An Atheist's View of the Alpha Course
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SusanB-M1
Incurable Optimist
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Let's see if I can relate something very briefly:
Early 1980s, I went to a clairvoyant in order to prove to a friend how useless and daft this was.
Said very little, gave nothing away. Reading of about 20 minutes, totally wrong.
Gave her two items of sons', she, without hesitation, but firmly and with much precision gave readings about them.
I absolutely knew it was not messages from beyond or something, but until I found out quite a few years later, I was puzzled about the how and why of these 'readings'.
I think she genuinely thought she was getting messages, but that's years of
doing similar things,
all the clues I gave her (confident, assured, therefore sons likely to be similar),
luck, and if what she said was right, I'd remember, if not, I wouldn't!
Okay, I still puzzle just the teensiest bit because the character descriptions and the predictions she made about the future ten years of their lives were accurate.
but I am 100% certain that it was cold reading. Clever, but nothing inexplicable.
Once you know that for certain, the jigsaw of life becomes a clear picture with no separating lines. You cannot, after that, go back to delusion; on the contrary, you value the wonderful capacities of humans far, far more.
Early 1980s, I went to a clairvoyant in order to prove to a friend how useless and daft this was.
Said very little, gave nothing away. Reading of about 20 minutes, totally wrong.
Gave her two items of sons', she, without hesitation, but firmly and with much precision gave readings about them.
I absolutely knew it was not messages from beyond or something, but until I found out quite a few years later, I was puzzled about the how and why of these 'readings'.
I think she genuinely thought she was getting messages, but that's years of
doing similar things,
all the clues I gave her (confident, assured, therefore sons likely to be similar),
luck, and if what she said was right, I'd remember, if not, I wouldn't!
Okay, I still puzzle just the teensiest bit because the character descriptions and the predictions she made about the future ten years of their lives were accurate.
but I am 100% certain that it was cold reading. Clever, but nothing inexplicable.
Once you know that for certain, the jigsaw of life becomes a clear picture with no separating lines. You cannot, after that, go back to delusion; on the contrary, you value the wonderful capacities of humans far, far more.
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pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
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I think you're being fair-minded, Squeegee Beckenheim, and yes, it's important to keep in mind that it's 'entirely possible to do cold reading without realising what it is you're doing.'
Squeegee Beckenheim
Penultimate Amazing
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Can you fully explain what cold reading is?
Cold reading, at its heart, is where people know nothing about a person and make statements which are vague or which could apply to a great number of people, and the person that the statements are about mentally fill in the blanks and interpret the statements as being specific to them. The "cold" refers to knowing no information about the subject before the reading. There's often more to cold reading - all the techniques you see psychics using - but these are not necessary for something to be cold reading.
Again, if you don't think that you've been given general statements that you're filling in the blanks for, consider that you've said that a description of your father as "a man" was describing him "exactly". Describing someone as "a man" is almost as general as it's possible to get, and saying that such a description is "exactly" accurate is doing a lot of filling in.
And this is a well-known psychological process. It's common to all humans, everybody can be fooled by it, so it's not a poor reflection on you in any way. It's just how the human brain works.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
There are a couple of articles on the skeptic's dictionary website which you might find informative:Can you fully explain what cold reading is?
http://www.skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html
http://www.skepdic.com/coldread.html
Mojo
Mostly harmless
You had already attended four three hour sessions, which start with "a social twenty minutes" followed by a sit-down meal and later includes discussion groups, and you think there's no way they could have found out anything about you?
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Too busy eating and listening to the other three at the table that were attending the course and were not any of the three that did the meditation. They were from another church and were part of a prayer group. I am quite quiet in company until I have a few wines
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Too busy eating and listening to the other three at the table that were attending the course and were not any of the three that did the meditation. They were from another church and were part of a prayer group. I am quite quiet in company until I have a few wines
Let me suggest something I've run across in similar situations.
Because of the human interaction - you are nice people, they are nice people, and by golly they like me - a barrier to critical thinking is erected. It's based on emotional investment. Certainly I have serious questions about this enterprise, and serious criticisms, but I should blunt them lest I cause offense.
It becomes very difficult to put on one's analytical hat when the time comes. The value of the people involved shapes the value of their beliefs and both rise in tandem. If the same information was presented in a "sterile" environment, it wouldn't have the heft and it would very much be rejected out of hand.
If you recognize the psychological ploy as a ploy, the method fails miserably.
Here is the way to test the relationship you feel. Confront them. Confront them with some force. If that is enough to get a withdrawal of emotional investment on their part, you know they are playing the relationship card on you - using the camaraderie as a coin of the realm.
SusanB-M1
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It would be handy to have clearly in your head, or on a card in your pocket, a few key questions , e.g.
- Why is your idea of God better than guesswork?
- Why does God never replace amputated limbs?
and then don't let them answer a different question, which their mental filter has changed yours into.
I actually started attending another small Alpha course a couple of years ago to see if things were still the same, but couldn't stand it after a few weeks. Lovely kind, well-respectedin the local area Vicar, but they just didn't come up with any even half-reasonable challenge, or ditto response to my mildly challenging questions!
- Why is your idea of God better than guesswork?
- Why does God never replace amputated limbs?
and then don't let them answer a different question, which their mental filter has changed yours into.
I actually started attending another small Alpha course a couple of years ago to see if things were still the same, but couldn't stand it after a few weeks. Lovely kind, well-respectedin the local area Vicar, but they just didn't come up with any even half-reasonable challenge, or ditto response to my mildly challenging questions!
I understand what you are saying but two I have dinner with are atheists and the other one unsure what to believe but nothing about religion is discussed over dinner. I haven't passed on any personal info.
Yes they are all nice people; what I am impressed with is that it seems to be a reform church and is not strict like religion was in my day. Even the vicar wears jeans and no collar!
Having said that, I am still not convinced there is a God and still believe that Jesus is Greek mythology
I have asked several questions, so much so, I'm beginning to feel like a trouble maker. I do think they have set answers though. I asked about conflicting info in the bible. One was..... Why does Peter say they hung Jesus from a tree; four times in Acts and that Paul says.... When they took him down from the tree.
The excuse was that in the OT they hung criminals and unless they were taken down the same day they would recieve God's wrath; so Peter would just be referring to that........erm
I'm quite shocked by this. First, they're isolating you and outnumbering you, putting you in a difficult situation; then they're doing parlour tricks, which no self-respecting Christian should be doing. Even if they believe what they say they are doing, it's part of no version of Christianity that I've come across that you can channel information directly from God, on demand.
That said, I'm also surprised to find you believing that spirits or the dead can communicate.
I was surprised too seeing that Christians abhor mediums. But I have said so many times on here( you would have to look back to my posts) that I have had messages from the dead in dreams. Two of which I contacted the police with the info. The info transpired to be true some time later. I. E.... A murderer and a drug gang leader were arrested and imprisoned. Their names were identical to the ones I was given in the dreams. I have no answer as I am an atheist
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SusanB-M1
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There is no such thing as a message from the dead. There are a dozen explanations of why you dreamed two names and associated them with crimes, but you have decided on the one explanation the very last one that in any case cannot make sense. If you believe it was a message from a dead person, you have a lot of work to do to explain why you think that is a better explanation than all the other possible ones.
Squeegee Beckenheim
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Given your definition of "exact", you'll forgive me if I don't take your claim of "identical" at face value.
Hi MsTricky. There are a couple of threads all about the history around Jesus and the bible stories here already. You could try starting with this one:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117203
It gets a bit argumentative in parts and it is quite long, so you might have trouble reading it all. Don't worry too much about that, it is also repetitive.
You might find some answers to some of your questions, you might just find more bloody questions. Some of us enjoy the ride.
ETA: Or if you are really brave, try this one: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235771
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Recovering Agnostic
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Maybe not "on demand", but I'm afraid this isn't uncommon. It's a fairly typical aspect of Charismatic Christianity, which Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) are heavily into. The idea is that the Spirit speaks to us and guides us to truth, if we just ask. There's a theoretical acceptance that it's subject to God's Will, but in practice, it tends to become "pray, and God will speak to you". I've heard very senior and well-respected Christians in these circles talking about far stranger practices than this.
I was asked to offer my thoughts on Alpha, but I've been terribly busy recently, which has kept me from doing so until now. I've previously written about the course, based on when I attended it as a believer, but I hope I can do better than a linkdump, so I've waited until I had the time to compose a proper summary.
First, it's not easy to talk about the Alpha Course without further qualification. There's a standard course template, which Nicky Gumbel tries to ensure no one deviates from, but courses vary massively, despite the Charismatic Evangelical slant of HTB themselves. Some courses are heavy on the Bible-thumping and Christian-flavoured woo, some are very wishy-washy with lots of liberal relativism, syncretism and chin-stroking. The former are nearer to the HTB model, the latter are nearer to how it's advertised as "Exploring the meaning of life". Therein lies the problem. My experience involved talks played directly from HTB's own videos as the centre of each week, so I expect it's about as close as you can get to a normal course without going to HTB, but other courses will vary.
The other interesting source for finding out about Alpha is the course leader's handbook. I once had one of these, picked up second hand, But I got rid of it long ago. I wish I'd kept it now, because it exposes some interesting tricks that are used. The approach advocated by HTB is to seed the group with plenty of sound believers, who can guide discussion in the right direction. But you don't give all the answers right away - that would look dodgy! The first 2 or 3 weeks are basic introductory stuff, covering some unremarkable topics, and the intention is to let the group run where they feel like in the subsequent discussion. I heard all kinds of crazy stuff in those discussions. After that, the idea of right answers is introduced, and the course becomes a lot more prescriptive.
I noticed a very distinct change in tone when the Bible was introduced, and Gumbel argued (in effect) that there are a lot of old Biblical manuscripts, therefore Jesus existed and everything the Bible says is entirely accurate. He does it with more finesse - it's a fairly nifty bait-and-switch in the video - but that's pretty much his argument. From that point, the "wrong" answers in the following discussion start to be knocked down with "the Bible says..." and the True Believers start to make a lot more noise about the right answers. From open discussion to Sunday School in just a few sessions!
If you stick it out through this fairly major hurdle (and I probably only found it quite so glaring because this was an area of particular interest and concern to me at the time), the next big step, another few weeks down the line, is the Holy Spirit Weekend. This is all about learning about and encountering the third person of the Trinity, and it gives the lie to zooterkin's surprise, because it's built around the expectation (though generally unstated) that you will have an experience. This is where the rubber hits the road, and where they hope to give you the endorphin rush that will turn intellectual interest into emotional attachment. It's a weekend away for two reasons - to weed out those who aren't interested enough to make the commitment and who might therefore disturb the dutifully expectant atmosphere, and to allow enough time to create that atmosphere.
So you go away, you learn about What The Bible Says About The Holy Spirit (that early session on the Bible proves very useful here), and you have lots of time for the practicals, which typically consist of prayer in small groups, laying on of hands, and singing in tongues. By the end of several sessions of this, with other people helpfully delivering to order, it's a strong person who doesn't even feel a slight emotional reaction. From the church's point of view, it's all about the results. You could speak a nonsense language, fall down flat or just be filled with a sense of peace - the important thing is that you're hooked. After that, the course is just about keeping hold of the people who got something out of the weekend, and getting them to church.
I should say that some of the above reads as if there is devious intent where there may be none. Just as psychics can genuinely believe that they have a gift, people at any level of the process (even Gumbel himself) may believe that this is just what works for reasons that they don't understand, putting it down to God. Even arguments with gaping holes in them may be advanced in good faith, or simplified for reasons of audience or time available. I accept that there may be no intent to manipulate, and many courses do some or all of this differently. But I find it noteworthy that so many obviously manipulative techniques appear in the official HTB course.
I should also say that I attended this course about 10 years ago now, and while there are many moments that seem very vivid in my mind, it would be rash to claim that my memory is an objective record of what happened, or that I'm an impartial witness. All I can say is that this is my impression of the course, much of this is in line with other high-profile criticisms of the course, and some comes from sources which could be tracked down if necessary. But I think it's valuable, because I attended back when I believed, I wasn't looking for things to criticise, and the course probably caused more doubts in my mind.