Key question

[Zzyzx]

.
From another thread:

How is anyone supposed to confirm that a 2,000 year old faith based supernatural event occurred?

Second question: If it cannot be confirmed that an event occurred, why claim to know that it did or make decisions based on the assumption that it occurred?

[Zzyzx]

.

How is anyone supposed to confirm that a 2,000 year old faith based supernatural event occurred?

That faith is based on an historical event; so this can be translated “How is anyone supposed to confirm that an event refported to have occurred 2,000 years ago did actually occur?�

To which I respond: same way you confirm that Socrates took hemlock.

I do NOT confirm that Socrates took hemlock. I do not advise others to believe that Socrates took hemlock. I do not defend claims that he did. I do not base any life decisions on the matter.

The most I will say in that regard is “It is generally accepted that Socrates took hemlock�. That is NOT an affirmation or claim to know that he did.

Second question: If it cannot be confirmed that an event occurred, why claim to know that it did or make decisions based on the assumption that it occurred?

I have already touched on in another thread the degrees of “knowledge� available to us. Consider the following: 1) I know that if A = B and B= C then C= A. 2) I know my wife is not cheating on me.

Many who KNOW their spouse is not cheating on them find that what they “knew� was dead wrong.

3) I know that Julius Caesar was assassinated.

If it was (somehow) determined that Caesar was not assassinated, would that make any difference in your life and your decisions?

Each “know� requires a nuanced definition.
Why claim to know that anyone of these happened?
Because we are creatures who like to get it right as much as possible.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that humans tend to want to believe that what they think or say is right – and will often go to great lengths to “prove� they are right and others are not – even when what they believe is dead wrong.

They will often construct elaborate “explanations� to bolster their claim of “knowledge� (as a person might do, at least initially, when confronting evidence that their spouse is cheating). Eventually they may acknowledge that they had been wrong -- when evidence is compelling and undeniable -- and when all that supports their earlier position is the spouse claiming they did not cheat.

Even if I were an atheist, I would still want to distinguish the more ridiculous anti-miraculous explanations of Christianity from the more sound ones. Surely it is not enough to anyone here to have AN explanation; we want THE explanation, or at least several good candidates. Right?

A thinking person, regardless of theistic position, hearing that a tomb was found to be empty is NOT likely to conclude that the most reasonable explanation is that the corpus came back to life and left – and that “anti-miraculous explanations� are ridiculous.

By that “reasoning� thousands of empty tombs would indicate thousands of “resurrections�. Few seem to accept that “explanation� EXCEPT if applied to stories about one tomb that is critical to their religious beliefs – while realizing that all other empty tombs have a different cause / explanation.

In other words, “My favorite tomb story indicates a 'resurrection' but others are due to different causes.�

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to OpenYourEyes]

It would be good to have a comparative study between religion and non-religious based counseling. I know that psychological counseling and medications can help with specific aspects of a problem, like anxiety, depression. That may be enough to overcome a bad life if those isolated problems are the main cause of having a bad life. But I am skeptical that the counseling you refer to is able to change someone to where they want to do "good" or be "good" morally, spiritually, etc. That's more of a wholesome change. I've heard testimonies of seemingly the worse of the worse changing due to conversion but I haven't heard so much praise on this level being attributed to medication or clinical counseling unless it's directed towards a specific problem (depression, phobias, etc).

Religious OCD Subtype
Religious thoughts can become intrusive and distressing in individuals with OCD. These thoughts can involve intrusive religious blasphemous thoughts, compulsive prayer, hypermorality, unwarranted concern about committing a sin, and cleaning/washing rituals (Himle, Chatters, Taylor & Nguyen, 2001). These thoughts sometimes become problematic, and are referred to as "scrupulosity." Scrupulosity describes the relationship between religiosity and the symptoms of OCD, and individuals with these obsessions often focus on certain details of their religion while ignoring others.

One large study found that scrupulous obsessions in OCD were ranked as the fifth most common obsession, with 6% of participants endorsing it as their primary obsession. Additionally, it has been estimated that religious obsessions occur in 25% of individuals with OCD (Antony, Dowie, & Swinson, 1998). One study showed that OCD symptoms presentation can be influenced by one's religion and culture (Sica, Novara, Sanavio, Dorz & Coradeschi, 2002). Abramowitz, Deacon, Woods, & Tolin (2004) highlighted this point by finding that Protestant individuals with high levels of religiosity had the highest severity of OCD symptoms.
Individuals with scrupulous obsessions may have anxiety related to their religion, sinning, and guilt, which can cause religious practices and rituals to become compulsive (Deacon & Nelson, 2008; Gonsalvez et al., 2009). Also, these individuals are often more religious and more likely to seek out religious counseling and less likely to receive medical treatment (Siev, Baer, & Minichiello, 2011). They also found that a negative concept of God was associated with higher symptom severity, and that one in five did not subscribe to a particular religious affiliation. In line with the negative God concept, those that believe that their God is punitive will likely engage in more severe compulsions to make up for minor sins, even though the clergy is aware that their sins are minor and do not need compulsive actions (Gonsalvez et al., 2010). In addition, 20% stated that their OCD symptoms help them in observing their religion.

While it may be easy to assume that people with these types of worries are from very religious or strict traditions, these worries can strike the very orthodox, non-religious people, or even atheists. Scrupulosity should not be confused with being obsessed with religion or being very devout. People with this type of OCD do not feel more spiritual or fulfilled by performance of OCD-related rituals, which may include repeating prayers, seeking reassurance, or mental rituals.
http://www.ocdtypes.com/religious-ocd.php

Every overtly religious person I know suffers from some level of OCD. As the obsession with their religion becomes more overt, the level of their OCD rises. So let's consider the hypothesis, just for a moment, that no God has ever existed, and that religious beliefs are and always were entirely baseless. If this were true, what would we expect to observe in the behavior of people? If no God ever existed to begin with, then belief in God is actually nothing more than a disconnect from reality. This is psychosis by definition. And the stronger the belief in the existence of a God who never existed to begin with, the greater the disconnect from reality and the stronger the psychosis. Much like, it must be noted, what psychologists are currently observing to be occurring in overtly religious people.

Just my reasonable deduction. People born into Christianity were never 'converted' into Christianity. This is indisputable by definition since these people were always part of Christianity and not brought in at a later point. The people who are brought in at a later point get to experience a change and make an informed choice whereas some of the other Christians make take for granted. People born into Christianity may never really understand what Christianity is or why they should follow it beyond just going by what their parents said and did.

I was "born into Christianity" but never "converted into Christianity." By the time I was 13 I had come to the conclusion that Christianity was entirely too silly to have any possible connection to the truth, and I simply stopped believing in it. I never underwent any "conversion experience?" Some of my friends who were born into Christianity believed that they had undergone a conversion experience when they were young, but as they got older, and came to the realization that Christianity was entirely too silly to have any possible connection to the truth, they realized that their "conversion experience" had been nothing more than their imagination all along.

If the "conversion experience" is really a direct experience with God, why does this experience turn out to be so flimsy in some people, and for others, like myself, never occur at all? My own children, who were not raised in Christianity and who therefore presumably have completely clean slates, have never undergone any "conversion experience" either. The "conversion experience," it must be noted, seems to have a direct correlation to the depth and intensity of ones religious upbringing as a child. And even then it often proves to be ineffective.

Ironically, what do you have to say about ATHEISTS and other non-believers who came to Christianity based on being convinced by reason and evidence? You're acting as if Christianity has no intellectual side to it when you should be aware of the rich history of theology, history (the historicity of Jesus, archaeology, etc) and philosophy that Christianity has contributed to society. It is no longer laughable to claim that Jesus existed, it's no longer laughable to mention the word God or a transcendent source in a philosophical debate, etc, etc. It is somewhat laughable to mention God in the same sentence with science or maybe at a Court case for civil rights but perhaps soon that will change also. All these example I put on the table to show you clearly that Christianity has a clear intellectual side and we are gaining ground and respect.

And yet when Christian intellectual arguments directly face off against the arguments of non believers, it is the Christian intellectual arguments which regularly fail. I do not say that as a matter of empty boast. This forum is a fine empirical example of what I mean. And the proof is to be found in the inarguable fact that the number of non believers on this forum is way out of proportion to the number of believers and this disparity continues to grow. Some believers, to their credit, do stay and defend their beliefs. But the overwhelming majority of believers simply melt away at the first contact with a thought or a fact which does not conform to their closed and preferred system of belief. Apparently such foreign thoughts can prove to be a real eye opener.

[Zzyzx]

.

Every overtly religious person I know suffers from some level of OCD. As the obsession with their religion becomes more overt, the level of their OCD rises. So let's consider the hypothesis, just for a moment, that no God has ever existed, and that religious beliefs are and always were entirely baseless. If this were true, what would we expect to observe in the behavior of people? If no God ever existed to begin with, then belief in God is actually nothing more than a disconnect from reality. This is psychosis by definition. And the stronger the belief in the existence of a God who never existed to begin with, the greater the disconnect from reality and the stronger the psychosis. Much like, it must be noted, what psychologists are currently observing to be occurring in overtly religious people.

And yet when Christian intellectual arguments directly face off against the arguments of non believers, it is the Christian intellectual arguments which regularly fail. I do not say that as a matter of empty boast. This forum is a fine empirical example of what I mean. And the proof is to be found in the inarguable fact that the number of non believers on this forum is way out of proportion to the number of believers and this disparity continues to grow. Some believers, to their credit, do stay and defend their beliefs. But the overwhelming majority of believers simply melt away at the first contact with a thought or a fact which does not conform to their closed and preferred system of belief. Apparently such foreign thoughts can prove to be a real eye opener.

Perhaps within the next decade or so the connection between religious belief and guilt, fear, self-depreciation, etc will become more widely known and understood.

Venues such as this Forum and other sources of information have the potential to encourage people to reexamine religious dogma in a reasoned / rational framework that emphasizes critical / analytical thinking and evidence rather than emotionalism.

[Danmark]

What "witness accounts?" A claim made by an anonymous person about something someone else supposedly observed decades earlier is not a witness.

Yes it is. It may not be the first hand account of a named eye witness, (I didn't use these words) but its a "witness" account. Merriam's dictionary gives one definition of "witness" as "attestation of a fact or event : testimony" So any "statement" concerning an event is a witness/testimony. By this definition, for example, the four gospels qualify as testomonies or witness accounts. One does not have to sign a testimony, one does not have to put one's name to a testimony, one does not have to prove a testimony, one does not even have to be an eyewitness of the events IN a testimony ... for it to BE a testimony.

My answer to the OP was can therefore be understood to be "Any testimony (written or spoken) regarding an supernatural event, whether it was yesterday or 2000 years ago can only be asssessed for credibility and accepted or rejected thereon, not proven."

JW

By YOUR definition of a 'witness' I am a witness that there is no God and Jesus never lived. I HEREBY 'attest' to the 'fact' that "I am 15 billion years old and have seen everything that ever happened. I witnessed the fact the universe started thru natural processes, there was no 'God.' Still isn't. I roamed the dusty roads of Galilee more than 2000 years ago and I remember when the rumors started about this Jesus character - entirely made up. It started as a joke. Couldn't believe anyone took it seriously. When I found out they did I laughed my lips off and played along."

Now try 'witness' again the way it is used in a courtroom and you'll find it is a much more useful definition than yours.

[Goat]

.
From another thread:

How is anyone supposed to confirm that a 2,000 year old faith based supernatural event occurred?

Second question: If it cannot be confirmed that an event occurred, why claim to know that it did or make decisions based on the assumption that it occurred?

How is anyone supposed to confirm that a 2,000 year old faith based supernatural event occurred?

That faith is based on an historical event; so this can be translated “How is anyone supposed to confirm that an event refported to have occurred 2,000 years ago did actually occur?�

To which I respond: same way you confirm that Socrates took hemlock.

Second question: If it cannot be confirmed that an event occurred, why claim to know that it did or make decisions based on the assumption that it occurred?

I have already touched on in another thread the degrees of “knowledge� available to us. Consider the following: 1) I know that if A = B and B= C then C= A. 2) I know my wife is not cheating on me. 3) I know that Julius Caesar was assassinated.
Each “know� requires a nuanced definition.
Why claim to know that anyone of these happened?
Because we are creatures who like to get it right as much as possible. Even if I were an atheist, I would still want to distinguish the more ridiculous anti-miraculous explanations of Christianity from the more sound ones. Surely it is not enough to anyone here to have AN explanation; we want THE explanation, or at least several good candidates. Right?

There is one big difference between the story of Socrates taking hemlock, and the story about Jesus being resurrected.

You can show that people can drink hemlock and die. That makes the story 'plausible'. You can't show that anyone can be resurrected after being dead for 3 days.

[JehovahsWitness]

By YOUR definition of a 'witness'

No, I used a dictionary defintion and provided a link; thus I used the word in a completely legitimate way. If you have a problem with that may I suggest you write to the publishers and thrash the matter out with them.

LINK
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/witness

Now try 'witness' again the way it is used in a courtroom .

No, that's okay thanks. Feel free yourself if you want to, I'm sure someone interested in what you have to say will be right along to discuss that with you.

Enjoy

JW

[Hamsaka]

.

Every overtly religious person I know suffers from some level of OCD. As the obsession with their religion becomes more overt, the level of their OCD rises. So let's consider the hypothesis, just for a moment, that no God has ever existed, and that religious beliefs are and always were entirely baseless. If this were true, what would we expect to observe in the behavior of people? If no God ever existed to begin with, then belief in God is actually nothing more than a disconnect from reality. This is psychosis by definition. And the stronger the belief in the existence of a God who never existed to begin with, the greater the disconnect from reality and the stronger the psychosis. Much like, it must be noted, what psychologists are currently observing to be occurring in overtly religious people.

And yet when Christian intellectual arguments directly face off against the arguments of non believers, it is the Christian intellectual arguments which regularly fail. I do not say that as a matter of empty boast. This forum is a fine empirical example of what I mean. And the proof is to be found in the inarguable fact that the number of non believers on this forum is way out of proportion to the number of believers and this disparity continues to grow. Some believers, to their credit, do stay and defend their beliefs. But the overwhelming majority of believers simply melt away at the first contact with a thought or a fact which does not conform to their closed and preferred system of belief. Apparently such foreign thoughts can prove to be a real eye opener.

Perhaps within the next decade or so the connection between religious belief and guilt, fear, self-depreciation, etc will become more widely known and understood.

Venues such as this Forum and other sources of information have the potential to encourage people to reexamine religious dogma in a reasoned / rational framework that emphasizes critical / analytical thinking and evidence rather than emotionalism.

Since modern neuroscience has mapped the human brain, and can predict which brain area(s) 'activate' during contemplative prayer, meditation and the actual experience of 'communion' with the divine (the description given by the subject having the experience) are . . . um, located . We know 'where it is', which ain't much, but considering where we used to believe it came from, this is progress.

People with OCD are driven by compulsive behavior triggers, and the 'O' (obsession) part is the mental backdrop to the compulsive behaviors, which are inevitably a response to anxiety.

Guilt, shame, fear and self-deprecation are similarly 'mapped' in the human brain. They aren't always a bad thing, we need shame and guilt to self-monitor and avoid social unpleasantness.

OCD is a clinical mental illness where no natural 'stops' to the compulsive reactions or mental obsessions are available in a person's coping repertoire. It's only a matter of time before enough is understood that new treatment protocols specifically targeting these disorders are developed.

A young neuroscience researcher found he could make rats literally forget things with a simple injection of a naturally occurring neurochemical. Imagine that. Here's a link to studies being done using light to make rats forget http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles ... -light.htm

IMHO, religionists are upping the ante of their struggle to keep 'religion' (their own, naturally) scientifically relevant when religion is incapable of bearing such a burden. Even the teaching of critical thinking skills is under attack by the religious Right. They know it directly challenges the overblown significance of being religious.

Sometimes I get to thinking the Christian Right would have us all back in the 19th century, eschewing all this progress simply because it makes their classical worldview baseless and a big superstitious-sounding.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

.

Every overtly religious person I know suffers from some level of OCD. As the obsession with their religion becomes more overt, the level of their OCD rises. So let's consider the hypothesis, just for a moment, that no God has ever existed, and that religious beliefs are and always were entirely baseless. If this were true, what would we expect to observe in the behavior of people? If no God ever existed to begin with, then belief in God is actually nothing more than a disconnect from reality. This is psychosis by definition. And the stronger the belief in the existence of a God who never existed to begin with, the greater the disconnect from reality and the stronger the psychosis. Much like, it must be noted, what psychologists are currently observing to be occurring in overtly religious people.

And yet when Christian intellectual arguments directly face off against the arguments of non believers, it is the Christian intellectual arguments which regularly fail. I do not say that as a matter of empty boast. This forum is a fine empirical example of what I mean. And the proof is to be found in the inarguable fact that the number of non believers on this forum is way out of proportion to the number of believers and this disparity continues to grow. Some believers, to their credit, do stay and defend their beliefs. But the overwhelming majority of believers simply melt away at the first contact with a thought or a fact which does not conform to their closed and preferred system of belief. Apparently such foreign thoughts can prove to be a real eye opener.

Perhaps within the next decade or so the connection between religious belief and guilt, fear, self-depreciation, etc will become more widely known and understood.

Venues such as this Forum and other sources of information have the potential to encourage people to reexamine religious dogma in a reasoned / rational framework that emphasizes critical / analytical thinking and evidence rather than emotionalism.

Since modern neuroscience has mapped the human brain, and can predict which brain area(s) 'activate' during contemplative prayer, meditation and the actual experience of 'communion' with the divine (the description given by the subject having the experience) are . . . um, located . We know 'where it is', which ain't much, but considering where we used to believe it came from, this is progress.

People with OCD are driven by compulsive behavior triggers, and the 'O' (obsession) part is the mental backdrop to the compulsive behaviors, which are inevitably a response to anxiety.

Guilt, shame, fear and self-deprecation are similarly 'mapped' in the human brain. They aren't always a bad thing, we need shame and guilt to self-monitor and avoid social unpleasantness.

OCD is a clinical mental illness where no natural 'stops' to the compulsive reactions or mental obsessions are available in a person's coping repertoire. It's only a matter of time before enough is understood that new treatment protocols specifically targeting these disorders are developed.

A young neuroscience researcher found he could make rats literally forget things with a simple injection of a naturally occurring neurochemical. Imagine that. Here's a link to studies being done using light to make rats forget http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles ... -light.htm

IMHO, religionists are upping the ante of their struggle to keep 'religion' (their own, naturally) scientifically relevant when religion is incapable of bearing such a burden. Even the teaching of critical thinking skills is under attack by the religious Right. They know it directly challenges the overblown significance of being religious.

Sometimes I get to thinking the Christian Right would have us all back in the 19th century, eschewing all this progress simply because it makes their classical worldview baseless and a big superstitious-sounding.

Since modern neuroscience has mapped the human brain, and can predict which brain area(s) 'activate' during contemplative prayer, meditation and the actual experience of 'communion' with the divine (the description given by the subject having the experience) are . . . um, located Razz . We know 'where it is', which ain't much, but considering where we used to believe it came from, this is progress.

When the day comes that we figure out where the "G" spot for religious ecstacy is in the brain, the religious can simply go to their churches, hook up their electrodes, and orgasm out.

[OnceConvinced]

I don't understand the following:

If we can do all that and do it sincerely and faithfully and still end up not having a true encounter with God, then obviously it's a complete waste of time.

what do you mean by a TRUE encounter with God?

As in one that is real and not just in ones mind.