Why I don't believe in secular atheism. Happy Thanksgiving

[RevTestament]

3 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Perhaps. And I do think that respect and awe are part of it, for sure. But I also think there is a reason angels say "Fear not" when they show up. The power of beings greater than ourselves (angels, God) is a frightening thing for our limited minds to experience.

I do hear what you are saying. Having never experienced that kind of manifestation in this life though, I cannot really judge. It seems that people in the OT were often somewhat scared at such manifestations. 

From my own, personal experience I am filled with a sense of awe and respect for the Lord. I can also say I have had a certain fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. That is not a direct fear of the Lord, but I do believe the Lord "has spanked" me, so I don't want to do or say something to repeat that. i do not want to provoke the Lord. 

Mostly my experiences with the Lord had been positive. I believe the Lord uses love as His most powerful motivating factor. If one is living righteously, one need have no need to fear the Lord, but the sense of respect and awe always remains for me.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

16 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I think it is much more believable than the demon haunted world stuff you are suggesting.

You don't believe in spirits? 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

On 11/23/2017 at 12:28 PM, The Nehor said:

I believe it because I have done two of them. They are very rare.

Are you sure it was a demonic possession? The church has no instructions on how to deal with it. What are the words you have to say during exorcism? Does it require a special prayer? Is it a rite? 

I think I am going to be skeptical of demonic possessions for now, unless you give me some medical reports confirming it's existence. I think it is very wise for the church not to have a position on something that hasn't been confirmed, like you just told me " It was more likely just my brain misfiring my danger sense. It happens."   

On 11/23/2017 at 12:28 PM, The Nehor said:

It was more likely just my brain misfiring my danger sense. It happens.

Spirits are real because the prophet Joseph Smith that the spirit world is very close to us. 

16 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

 I don't know about Holy spirit's presence, because I never felt it.

Have you ever felt joy, peace, happiness? IF you have it means you did feel the Holy Spirit. 

Edited November 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

duplicate 

Edited November 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[cinepro]

On 11/21/2017 at 9:16 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

 We humans never sense the presence of someone/something that doesn't exists.

As others have pointed out, that is a monumental assumption (and impossible to prove). 

 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Are you sure it was a demonic possession? The church has no instructions on how to deal with it. What are the words you have to say during exorcism? Does it require a special prayer? Is it a rite? 

I think I am going to be skeptical of demonic possessions for now, unless you give me some medical reports confirming it's existence. I think it is very wise for the church not to have a position on something that hasn't been confirmed, like you just told me " 

 I am reasonably sure. It matched the reported symptoms. I ad hocked. There are no set words for it nor did I need them.

I am sure a medical report confirming exorcisms will come out any day now.  

 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

 I am reasonably sure. It matched the reported symptoms. I ad hocked. There are no set words for it nor did I need them.

I am sure a medical report confirming exorcisms will come out any day now.  

Does it require LDS priesthood?  

Edited November 25, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

As others have pointed out, that is a monumental assumption (and impossible to prove). 

 

It is impossible to prove, but it is true for me cinepro.  

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Does it require LDS priesthood?  

I suspect so though I suspect they can also be prayed away. I am basing this conclusion on the New Testament account where the demon said it knew of Jesus and Paul but not the random yahoo trying to cast it out.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

8 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I suspect so though I suspect they can also be prayed away. I am basing this conclusion on the New Testament account where the demon said it knew of Jesus and Paul but not the random yahoo trying to cast it out.

What if the New Testament account is meant to be taken metaphorically?  Casting out demons can mean taking away your anger, disease, or you name it.  Do you take all the Bible literally? When is it literal? When is it a metaphor? 

 

[The Nehor]

57 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

What if the New Testament account is meant to be taken metaphorically?  Casting out demons can mean taking away your anger, disease, or you name it.  Do you take all the Bible literally? When is it literal? When is it a metaphor? 

Why does my belief in unclean spirits somehow imply that I believe the entire Bible is literal?

I have shared my experiences here in the past. They have convinced me. If you do not believe they are real I have no way of convincing you they are not do I feel it is important for me to do so. Most people do not have experiences on that level with them and that is okay. They are not edifying experiences.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Why does my belief in unclean spirits somehow imply that I believe the entire Bible is literal?

I am asking you, we are having a conversation. You sure Bible passages of demonic possession are to be taken literally? 

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I have shared my experiences here in the past. They have convinced me. If you do not believe they are real I have no way of convincing you they are not do I feel it is important for me to do so

It's okay. And I believe every time we sense a presence it is a spirit from the spirit world. When you thought there was someone in your house it had to be a spirit, not your "brain misfiring my danger sense".    

Edited November 25, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[mfbukowski]

On 11/22/2017 at 7:35 AM, hope_for_things said:

We experience feelings and those feelings are real, but it is the interpretation about the feeling that people disagree about.  Is this feeling a person, or force external to us or is it something working inside our heads only.  If inside our heads only does this diminish the reality of the experience?  Personally I don’t think so.   

When is a feeling external to us?

How do you know if the cause of the feeling is external or interior to you? I I think that is the question. Rorty's point is that though the causes may be external the feeling is always internal and cannot be differentiated from what is only internal, so stop worrying about the difference.

Edited November 26, 2017 by mfbukowski

[MosiahFree]

On 11/21/2017 at 11:16 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I think the neuroscientist shoots himself in the foot because in his story there was a real person behind. We humans never sense the presence of someone/something that doesn't exists. We Mormons feel the Holy Spirit because he is real. Spiritual experiences are real because the church is a blessing in our lives, the gospel helps us grow spiritually, morally, and intellectually. Atheism cannot explain why we are so blessed and so happy when we obey the commandments.

 Well said.

[Gray]

On 11/24/2017 at 8:25 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

It is impossible to prove, but it is true for me cinepro.  

Essentially that would mean your senses and discernment are infallible and perfect. 

[CA Steve]

On 11/21/2017 at 9:16 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I think the neuroscientist shoots himself in the foot because in his story there was a real person behind. We humans never sense the presence of someone/something that doesn't exists

If you ever have or had any experience with someone who is experiencing a psychotic break, you would quickly realize how false this statement is.

Edited November 26, 2017 by CA Steve

[Not Sure]

On 11/22/2017 at 7:08 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

It was probably an evil spirit.  Fear is a feeling that comes from Satan. 

What? I thought fear came from the amygdala in the brain and it is expressed through endocrine responses, but evil spirits is probably just as good of an explanation...if you lived in the 1800s.

[hope_for_things]

18 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

When is a feeling external to us?

How do you know if the cause of the feeling is external or interior to you? I I think that is the question. Rorty's point is that though the causes may be external the feeling is always internal and cannot be differentiated from what is only internal, so stop worrying about the difference.

There is still a difference, but I’m not as convinced as I used to be that this distinction is as important as I once thought it was.  Especially when it comes to belief systems and religious constructs.  Reality is in the eye of the beholder.  

[Not Sure]

On 11/21/2017 at 9:16 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

A godless neuroscientist wrote, "Imagine you are waiting in a checkout line at a store, and you see another customer get in line behind you. He smiles and gives you a cheerful greeting, so you have a positive feeling about him. You turn away to face the cashier. A few minutes go by a while the line slowly advances. The person behind you is silent, but you have a sense that he is there. You know not to step backward suddenly because you know you might step on his toes if you did. You have a sense of where and about how far away he is with respect to your own body. If you turn around to look at him, you might discover, much to your surprise, that he quietly left, and no one is behind you. In that case, your sense of his presence had been compelling and real to you, for some of that time, it was an illusion." quote read on Facebook. 

First of all the godless part is "poisoning the well" and is uncalled for.  Just say neurosciencist.  Second of all, "your sense of his presence" is very colloquial and informal which is unfortunate because you are using it as the premise of your argument.  The rest is pretty good description of conditioned response.   In this case, saying that this is a fear response is really not accurate as it was explicitly stated that the person gave you a "cheerful greeting" and "positive feeling about him".   It is interesting that so many people associated to this to a negative demonic experience!!!

In this case it is more likely that Prefrontal cortex which determines if an action is socially acceptable is probably involved as it would not be socially acceptable to step on the foot of a person has been nice to you.  Prefrontal cortex also handles the nice emotion you hand with the smile and vocal greeting which was recognized auditory and visual cortex respectively.   Object permanence is just to track the location of object that you can't see - not completely sure what region of the brain this is but it is probably the left and right frontal cortex.  Parietal lobe is going to handle the spacial awareness of your foot.  As far as why you turned around, it probably was the occipital cortex which handles social interactions.  As far as your surprise when the person wasn't there is mainly handled by the hippocampus.  Did I miss anything that I could cover which region of the brain handles it?  

Really what this breaks down to is object permanence and the fact that the nice person was memorable describes the rest.  

Neuroscience is awesome!!!  Bet you didn't think you were going to get a science lesson for Thanksgiving.

[Not Sure]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

When is a feeling external to us?

How do you know if the cause of the feeling is external or interior to you? I I think that is the question. Rorty's point is that though the causes may be external the feeling is always internal and cannot be differentiated from what is only internal, so stop worrying about the difference.

I think it would be really helpful to clarify terms.  Feeling as emotion? Feeling as a thoughts inside your head? Feeling as done by your sense organs?   How can you tell whether it external or internal?   Find a medical case where a portion of the brain was damaged and started to induce feeling that your thoughts are not your own such as Depersonalization-derealization disorder.  Find a case where a person has severely limited emotions due to damage in the brain as see if they are still able to have the same religious emotions that is claimed should be caused externally.  As far as thoughts in your head that you feel are not your own, I don't think I need to touch that one

22 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

There is still a difference, but I’m not as convinced as I used to be that this distinction is as important as I once thought it was.  Especially when it comes to belief systems and religious constructs.  Reality is in the eye of the beholder.  

Reality is in the eye of the beholder?  I think you mean your very fallible "perception of reality" which is determined by the consequence of physical actions taken and the results you perceive.  For example, perceiving that an object that wasn't there. 

In this case it is not true that a person was actually behind them.  How did they know?  Because they turned around and saw physical evidence that the person wasn't there.

Note, you may consider the fallibility of perception as human weakness but it really isn't.  The neurons in your brain are completely based on estimating conditions and being able to change the estimation over time.  The interesting thing is that person in line will most likely have an changed estimate of whether a person is behind them the next time.  Also object permanence is a huge advantage as otherwise you would be wasting so much energy constantly moving your head around to do continuous object tracking.  

[mfbukowski]

53 minutes ago, Not Sure said:

I think it would be really helpful to clarify terms.  Feeling as emotion? Feeling as a thoughts inside your head? Feeling as done by your sense organs?   How can you tell whether it external or internal?   Find a medical case where a portion of the brain was damaged and started to induce feeling that your thoughts are not your own such as Depersonalization-derealization disorder.  Find a case where a person has severely limited emotions due to damage in the brain as see if they are still able to have the same religious emotions that is claimed should be caused externally.  As far as thoughts in your head that you feel are not your own, I don't think I need to touch that one

Reality is in the eye of the beholder?  I think you mean your very fallible "perception of reality" which is determined by the consequence of physical actions taken and the results you perceive.  For example, perceiving that an object that wasn't there. 

In this case it is not true that a person was actually behind them.  How did they know?  Because they turned around and saw physical evidence that the person wasn't there.

Note, you may consider the fallibility of perception as human weakness but it really isn't.  The neurons in your brain are completely based on estimating conditions and being able to change the estimation over time.  The interesting thing is that person in line will most likely have an changed estimate of whether a person is behind them the next time.  Also object permanence is a huge advantage as otherwise you would be wasting so much energy constantly moving your head around to do continuous object tracking.  

You do not understand philosophy. I do not feel like starting over again with you.

Start here.  And do check out the Ted talk entirely, in the footnotes, and don't presume Mormons are ignorant.

http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2017/08/guest-post-justifying-visions/

 

Edited November 26, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

The TED talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality/up-next

 

[Calm]

17 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You do not understand philosophy. I do not feel like starting over again with you.

Start here.  And do check out the Ted talk entirely, in the footnotes, and don't presume Mormons are ignorant.

http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2017/08/guest-post-justifying-visions/

 

There should be a pinned thread that has a discussion covering the main ideas and variations (maybe a combo of some you, Clark, and Robert have participated in) so this doesn't have to get repeated from scratch...

[mfbukowski]

56 minutes ago, Calm said:

There should be a pinned thread that has a discussion covering the main ideas and variations (maybe a combo of some you, Clark, and Robert have participated in) so this doesn't have to get repeated from scratch...

It's ok with me- there used to be a "pundits" section which would make that easier I guess.

[mfbukowski]

On 11/25/2017 at 12:45 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I am asking you, we are having a conversation. You sure Bible passages of demonic possession are to be taken literally? 

It's okay. And I believe every time we sense a presence it is a spirit from the spirit world. When you thought there was someone in your house it had to be a spirit, not your "brain misfiring my danger sense".    

The good news and the bad news on this position is that both possibilities are non-falsifiable so we get to decide which is "true".

Typically the criterion for "objectivity" is two or more witnesses and of course the more the merrier.  How many witnesses does it take for UFO's to be "real"?  But one living or one dead would do the trick, but there would still be claims of a hoax.

Even when Galileo first saw the rings of Saturn,  remember, though obviously they are now "real" beyond doubt,  people might have been right to think they were a hallucination because his observation was purely subjective at that time- he is the only one who had an instrument able to augment his perceptions- yet of course those perceptions were still HIS perceptions only.

We decide what is "real" in a scientific sense through many systematic observations of the same phenomena, yet each individual observation is in itself a subjective one.  In totality we have "objectivity" but yet what people don't understand is that what we have is STILL millions of human perceptions perhaps of say, the moon.

All we know about the moon is what humans are able to perceive through the senses or through devices which augment human perception but it is beyond debatable that we can never see anything "as it is" independent of human perception.

We are so used to thinking we observe the world "as it is" that we never question that human perception may be limited, but there is no way to check if it is because we cannot get "outside" human perception. 

https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/entries/truth-correspondence/#5

Quote

 

9.2 No Independent Access to Reality

The objection that may well have been the most effective in causing discontent with the correspondence theory is based on an epistemological concern. In a nutshell, the objection is that a correspondence theory of truth must inevitably lead into skepticism about the external world, because the required correspondence between our thoughts and reality is not ascertainable. Ever since Berkeley’s attack on the representational theory of the mind, objections of this sort have enjoyed considerable popularity. It is typically pointed out that we cannot step outside our own minds to compare our thoughts with mind-independent reality. Yet—so the objection continues—on the correspondence theory of truth, this is precisely what we would have to do to gain knowledge. We would have to access reality as it is in itself, independently of our cognition, and determine whether our thoughts correspond to it. Since this is impossible, since all our access to the world is mediated by our cognition, the correspondence theory makes knowledge impossible (cf. Kant 1800, intro vii). Assuming that the resulting skepticism is unacceptable, the correspondence theory has to be rejected, and some other account of truth, an epistemic (anti-realist) account of some sort, has to be put in its place (cf., e.g., Blanshard 1941.)

 

Just for the record, my position, as that of Rorty, is "anti-realist", which means that I do not believe we can speak about what we cannot know- which means we cannot speak about reality as it is, since it is unobservable

I do not believe in a reality which is independent of human perception, only one that we CAN perceive by various means.

The argument from error is usually cited- that perception sometimes is mistaken.   That argument has been cited here  by the new poster.  Not a good argument.

Does the correspondence theory of truth guarantee perfect perception without error ?  Obviously not, so the argument from mis-perception and illusion also applies to the correspondence theory.

Edited November 27, 2017 by mfbukowski