And what religion should you be?

[Glacier]

Delusional: To believe in something without proof.

That is simply not true.

From the OED:
Delusion: n. A belief or impression that is not real.

[rideforever]

Delusional: To believe in something without proof.

That is simply not true.

From the OED:
Delusion: n. A belief or impression that is not real.

We don't know what's real or not... don't even know if we're real. For all we know, we could be clouds of electrons in some matrix-ish system. Because of our lack of knowledge, we rely on proof to decide if something is real or not. Even when we have proof, we should still keep in mind that we may be wrong. When we don't even have reasonable proof of something, believing in it means you are delusional.

[I Think]

Ride I pretty much agree with you but, you/we are made up of particles/wavicles/other stuff, and space between them. There is much more space than stuff in virtually all known matter.

[Glacier]

We don't know what's real or not... don't even know if we're real. For all we know, we could be clouds of electrons in some matrix-ish system. Because of our lack of knowledge, we rely on proof to decide if something is real or not. Even when we have proof, we should still keep in mind that we may be wrong. When we don't even have reasonable proof of something, believing in it means you are delusional.

I agree in the sense that no one knows all the answers, and one must be open enough to change their opinions when new evidence surfaces. But there is nothing wrong with favouring one theory over another.

It is perfectly sensible to view uncertain information and not be agnostic. For example, there is evidence that stimulus packages will revive the economy and yet other evidence to the contrary, but most people are not agnostic about the issue. The same goes for more complex theories like "does time exist?" where it is perfectly acceptable to favour one theory over another.

The existence of god is yet another complex and uncertain topic. Some have seen or experienced evidence of God's existence, while others see evidence that there is no god.

According to the dictionary, one is delusional if they believe something in spite of invalidating evidence to the contrary. In other words, it has to be something that has been proven to be false like the fake moon landing. Why call some of yours and mine favourite Castanutters names with such pejorativity?

ETA: Using your definition of delusional, every single one of us is delusional because we all believe things that are not proven. For example, in the last page you said, " I say religous people cause more harm than good". This is a perfectly valid opinion, but since you have no proof you are "delusional".

P.S. for the record, I don't think you are delusional.

[rideforever]

I agree in the sense that no one knows all the answers, and one must be open enough to change their opinions when new evidence surfaces. But there is nothing wrong with favouring one theory over another.

Choosing to believe any of the theorys, is usually wrong because it usually causes harm to other people.

I don't believe anything. My answer to the great question is: I don't know. And that 'belief' has worked very well for me.

It is perfectly sensible to view uncertain information and not be agnostic. For example, there is evidence that stimulus packages will revive the economy and yet other evidence to the contrary, but most people are not agnostic about the issue. The same goes for more complex theories like "does time exist?" where it is perfectly acceptable to favour one theory over another.

Uncertain info should be treated as such. The problem is when people take the uncertain information as so certain that it justifies messing with other peoples lives.

The existence of god is yet another complex and uncertain topic. Some have seen or experienced evidence of God's existence, while others see evidence that there is no god.

delusional vs not delusional. haha ;)

One of the funnier 'proofs' I've heard is:
churchie: "It's proven fact that after a big showing of your faith, something bad will happen"
me: "fact? you're being funny right?"
churchie: "Seriously it's been proven. for example, my friend [did some big churchy thing] and the next day he had a book of 100 CDs stolen from his car"
me: "oh ok, I see where the evidence for your 'fact' comes from". People get high and mighty after showing their faith and think god is protecting them, then do stupid things like leave a huge book of CDs in the car. This wreckless behavoir is sure to bring up some extra problems. On top of that, every one experiences lots of good and bad things every day. Only a delusional person would see something that happens all the time as something special."
churchie: "f off, don't talk to me"
me: "you started it"

All the proof I've heard about religion is so laughable that I think anyone who believes it is delusional. They are choosing to believe in 1 of the trillion possible answers to the big question without any good proof. To not believe in religion doesn't mean I belieive proof of the opposite, it just means I'm not fooled by lousy 'proof'.

According to the dictionary, one is delusional if they believe something in spite of invalidating evidence to the contrary. In other words, it has to be something that has been proven to be false like the fake moon landing. Why call some of yours and mine favourite Castanutters names with such pejorativity?

ETA: Using your definition of delusional, every single one of us is delusional because we all believe things that are not proven. For example, in the last page you said, " I say religous people cause more harm than good". This is a perfectly valid opinion, but since you have no proof you are "delusional".

P.S. for the record, I don't think you are delusional.

lol, I like that disclaimer at the end. you don't think I'm delusional, just wrong. haha.

You brought up some good points... I came up with similar ones while writing my last one. haha

I think lots of people understand their religous belief is probably wrong, but they follow it because it makes them happy. In that case, they are faking their delusion. Technically, I think they are also faking being religious, so don't fall in with the group I called delusional. But in case they do, I think I was still right. haha ;). When this fake delusion has an effect, I think it becomes real. Specially when it affects other people. Which is also why I hate religion so much. The way I see it, when people support religion, they are trashing other things. So when I trash religion, it's more of a defense than an attack. I think religion has had an effect on all of our lives, from societal norms, to govt. Organized religions are so quick to attack things they don't like, but non-religious people are too nice to say anything bad about religion. They laugh at religous people but leave them alone because 'they're only hurting themselves'. I think they have alot more effect than most people think, and I'm sick of the 1 sided fight. Religions love pointing out flaws and people see that as them trying to help, but when I mention some flaws they have, it sounds offensive.

You mention trashing our friendly castanutters. I don't like making people mad at me, so rarely talk trash. Which is why I come here, away from my real life so I can express my feelings without angering people I have to see often, and have the opportunity for discussion of how I might be wrong (which by the way, I doubt) ;)

[rideforever]

Ride I pretty much agree with you but, you/we are made up of particles/wavicles/other stuff, and space between them. There is much more space than stuff in virtually all known matter.

When we take measurements we get results that suggest you are right. but we don't really know. We used to say the sun circles around the earthh, and we had visual 'proof' of it.

We could all be programs in a computer, our perception of feelings are just part of the program, so is the universe and the measurement tools we use on it. I doubt that's the case, but it's as possible as the trillion other answers to our big question.

[Big ned]

My feeling is that you should search for truth. It may lead you through numerous religions or organizations... perhaps spirituality on your own. God has told us that he has given us all the ability to seek him and learn truth. If you have a pastor or church leader that says something that seems inherently wrong, take it to God and find out for yourself. I would never be so presumptuous as to tell someone what religion I think they should be.

[hellomynameis]

Delusional: To believe in something without proof.

That is simply not true.

From the OED:
Delusion: n. A belief or impression that is not real.

To believe in something without evidence could be called faith or an assumption.

[rideforever]

Delusional: To believe in something without proof.

That is simply not true.

From the OED:
Delusion: n. A belief or impression that is not real.

To believe in something without evidence could be called faith or an assumption.

ah yes, 'faith', that thing religons seem to love pushing people to have. Faith to me is delusion. Faith is what you use to believe in something when you can't use logic.

I think an assumption involves remembering that it's only an assumption, and not a fact. I think to believe an assumption means believing that it's right aka believe that it's a fact. When people treat assumptions as facts, they are making up facts. To make up a fact is to believe something that is not real. aka delusion.

[xlauvawke]

wow john "right", chill out man its a joke.
to hopefully help balance your riteous christian views ive made the following:

[Glacier]

To believe in something without evidence could be called faith or an assumption.

A better synonym for faith would be trust and maybe hope. Who doesn't trust to one degree or another? Faith, like trust is often accompanied with evidence, but in the end, it is unprovable.

To rideforever: Thanks for the thoughtful posts. From your perspective, I can see why you hate religion, but from mine, I still think you are generalizing too much (dare I say assuming too much) in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. People have done many bad things in the name of religion, but they have also done many good things as well (William Wilberforce and Mother Teressa come to mind). Remember, just because people use religion to do bad things doesn't mean god doesn't exist. Review all fallacies here.

Don't fall for the false dichotomy fallacy about beliefs as there are many reasons why people believe in god. Some believe in God because their parents do (just like some people believe in no god for the same reason), others believe in God because they have thought it out and concluded that is the most likely scenario, others believe because of an experience they had in which they experienced god, etc. Who am I to tell others they are delusional for having a "god experience" if I was not there?

[steven lloyd]

Great post Glacier.

[rideforever]

To believe in something without evidence could be called faith or an assumption.

A better synonym for faith would be trust and maybe hope. Who doesn't trust to one degree or another? Faith, like trust is often accompanied with evidence, but in the end, it is unprovable.

To rideforever: Thanks for the thoughtful posts. From your perspective, I can see why you hate religion, but from mine, I still think you are generalizing too much (dare I say assuming too much) in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. People have done many bad things in the name of religion, but they have also done many good things as well (William Wilberforce and Mother Teressa come to mind). Remember, just because people use religion to do bad things doesn't mean god doesn't exist. Review all fallacies here.

Don't fall for the false dichotomy fallacy about beliefs as there are many reasons why people believe in god. Some believe in God because their parents do (just like some people believe in no god for the same reason), others believe in God because they have thought it out and concluded that is the most likely scenario, others believe because of an experience they had in which they experienced god, etc. Who am I to tell others they are delusional for having a "god experience" if I was not there?

Thanks for the good replies Glacier, there's not many people I can disagree with about religion without getting angry. But you've only seen a portion of my perspective. I could go on all day about negative effects from religion, and debating the positive effects.

You say not all bad religous people are bad because of religion, and may have been just as bad even without religion as an excuse to bypass their conscience. I feel the same way with that side and the good side. I don't know much about Mother Teressa, except that I've heard over and over that she's a very good person. I think she would have been good whether religion existed or not.

If religion didn't exsist, she would have been more logical with her reasons for being good. When people asked why she did what she did, she would say something like; because it makes me feel good, or because I think it's the right thing to do. Other people hearing that, might be inspired to be better, because they might see it as something that will make them feel good. But instead of that message getting across, it gets discombobulated with talk about fairy tales... I'm good because I'm scared of hell, or I'm good because some voice in my head told me to.

That's one of the many reasons I hate religion, it distracts people from logical thought about how and why to be good. With or without religion, people clearly have a need to think, discuss, and act on thoughts about morals. Because religion has tricked everyone into thinking they are the authority on morals, people don't talk about moral as much outside of church, the place were logical usefull discussions could be taking place. Sublte effects from religion, like this, are part of the reason I think every religous person plays a role is harming society and why it's ok for me to speak up against it.

I use your last arguement in the gayness debates. I'm not gay, so who I am to tell them if it's a choice they made or if they are gay. But I don't think it applies as well to religion. If the religous people out there were religous cause they had witnessed some real magic, then that's a lot of magic. With that much magic happening, I doubt we'd be at the state now where (as far as we've been told) no magic has ever been recorded or proven. The american pysch association has had an open invite for years for anyone to prove anythign supernatural, every single person who thought something supernatural was taking place has been proven wrong. Every single one. You list of fallacies is another good example of how aweful people are with logical arguements and interpreting statistics.

There's nothing wrong with taking a guess at the probabilities that something exists despite evidence, and acting a certain way, just incase What get's me is when these assumptions cause harm to other people. They can play all the games they want and imagine whatever fairytales they want, but when they effect my life, I get mad and I want to remind them that their fairytales are probably just fairytales and are not an excuse to mess with me.

[Born_again]

Ahh, Mother Teresa. Bless! What an interesting vessel she was/is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-477573/Did-Mother-Teresa-believe-God.html

[hellomynameis]

To believe in something without evidence could be called faith or an assumption

A better synonym for faith would be trust and maybe hope. Who doesn't trust to one degree or another? Faith, like trust is often accompanied with evidence, but in the end, it is unprovable.

I certainly agree that faith and trust do have meanings that overlap but also have meanings that unique and quite opposed to each other, a dictionary reveals as much. I wasn't exactly looking to give a synonym for 'faith' so much as describe a quality of 'faith' that's important when used in the religious context. Lack of evidence is a pretty intrinsic property of faith, I mean if you're going to say you have faith in something that is highly evidenced for than you're really neutering the term, a more accurate word could be used.

Don't fall for the false dichotomy fallacy about beliefs as there are many reasons why people believe in god. Some believe in God because their parents do (just like some people believe in no god for the same reason), others believe in God because they have thought it out and concluded that is the most likely scenario, others believe because of an experience they had in which they experienced god, etc.

Absolutely, but I would add that the majority of believers, no matter how they came to believe in god, believe in a specific god and that aspect is heavily moderated by geography. The point being that even if we removed fallacious arguments from both sides of the debate (and we should remove them) there would be more than enough reason to be sceptical of belief in god, more on this later.

Who am I to tell others they are delusional for having a "god experience" if I was not there?

Delusional is a harsh word to use when it's applied in a non-clinical way, nor is it accurate to call a "god experience" a delusion. A delusion is a false belief that is usually informed by a misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. However, I doubt that is the point being discussed nor do I think that you would change your above quoted statement if we changed "delusional" to "mistakenly attributed", please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

My problem with giving religious claims a free pass in discussions like these is that it would be an aberration in my level of scepticism. On no other subject do we allow these types of claims to be made without scepticism; economic doctrines, alien abduction, fringe and pseudo science, Elvis sightings, etcetera, etc.

To claim that a religious experience or belief differs in a meaningful way from the above examples is only to point out its prevalence and amazing (and contradictory) diversity. That leaves us asking the question (simplified):

Is there a divine basis for religious belief, or is it secular (psychological)?

If it's necessary to be agnostic to this question than it is necessary to be agnostic regarding claims of divine realms, beings and experiences.


I think most of us want to hold true beliefs and have as few false beliefs as possible, yes? Religion doesn't deserve a free pass,

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
- Proverbs 27:17

had to end with a bible quote...


Ah,

"Reality is that which,
when you stop believing in it,
doesn't go away"
- Philip K. Dick

Gotcha ;)