake]

Oh, and sadism is not hatred or anger.

Sadism is simply inversed empathy - feeling pleasure at another's pain.

Hatred is a negative emotion (it depresses the state of mind), Sadism is a perverse positive emotion (it elates the state of mind).

Suffice to say, Sadism should be avoided also! But it shouldn't be confused with hatred. The sadistic are not motivated by hatred.