Atheist Tactics that Work

[joobz]

the point is 'what is acceptable evidence?' with things like headaches science is ready to accept a person's experience as real (not because it wants to, but because it has no alternative)
with a person's spiritual experience science is not willing to accept this as evidence.
why the difference of treatment of the two?

No one doubts because they experience this internally, yes. Some people experience God internally. This is doubted not for any valid philosophical or rational reason... but merely because it happens to a lot fewer people than people who experience pain.

Again, you confuse the experience with the cause of the experience. You have yet to explain how the religious experience is proof of god (the cause of the experience) rather than the proof of the experience itself.

Similarly, the headache is merely the proof that there is a headache, it tells us nothing of the cause of the headache.*

*noted that descriptions of the kind of headache can lead to clues about the cause of the headache.

Experiencing a headache and a spiritual experience are not observable, except for the person experiencing them.

the experiences are verifiable. and we can prove that the experience is occuring to the person.

In this regard spiritual experiences are much more complex than a headache.
Almost no one who has a headache imputes a supernatural origin to it, because the supernatural or spiritual is not a component of the experience.

Yet, in spiritual experience, the sense of another moral agency, or being, or expansion of consciousness.. these are very common components of the experience.

Now adays you are correct. However, go far enough back before we knew as much now as then, and headaches were the result of evil spirits. And if you have ever had a migraine, it isn't impossible to think of the visual lights associated as manifistations of these spirits.

SO again, how does the experience prove what the cause of the experience is?

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Which assertion?

That morals are derived from emotion.

Little old ladies are cute too, yet utterly useless to me (in a survival sense).

This demonstrates your lack of familiarity with evolutionary psychology and group dynamics. The "[l]ittle old ladies" are of value from a survival sense; in that they are reservoirs of knowledge which can be passed on to further generations.

 

[plumjam]

Interesting. The odd thing is that these individuals had to learn the label ("love") for what they are feeling, from people who had no access to these individuals' feelings. More, their teachers had no way of giving access to their own feelings to these individuals.

How, then, did they learn that what they were feeling was love, as opposed to excitement, lust, limerance, indigestion, or dozens of other possibilities?

From the behavior of many publicly observable examples.

You might think we should be better at judging our own feelings than our public behaviors--after all, we have direct access to our feelings. In point of fact, though, we have a very fuzzy grasp on these--even something like hunger can fool us (ever said "gee, I guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought", or "I guess I was hungrier than I thought"?).

Love has been studied scientifically for decades. There are some fairly sophisticated paper & pencil tests ("asking the word of the subjects", but with controls for lying or for self-aggrandizement), physiological measures, behavioral measures... Just because something feels as magical as love does, does not mean it is impossible to study scientifically.

Yeah, you bring up some good points.
It's true that people attempt to correlate their experiences to language in order to be able to describe it. It doesn't surprise me that people sometimes make errors in this regard... we might be using slightly different definitions of words etc..

Love CAN be studied scientifically.. but studying it scientifically will never give you the real experience of what love actually is. It would be a bit like a completely deaf man studying music. Or a blind man using scientific papers translated into braile in order to study research into light or colour.

It is exactly the same with spiritual experience.
In a nation of blind people it would be easy for the majority of the population to dismiss the anecdotal evidence of a few 'cranks' who claim to experience light, shape and colour.
Similarly, people who have spiritual experiences are now dismissed by the majority. Not because their experiences don't happen or are invalid. But because they are in a minority.

 

[Suggestologist]

Little old ladies are cute too,

I don't agree.

yet utterly useless to me (in a survival sense). So are fluffy teddy bears, and pink ankle socks.

Well, their "usefulness" is in the emotions they make you feel. Emotion value (even more basic than S&R value, that's no Mystery. Ahhh...mehow....cough...).

would you advocate the reintroduction of such a system?
I assume you wouldn't. So therefore you think our current morality is better. How did our better system of morality come into existence then? (If it's all just developed from survival concerns)

I would not. Because I'm pretty egotistical. I don't want to be thrown off a cliff when I turn 90.

 

[plumjam]

That morals are derived from emotion

Seems self-evident to me. Maybe you see it differently.
I think it's obvious that any moral system not based on feelings of compassion, empathy, love, dislike of injustice, pity, etc... would be pretty bizarre, and probably very damaging.

This demonstrates your lack of familiarity with evolutionary psychology and group dynamics. The "[l]ittle old ladies" are of value from a survival sense; in that they are reservoirs of knowledge which can be passed on to further generations.

we've had libraries for thousands of years... get rid of the grannies.
what about senile little old ladies? they should be killed then

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

. . .
Love CAN be studied scientifically.. but studying it scientifically will never give you the real experience of what love actually is. It would be a bit like a completely deaf man studying music. Or a blind man using scientific papers translated into braile in order to study research into light or colour.

It is exactly the same with spiritual experience.
In a nation of blind people it would be easy for the majority of the population to dismiss the anecdotal evidence of a few 'cranks' who claim to experience light, shape and colour.
Similarly, people who have spiritual experiences are now dismissed by the majority. Not because their experiences don't happen or are invalid. But because they are in a minority.

noted

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Seems self-evident to me. Maybe you see it differently.

Fallacious circular reasoning.

I think it's obvious that any moral system not based on feelings of compassion, empathy, love, dislike of injustice, pity, etc... would be pretty bizarre, and probably very damaging.

So, your conclusion is based on your personal incredulity.

we've had libraries for thousands of years... get rid of the grannies.
what about senile little old ladies? they should be killed then

Now, you're just being intentionally obtuse.

 

[plumjam]

Again, you confuse the experience with the cause of the experience. You have yet to explain how the religious experience is proof of god (the cause of the experience) rather than the proof of the experience itself.

People throughout history, from different cultures, different sexes, different beliefs about the world, have described such experiences in a very similar way. They describe the experience as originating from some entity other than their individual egos; often described as God.
As I have not had such experience myself I have no reason to doubt how they have described it.
I would suggest that neither do you

Similarly, the headache is merely the proof that there is a headache, it tells us nothing of the cause of the headache.*

headaches and spiritual experiences differ in many respects

the experiences are verifiable. and we can prove that the experience is occuring to the person.

can you prove that a person is, say, thinking about his bathroom?

Now adays you are correct. However, go far enough back before we knew as much now as then, and headaches were the result of evil spirits. And if you have ever had a migraine, it isn't impossible to think of the visual lights associated as manifistations of these spirits.

Yes, I would never deny that what are currently seen as inadequate explanations for some phenomena have been offered in the past. Which is why skeptics would do well to remain open-minded about many phenomena they like to dismiss as "woo".

SO again, how does the experience prove what the cause of the experience is?

I've tried to address this above. But let's think of an example.
Let's say someone calls me on the phone. The experience (of answering the phone) shows what the cause of the experience was (someone wanting to speak to me).
The same with spiritual experiences, except they aren't as externally obvious and observable as someone answering the phone.

 

[plumjam]

Fallacious circular reasoning.


So, your conclusion is based on your personal incredulity.


Now, you're just being intentionally obtuse.

A pic of some guys doing something, and some more dismissive one-liners.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

A pic of some guys doing something, and some more dismissive one-liners.
Keep up the good work.

Familiarize yourself with the terms being used o' ignorant one:
http://www.galilean-library.org/int16.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
http://www.sfdebris.com/logic.html
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html


And here are some good articles that address your flawed reasoning:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=00028C98-6F5C-152E-A9F183414B7F0000
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/baloney.html
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1663530#post1663530
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/baloney.html

 

[plumjam]

I don't agree.



Well, their "usefulness" is in the emotions they make you feel. Emotion value (even more basic than S&R value, that's no Mystery. Ahhh...mehow....cough...).



I would not. Because I'm pretty egotistical. I don't want to be thrown off a cliff when I turn 90.

you still haven't addressed how it is our non-survival system of morality came about, if moral systems developed to improve survival and reproduction.

 

[plumjam]

Familiarize yourself with the terms being used o' ignorant one:
http://www.galilean-library.org/int16.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
http://www.sfdebris.com/logic.html
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html


And here are some good articles that address your flawed reasoning:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=00028C98-6F5C-152E-A9F183414B7F0000
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/baloney.html
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1663530#post1663530
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/baloney.html

if, instead, you tried to make some substantive points, or comment on the ones I've made,... maybe bring up some objections, then we might make some progress.

 

[Fnord]

​

(... and the Christians took notes ...)​

 

[Suggestologist]

Let's say someone calls me on the phone. The experience (of answering the phone) shows what the cause of the experience was (someone wanting to speak to me).

Or it could have been a line error (bad grounding in the phone circuits).

The same with spiritual experiences, except they aren't as externally obvious and observable as someone answering the phone.

The same. Just different. ("Naming the Game" here.)

I mean in the first case we can observe the system.
In the second case we can't.
So the analogy doesn't work for me.

 

[Suggestologist]

you still haven't addressed how it is our non-survival system of morality came about, if moral systems developed to improve survival and reproduction.

That's because I don't care about addressing that in this thread. I've only addressed things I felt had to do with emotions relating to tactics.

 

[joobz]

People throughout history, from different cultures, different sexes, different beliefs about the world, have described such experiences in a very similar way. They describe the experience as originating from some entity other than their individual egos; often described as God.
As I have not had such experience myself I have no reason to doubt how they have described it.
I would suggest that neither do you

So?
Many cultures explained the existence of lightning as a god's weapon or wrath.

In Hindu mythology, the god Indra is known as the god of lightning. His main weapon is the thunderbolt (Vajra).
In Hittite and Hurrian mythology, a triple thunderbolt was one symbol of Teshub.
In Greek mythology, lightning and thunder are weapons of Zeus, given from Cyclops.
In Maya mythology, Huracan is sometimes represented as three lightning bolts.
In Norse mythology, Odin's spear Gungnir is an embodiment of lightning. In addition, his son, Thor is specifically the god of thunder and lightning, wielding Mjolnir.
In Native American mythology, the Ani Hyuntikwalaski ("thunder beings") cause lightning fire in a hollow sycamore tree.

Obviously, thier similar origins made them no more correct. Similarity in explanation isn't proof.

headaches and spiritual experiences differ in many respects

can you prove that a person is, say, thinking about his bathroom?

again, terrible analogy.
I do not doubt that a person can think of a bathroom. But to claim that thinking of the bathroom was a result of the bathroom god would require some proof outside the thought.

 

[joobz]

(... and the Christians took notes ...)

I'm glad someone is.
taking notes is a sign of a willingness to learn.

 

[Belz...]

the problem still remains...
you're still relying on anecdotal evidence... double-blind testing or not

to put it simpler for you:

if you aren't willing to accept anecdotal/subjective evidence as valid then there's no point doing the double blind experiment, because the results are (on both sides) anecdotal/subjective.

And yet this somehow doesn't answer my question:

Why does the double-blind test make the subjectivity question NOT a problem ?

 

[Belz...]

not ALL is taking people's word for it,.. you have your own experiences too, which we usually take as more reliable

such as spiritual experience, for example

Priceless. OTHER people's subjective experiences are suspect, but not yours ?

That is PRECISELY why we came up with science, Plum. YOUR OWN experiences are unreliable.

 

[Belz...]

Love CAN be studied scientifically.. but studying it scientifically will never give you the real experience of what love actually is.

And that, as they say... is irrelevant.

Seems self-evident to me. Maybe you see it differently.

I would think that morals could be determined logically, as well.