Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

We were talking about beliefs, not actions. My point was that we don't choose our beliefs.

Although beliefs inform actions, we can choose not to act on our beliefs. We can't choose not to believe what we already believe, and we didn't choose what we already believe.

I don't understand this.

 

To some limited extent we probably do. Self delusion can happen. It would be interesting to see psychological research on if theists and atheists differ on this ability. Are both equally compelled to believe/not believe? Do theists choose to believe God exists (hence the rhetoric we get here) or are most of them just as compelled as atheists are to believe/not believe what they do based on the evidence as they perceive it?

Can any theists here chime in on that? Do you folks believe because you chose to? Or is God just obviously true to you and it would be impossible for you to not think he exists?

 

Most get brainwashed as kids, and don't have what it takes to dig themselves out of it.

 

Yes. Social programming can definitely be part of what pushes us to believe certain things. Had I been raised in a Afghanistan I may believe Allah exists. But I don't know if I would then be able to make myself lose that belief by mere choice. I do know that, now as an atheist, I am not able to make myself believe Allah does exist by mere choice.

PS - I use Allah as an example God because I know most theists here are Christian, so by using a God they don't believe in, it may help us see from a common ground so we can better understand each other.

 

2+2=5

 

Such bunk, people willingly CHOOSE to change religions all the time.


Antony Flew, Philosopher and Ex-Atheist, Dies at 87

Antony Flew, an English philosopher and outspoken atheist who stunned and dismayed the unbelieving faithful when he announced in 2004 that God probably did exist, died April 8 in Reading, England. He was 87 and lived in Reading.

His death was confirmed by Roy Abraham Varghese, with whom he wrote “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind,” published in 2007.

 

yeh Ive see that happen to a lot of kids from atheist families.

 

If that were the case people would never change religions, and in some cases change back again to the original.
false, our brains are not a program running on a computer like the bird pedals
The bird had his word salad belief shattered by philosophy.
A thought is an action, its just not visible.


These 10 Truly Bizarre Beliefs From History Will Keep You Laughing All Night
Khalid Elhassan - March 2, 2018

From the belief that joining the workforce and getting a job would dry out a woman’s uterus, to the conviction that cats were the familiars of Satan, plenty of people had plenty of strange, bizarre, and macabre beliefs throughout history. Many of these weird notions predated the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, but quite a few existed well into the Modern Era. For that matter, there are no shortages of bizarre beliefs even today, in the twenty-first century.

Some of these odd beliefs were contradictory, but the contradictions did not stop them from being held, and fervently believed in, by the same people. Take the aforementioned belief that women were too delicate for work and that gainful employment would dry out a woman’s uterus. That belief was widespread amongst 18th and 19th-century British upper classes. Yet, those same British upper classes also knew that women routinely worked 16 hour days in coal mines, or toiled for long hours in the hellish factories and workshops of the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps their belief in female delicacy was limited to rich women, whom they viewed as a separate species from working-class females. https://historycollection.com/10-truly-bizarre-beliefs-history-will-keep-laughing-night/


The idea we dont choose what we believe is utter nonsense.

 

Can we choose what we believe?

We have the power to choose our beliefs. Our beliefs become our reality. Beliefs are not just cold mental premises, but are 'hot stuff' intertwined with emotions (conscious or unconscious).
The biochemistry of belief - PMC - NCBI
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › articles › PMC2802367

The sources of beliefs include environment, events, knowledge, past experiences, visualization etc. One of the biggest misconceptions people often harbor is that belief is a static, intellectual concept. Nothing can be farther from truth! Beliefs are a choice. We have the power to choose our beliefs. Our beliefs become our reality.

Beliefs are not just cold mental premises, but are ‘hot stuff’ intertwined with emotions (conscious or unconscious). Perhaps, that is why we feel threatened or react with sometimes uncalled for aggression, when we believe our beliefs are being challenged! Research findings have repeatedly pointed out that the emotional brain is no longer confined to the classical locales of the hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus.[1] The sensory inputs we receive from the environment undergo a filtering process as they travel across one or more synapses, ultimately reaching the area of higher processing, like the frontal lobes. There, the sensory information enters our conscious awareness. What portion of this sensory information enters is determined by our beliefs. Fortunately for us, receptors on the cell membranes are flexible, which can alter in sensitivity and conformation. In other words, even when we feel stuck ‘emotionally’, there is always a biochemical potential for change and possible growth. When we choose to change our thoughts (bursts of neurochemicals!), we become open and receptive to other pieces of sensory information hitherto blocked by our beliefs! When we change our thinking, we change our beliefs. When we change our beliefs, we change our behavior.


Cant change or choose what we belief is utter nonsense! I cant fathom where you people crank out that nonsense from, I cant believe its from any qualified academic source. Probably the idjit dawkins or flew.

People that claim beliefs cant be changed are merely attempting to justify infinite ignorance, blind obtuse stubbornness against all/any contrary evidence.

Yes atheism IS a religion!

 

I've read the article several times. It mixes autosuggestion and suspension of belief without differentiating between them, making the article very hard to understand at first reading. It affirms that we can choose our beliefs, but the examples given are of choices made by others (placebo), or lack of ability to choose (schizophrenia). I've seen nothing there to substantiate the claim that we can freely choose our beliefs without any interference or influence from our own non-conscious mind or the environment. The article makes no such claim.

Who said beliefs can't be changed?

 

Speaking for myself, early in my quest to address a personal issue, I chose to accept the further ministering of Gods spirit after determining that its presence, after first having entered my heart one day, was good in nature. I also could have hardened my resolve against it and rejected it, as I intuited by its peaceable nature, that it would abide my bidding. So choice was key in my conversion. That it proceeded to awaken me to a remembrance of God, has rendered the concept of belief in God obsolete or antiquated in my case. As now I know that God lives, that he is divine, and we have all simply forgotten him during the course of our transition from eternity with him, to birth into this mortal existence without him.

If there is a virtue to true Atheism it is in their hearts and minds not being polluted by the multitude of false doctrines bandied about the world. There are many more than Atheists who are strangers to the true God. So of them all, Atheists then are nearer to him by that measure. On the other hand, there are none more stubborn.

 

you quoted nothing, besides

you did LOL

If you cant choose your beliefs we would all be clones of one another, thats absurd, and your claims have no relevance to the fact that we do choose what to believe, try their main point:

Perceptual shifts are the prerequisites for changing the belief and hence changing the biochemistry of our body favorably. Our innate desire and willingness to learn and grow lead to newer perceptions. When we consciously allow newer perceptions to enter the brain by seeking new experiences, learning new skills and changed perspectives, our body can respond in newer ways –this is the true secret of youth. Beliefs (internal representations/interpretations) thus hold the magic wand of remarkable transformations in our biochemical profile. If you are chasing joy and peace all the time everywhere but exclaim exhausted, ‘Oh, it's to be found nowhere!’, why not change your interpretation of NOWHERE to ‘NOW HERE’; just by introducing a gap, you change your awareness – that changes your belief and that changes your biochemistry in an instant!

Here let me help with some crayolas;

I suppose you could try to make a case for instinct, however then we are back to being clones.

I see no reason to even consider much less believe either you or the bird.

 

I think people are able to a limited extent to delude themselves. I think we all do it to some small degree. Believing you are better than average, believing your wife is faithful, despite seeing evidence to the contrary, etc. Wishful thinking can be belief by choice.

But to claim all belief or even most belief is by choice is simply a false claim. If a person can truly make themself believe by choice that they are an elephant or that they can flap their arms and fly, then they are insane. Most people can't do that.

 

Ah yes, delusion!
The all/none extremist fallacy.
No references to counter kokos references.
Just SSDD from the usual perps

Debate: The foolish notion that arm chair commandos wont deny and defy all academic evidence to the contrary even when its crayola'd for them!

Invincible Ignorance Fallacy, rationally calculated/considered beliefs are not within their ability to command. Some people are born into the slavery of the borg mentality.

We are the borg, you have been assimilated, you have been assimilated, you will serve the hive mind. We control the vertical, we control the horizontal, your beliefs are not yours to choose, you shall serve us!

 

but then pisa might surprise me and actually come up with some 'ON POINT' reference to counter mine. Im not going to hold my breath however.

 

Some measure of self delusion is a survival skill, actually, because it allows us to think "predator in the grass" at the slightest rustle, and stay alive by acting accordingly, instead of thinking "wind in the grass" and be eaten. The self delusion in this case is, of course, attributing intent (predator) even when there's none (the noise we heard was just wind).

Wishful thinking is not belief by choice. It's the result of rationalizing of the type "desired conclusion - motivated reasoning/confirmation bias - incomplete and low quality evidence". It's based on existing beliefs, on existing patterns in the brain.

I'll give you an example of what I mean when I say that we can't freely choose our beliefs. Imagine a table with one bottle of beer on it and nothing else. It stands to reason that you, seeing the bottle of beer on the table, believe there's a bottle of beer on the table. Depending on sensory input, environment, and previous experiences, you will believe the bottle is full (just ordered it in a restaurant), or you will believe the bottle is empty (party with thirsty people), you will believe there's beer in the bottle, or you will believe there's another liquid in the bottle (prank - been there, done that) . All these beliefs are based on factors you have no way of controlling, so forming one belief or another is not really a free choice.

Can you choose to believe there's a frog on the table? That would qualify as a free choice (unless the person is brain damaged...).

The way beliefs are formed doesn't allow freedom of choice.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262619303860

What we can do about our beliefs is try to change, or at least update them. Suspension of belief is a very good method, but it's not easy. Even when it succeeds, we don't really choose freely the new beliefs on a totally conscious level, because we have no control over how patterns, which are one of the sources for the formation of beliefs, are formed in our brains.

Here's some light reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...tually-is-belief-and-why-is-it-so-hard-change
https://www.nature.com/articles/474446a
https://thinkingispower.com/the-surprising-ways-we-form-beliefs/

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...onal-religion.564784/page-160#post-1073450419

 

Sheer utter total nonsense!

First that is not a belief, those are 3 optional beliefs to CHOOSE from!

Second the belief is exactly like my citation explains, experience, environment, etc etc
Next the beliefs you cited are based on OBSERVATION, not abstraction.

You compare your observation to the descriptions of what you observed to the dictionary and assume a beer bottle shall be called a beer bottle. You compard your situation to the possibilities that exist in the environment you are in.

Nothing you said or your citations demonstrate any inability to CHOOSE what you believe.

If tomorrow we change the dictionary to say its a motorhome then you will call your beer bottle a motorhome because you will ASSUME thats what it is because of your dictionary.

 

yeh we see a lot of that!

Yep he understands the neoatheist mind well!



Yep, rationalizing, exactly what your team does, its what most of this thread is really about, only I have a slightly different definition for it, 'draggin us down an infinite number of dead end rabbit holes'


PLONK, absolutely NOTHING in any of your links describe any INABILITY to CHOOSE what we believe what so ever.

They do describe psychological issues (DEFECTS in reasoning) that people have that make it extremely difficult to CHOOSE a different belief in some cases.

FLushed out of yet another rabbit hole, PLONK!

 

This currently seems like you main error. "God exists" and "Kokomojojo believes God exists" are both propositions, and they are two very different propositions.

For instance, the proposition "The pope believes God exists" is true, and it is true even if there isn't a god, i.e. even if "God exists" is false. They are clearly not the same thing, if one is true while the other is false. They express different things about the world. One tells us about God, the other only tells us what goes on in a particular mind.

The entire tirade about whether "I don't know" is a "valid" "response" to a preposition such as "God exists" is kinda irrelevant since we haven't been asking you about the proposition "God exists", we've been asking you about the propositions "Kokomojojo believes God exists". The problem in this thread doesn't have to do with different kinds of valid responses, it's that you haven't even managed to understand which question you are asked.

Is "the pope believes God exists" a true statement?

You seem to be confusing yourself by introducing "responses". A proposition is true or false. A "response" requires someone to rephrase the proposition to a question, and another person with incomplete knowledge making a best guess of what the question means, what the answer is, how the answer will be understood etc..

The LEM and LNC dictates that a proposition must be true or false, it says nothing about what a person might respond to something.

Sure it is. If I ask you about the blades of grass, it is reasonable to answer "I don't know". It is not a direct answer, but it is valid, correct and reasonable.

The direct source of the image is here, although the question is a famous logic question, included and discussed in many sources (link, link, link). There is nothing keeping you from making a true/false question out of the question in the link.

What we have provided is examples. The example with the blades of grass should be sufficient to show that it is possible for a statement to be true, but for us not to know the answer. I prefer examples since they allow investigation and don't rely on an authority fallacy.

The example shows that while the number is either odd or even, a responder is not justified in answering either of those, whereas answering "I don't know" is correct and as informative as we can get.

Again, you seem to have confused an indirect answer, such as "I have determined that there isn't enough information in the question" with not answering at all. The former takes reason and effort, can be evaluated, and can (if the teachers wants to set that kind of exam) be reasonable and correct.

Not sure what you're getting at. All propositions are propositions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition

But I think more usefully, it is shown in examples. A triangle is defined as having three sides. A shape is a triangle only if it is true that it has three sides. If a shape has three sides and there is a person who doesn't know how many sides it has, it is still a triangle, the person is just ill informed.

I have no idea what this means.
A proposition always has a truth value, but it does not follow that any particular person has access to that truth value.

I don't think it is misleading. It is not a direct answer, but it is a comprehensive, clear and presumably correct explanation of why a direct answer isn't given. By listening to it, I have been lead to a correct understanding of all information that is available.

This is pretty standard epistemology, follows pretty trivially from some basic and well known examples.

Nope, I've given you several sources pointing out that this is in fact not a proposition.

"* There are examples of declarative sentences that are not propositions. For example, ‘This sentence is false’ is not a proposition, since no truth value can be assigned." (source)
Example 1.2.13. “This sentence is false.” What happens if you assume this statement is true? false? This example is called a paradox and is not a proposition (source)​

Of course, I have already provided an example proposition which is not a paradox, and which doesn't resist a truth value:

"The pope believes that God exists" (source)​

Not only is this a perfectly good proposition, it much more similar to and representative of the statement that we're trying to assess about Kokomojojo. The proposition "The pope believes that God exists" happens to be true.

I've explained it several times, and I'm happy to give another angle if it helps, but I'm not sure what about it it is you're not getting.

Propositions must be true or false.
If you ask a person about a proposition, "true" and "false" are direct answers.
However, it is possible (in fact sometimes even necessary) to give other, non-direct answers, such as "I don't know", "the question is meaningless", "I don't understand the question/proposition", and more.

Whoever you're talking about who teaches logic has this right. If a question does not contain enough information to answer the question, a student should identify and declare that. If they give a wild guess, or use some incorrect logic to derive an answer, they've messed up their logical thinking (even if they by a fluke got the true/false answer right).

No I do not agree. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer. I've given you the blades of grass example several times, it also results in "I don't know" (without getting into the technicalities of people who think they do know the answer).

 

Small nitpick. I would call it a response but not an answer, since it doesn't answer the question. I would call it an explanation that one does not have an answer.

 

You already agreed several times that it is not a proposition.

We still need that citation that allows "I dont know".
I didnt see one?

Its a just paradox.

I prefer rules, logic has rules, I need the rule that you rely on.

A paradox is a proposition, its just a proposition that leads to a paradox.

Im not asking 'what you think', Im asking for the 'rule' that allows you to think what you are thinking.

Great then Im sure you can provide a source and the accommodating rule.

It is a proposition, same as division by zero is a division problem.

Its not a proposition
"God Exists?" is a proposition.
Answering true also also expresses your belief as an accessory.

Rule please? Source?

Sorry, if its true false, then the response must be true or false, and the teacher has to mark it wrong if no other options are given in the test.

Yes we spent how many posts no waiting for you to cite the rule.
Citation please?

No, that is called a 'nonresponsive' answer.

 

RE: Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?
SUBTOPIC: Proving an Unknown Exists
⁜→ Kokomojojo, Swensson, Jolly Penguin, al,
.
When I was in Vietnam, we called this bantering about "propositions" versus "non-proposition" either the condition of "tangle-foot" or a "diversion."

It does NOT lead to a responsive answer that is useful. It can be a means of deception. Such exchanges lead us further and further away from the original topic at hand.

In this case, has the exchange, relative to the original question, lead us any closer to a definative answer?
.
Where are we?

Most Respectfully,
R

 

I think it is a red herring though.

Whether "I don't know" is a possible answer to certain types of questions is interesting and all, but at the end of the day, the questions we're asking him actually has a known answer. The issue seems to me to be more about Koko refusing to answer the question we're asking, in favour of another question. "I don't know" is an accurate answer to the other question, but it doesn't hide the fact that it is answering a different question.

 

I agree. And Koko and red herring go together like cocoa and red herring.