Recovering from Superstition

[mikeyx]

(With thanks to tyr_13 for suggesting a 'recovering new-ager' thread...)

I've recently come through a period of more intensive study and practice of my favourite woo, emerging into scepticism with more clarity and confidence than perhaps ever before in my life. It's great in some ways, but painful and confusing in others. I'm still doing a lot of adjusting. I'd like to share some of that and ask others who have made a similar transition how they think and feel about it.

I was into a vague Buddhist-Vedanta-NewAge search for Enlightenment from getting into yoga in my teens, and then later choosing a rather 'alternative' training course in therapy. I practiced Reiki for a while and absolutely knew that chi was coming out my palms.

I switched back and forth from atheism to belief many times in my life, but got more into it over the years, until a final push of study, meditation and discussion with Buddhist monks brought me to a place where the whole edifice fell apart, also facilitated greatly by much more sensible discussions here at jref and really crazy ones at pavlina's palace of plenty (Personal Development for Smart People - yep, that's right, for Smart People, be warned!).

Coming out of it, though, I feel that I learned a lot from the 'spiritual journey' and changed in ways I'm happy about, and I wonder if I could have gained those things without the woo. For all its faults, religion does focus us on love and morality, where rationalism and science might seem amoral (or even urge us to be selfish).

On the other hand, I feel I could have made a lot more use of the last 35 years if I hadn't been navel gazing, and if I hadn't believed in some kind of endless progression of future lives or that the 'reality beyond' this world was what really mattered.

That's not just a change of viewpoint. It's extremely painful waking up from what I now think was probably a stupid dream, an ancient myth that is rehashed and resold in myriad forms though the centuries. It is hard to describe the chasm in my old worldview down which gurus and universal consciousness and peace and love cascaded over recent months, assuming that this perspective is the right one and I'm not about to change again!

I wonder if the best view is to see superstition and scepticism as a process of personal development (and cultural development) in which woo plays a role that has some value, and maybe is even essential at certain stages, but is then naturally transcended with more understanding. I want to promote scepticism and challenge superstition, but I also see that religion has a powerful hold on millions of people, and it seems a common experience that argument strengthens resistance and entrenchment in a belief.

As an example of the usefulness of my 'journey', there is some traditional spiritual wisdom I can use here: just try to teach those who are ready to hear the message!

What do you think? Is it a dreadful scandal that our young are exposed to ideas that have no evidence, for which better explanations (in psychology, for instance) exist? What about freedom of speech and association and belief? What about the preservation of traditional cultures? What was your experience?

Your question would be easier to answer if you were more specific in what you found to be woo?

The buddhism?
the Yoga?
Enlightenment in general?
Are you basing this on an atheist (As in biased) viewpoint?

 

[John Freestone]

double post, later kept

 

[John Freestone]

Your question would be easier to answer if you were more specific in what you found to be woo?

I don't think I had any particular question. It's more about sharing my process and asking others to share theirs. I'm not particularly interested in making it easier for you to answer my question, if I had one...but if you must, then...[kerwote]The buddhism?
the Yoga?
Enlightenment in general?[/kerwote]...yes, that.

Are you basing this on an atheist (As in biased) viewpoint?

Pretty much. Agnostic? Atheist? What is it if I don't think I've got a fish in my pocket right now, but haven't checked since I got dressed, and I suspect that I might hallucinate while investigating if I did check, but I say, to simplify things, that I haven't got one? I think I'm probably agnostic (re God).

What is an unbiased viewpoint? I think the problem behind so much of the new-age vs scientific division or the theist vs atheist is this myth that there is such a thing as an unbiased viewpoint. Some people look at the complexity of the world and construe God, others hypothesise that something amazing but not necessarily divine is happening. Some are happy to say they don't know, or don't have fixed views, but try to keep open minds. I used to find buddhism, vedanta and enlightenment persuasive. Now I find them unpersuasive.

Is yours an unbiased viewpoint? I get the feeling you want to tell me it.

 

[mikeyx]

I think a lot of people segue into new age or deist or fuzzy sorts of beliefs when they are letting go of religion because they still have the notion that faith and feelings can lead to "higher knowledge"... or that how you feel matters more than what is "true".

I was not used to questioning or testing "spiritual claims" or saying to myself, "if this were true, then we should expect 'x'". (e.g. If psychics were real, Vegas would be out of business.)

Religion ennobles faith, blames failures on the lack of it, and makes you feel arrogant, bad, or like it won't "work" if you question it. It takes a long time to shed this kind of thinking... and, for myself, new age kind of beliefs were a segue out because I sure as hell couldn't get religion to make sense. I kinda could with some "creative visualization" or other type of new age thinking. It made more sense then any religion and seemed more fair and with less to fear I guess. But ultimately, I just decided that I'd rather not know something than believe a lie. Even with new age thought, I blamed myself when the "program" didn't seem to work-- not the "program" and "claims" made by the various gurus spouting this stuff. I wasn't "thinking positively" enough and such.

All woo fools people in a similar ways and religion elevates exactly that kind of magical thinking while, at the same time, denigrating science in our culture. Faith takes credit for all that is good even though our real miracles and useful knowledge have come through science-- and faith blames all bad on "lack of faith" causing a weird sort of mental blindness and confirmation bias where you credit all the good in your life to whatever you've been indoctrinated to believe caused it-- but you never blame your indoctrination (or faith) when tragedy results.

I credit Randi with being a big influence in my journey in understanding how I've fooled myself-- and how easily people can be fooled.

So this thread is essentially an atheist based attack on religion in general cuz it sure sounds like one.

 

[tyr_13]

So this thread is essentially an atheist based attack on religion in general cuz it sure sounds like one.

What? It is an attack on the control and harm that magical thinking and 'religious' authorities can have on people. Yes, it is an 'attack' on the bad parts of religion, but more accurately, on not thinking critically.

You identify atheist as a 'biased' view, and it is, in so far as any religious view is biased. Your religious view is biased, my religious view is biased. If you believe that the atheist view is especially biased, good luck with that.

 

[John Freestone]

So this thread is essentially an atheist based attack on religion in general cuz it sure sounds like one.

Mikeyx, have you read that article linked to earlier, http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html ?

McLaren mentions a typical response of people in 'her community' (as was), which you seem to be demonstrating now. You see our sharing of our viewpoints as an attack on religion. Why? We've criticised religion, sure, but if people can't raise criticisms of things we'll be in dire trouble. And this is a recovering-from-woo thread. Do you crash AA meetings and ask why everyone's attacking alcohol?

Have you any thoughts about a source of unbiased opinions? Maybe you can help me. That was what meditation was supposed to lead me to, but I'm worried in case it is just the biased opinion of Buddhists. I strongly suspect it is. What am I to do?

 

[articulett]

So this thread is essentially an atheist based attack on religion in general cuz it sure sounds like one.

What particularly makes you feel that way? Do you have any evidence to counter it? How do you feel about weird religions or cults like Scientology, Jehovahs Witness, Mormonism, Islam? What about when kids die because their parents use faith healing instead of medicine?

Isn't in normal for a skeptic to be as skeptical of all religions as you are of certain faiths? There really is no more evidence for one "supernatural claim" over any other, you know?-- and lots of evidence that trusting people are readily fooled by such propositons.

If something is true, what does it matter if the atheist "believes in" it or not?--wheher it's psychic powers, Karma, reincarnation, or god killing his kid for people biting from the "tree of knowledge"?

Is there any evidence that magical thinking of this sort is good for anything or has ever brought any verifiable knowledge?

 

[mikeyx]

This reply kinda best addresses my take on this, the stance for me varies with the group in question.

What particularly makes you feel that way? Do you have any evidence to counter it?

No just gauging the mentality, not meant as an insult, trying to understand the motivation so bear with me

How do you feel about weird religions or cults like Scientology, Jehovahs Witness, Mormonism, Islam? What about when kids die because their parents use faith healing instead of medicine?

Have known Jehovahs and found them one of the easiest groups to talk about religion. Mormons and Scientologists are first backward and second a scam in my opinion, Islam is a multifaceted faith like many others and thus a more complicated question to answer

Isn't in normal for a skeptic to be as skeptical of all religions as you are of certain faiths? There really is no more evidence for one "supernatural claim" over any other, you know?-- and lots of evidence that trusting people are readily fooled by such propositons.

If something is true, what does it matter if the atheist "believes in" it or not?--wheher it's psychic powers, Karma, reincarnation, or god killing his kid for people biting from the "tree of knowledge"?

Is there any evidence that magical thinking of this sort is good for anything or has ever brought any verifiable knowledge?

For the rest I'll just throw out my own background, a mix of protestant and sufi universalist, where do you see me?

 

[articulett]

So this thread is essentially an atheist based attack on religion in general cuz it sure sounds like one.

I don't care about what you believe any more than you care about what I believe. I was trying to find out what exactly you were referring to with this quote. Can you cut and paste the stuff that you thought was an "atheist based attack on religion".

This is a skeptic site... we treat all claims without evidence fairly similarly-- did you have evidence that one faith or way of thinking was better or truer or had access to real divine knowledge? Because if so, that would be interesting for a thread involving "recovering from superstition"... so would anything about "recovering from superstition".

Your opinion of this thread is not relevant to the topic and doesn't seem relevant to any of the responses... so you might want to cut and paste to illustrate why you formed the above opinion. Otherwise, it looks like you entered this forum to whine because people don't think your woo is true.

The truth is, we prefer to have evidence for the things we believe in because we know humans fool themselves and each other all the time by making claims of "divine knowledge".

I don't think any "woo" is true, and most of us are glad not to be bound by the beliefs and superstitions that once bound us. If what you believe is good or true, why in the hell should this possibly matter to you? And what relevance does it have to this thread?

Why don't you start your own thread to tell us why and how all the mean old atheists should be like you or to discuss whatever off topic stuff that piques your interest.

As for how I see you... I don't know... we get a lot of people with random beliefs in all kinds of "woo"-- from truthers to every religion to homeopaths and people who believe that astrally travel. I think they are all deluded, but they feel like if they "discuss" (preach) at skeptics and their faith isn't shaken, then that means there's a chance (in their head at least) that their woo is true. I guess you sound like one of them-- or all of them, really. But maybe others see you differently. I don't think any people are seeing you as "open minded" and congenial as you seem to imagine yourself. Most believers feel that people who believe as they do are the most moral "bestest" people of all, right? To me they all sound equally wrong and unclear and obfuscatory and like they are spinning to elevate the truth of whatever it is they've come to believe in. They seem to jump into threads without reading much of what any one else has said and make blanket statements about skeptics or atheists as a group. They are prejudiced, I think-- to protect their faith from scrutiny.

But the truth doesn't need to be believed in to be the truth, right? Airplanes fly whether you believe they will or not. (And all the prayers in the world don't keep them from driving into buildings if the pilot thinks god wants the plane driven into buildings.)


ETA--By the way, I find Mormons and Scientologists easier to talk to than Muslims and JW's, but I don't think any of them has any claims to divine knowledge-- I don't think you do either. I don't "believe in" divine knowledge. You, of course, are free to believe what they want. I do think people should keep their beliefs as private as they keep their flatulence if they don't want to hear other peoples' derogatory comments about it however. If only each religionist would be as private with their beliefs as they would like all those other "cults" to be. You know-- don't take rights you wouldn't allow to a Wiccan... keep your praises of your diety quiet if it bugs you to hear people praising Allah-- don't preach to others if you don't want the Mormons preaching at you... etc. Don't bug the non-believers in your faith if you don't want them going into your places of worship to deride you as you gather amongst your own.

 

[godless dave]

John, I'll just address the issue of science and morality you mentioned.

Science is not the opposite of religion. Science is not supposed to be the basis for morality and I hope no scientist would say otherwise. Biology and psychology might help us understand why humans developed a concept of morality, but that's it. Moral judgements themselves are subjective human opinions by their very nature.

 

[John Freestone]

John, I'll just address the issue of science and morality you mentioned.

Science is not the opposite of religion.

No I realise that. In fact, I have said in another thread that science is a religion, but I stopped because I got shouted at. These are just words, and it depends on how we define them. I suppose some people would say that science is the opposite of religion, but that seems a childishly simple view - like apple is the opposite of banana. I'm aware of a difficulty here because I keep writing 'sceptic' and 'scientist' and 'atheist' as if they were interchangeable, but for some they are very different. The more we look at these words and concepts, the more problematic it becomes. There are people who are scientists, but also believe in God. There are perhaps people who are religious, but say they don't believe in God. There are people who define God as a sort of primary cause and think very practically about it (not, for instance, meaning that it has any personal relationship with human beings, perhaps not even any intelligence)...the list could go on indefinitely.

Science is not supposed to be the basis for morality and I hope no scientist would say otherwise.

My point.

Biology and psychology might help us understand why humans developed a concept of morality, but that's it. Moral judgements themselves are subjective human opinions by their very nature.

Agreed. That's why, for me, it raises some questions. One is that it is natural for the 'religious' to fear the scientist/atheist/sceptic, because the latter has no moral principle fundamental to their world view, and just look how the fundies rage about the decadence and sin of our modern, scientific-atheist world.

Of course, we can say that we are not just purely atheist sceptical scientists, but have psychology and sociology and an ordinary human perspective - on the whole we care, we love, we want our species to survive and we want justice. I guess I was just flagging it up, and I want to learn more about different philosophies of secular morality. I was thinking of it as something we need to have to show the fearful, for whom morality must be absolute and come from their religion.

 

[John Freestone]

No just gauging the mentality, not meant as an insult, trying to understand the motivation so bear with me

Thanks. I was trying to understand your motivation, too. I believe your post wasn't meant as an insult. I believe you felt that the thread was an insult to you.

...where do you see me?

I don't know. I'm left wondering about the things you don't say, like whether you know what an unbiased opinion is.

I'm wondering if you expected us to be horrified that you'd suggest the atheist view was biased. I'm wondering how it happens that people become so reluctant to say 'where they are' directly and have to prod and ask others to do the work for them. I'm wondering if I should bother, or be a bit more like Articulett and not give a fig (my words, but I don't think she does).

I'm wondering if this has put you in a difficult position: your challenge clearly seemed to suggest that atheists arrogantly thought their view was unbiased, and two of us acknowledged that we were biased; this must put the suggestion out there that maybe you feel that your view is unbiased, or that your expectation of us was wrong (or we're lying or something else I haven't thought of). I'm thinking how difficult it is to accept when we're wrong. I'm wondering if you feel that you were wrong. I'm wondering if I would like you to acknowledge that you were wrong if you were. I'm wondering if somewhere in between my short answer, which looked rude, and this one, which looks patronising, I could have found a happy medium.

I'm wondering if other sceptics believe their view is unbiased. I have a sense there are those who do.

 

[godless dave]

I guess I was just flagging it up, and I want to learn more about different philosophies of secular morality. I was thinking of it as something we need to have to show the fearful, for whom morality must be absolute and come from their religion.

We've been showing it to them for at least 2500 years. I don't think they're interested in seeing it.

 

[mikeyx]

Thanks. I was trying to understand your motivation, too. I believe your post wasn't meant as an insult. I believe you felt that the thread was an insult to you.

not so, just trying to guage the motivation of some of the comments.

I'm wondering if this has put you in a difficult position: your challenge clearly seemed to suggest that atheists arrogantly thought their view was unbiased, and two of us acknowledged that we were biased; this must put the suggestion out there that maybe you feel that your view is unbiased, or that your expectation of us was wrong (or we're lying or something else I haven't thought of). I'm thinking how difficult it is to accept when we're wrong. I'm wondering if you feel that you were wrong. I'm wondering if I would like you to acknowledge that you were wrong if you were. I'm wondering if somewhere in between my short answer, which looked rude, and this one, which looks patronising, I could have found a happy medium.

I'm wondering if other sceptics believe their view is unbiased. I have a sense there are those who do.

I agree both sides are biased. The problem inherently with religion is that god is an absolute, ultimately unprovable either way. I'm not advocating organized religion, my moving towards an exploration of Sufi universalism is a move away from exactly that. It borrows from the wisdom offered by all faiths and places a good emphasis of developing what could be call the divine qualities within yourself, as in self improvement.

Having hopefully clarified that, I'll be moving to another subject, as I think I've covered my thoughts on the almighty. Believe in him or not, you can't prove he's not there any more than you can. That's the faith part.

 

[articulett]

Right, and you can't prove that there are no real psychics and that demons aren't real or that there are no such thing as engrams or fairies. You can't prove that homeopathy never works or that the truthers are wrong.

There's lots of negatives you can never prove "don't exist"-- but that's a piss poor arument for believing they do.

 

[John Freestone]

I think when you hear some of the stories of others, then you can't help but be glad that you are finally a freethinker... and grateful not to be where they have been. (Did you read Fred Phelp's son http://richarddawkins.net/article,3299,n,n or Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, Infidel?)

Most of us find our way to critical thought through fooling ourselves all too often, and not wanting to do it any more.

Thanks for that link - I missed it last time or rushed past it. I saw the Louis Theroux film - shocking, deeply saddening to see people so damaged and worshipping a vengeful, hateful god (just their convenient mouthpiece methinks: He's always made in our image). It does kind of help to put my existential stuff in perspective, reading of someone who was beaten so brutally because of his father's sick religion.

Now I've bookmarked Ridhard Dawkin's site. Just realised I've got all these folders in my favorites on spirituality, buddhism, etc., and just created a Scepticism one. Recently I made one called Law of Attraction, but only to collect fellow detractors!

A minor problem is that I don't quite know where to turn for medical care these days (thankfully, I don't need much at the moment, but still). I believe that 'no better than placebo' is not a very harsh judgement, since placebo is pretty darn good, but once you're aware that at least some of the alternative medicines at the health food shop only work because you think they will, it kind of takes the placebo bit away! I get into this generally, where I'm sceptical, but entertain all sorts of what I hope are useful fantasies, like "this glucosamine is going to make my joints better" (the jury is still out in scientific terms as far as I can see from an afternoon's research).

Why not just go to a proper doctor? Well, yeah, except my experience of them is unimpressive to say the least, and I'm not actually confident that allopathic medicine is good for us. Last time I went to the doctor was typical - I had recurring headaches. He asked questions, prodded and stuff, then wrote a prescription for antibiotics, saying "You've probably got a slight infection in your sinuses. We'll do a blood test as well to make sure." Sorry? You prescribe antibiotics before you've diagnosed (it's not like it was urgent)? I declined the meds, took the test, which came back negative, proving my point. It's always like that. 5 minutes and they're pushing drugs.

Besides, I still believe the argument that orthodox medicine can be unhelpful, especially in low-threat, common illnesses, by getting rid of or masking the symptoms instead of supporting the body's "natural healing system". Am I just in the grip of woo, do you think (anyone)?

I'm pretty sure that homoeopathy is bunkum, and probably a lot of herbal and other stuff is only placebo, but I feel fairly confident (admittedly with little knowledge) that many herbal remedies have supportive functions - so I'll keep going for them....and the useful, mindful woo indulgences, like I sometimes get reflexology, but I don't have to believe the theory to enjoy an hour's pampering and relaxation.

mikeyx - I'm glad we agreed on that point. The myth of the unbiased view is a tenacious one on both sides of the theist-atheist divide.

 

[tyr_13]

Western medicine has it's drawbacks and it's problems, but that doesn't stop it from being better than absolutely everything else out there right now. Room to improve doesn't mean ineffective.

Even if western medicine turned out to be only half as effective as we currently think it is, that's still more effective than any other system has ever been.