Christian and Skeptic??

[Thanz]

And my opinion is it's a terrible foundation for a belief, scientific or otherwise.

Your personal experiences might be mistaken. It's just that simple. Saying you had a personal experience which convinced you of the veracity of a belief is profoundly unskeptical.

What else do you have? All of your actions are based on your "personal experience". you just value some "personal experiences" above others. In fact, you value the personal experiences of others - for example, someone conducting a scientific experiment - above your own. You are making a judgment call about what to believe, and what is worthy of belief, just like everyone else.

Too many things in life are unsupportable by scientific evidence. How can you scientifically prove that you love your family? Is the love you feel for your family any less "real" if you cannot prove it scientifically?

As for God, there is evidence - just not evidence that you accept. There is testimonial evidence in the Bible. Some people accept that evidence. I think that they are entitled to accept that evidence, while at the same time rejecting other evidence of a similar nature for other phenomenon. I do not think that it is hypocritical to accept a belief in God and at the same time reject that JE is talking to the dead, or dowsers use crooked sticks to find water. Especially if one recognizes that they are believing in something despite the lack of more definite evidence.

Here is an example: Do you believe that E=MC2? Why? Are you able to do the computations that come up with that theory, or do you believe those that say they can? How your belief not based on personal experience?

 

[Steven Howard]

Hmmm....you're perfectly happy living your life in completely non-spiritual way, and that's all well and good; I'm all for that, don't get me wrong. But you would do that instead of focusing on what you feel is positive for society? (these are YOUR words, not mine).

I think I see what's causing the miscommunication here. You're seeing an of in his post that's not actually there:

Originally posted by ilk
I am perfectly happy living my life in a completely non spiritual way, instead focusing on what I feel is positive for society.

See? It's instead, not instead of. He's saying that he does focus on what he thinks is positive for society, rather than trying to live in a "spiritual" way.

 

[tommyz]

Thank You Mr. Steven Howard!

I think I see what's causing the miscommunication here. You're seeing an of in his post that's not actually there:



See? It's instead, not instead of. He's saying that he does focus on what he thinks is positive for society, rather than trying to live in a "spiritual" way.

Whoopsy Daisy. You are thoroughly correct, Mr. Howard; so I stand corrected. Again, not to make excuses, but another mistake on my part as the result of a cursory reading.

Ilk, I hope you reading this, because I once again owe you a debt of my humblest apologies.

Thanks again to everyone!

 

[rppa]

This is where TLN is suggesting that it is actually hypocritical to criticize someone for holding loopy beliefs about sugar pills only on the basis of their personal experience, when you have similar beliefs about god and the power of prayer.

Where "the power of prayer" has been tested for objective, better-than-placebo medical effects, it has failed miserably, just as much as sugar pills. For both homeopathy and "power of prayer", if you are going to extend your beliefs into areas where the claims can be tested by science, you'd better be willing to examine the objective scientific data.

I don't think you have to be skeptical in every tiny part of your life to be a Skeptic, but certainly there shouldn't be glaring exceptions to what you are willing to examine objectively.

I don't know who you were addressing originally in this post. But answering for myself, there are no exceptions to what I am willing to examine objectively. None.

 

[voidx]

From your perspective, outside my head, the most objective and strongest evidence is probably the restaurant review.

The restaurant review would really be no different. I'm now merely looking at someone else's 3rd party reporting of a personal experience.

But you're almost certainly not going to be able to convince me to try blowfish sashimi on the basis of a review, if I already "know" from personal experience that I hate other types.

No, but I could try and convince you that blowfish sashimi has a slightly different taste from other sashimi and that regardless of the fact that you dislike others, you should give it a try. You don't know that you won't like it, its just rather probable that you won't.

I submit that such a sashimi hater is not being hypocritical if he disbelives in something for which he has seen no convincing evidence (like mediums), while believing in something for which he has personally experienced strong, if non-transferrable evidence (like the taste of other kinds of sashimi).

That's fine. I've never said anyone was hypocritical. Here's the real point. Personal experiences are not obviously God. They are experiences, and they are specific to something. God is a conclusion. All you have is the experience and you relate it to God because you want too or because it just "feels" right. You relate a dislike of sashimi to the corresponding taste which in your experience was bad. Now you might want to say that we can't say anything more about our subjective sense of taste, than we can about our feelings about God. But I submit that there is a fundamental difference. We have and can observe all the apparatus required to taste something and can also at least start to suggest how we might make subjective opinions on the "taste" of any particular thing. We have no such groundwork for God.

Your comment about mediums misses the perspective of those that believe in mediums. Their personal experiences lead them to the conclusion of an abstract concept that is psychic mediumship and all that entails. A belief in God is the same sort of thing, no matter how you dress it up.

Well, a lot of the people who are big into the personal experience aspect of God don't care whether you can explain Him or no. A number of influential theologians have even claimed that attempting to explain how God words is ipso facto a Bad Idea, because God is beyond mortal explanation. A lot of other theists figure that their personal experience is theirs, and your personal experience of God is yours.

Same can be said for people believing in mediumship and psychic abilities.

The fundamental problem is the unsharability of experience, not the unreality of it. I can prove, to my own satisfaction, how a particular kind of food tastes by trying it. But I can't even describe it to you, let alone prove it, unless you try the food as well. And it may not even taste the same to you. There's a classic high-school biology experiment, where the ability of a human to taste PTC (phenlythiocarbamide) is known to be genetically controlled. I'm a PTC non-taster. I don't know what it tastes like, and I never will. But I see no reason to reject your claim that it tastes bitter.

But again we already know the structure of what will lead one to experience it and another not too. We take a physical thing and then ask for a very specific 3rd party report of the personal experience. Put something in someone's mouth and they will taste it or not. That's pretty logically contained.

Show someone a picture of Christ crucified, or have them recall and experience a relatives battle with cancer, and then get out of all the other feelings from those experiences, a feeling, a belief in God...its just not the same thing, in my opinion.

I realize the point is about the abstractness of personal experience and I understand that we largely do not know how to go about quantifying it. However, certain conclusions just don't seem to logically follow. Even to those that experience them. There is no real logical structure to the concept of God, and so therefore it seems largely counter-intuitive that any particular experience would end up in concluding a belief in God. All we have are the experiences, and there is no obvious indication of anything "Godlike" in them, merely a lack of a plausible explanation. So people make assumptions and come to conclusions. Some assume/conclude God, some do not. The experience would be no different in my opinion, merely our feelings/assumptions/conclusions about it.

 

[gecko]

Where "the power of prayer" has been tested for objective, better-than-placebo medical effects, it has failed miserably, just as much as sugar pills. For both homeopathy and "power of prayer", if you are going to extend your beliefs into areas where the claims can be tested by science, you'd better be willing to examine the objective scientific data.

I don't think you have to be skeptical in every tiny part of your life to be a Skeptic, but certainly there shouldn't be glaring exceptions to what you are willing to examine objectively.

I don't know who you were addressing originally in this post. But answering for myself, there are no exceptions to what I am willing to examine objectively. None.

well, bear in mind here that God chooses what prayers to answer and what prayers not to. That's why selfish prayers like "I want a pony, waaaaaaaaah" don't usually hold too much merit. It comes with serious, sincere, and honest prayers from someone truly in need of guidance or help to have their prayer answer. Granted, you can say the answer just comes to them from thinking about it, but there's just something about it, like it hits you out of nowhere. I can't explain it.

 

[ilk]

Re: Thank You Mr. Steven Howard!

Whoopsy Daisy. You are thoroughly correct, Mr. Howard; so I stand corrected. Again, not to make excuses, but another mistake on my part as the result of a cursory reading.

Ilk, I hope you reading this, because I once again owe you a debt of my humblest apologies.

Thanks again to everyone!

No problem. Thanks to Steven for clarifying this for you.

 

[Dr Adequate]

well, bear in mind here that God chooses what prayers to answer and what prayers not to. That's why selfish prayers like "I want a pony, waaaaaaaaah" don't usually hold too much merit. It comes with serious, sincere, and honest prayers from someone truly in need of guidance or help to have their prayer answer.

Prayers such as "Please God, spare the life of my child"?

Oh, hang on, that doesn't work either.

 

[Harlequin]

How about prayers like "Oh please let my dowsing rods work this time, it's for a million clams!"
Nope, that one doesn't seem to work either.

Or, what about "Wow that's a big wave, please god don't wipe out 100,000 completely innocent people."
Hmmm. Rats.

It only seems to work for "Hey dude, like I hope I feel really groovy for the next few minutes." Cool.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I understand that belief in God is personal, but my world is being shaken here when I hear some people on the skeptic board admitting to believing in something that cannot be proved.

What?

 

[Chimera]

_________________

Originally posted by J-No
I understand that belief in God is personal, but my world is being shaken here when I hear some people on the skeptic board admitting to believing in something that cannot be proved.

Originally posted by Dr. Adequate

What?

Are you asking me what are they admitting to believing in?

In the resurrection of Christ. In life after death. In the assertion that God answers prayers. In the notion that the man called Jesus was the son of God. Most disturbingly to me as a fledgling skeptic, in the idea that God exists because there is no conclusive evidence that God does not exist.

Jen

 

[Beth]

plenty of woo in this arena, authors who will describe "knowing" things they "couldn't possibly have known" for instance. I'm making no such claim. Only that in muddling through life there's the regular problem-solver which has its purpose for 80% of what we come across, there's the "aha!" engine which definitely has its purpose, good for another 10% of our knottier issues, and then there's... something else. Which is very rare to actually encounter, and very powerful if you've ever had it happen.

I'm interested in this. Could this experience be described as a way of consciously accessing ideas or information not normally able to surface from the depths of your unconscious mind?

Beth

 

[jmercer]

_________________

Most disturbingly to me as a fledgling skeptic, in the idea that God exists because there is no conclusive evidence that God does not exist.

Jen

First, I guess that I have to say that there's not just no "conclusive" evidence that God does not exist - there's no evidence at all. Which is not surprising - it's hard enough to be able to prove a negative at any time, but I think it's probably impossible when the subject is non-physical. To clarify (since this thread is so long and it may have gotten overlooked by you)... it's not that there's no evidence for God's existence. It's simply that the quality and/or type of evidence is utterly unsuitable for objective use.

The bible is evidence, although I certainly wouldn't (and don't) use it. (In fact, my view of the bible is that it's a book written by people to support organized religion. I have no idea if any part of it is based on "real" experiences with God or not.) Personal experiences are evidence, but can't be used due to the nature of that type of evidence... it's both anecdotal and subjective. Alternative explanations can be offered for it, but that doesn't disprove the experience - it just provides alternative explanations.

Personal experiences are by definition subjective but are also very strongly compelling. In my opinion, it's counter-intuitive for people to challenge their own direct experiences, which is why I believe that skepticism and critical thinking must be learned. It's also one reason I believe it's not "easy" for people to be skeptical - especially at the beginning of doing it. (That and some long cherished beliefs are often challenged.)

But at the end - if the personal experience turns out not to be discardable - then ignoring it would be as foolish as embracing it unthinkingly, at least from my perspective. I do believe in God, but I also constantly question my belief as best as I can. What I can't do without further evidence and/or insight is dismiss my belief.

A few years ago I read that someone had replicated certain "religious" experiences by stimulating parts of the brain. I was excited, and avidly read and absorbed everything I could find on it. (I think it was reported in Time Magazine - but I don't recall for certain.)

The information turned out to be far too preliminary to make any kind of real use of... and as it turned out later, there were difficulties in replicating the experiences. It was also pointed out that simply finding a way to stimulate the brain into creating such experiences only provided an insight into the physical mechanism... it didn't resolve the question for the origin of the "natural" stimulus, or even that this was the mechanism in use when people "naturally" experienced such things.

The point to my rambling is that there's a difference between having faith or having a belief, and having an unthinking faith or belief. Because of the basis for my belief, I can't apply skepticism properly to the evidence... yet I also find that I can't ignore the evidence, either.

I can, however, and do apply skepticism to all areas that I can apply it to, and I continue to question my own views about God. Hopefully this will help settle your nerves a bit.

 

[Chimera]

Originally posted by jmercer
First, I guess that I have to say that there's not just no "conclusive" evidence that God does not exist - there's no evidence at all. Which is not surprising - it's hard enough to be able to prove a negative at any time, but I think it's probably impossible when the subject is non-physical. To clarify (since this thread is so long and it may have gotten overlooked by you)... it's not that there's no evidence for God's existence. It's simply that the quality and/or type of evidence is utterly unsuitable for objective use.

Interesting you should say that, since I was directly quoting YOU at the time:

Originally posted by jmercer
As far as I'm concerned, no one's produced any conclusive evidence that God doesn't exist... and I have to balance that against my own personal experiences that He does, in fact, exist. Therefore, I remain a Christian, and a believer in God. This of course still leaves me free to consider the rest of the world skeptically, and draw my conclusions from the evidence available as a skeptic.

I'm not trying to be judgemental here. Let me explain why I started this post. The skeptics I know personally are all atheists. The skeptical articles I've read are written by a largely atheistic standpoint. In fact, people at this website and many others like it have mocked believing in God, laughingly making references to "The Invisible Pink Unicorn" and "The Bearded Man in the Sky". So, I made the assumption that asserting a belief in God here would not be possible...would in fact be ludicrous. Obviously my assumption was wrong! And that is okay.

Thanks for the rousing discussion. This forum is quite addictive.

Jen

 

[jmercer]

No problem... the quote's a little bit out of context, but that's no real problem - I just wanted to make sure I was clear.

Also, congratulations on starting such an amazing thread. I have to say that this is one of the most valuable dialogues I've seen here in my short time in the forums, and it was certainly an extremely valuable one for me. I believe it forced a number of us (myself included) to do a serious reassessment of our viewpoints.

 

[Chocolate Chip]

Also, congratulations on starting such an amazing thread. I have to say that this is one of the most valuable dialogues I've seen here in my short time in the forums, and it was certainly an extremely valuable one for me.

I second that, and thank you jmercer for expressing your viewpoint. I tried to get similar insight from a believer on this forum and was met with silence. I think you have guts for expressing your viewpoint. For that, and for what it's worth, you have my respect.

 

[Kumar]

First, I guess that I have to say that there's not just no "conclusive" evidence that God does not exist - there's no evidence at all. Which is not surprising - it's hard enough to be able to prove a negative at any time, but I think it's probably impossible when the subject is non-physical. To clarify (since this thread is so long and it may have gotten overlooked by you)... it's not that there's no evidence for God's existence. It's simply that the quality and/or type of evidence is utterly unsuitable for objective use.

The bible is evidence, although I certainly wouldn't (and don't) use it. (In fact, my view of the bible is that it's a book written by people to support organized religion. I have no idea if any part of it is based on "real" experiences with God or not.) Personal experiences are evidence, but can't be used due to the nature of that type of evidence... it's both anecdotal and subjective. Alternative explanations can be offered for it, but that doesn't disprove the experience - it just provides alternative explanations.

Personal experiences are by definition subjective but are also very strongly compelling. In my opinion, it's counter-intuitive for people to challenge their own direct experiences, which is why I believe that skepticism and critical thinking must be learned. It's also one reason I believe it's not "easy" for people to be skeptical - especially at the beginning of doing it. (That and some long cherished beliefs are often challenged.)

But at the end - if the personal experience turns out not to be discardable - then ignoring it would be as foolish as embracing it unthinkingly, at least from my perspective. I do believe in God, but I also constantly question my belief as best as I can. What I can't do without further evidence and/or insight is dismiss my belief.

A few years ago I read that someone had replicated certain "religious" experiences by stimulating parts of the brain. I was excited, and avidly read and absorbed everything I could find on it. (I think it was reported in Time Magazine - but I don't recall for certain.)

The information turned out to be far too preliminary to make any kind of real use of... and as it turned out later, there were difficulties in replicating the experiences. It was also pointed out that simply finding a way to stimulate the brain into creating such experiences only provided an insight into the physical mechanism... it didn't resolve the question for the origin of the "natural" stimulus, or even that this was the mechanism in use when people "naturally" experienced such things.

The point to my rambling is that there's a difference between having faith or having a belief, and having an unthinking faith or belief. Because of the basis for my belief, I can't apply skepticism properly to the evidence... yet I also find that I can't ignore the evidence, either.

I can, however, and do apply skepticism to all areas that I can apply it to, and I continue to question my own views about God. Hopefully this will help settle your nerves a bit.

jmercer,

Good post. I made a note of it as a 'conclusion of all 'yet unclear' concepts in science. It can be a weakness of concept or a miss & weakness of today's status of exact science. Are we still not hanging on same understanding.

I finds somewhat same status of homeopathy or other energy based unclear systems as you described about 'God' above.

We can so just conclude this in other words that;

Even it may not fit in skeptic's exact definition & style, but still, they may have to be the believer in accepting other's sayings about their parents & ancesstors as their parents & ancesstors without DNA tests.

God may also be somewhat alike our parent & ancesstor.

 

[gecko]

Your comments about the "power of prayer" apparently come from a misunderstanding.

There are two seemingly conflicting premises we have to consider. They are:

1. God has given us free will on this earth to choose him or reject him, and has therefore allowed us to make of our lives and this world what we will.

2. When we need him for guidance and strength, God is there.

I was referring to the power of prayer in the "guidance" section. I don't believe that God physically affects the world as it is. That would be stripping us of our free will. However, when we're lost and beaten along the track that is life, if we sincerely ask for his guidance and help, it can come.

Now, here's where I could go into some "testimonies" as you like to call them. Or, a bunch of bs to paraphrase the general opinon I'm getting. So I'm not going to worry about even trying it.

 

[voidx]

I was referring to the power of prayer in the "guidance" section. I don't believe that God physically affects the world as it is. That would be stripping us of our free will. However, when we're lost and beaten along the track that is life, if we sincerely ask for his guidance and help, it can come.

This really seems to border on some form of dualism. Is that something you would advocate? Is the mind/soul/consciousness somehow non-physical in your opinion? Because one way or the other you run into that old problem. How does the non-physical (God/consciousness/mind) interact with the physical (brain, brain produced consciousness)?

Now, here's where I could go into some "testimonies" as you like to call them. Or, a bunch of bs to paraphrase the general opinon I'm getting. So I'm not going to worry about even trying it.

I don't know that it would be considered BS. However, I'll repeat the same thing that I do to people who go into testimonials about mediumship experiences and the like. They are by definition unquantifiable. That's not too say we should write them off, but everyone aside from yourself really can't say or know much about them. So what they can tell us is limited. This isn't our fault, its merely the reality of testimonials of personal experience.

 

[jmercer]

jmercer,

Good post. I made a note of it as a 'conclusion of all 'yet unclear' concepts in science. It can be a weakness of concept or a miss & weakness of today's status of exact science. Are we still not hanging on same understanding.

I finds somewhat same status of homeopathy or other energy based unclear systems as you described about 'God' above.

Thank you for the compliment... but I'm not sure you can cite homeopathy as being subject to the viewpoint I presented. Whatever claims homeopathy may make about the theory of why it works, there is a physical and objective aspect to it - in that there should be statistically verifiable results from it's use.

The "Power of Prayer" is subject to the same thing as homeopathy only if the contention is that the "Power of Prayer" doesn't rely on divine intervention, but only needs the act of praying to be effective. (In which case it's no longer prayer but "Positive Thinking"... or as I like to put it, "Wishful Thinking. )