I don't understand how people believe.

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by Thekarthika, Jan 17, 2009.

  1. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    It may be not the facts but their interpretation that's at issue. I mentioned Dennett's book Breaking the Spell, in which he systematically explores psychological and sociological mechanisms that could plausibly explain how religion developed in the course of human evolution--as a by product of traits that have survival value. He then seems puzzled that, having explained all that and exposed religion for what it is, many people still seem unpersuaded. I'm puzzled that he's puzzled. He's shown that religion is multifunctional, in helping people and societies cope with the challenges of existence. I would think that might make people hesitate to throw it out unless they're sure they have something better to put in its place. When I hear Dennett talking with people like Dawkins and Hitchens about the need for atheists to find ways of meeting people's needs for the "numinous", I shake my head. The rituals they talk about seem lame, reminiscent of Robspierre's pathetic efforts to build an alternative Enlightenment religion during the French Revoluition. I attended a meeting of the American Humanist Society where the atheists present were absorbed in a discussion about rituals to mark important passages in the lives of their children--like the "presentation of the child", a secular equivalient of baptism, confirmation or bar mitzvah. So I see why people who already enjoy encounters with the numinous through religion aren't too eager to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    But of course there's the issue of truth. Pragmatists think of true and useful as pretty much the same, but I think it's important analytically to distinguish them. If religion is "nothing but" a survival mechanism, it's not necessarily true. We need to look at a whole different set of questions and answers to get at that issue, and just showing that beliefs could arise in response to evolutionary pressures doesn't directly address that issue.
     
  2. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    My apologies, I will make every effort to do so in future.
     
  3. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    Has he considered the possibility that he himself is just not that good at persuading people?

    But yes, I've not read his book but have seen similar arguments made. They tend to prefix it with "only" - e.g. religion is only a tool for imparting ideology - unnecessarily, and I think that adds to the confusion; they don't see that the "only" is their qualifier, rather than some "fact" about what is worthwhile or useless.
     
  4. lithium

    lithium frogboy

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    No, we dismiss this because of the bad science behind Intelligent Design. As for why he personally believes it, I don't know about him particularly, but I know most of the prominent ID advocates are lifelong christians; the notion of ID obviously fits nicely with what they already believe (unexamined assumptions, usually held from a young age), and also uses the vocabularly (but not the methods, in some key respects) of science, making such nonsensical beliefs palatable to the critical, thinking adult. This would come under my earlier discussion of how intelligent people work hard to seek rationalisations for deeply entrenched beliefs, in doing so often failing to properly evaluate or understand the evidence. Even highly intelligent and prominent people, scholars, 'scientists' like Behe can fall into this trap. What they believe is verifiably not correct, or not supported by the evidence.

    We can dismiss beliefs like ID themselves because they are logically insupportable or demonstrably false. To suggest such a dismissal might be because we ourselves are conditioned in such a way as to dismiss them is to misunderstand something crucial. There are verifiable standards of logic on which such a judgement of ID is based. The theory of intelligent design is flawed. It is wrong. The theory does not fit the evidence, and is therefore not a good theory. This is an ontological truth which sits outside of genetic or sociological factors, as far as anything can (another debate for another day).

    Of course we're not immune. We are just as prone to the same mistakes in thinking as everyone else. When we hear a creaking floorboard, or catch a movement out of the corner of our eye, we immediately think "intruder", "ghost", etc. When a series of bizarre coincidences occurs, our pattern detection mechanisms go haywire, and we think there must be some element of godlike causation. These cognitive errors are fundamentally human, and inescapable. The way we get round them is to examine our initial assumptions, and test them against the evidence. In this way we get to the verifiable reality, or as close to it as it is possible for us to get (that other debate again). Mistakes in thinking happen all the time, that's why we don't accept what seems to be so on first glance, we seek verification, evidence, repetition, and often conclude that what our minds are telling us is simply wrong, or probably wrong, or vanishingly unlikely, etc. None of us are immune to cognitive errors, I suppose the difference is the extent to which you are prepared to trust what your intuition or instinct tells you, and the extent to which you are prepared to change your mind in the face of contradictory evidence; this is something you must train yourself to do. Distrust in instinct, and openness to being incorrect are not very common traits, because they are by definition unintuitive, 'unnatural'. Critical thought, coupled with a robust system of testing and verification are how we overcome and correct our instinctive mistakes.
     
  5. Thekarthika

    Thekarthika Member

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    Okay, this board exploded. Haha.
    Someone earlier said it's rediculous to think a 12 year old has the world figured out.
    I'd like to ask them "What the eff?!"
    I did not say that I'm correct, follow me. I simply meant that I questioned any god. As of today ihave read up on plenty of logical reasons that disprove a god andfind it strange that someone such as my dad hasn't even thought about trying to prove to himself what he is devoting his life to - he just does.

    It's just... Weird.

    I did not state that I was all-knowing.
    So try to not accuse people when attempting to prove your point.
     
  6. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    I think it's refreshing that a 12 year old is willing to do some independent thinking.
     
  7. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    I shouldn't have used the term "Intelligent Design", because that's associated with the Demsky/Behe attack on Darwinian evolution. Davies, a physicist, doesn't even get into evolution, and is, I think, either an pantheist or a panentheist. In The Mind of God, he does a pretty thorough job of exploring various cosmological theories, and concludes: "In the end, Occam's razor compels me to put my money on design, but, as always in matters of metaphysics, the decision is largely a matter of taste rather than scientific judgment."(p.220)

    Are you a scientist? If you are, I think your position is entirely defensible. A scientist needs to use a "robust system of testing and verification" to avoid Type A errors (accepting false propositions) and generate reliable knowledge. But many things don't lend themselves readily to emprical testing, and there are those Type B errors to consider (not accepting propostions that are true because they are unable to pass rigorous tests). I'm not a scientist, just a poor schmuck trying to make it through life, deciding what job to apply for, what girl to date, what apartment to rent, what candidate to vote for, etc., and science doesn't seem to be very helpful with these questions. I'd never get funding to do the research, and if I did, I might die of old age before I got the reliable answer. What I do instead is operate on the basis of the best available evidence, coupled with intuition, hunches, judgments based on personal experience about whom to trust, etc. Of course, I also realize that when I operate like this, I'll probably get it wrong a good deal of the time. God is one of those subjects that science doesn't deal with directly, for obvious reasons. There seem to be plenty of scientists these days who are willing to moonlight venturing their opinions on God and religion, but when they are outside of their field putting out ideas that aren't peer reviewed, I take their opinions with a grain of salt. This goes for Demsky, Behe, Davies, Kenneth Miller, Hugh Ross, et al, on the religious side, and Dawkins, Dennett, Stenger, etc. on the atheist side. I certainly agree we need to be ready to revise our opinions in the light of new evidence, but fundamentally I regard life, including religion, as a gamble in which an educated bet is the best I can do.
     
  8. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    Have you read up on any logical arguments in favour of belief? Just curious. I was far more arrant an atheist at your age than I am now. I don't believe in God, but I've become far more sympathetic of religion. There are times when I envy those brought up with some form of religious conviction, because I know - despite what a certain contingent of atheists will insist - that it does not amount to brainwashing or force anyone to believe that the earth is 6000 years old and flat. It seems to bring a lot of joy to people's lives. Most joy comes from things which cannot really be proved - there's not much joy in just knowing something, far less anyway than in seeing a world of possibilities opening up.

    Ranting a bit there, but overall I'd say you should cut your dad some slack. I'm not going to lie and say that you'll believe in God again when you're his age, but chances are you will have found something to believe in, which might well in turn seem ridiculous to your descendants.
     
  9. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    It's so true, ignorance is bliss.
     
  10. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Have you ever asked your Dad why he believes and what he believes? That might be interesting. Maybe he never thought about it before. Or maybe he thought, as many parents do, it would be good for the kids. I get the impression that a lot of the atheists on this forum view the problem as strictly a matter of logic and evidence. Some Christians share the same view that faith is mainly about factuality, except they have the idea that faith requires them to believe the unbelievable--six day creations, talking snakes, virgin births, etc. I'm a pragmatist and existentialist, viewing faith as a joyful bet (Luther's term) on a vision of reality that's sufficiently supported by my own experience and judgment that I'm willing to take a chance on it with a substantial level of trust and commitment to the reality of basic spiritual truths: "God is Love; Love is the answer". For many believers, it's a matter of finding a solution to an otherwise insolvable life situation--my life is broken, how can I fix it, maybe this will work. I was watching the Obama inauguration speech today. I guess you could have different reactions to it. One might be to blow it off as more empty rhetoric. How can he prove all this? What proof do we have that things will be better? That we can unify the country? That we can survive? His only answer seems to be a slogan "Yes we can", but where's the evidence? I had a different reaction. I'd like to believe him. I'd like to see it work. I hope it can. I do believe that we can. If enough poeple take it seriously, maybe he might just bring it off. After all, how many people ever thought an African-American could be President? It's not walking on water, but close enough. But then I'm just a believer, and I could be wrong, as I've often been in the past.
     
  11. Thekarthika

    Thekarthika Member

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    Any good arguments for Christianity? No. Of course not.

    I don't see it that way. I do see where you're coming from, but I would rather live with belief that we dont do anything after we die. That way I'm not concerning myself with trying to be sinless as possible.
    I don't argue with my dad about religion. That's a subject that's kept in the dark. And I have studied other religions- Buddhism, paganism, Catholicism(tho not seriously)- and haven't found anything that's right for me.
    I just don't believe.
    Whatever the long future holds, I guess.
     
  12. Spiritchalist

    Spiritchalist Member

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    I think it's disbeleif on your part (and surely the parts of many others) because the idea of a God is so linear.

    A God might not be a god, just a being in a higher dimension. It doesn't have to be a bearded man hurling bolts, to me, the earth is a god, nature is a god, the spirits of every living thing is a god itself. We've only put ourselves so low so as to think only through your physical understanding.
     
  13. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    You seem happy enough though.
     
  14. Monkey Boy

    Monkey Boy Senior Member

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    I know a lot of people that go to church because there are nice people there and free cookies and coffee afterwards. They're not really interested in thinking deeply about God they just go with it. I'm not saying they're ignorant. Just no desire.
     
  15. Thekarthika

    Thekarthika Member

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    I think it's highly ignorant to blindly follow a religion.
    but if they actually take time to think why they believe, that's fine.
     
  16. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    Well, does it matter? Millions of people go clubbing every weekend. I doubt many of them "think deeply" about why they're doing it.

    Free cookies and nice people are not to be sniffed at, and if losing their religion gave them one less reason to go out into the world and enhance the lives of others, I think the world in general would lose out. It's probably true that, for a lot of people, church on Sunday is as much about the social aspect as anything. But that's good, isn't it? I mean, wouldn't we rather have a bunch of people meeting up at church for a bit of a gossip and a sing-a-long, rather than those same people turning out because they really, truly believe that God told them to and if they don't show they'll go to Hell?

    I doubt the church would ever have been so popular if it wasn't something people wanted to do anyway.
     
  17. jnorton47

    jnorton47 Cosmic Traveler

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    In reading though the post to this thread the question seem to move from belief in god to belief in religion.
    so, here my view: All religion are cults. And, I mean ALL. I believe that religions are based on mythology. No exceptions. As a result, I do not believe that the biblical god exist. Just another myth. Having said this, I do believe that a god does exist. I believe that, that god is omnipresent, all knowing, but not all powerful. I believe that gods ability to control the physical world is very limited. That's why the world is so screwed up. People who believe in god and religion have a deep need to believe in something greater than themselves. A need to be told what is right or wrong instead relying on the own intuition. This seem to have nothing to do with intelligence. Some of the most intelligent people I know are also very religious. As far as an after life goes, I am not sure about that one at all. I have seen two ghost. Once when I was 16 years old. The second one just a few month ago. Are there other possible explanations for what I saw? Yes, I am sure there are, however, the experience was very real at the time. <(^o^)>
     
  18. M4rt1n

    M4rt1n Member

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    An intelligent person can PROFESS to believe in god without really believing. I have had my suspicions about some religious leaders that I met and respected in this regard.
     
  19. Monkey Boy

    Monkey Boy Senior Member

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    I'm not saying church is bad at all. I think it does a lot of good. That's one of the main motivating factors for people to go. I'm just saying that a lot of people take their belief more casually and go for many different reasons besides the religious aspect. It doesn't necessary make them ignorant. When I said no desire. I meant they're interested in other things.
     
  20. jnorton47

    jnorton47 Cosmic Traveler

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    I think you have a good point. I am not anti-religion, I just don't buy into it myself. Like most things, religion can by good or bad. Social interaction is a good thing. Killing people because they do not believe an a specific religion is a bad thing. A lot of people have been killed because they were not a ________ (Fill in the blank.) <(^o^)>
     

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