Family Man

Luvluv --

There is nothing in what you said that invalidates the theory that you're experiencing a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, you're the perfect example in my opinion. The only evidence I need is that you hold, or the society around you holds, the belief that God talks to you. Theoretically, it is possible that you are right and I'm wrong, but unless you can provide uncontrovertible evidence that it is a real event, I must conclude that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Just some notes:

1. Everyone has experiences where one tells themselves: Do that, don't do the other thing. The only difference between you and me is that you ascribe those thoughts to God while I recognize them as my own thoughts. And since people of other cultures seem to have similar thoughts, I see no good reason to ascribe them to God at all.

2. Everyone comes to conclusions that they'd rather not come to -- or they do if they're sane. I could give examples myself. There is nothing unusual about that either.

3. Most everyone, including myself, have had opportunities they've turned down for ethical reasons. Why you think that is so unique to you that you have to conclude that God had a hand it in is unknown.

Basically, you seem to think that you're experiences are so unique that it must be God. I look at it and so see something so common and mundane I wonder how you come to the conclusions that you do.

All I'm doing here is noting that the evidence that you are presenting is simply inadequate to come to the conclusion that you do. That's all I need to do. Throw in the fact that it is, by the expectation set up by society and religion, a self-fulfilling prophecy, I have no choice but conclude that your personal experience is worthless in determining whether there is a God.

Premise 1 is wrong. Not all supernatural claims are the result of self-fulfilling prophecies. I am only employing this argument in the case of personal experiences. This is a mischaracterization of what I'm saying.

No, it's not. I'm not claiming my personal experiences lead me to non-belief in God. My non-belief is based on other factors. I'm not claiming any special abilities from a third source, nor does society reinforce the my chosen belief. You have no basis to claim that I'm operating under a self-fulfilling prophecy for I have made no claim up and beyond what the normal person experiences.

And what, pray tell, is Clifford's rules of evidence? I've heard of Robert's rules of order, but the only rules of evidence I'm familiar with is that of the American judicial system. There, the person making the positive claim is expected to provide evidence for their position -- the person with the negative claim need not make a case at all. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Family Man

Luvluv --

For the record, I'm indifferent, not hostile, to the idea of God. If presented with solid evidence that he exists, I'd believe in a minute. I do not, however, believe that such evidence exists at this time. FYI.

Family Man

Luvluv --

Since you're so fond of anecdotes, let me tell you one of mine. I long time ago, before I met my wife, I had a brief fling with a quite beautiful woman. The problem was, I considered her to be rather strange and I didn't like her very much. However, it would have been very easy to string her along, get all the sex I wanted (she was quite willing), then dump her when I found someone I did like. As tempting as it was, I forced myself to end it right away. It just would not have been fair to her.

Now, if I were religiously-minded, I could have ascribed that command to God. In fact, I demanded it of myself.

Perhaps now you'll understand why I'm not too impressed with the claims you make about your debates with your god.

Biff the unclean

FM I don't think that when a person claims that the creator of the universe is having little chats with them that it is a "self-fulfilling prophecy." It sounds less benign than that. More on the lines of delusions of grandeur. Then there is the problem of not knowing that your thought processes are your own but think they come from elsewhere. Scary stuff.

Amergin

1. Prayer is indeed a magic wand. Its success is the same low chance rate.

2. God has a say in what he grants in prayers, eh? American football players and coaches have roughly the same chance of God's granting their request to win, that Jimmy the Greek gives in the sport's section of the newspaper.

3. "There is plenty of room in the Christian worldview for unanswered prayer." So God decides for their own good that a young couple's baby has an inoperable brain tumour. That tumour will partially respond to chemo and radiation therapy. The child lingers on for 7 or 8 years, suffereing horrible headaches, vomiting, developing progressive paralyisis, suffereing frequent epileptic seizures, deteriorating mentally toward somnolence and coma. The parents pray several times a day. The congregation at church prays. Friends and relatives pray daily. But the suffering continues on for 7 years until the child finally dies. But God thought it was good for these people to suffer. Over this time he cures some future evangelist of drug addiction, alcholism, and marital infidelity. God through Pat Robertson's prayer, cures Homer Gomer in Missouri, of Lumbago.

4. I have never had a religious experience. I have known those who did. I have heard Chrsitians claim to have had two way conversations with Jesus, some with the Virgin Mary. I have heard of Muslims getting communication from Angel Gabriel or Allah, or Muhammad. Hindus have heard the voice of Brahma or Vishnu. It is interesting that the religious experience is modulated in the same parts of the brain in all those who experience them. Those are deep pre-frontal, hippocampal/amygdala, superior and inferior temporal gyri, and posterior parietal lobe association areas. This has beem mapped by Magnetic Resonance Imaging Spectroscopy. The patterns are quite stereotyped, regardless of the religious colouration. The content of the visual or auditory hallucination is directly dependent on the religious indoctrination of the person having the religious experience.

I regard all such experiences as "hallucinatory spells," and "dissociation" if there is a charismatic emotive component.

It literally is all in the head. Now our science can actually map it.

I will post an article to follow this.

Amergin

Philosoft

This is rather nonsensical. I know of no method by which "science" keeps secrets. This isn't the government. There are no overarching "science bureaucracies" that threaten to kill their members if they talk about controversial findings.
Not the place for this, but... In all the designs I've read, there have been holes in the experimental methodology large enough to fly a cadre of angels through.
Probably not a bad idea.

Amergin

Newsweek

May 7, 2001

Religion And The Brain

Author: Sharon Begley With Anne Underwood

Edition: U.S. Edition Section: Science and Technology

Link to article


Amergin
PS I hope this enlightened everyone on both sides of the God Hypothesis.

Amergin, long articles like this one, particularly copyrighted ones, should be linked to, not copied and pasted. It is a fine and relevant article, though!- Jobar.

luvluv

Clutch:

I don't make POSITIVE CLAIMS of a specific offer that I "know" that it is fake!

I don't believe they are true, and I leave it at that. Inference leads me to a rationally justified doubt of their claims, and that is enough. Inference would not allow me to make truth claims of my own of any specific claim with only broad inferential support and no direct evidence! You are MORE than justified in doubting my experiences. You are totally unjustified in declaring them to be false.


Are you one of the one in a million people who keep empirical records of your "event-significance"?

Please!

Do you apply any of this to yourself? Or does being an atheist make you magically give the proper amount of signifigance to all of your beliefs? Could this apply in reverse? Could your atheistic leanings cause you to discount how OFTEN something potentially spiritually significant is happening in your life? How do you know? Can I check over the well-kept "records" you've been keeping, Mr. Emprical?

Look, I don't have any problem with you doubting my story. Just don't emphasize evidentiarly rules when the work for your hyptothesis and toss them out on their keister when you just can't hold back from making an unwarranted, unjustified truth claim. Fair?

Family Man:

There is nothing in what you said that invalidates the theory that you are experiencing a self-fulfilling prophecy in claiming that my beliefs are the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're the perfect example in my opinion. The only evidence I need is that you hold, or the society around you holds, the belief that God does not exist. Theoretically, it is possible that you are right and I'm wrong, but unless you can provide uncontrovertible evidence that my experiences are not real events, I must conclude that your belief that I am experiencing a self-fulfilling prophecy is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

YOU. ARE. NOT. MAKING. A. NEGATIVE. CLAIM.

You are making the POSITIVE CLAIM that my beliefs are the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A negative "claim" if there is such a thing, would be you saying that you don't believe that my experiences were real. If you said that, I'd have no problem with your position.

You are going a step further. You are making the COUNTER claim, the TRUTH claim: "Luvluv's experiences are NOT real."

You need no evidence to doubt my experienes, but you do need evidence to make the truth claim: Luvluv's experiences aren't real.

(It is the same as the difference between the strong atheist and the weak atheist. You have staked a strong atheist position about my experienes: Luvluv's experiences are false. That is a truth claim that must be supported. The weak atheist position on my experiences would be to say that you don't believe in them)

FURTHER you actually DIAGNOSED my experience from a psychological standpoint (are you a qualified psychologist, by the way?). Now this is CERTAINLY a claim that cannot be justified without evidence. I can safely say that you don't have any, since you don't know me. You certainly don't have enough to make a clinical diagnosis from the little information I have given you.

The statement: "Your experiences are the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy" is a truth claim. If you believe it without evidence, you are believing it on the basis of an irrational (i.e. unsupported by reason or evidence)personal bias against the hypothesis.

As an inference from other posts of yours I've read, I'm going to doubt that this is actually the case. Your initial post does not seem "indifferent" to me.

Moreover, your claim to indifference just fits the profile of a person who has a self-fulfillling prophecy that all religious experiences must be self-fulfiling prophecies.

Family Man, the only thing I understand is that you aren't really paying enough attention to the distinctions I've been trying to make between my experiences and the ones you guys have been countering with.

Of course, you have a concious. Of course, your concious speaks to you about things you already know to be wrong. It's wrong to string a woman along and hurt her, everyone knows that. I have pangs of conscious all the time too, and I don't ascribe them to God.

What, however, does that have to do with being told things like not to leave a certain area, when there's NOTHING morally wrong about leaving, and being rewarded with an incredible relationship for harking to that voice?

What does that have to do with DECLINING opportunities for wealth, when there is NOTHING (or very little) morally wrong with taking them, and then finding later that you are much happier with the way your life has turned out?

My experiences are unique because they involve THINGS I COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY KNOWN. And you are really judging by a biased sample.

But then, your contentions of your own experiences not being the result of God's intervention are just what I would expect from someone who is suffering from a self-fulfilling prophecy that all religious experiences are self-fulfilling prophecies.

(By the way, that's less than half a joke, and thereby mostly seriously meant.)

luvluv

Amergin:

What region of the brain is fear in?

When you fear something, do you recognize that it is only a "brain state" and then keep on walking right out into traffic?

Or does it occur to you that God (or Nature) might have outfitted us with BIOLOGICAL hardware IN OUR BRAINS that might actually correspond to a reality OUTSIDE OUR BRAINS.

I sure hope so. The brain is where I do most of my thinking! If my spirutal feelings happened outside of my brain, I'd have trouble putting them to any use!

Newsflash: EVERY experience you have stimulates some part of your brain. Fear can be faked with chemicals and electricity the same as "religious experiences". Do you believe therefore that all incidents of fear are "all in your mind" and that you can ignore what they "appear" to be pointing you towards? Like that oncoming truck?

Why, exactly, wouldn't God make our spiritual senses rooted in our biology? If the brain state of "fear", which is just a chemical and neurological signal, can actually be a response to something outside of the brain, then why exactly can't feelings of "faith" located somewhere inside the brain, actually be corresponding to something outside the brain?

Biff the unclean

Am I the only one who is reminded of Son of Sam?